DVDis dead!

[Woochifer]

I have not been to Bestbuy in a while (or Walmart ), but they have like 7 or 8 ailes of DVD on both sides. So you are saying that in 2 or 3 years, all those ailes with DVDs will be replaced with Bluray discs?

Might need to take time out from the bin diving and drop by a Best Buy store. BB announced before the holidays that they would roughly triple the shelf space for Blu-ray to 30% of their movie sections, and the Blu-ray presence at all of my local BB stores has really ramped up over the last couple of months.

Costco said that they would ramp up their BD title selection by 50% for the holidays. In an article from Video Business, Costco's DVD/Blu-ray buyer said that their Blu-ray player sales are now 450% above where they were last year. Those are the types of accelerated growth trends you saw with the DVD format when it got into the 4th year.

The DVD format surpassed VHS after six years. According to some analysts, Blu-ray is on pace to do the same thing by the end of 2012. Recall that Best Buy's VHS selection had already gotten pared way back before then. Once the DVD format reached majority status, that signaled the death knell for VHS, and retailers, manufacturers, and studios alike abandoned the format very quickly thereafter.

There are so many movie titles out ther that be a while before it get on Bluray, and maenwhile DVD probably will be the only medium to have those titles. So if BB or WM pull those DVDs off the shelves and don't replace thme with its Bluray counter part, I don't think that be good business sense as you would have empty shelves.

That's a non-issue because the home video business is and always has been driven by new releases. The market follows what happens with newer titles. Catalog titles fill the shelf space, but generate only a fraction of the total sales. The Blu-ray sections are replacing the DVD shelf space simply because that's where consumers have headed. If Blu-ray reaches majority status, then it would not make good business sense for retailers to continue stocking a lower margin format rapidly headed towards obsolescence.

When the DVD format was in its 4th year, VHS had a far greater selection, but that did nothing to keep that format alive indefinitely. Even now, the DVD format's title selection does not approach what VHS had. Doesn't matter -- VHS is still a dead format.

That might be comparing apple and oranges as VHS was more flawed than DVD fromat. Public were demaning to get rid of the format due to its "analog" nature. But there seem to be no such a push for DVD as gain is not so dramatic.

It's not apples and oranges because it's still consumers talking with the dollars and cents they spend on video products. And those dollars have now shifted towards Blu-ray in a pattern very much parallels what happened with the DVD. For other people, the DVD format is equally flawed because of its "standard def" nature.

VHS still controlled a sizable share of the market when video stores, retailers, and manufacturers began phasing out the format. Doesn't matter if you don't perceive a push away from the DVD because the sales figures would indicate otherwise. Remember that the DVD's success was far from certain, and I recall many voices out there opining that VHS was "good enough" for most consumers.

That might be true when they are full priced but if they are on sale, they will go pretty fast. For example, Bestbuy put different TV titles by season on sale on weekly base (starting Sunday) for $12.99, and if you don't get to store by Sunday or Monday, they will be gone. So sombody out there buying them.

But, again TV shows don't make up a huge chunk of the overall sales. Why would those TV seasons need to be discounted down to $13? With BB basically tripling their shelf space for Blu-ray, all that space has to be cleared somehow.

Like I said, they are a cheap way for the studios to clear out their vault material, but certainly not something that's going to drive the market.