DVD Sales Keep Increasing Despite Blu-ray and Other Higher-Quality Alternatives

Tsing

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Despite technically superior alternatives such as Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray, there are still plenty of people who insist on buying their favorite movies and TV shows on the ubiquitous but aging DVD format. This has been made clear by a chart compiled by FlatpanelsHD, which collected the latest data from Niesen VideoScan and Media Play News to show that the DVD market has actually grown by nearly 20 percent over the last few years, even throughout disruptive events such as the ongoing pandemic. The chart also seems to confirm early speculation that Ultra HD Blu-ray would slowly but surely cannibalize the standard Blu-ray format due to the latter being a middle ground that provides neither the best quality nor cheapest pricing...
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I have a friend who has a giant-@ss blu-ray movie library. It was originally DVDs, and over time he traded most of them in and replaced with blu-ray versions. I later asked him if he was gonna get rid of all of those for Ultra HD blu-rays, and he said something along the lines of "f_ck no." Everyone else I know stopped buying physical media for movies long ago. I still very rarely buy BDs but only if they are super-cheap, like a few dollars. I prefer BD rips. One of my other friends built a NAS to store, among other things, his Ultra HD BD rips. I haven't made the jump to 4K+HDR movies because all of my displays are 1080p or less (except my primary monitor which is 1440p), none of them support HDR (well technically my primary monitor does, but it really sucks with HDR), and also because I do not have the space for that shiznit. Maybe one day. For now though, 1080p movies suit me just fine. I sometimes forget that regular DVDs are still being sold.
 
FWIW, there's always someone at the DVD rental vending machines around here.
You can find them in drugstores, supermarkets etc. Seem popular.

I suspect more ppl have DVD players than I thought, I have one that's been in the closet for the past 6 years or so...
 
Auer said:
I have one that's been in the closet for the past 6 years or so...
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The only standalone DVD player I ever had was a Pioneer unit in the very early 2000s. One of the first devices I had which had Component video output. That thing started acting up after a few years, with the tray refusing to open, or closing automatically (so I would have to hold it open with my hand to insert a DVD), and it eventually died on me. Not sure what happened to it. Probably rotting away in my parents' attic. After that, all of my DVD players have been game consoles and optical drives in PCs. PS3 is one of my favorite players. I tend to use it over PS4 and XB1. I'm one of those weirdos that still has optical drives in my main PC too. I brought over the DVD burner from my 2010 X58 system when I built my current X99 system in 2014, and not too long ago for my berfday I received a blu-ray drive, so I got that too. I actually prefer to use that now, since it loads BDs waaaaaay faster than any console or standalone player that I've ever used. Like I said in my previous post though, I don't usually use actual discs very much.
 
I still have the old Netflix DVD mail service - used to be the only way to get Blu-ray quality since my ISP sucked.

Now that I have starlink I’m considering canceling.

The last DVD player I bought was ... ‘03? Since the PS3 I’ve just used consoles on the rare occasion I still play one.

NAS + Plex for nearly everything though. I can’t do 4K BR though, and not going to invest in the equip to do it either.
 
I still buy UHD Blu-Ray discs, mostly because that's really the pinnacle of the content and format, audio- and video-wise. I have a NAS and competent Plex server too, but I haven't invested much time in figuring out how to rip stuff. I do have a 5.25" Blu-ray drive but I don't think it'll handle the UHD discs, and it's eight to ten years old itself.

And I've used it less times than I can count on my fingers, for anything.

Mostly, I have the OLED TV, Blu-Ray player, a receiver that can handle UHD / HDR / Atmos, and decent enough speakers that I'll set up again when I get a house. If I'm going to watch a movie that was worth getting a hard copy of (for a likely rewatch or worth having for guests), then I'm going to want to watch it properly.
 
I still buy DVD's or Blu rays of movies that interest me, not that many streaming services available around here and netflix while avaiable seems to be rather limited in content they offer compared to for example the states.

I try to buy most of them trough offers like 3 DVD's for 15 € or something.

I also still buy music CD's :p
 
We have a lot of kids content on DVD - Charlie Brown, Garfield, claymation Christmas, and so on. I wouldn’t even know where to stream that stuff if I wanted to, so the old blue Ray player from 2007ish gets a workout on a good number of weekends.

Disney + is also getting used fairly frequently, as we have a limited number of Pixar things on DVD, and it’s just as easy to fire up Disney + as it is to pull a disc off the shelf.

so... we’re a mix
 
Grimlakin said:
It's easy. When blue ray and DVD both come with the same digital ownership experience lots of people buy the movie on DVD, register the code for the digital version, and never actually use the dvd.
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I never use those digital codes that come with the discs. I should probably just throw them out instead of leaving them in the cases :ROFLMAO:
 
Armenius said:
I never use those digital codes that come with the discs. I should probably just throw them out instead of leaving them in the cases :ROFLMAO:
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I let mine sit for around a year or so because I misunderstood and thought somehow they'd lead into another digital mouth to feed. I finally got around to looking into it around 2019 and then entered all that I had on hand, that we're still good. It's kind of cool having something accessible from anywhere I've got a device with internet connectivity. Sort of like plex but for my 4K stuff it's been great.

I'm still more heavily into physical media, although the codes are a nice bonus, for the better quality and I admit streaming has come a long way in recent times. However, I mostly stopped buying DVDs years ago, close to a decade. I upgraded many things to BD, some to UHD, but generally not upgrading unless it's a real improvement and not just a cash grab. However, I generally do a bit of research on new releases for their mastering process before getting anything.
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
I upgraded many things to BD, some to UHD, but generally not upgrading unless it's a real improvement and not just a cash grab. However, I generally do a bit of research on new releases for their mastering process before getting anything.
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Since 4k is about the most that can be reliably pulled out of most film stock, I think studios waited for it before doing their 'real' remasters. There's quite a few that are better than their 'HD' releases not because of the increased transport resolution but because the studios put significantly more effort into them.

The Alien and Aliens UHD releases come to mind, as an example!
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
I let mine sit for around a year or so because I misunderstood and thought somehow they'd lead into another digital mouth to feed. I finally got around to looking into it around 2019 and then entered all that I had on hand, that we're still good. It's kind of cool having something accessible from anywhere I've got a device with internet connectivity. Sort of like plex but for my 4K stuff it's been great.

I'm still more heavily into physical media, although the codes are a nice bonus, for the better quality and I admit streaming has come a long way in recent times. However, I mostly stopped buying DVDs years ago, close to a decade. I upgraded many things to BD, some to UHD, but generally not upgrading unless it's a real improvement and not just a cash grab. However, I generally do a bit of research on new releases for their mastering process before getting anything.
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I have been buying nothing but UHD Blu-ray for the past 5 years. I started before I even got a 4K TV since you got a standard Blu-ray included anyway. Some things just don't or won't see release on UHD, so in those cases I'll buy a standard BR if it's something I really want. Arrow Video has recently started doing UHD releases which makes me very happy. You unfortunately do still need to do some research before buying because a lot of things are still just a lazy upscale. One thing that bothers me a lot with streaming is the digital noise in the picture. I see it and my brain is unable to focus on anything else.

Funnily enough, I actually bought a DVD movie a couple years ago for a movie I really wanted and wasn't seeing any release otherwise. It is a horror movie called The Shrine I saw once on a random pirated stream and remembered being creeped out by it. It was as good as I remembered and hope it will see a proper release some day. I would love to get my hands on a BR of the original French version of Martyrs barring a UHD release.
LazyGamer said:
Since 4k is about the most that can be reliably pulled out of most film stock, I think studios waited for it before doing their 'real' remasters. There's quite a few that are better than their 'HD' releases not because of the increased transport resolution but because the studios put significantly more effort into them.

The Alien and Aliens UHD releases come to mind, as an example!
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There are a few video houses I watch intently and will not hesitate to buy their releases because of the effort they put into remasters. Those are Arrow Video and Criterion Collection. Hellraiser from the former and Scanners from the latter are a couple of the best video transfers I have ever seen.
 
DrezKill said:
One of my friends has a combo HD-DVD/blu-ray drive in his current X58-based system built in 2009, and he also owns the HD-DVD drive for X360 (which works on PC). He has a pretty sizeable HD-DVD collection.
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I still have one on my PC, as well, and is the reason I'm still rocking a full size chassis because smaller ones don't come with external 5.25" drive bays anymore.
 
LazyGamer said:
Since 4k is about the most that can be reliably pulled out of most film stock, I think studios waited for it before doing their 'real' remasters. There's quite a few that are better than their 'HD' releases not because of the increased transport resolution but because the studios put significantly more effort into them.

The Alien and Aliens UHD releases come to mind, as an example!
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Yep, I've got Alien. Almost got Aliens but I think I've burnt myself out on it. Used to be one of my favorites but I just can't seem to finish watching it anymore. LOTR 4K came out great. Finally got SW, original trilogy, on sale a few months back on disc. Blade Runner, The Unforgiven, Pitch Black, Flash Gordon, and a handful of others I can't remember off the top of my head, all on disc. I've got Final Countdown on pre-order.

Ironically, as we're talking about streaming stuff too, I've got a few things you can't even get on disc yet. Star Trek 2 Wrath of Khan Directors Cut 4K UHD HDR on Prime, and it's the real cut with the missing Spock scene at the end, Star Trek VI Directors Cut HD on prime, X-Men Rogue Cut 4K UHD HDR from something but I can't remember the original source. Recently got Event Horizon 4K on streaming but I know the disc on coming out soon.
 
Paul_Johnson said:
I still buy DVD's because I have an HD-DVD player :cautious:
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I bought the 360 one when game stop was getting rid of them and then went to BB and got a few that we're on closeout sales. I was really proud I got it to work on my old Pentium 4 and the radeon card that was in it. Had Excalibur on it years before the blu-ray came out.
 
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