Where are the cheap HD movies?

   DVD was introduced in 1998.  In 1999, I remember finding loads of movies
available on DVD for under 10 bucks each.  It seemed like they almost wanted
to give them away to move them out the door.  For example, I got a copy of
"The Mummy" right when it came out for about $8, shipped.

  Where are these deals for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray now?  I can't seem to find
much of anything under the $20 price point.

  OhioGuy wrote:

Technical point:  I'm pretty sure DVD was introduced in 1997, because I
watched a DVD at a friend's house when I lived in California, and I moved
from California to Texas in 1997.  However, at the time, he was the only
person I'd ever met anywhere who had a DVD player.  And we watched one of
the very few titles available on DVD.  It was "Twister", starring Helen
Hunt.

Anyway, I think part of what's going on is that Blu-ray and HD-DVD are
both pretty new, and they expect to be able to keep prices high for a
while.  I also think another part of what's going on is that now that
DVD exists and the going rate is something like $5-$15 depending on the
desirability of the individual title, they feel like they can price a
Blu-ray or a HD-DVD version higher than a DVD because it's higher
resolution (product differentiation).  In fact, they may be counting
on DVDs continuing to exist for quite some time so that the comparison
to DVDs will continue to prop up the prices of the newer formats.
Sorta like how when cassettes and CDs were both popular, CDs cost more
even though they were a whole lot cheaper to produce.  (Tape duplication
machines were expensive and clunky because they had to run at many
times nominal speed to get any decent quantity of tapes done per hour,
which made for a whole heap of mechanical and electrical engineering
challenges.  Meanwhile, CDs can be pressed all at once in an instant.)

   - Logan

 
"> Technical point:  I'm pretty sure DVD was introduced in 1997, because I

  You are correct - I see that there was an installed user base of 200,000
by the end of 1997.  This increased to 1,400,000 by the end of 1998, 5.4 mil
end of 1999, and 14 million by end of 2000.  It wasn't until end of 2003
that there was an installed base of 73 million players.  So, while they were
indeed "available" in 1997, they were very expensive, and less than 1/10 of
1% of the U.S. population had one of the players on Jan. 1, 2008.


  Maybe the price difference can be explained by VHS vs DVD, and DVD vs
HD-DVD.

  I think it was a lot cheaper and faster to make a DVD instead of a VHS
tape.

  However, I have to question their decision not to sell movies cheaply in
the HD formats early on.  Perhaps at this point they realize it will be
another year or two before the format war really heats up, and they figure
they might as well make a decent profit on early adopters.

  Perhaps later, in roughly 2008 or 2009, we will see much lower prices as
they try to get people to switch over.

 

Let's just wait for the dust to settle and see which format survives.
Remember BETA?  


It is new technology and of course, the price will be high.  The HD
players are very expensive, including the LG BH100 (plays both formats
without CD audio)  which is still over $999.

 
One of the factors that drives cheap DVD retailling is the cheap
prices for previously viewed DVDs. If the delta between the two is too
high, then fewer people will buy new.

I don't have HD, don't rent any DVDs, buy some previously viewed DVDs
at one of the rental outlets, often for less than $5(only for movies I
think I will want to watch more than once). My assumption is that
there aren't a lot of rentals of HD movies yet so the retail pricing
can stay high.

James