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Forums - Sales Discussion - Blu-rays sale percentage tracking

Untamoi on 25 February 2010
Kasz216 said:
Vetteman94 said:
Kasz216 said:
Vetteman94 said:

Again, you underestimate them, also you dont tend to read what I said.  I never said that they can do anything against the others, the others are just left behind because they fail to adapt.  But once one member starts to do something that is beneficial, the others will follow.  Digital copies of movies are a great example of this.  

I am going to compare it with VHS vs DVD,  because its basically the same thing. Plus comparing the end of the VHS vs DVD format war to the beginning of the Blu-ray vs DVD format war is a little ridiculous since there is no correlation.  

The points you mentioned are valid, sort of.

The part about the sizes is true,  it made sense from a logistics standpoint because you could get more product on the shelves.  But the same can be said for Blu-ray as well.   Blu-ray cases , while the same width, are shorter and much thinner.  Which means more shelves and more product on those shelves.

As for the costs of shipping, that is something that is passed onto the customer because it is figured into the cost of the product on the retailers side. Its not like the cheaper shipping was passed onto the consumer for DVDs, especially not early on

And here is why it is a great comparison.  DVDs when launched were around $40-50 a peice,  they didnt come down to an "affordable" stage until about year 4, which was the $20-25 range.  Which is basically identical to Blu-ray.  Plus in order to really make a dent into VHS, they had to start making exclusives to DVD.

I think your error is in thinking it will definitly be beneficial. It may just end up in movies doing less sales. There are MUCH less profit to be made in the switchover between blu-ray and DVD as there was VHS to DVD. DVDs cost less then VHS, and cost less then Blu-ray... once the market switches to Blu-ray as a majority you really can't charge a blu-ray premium anymore, you'll have to drop down to DVD prices, which if blu-ray costs haven't hit DVD level will actually HURT them. They're going to milk blu-ray as a luxuary format for a while i think.

When you line up the timeframes though,  Blu-ray and DVDs are the same prices.  Plus the cost to manufacture DVDs were still quite high then.  Why is everyone acting like when DVDs came out at $15 per movie and only cost a dime to make.  Blu-rays will come down in price when the cost comes down, just like DVDs did. 

You're missing the point. DVD's didn't cost a dime then... but neither did VHS. There is less of a profit margin here, not because Blu-ray is expensive... but because DVDs are so cheap whe VHS was always kinda pricey.

You also are forgetting one thing... For consumers, VHS movies were until the end much cheaper than DVD movies. Even when VHS was dying VHS tapes of the films cost much less than DVD counterparts for consumers. The same happened cassettes, CD was always more expensive for consumers even when cassette sales were almost dead. Heck, consumers paid premium even after production of cassettes was shut down.



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kars on 25 February 2010
Vetteman94 said:


No I am not missing the point, just some people arent reading.   When DVD was released its manufacturing process was more expensive then VHS.  It did close this gap within a few years, but at first it was not. 

Again this comparison can't work. In fact the pure production costs of DVD-5s were no problem. It were the mastering costs that made DVDs expensive, as long as the production numbers were small. When they were able to produce higher numbers their production costs dropped sharply below the normal VHS tapes. And this was clearly visible in german department stores.

Although there were other additional costs involved. Most DVD have several Audio and Subtitle tracks. At that time the mastering process was also done mostly by hand, they had to check everything. It took some time till they developped trutworthy automatic workflows. But these costs also had a major advantage, especially in Europe. One DVD for most of western Europe. With VHS tapes totally impossible.

The Blu-ray never had to start so primitive. In fact in the mastering business they are more or less on the same level, but you have to check the basic materials more, to really show a better quaolity. But Blu-ray has in fact an other major problem:

Much higher expectations.

No one knew what to expect from the DVD. It was at first targetted to replace the Laserdisc. But the situation of the Laserdisc in Europe and especially Germany was: "What are you talking about? What is an LD?" and even the german VHS market was pretty small. It was prertty uncommon to really buy a movie. It was very normal to wait till one of the many free TV channels showed the movie and recorded it. With the DVD there was a major shift, that no one really expected.

The Blu-ray was more or less designed to replace the DVD. Originally to move the public to a copy protected format and this objective was later shifted to allow bigger margins. The problem: everyone wanted to get a share of these higher margins. This is even a problem inside of a company . Nowadays departments take care that they charge each other competitive prices. Everything that contains HD in it simply contains a bonus. For VHS it was not really possible to compare the prices. Their foundation was to different. But they know what they charge for DVD and they know that they want to charge more for HD. On the other hand the DVD now totally redefined the prices that people describe as fair. If you look at todays prices. Two years ago it was difficult to get DVD for the prices that they ask for the Blu-ray but they have to compete with much lower prices.

It simply doesn't work so easy to replace a medium. It happens or it doesn't happen. You know it afterwards. If I remeber back to the DVD, I simply didn't care. But after I bought my first DVD I never bought a tape again. Now I would normally tend to prefer to buy Blu-rays but there are so many attractive offers for DVDs, while there are some titles that I would buy on DVD but the prices simply don't match.



Kasz216 on 25 February 2010

Except it wasn't more expensive than VHS.

Even in the early days it cost about 70 cents to replicate a DVD vs $.250 to replicate a VHS tape.

The profit motivation behind DVD for companies was that once it became the mean DVD would be cheaper then VHS.

http://www.proactionmedia.com/dvd_media_production.htm DVDs were always cheaper then VHS tapes. It was the extra fixed costs that made early DVDs cost more... the kind of thing you'd want to get rid of fast by aggressivly pushing the format. Blu-ray does not have this luxuary.



Vetteman94 on 25 February 2010
kars said:
Vetteman94 said:
 


No I am not missing the point, just some people arent reading.   When DVD was released its manufacturing process was more expensive then VHS.  It did close this gap within a few years, but at first it was not. 

Again this comparison can't work. In fact the pure production costs of DVD-5s were no problem. It were the mastering costs that made DVDs expensive, as long as the production numbers were small. When they were able to produce higher numbers their production costs dropped sharply below the normal VHS tapes. And this was clearly visible in german department stores.

Although there were other additional costs involved. Most DVD have several Audio and Subtitle tracks. At that time the mastering process was also done mostly by hand, they had to check everything. It took some time till they developped trutworthy automatic workflows. But these costs also had a major advantage, especially in Europe. One DVD for most of western Europe. With VHS tapes totally impossible.

The Blu-ray never had to start so primitive. In fact in the mastering business they are more or less on the same level, but you have to check the basic materials more, to really show a better quaolity. But Blu-ray has in fact an other major problem:

Much higher expectations.

No one knew what to expect from the DVD. It was at first targetted to replace the Laserdisc. But the situation of the Laserdisc in Europe and especially Germany was: "What are you talking about? What is an LD?" and even the german VHS market was pretty small. It was prertty uncommon to really buy a movie. It was very normal to wait till one of the many free TV channels showed the movie and recorded it. With the DVD there was a major shift, that no one really expected.

The Blu-ray was more or less designed to replace the DVD. Originally to move the public to a copy protected format and this objective was later shifted to allow bigger margins. The problem: everyone wanted to get a share of these higher margins. This is even a problem inside of a company . Nowadays departments take care that they charge each other competitive prices. Everything that contains HD in it simply contains a bonus. For VHS it was not really possible to compare the prices. Their foundation was to different. But they know what they charge for DVD and they know that they want to charge more for HD. On the other hand the DVD now totally redefined the prices that people describe as fair. If you look at todays prices. Two years ago it was difficult to get DVD for the prices that they ask for the Blu-ray but they have to compete with much lower prices.

It simply doesn't work so easy to replace a medium. It happens or it doesn't happen. You know it afterwards. If I remeber back to the DVD, I simply didn't care. But after I bought my first DVD I never bought a tape again. Now I would normally tend to prefer to buy Blu-rays but there are so many attractive offers for DVDs, while there are some titles that I would buy on DVD but the prices simply don't match.

I think you need to read a little more about the VHS vs DVD format war.  You are way off again. 

1. Pure production cost of a DVD didnt become equal to a VHS tape until 4 years after launch

2. DVDs were originally created as a computer storage medium, but other uses such as being a movie format came during the finalization of DVD.

3. Blu-ray was created to replace DVD, and not because of copy protection.  While copy protection is one of its strong points, the main reason Blu-ray exists is due to HD content.

I would comment on the rest but most of it seems to be your impression and nothing more. 



Vetteman94 on 25 February 2010
Kasz216 said:
Except it wasn't more expensive than VHS.

Even in the early days it cost about 70 cents to replicate a DVD vs $.250 to replicate a VHS tape.

The profit motivation behind DVD for companies was that once it became the mean DVD would be cheaper then VHS.

http://www.proactionmedia.com/dvd_media_production.htm DVDs were always cheaper then VHS tapes. It was the extra fixed costs that made early DVDs cost more... the kind of thing you'd want to get rid of fast by aggressivly pushing the format. Blu-ray does not have this luxuary.


Those numbers for DVD are from 2003,  which was 7 years after DVD was released.



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Kasz216 on 25 February 2010
Vetteman94 said:
Kasz216 said:
Except it wasn't more expensive than VHS.

Even in the early days it cost about 70 cents to replicate a DVD vs $.250 to replicate a VHS tape.

The profit motivation behind DVD for companies was that once it became the mean DVD would be cheaper then VHS.

http://www.proactionmedia.com/dvd_media_production.htm DVDs were always cheaper then VHS tapes. It was the extra fixed costs that made early DVDs cost more... the kind of thing you'd want to get rid of fast by aggressivly pushing the format. Blu-ray does not have this luxuary.


Those numbers for DVD are from 2003,  which was 7 years after DVD was released.


where do you see that?

Vetteman94 on 25 February 2010
Kasz216 said:
Vetteman94 said:
Kasz216 said:
Except it wasn't more expensive than VHS.

Even in the early days it cost about 70 cents to replicate a DVD vs $.250 to replicate a VHS tape.

The profit motivation behind DVD for companies was that once it became the mean DVD would be cheaper then VHS.

http://www.proactionmedia.com/dvd_media_production.htm DVDs were always cheaper then VHS tapes. It was the extra fixed costs that made early DVDs cost more... the kind of thing you'd want to get rid of fast by aggressivly pushing the format. Blu-ray does not have this luxuary.


Those numbers for DVD are from 2003,  which was 7 years after DVD was released.

where do you see that?

Last paragraph in that article:

Videotapes don't really have a mastering cost, and they run about $2.40 for replication. CDs cost about $1,000 to master and $0.50 to replicate. Laserdiscs cost about $3,000 to master and about $8 to replicate. As of 2003, DVDs cost about $1000 to master and about $0.70 to replicate. Double-sided or dual-layer discs cost about $0.30 more to replicate, since all that's required is stamping data on the second substrate (and using transparent glue for dual layers). Double-sided, dual-layer discs (DVD-18s) are more difficult and more expensive



Kasz216 on 25 February 2010
Vetteman94 said:
Kasz216 said:
Vetteman94 said:
Kasz216 said:
Except it wasn't more expensive than VHS.

Even in the early days it cost about 70 cents to replicate a DVD vs $.250 to replicate a VHS tape.

The profit motivation behind DVD for companies was that once it became the mean DVD would be cheaper then VHS.

http://www.proactionmedia.com/dvd_media_production.htm DVDs were always cheaper then VHS tapes. It was the extra fixed costs that made early DVDs cost more... the kind of thing you'd want to get rid of fast by aggressivly pushing the format. Blu-ray does not have this luxuary.


Those numbers for DVD are from 2003,  which was 7 years after DVD was released.

where do you see that?

Last paragraph in that article:

Videotapes don't really have a mastering cost, and they run about $2.40 for replication. CDs cost about $1,000 to master and $0.50 to replicate. Laserdiscs cost about $3,000 to master and about $8 to replicate. As of 2003, DVDs cost about $1000 to master and about $0.70 to replicate. Double-sided or dual-layer discs cost about $0.30 more to replicate, since all that's required is stamping data on the second substrate (and using transparent glue for dual layers). Double-sided, dual-layer discs (DVD-18s) are more difficult and more expensive


Regardless... blu-rays will NEVER be cheaper then DVDs. At some point it may become as cheap... but there is no motivation that blu-ray could ever offer a 1.50 worth of savings per DVD. There was still more reason to push it.

Kasz216 on 25 February 2010

No wait. I was still right. check this one out.

$2.50 per DVD for just the manufacturing costs... at launch. So it did start out cheaper. (Just so) with it being VERY obvious it was going to end up cheaper. Once they got the fixed costs down.

http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~wdutton/comm533/DVD-PART.htm



Vetteman94 on 25 February 2010
Kasz216 said:
Vetteman94 said:
Kasz216 said:
Vetteman94 said:
Kasz216 said:
Except it wasn't more expensive than VHS.

Even in the early days it cost about 70 cents to replicate a DVD vs $.250 to replicate a VHS tape.

The profit motivation behind DVD for companies was that once it became the mean DVD would be cheaper then VHS.

http://www.proactionmedia.com/dvd_media_production.htm DVDs were always cheaper then VHS tapes. It was the extra fixed costs that made early DVDs cost more... the kind of thing you'd want to get rid of fast by aggressivly pushing the format. Blu-ray does not have this luxuary.


Those numbers for DVD are from 2003,  which was 7 years after DVD was released.

where do you see that?

Last paragraph in that article:

Videotapes don't really have a mastering cost, and they run about $2.40 for replication. CDs cost about $1,000 to master and $0.50 to replicate. Laserdiscs cost about $3,000 to master and about $8 to replicate. As of 2003, DVDs cost about $1000 to master and about $0.70 to replicate. Double-sided or dual-layer discs cost about $0.30 more to replicate, since all that's required is stamping data on the second substrate (and using transparent glue for dual layers). Double-sided, dual-layer discs (DVD-18s) are more difficult and more expensive

Regardless... blu-rays will NEVER be cheaper then DVDs. At some point it may become as cheap... but there is no motivation that blu-ray could ever offer a 1.50 worth of savings per DVD. There was still more reason to push it.

And where did I ever say that Blu-ray would be cheaper than DVD?