Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Are DVDs and Blu-rays Sold As Combo Packs?
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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In a land where the local censor's ratings are mandatory, and their fees are calculated per unit running time, a dual-format release suddenly becomes an even harder sell to customers. Indeed, I cannot imagine they offer bulk discounts.
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Coup d'État
 Posts: 179 |
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I can kiiinda understand that. I'm short sighted, but just barely. I need glasses for driving my car, but I'd never wear them at home. Nothing is far enough away, really. To be honest, there is not a huge difference in SD and HD that I can see without my glasses. I could, of course, but then I had to wear them for watching stuff, wich is Just No. However! DVDs, espacially old ones, tend to look like garbage. They have Moiré patterns and this awful, horrible rainbow-flickering where a moving thin white line turns into a stroke inducing diamond-disaster. I bought the German DVD-release of Niea_7, and it's painful to look at. The subtitles are a sharp-edged mess, too. On the topic of double-packs: I'm kinda indifferent to them. I do, however, prefer it when the extra discs are just within the same case, instead of being a separate case within a box. I can't even give the DVD-set away, because then the box is half empty. And I want to keep the box, as they're usually really nice. Last edited by Coup d'État on Mon Nov 12, 2018 3:53 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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PmChivas
 Posts: 53 Location: Dallas, TX |
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That is still part of my belief too. I have a good working DVD player and I have no need to chuck it to get another blu-ray player. So it stays. Also, I'm part of the group that can only marginally tell the difference between blu-ray and DVD on screen. And when I can tell the difference it doesn't mean much to me if I'm not enjoying the series. If the plot is good, it doesn't matter if I can see pixels in the outlines, blurred fuzziness, or the colors aren't fully saturated to show their depth. As for extras...depending on what the extras are, and how involved with the show I became while watching it, do I care when I have to consider purchasing a DVD over the Blu-Ray. Spoiler Alert: DVDs are usually cheaper so they get bought if a combo isn't available. 
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CandisWhite
Posts: 282 |
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Because we don't see a big difference in quality, or don't care. My televisions, players, and computer work just fine and I'm not about to upgrade, just to do it; That's a waste of money to me. I only have a Blu-ray player now because a DVD player (the first one I ever had, BTW) crapped out and I replaced it with the newest thing. I live in a house with a home library, and I'm not buying thousands of dollars in home video every year, so space is not really an issue. Combo packs served me before I had a Blu-ray player as they gave me both options, for the present and the future, and as most just come in a Blu-ray case, are a non-issue to me now. If I don't care about the extras or they are the same, then the cheaper DVD option works out better for me than buying Blu-ray. There's nothing wrong with Blu-ray mattering more to someone than DVD does ( I see the whys of that being so; Hell, I love Blu-ray for its storage space) but it's not the equivalent of eating spoiled food to be just fine with DVD. |
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Kimiko_0
 Posts: 1796 Location: Leiden, NL, EU |
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I have a Bluray drive in my PC, but I use Linux. That means I can't watch anything directly off BDs but would have to rip them to harddisk first (another case where piracy is more convenient than the legal alternative). Most of the time I either keep the downloaded fansub around (in a much smaller 720p version too instead of the wasteful 1080p) or watch the DVDs. Older DVDs can have a bit fuzzy video, but let's be honest, most animation doesn't really need 1080p. I like BDs for my collection, but I don't watch them very often. So DVD/BD combos are the best of both worlds in a way.
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tailor31415
Posts: 35 |
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I love having the DVDs because I can sit on my laptop anywhere and watch without needing to be near the tv. but the main driver there is that my laptop doesn't play blu-rays
agreed, I even still watch video in 360 or 480p because I don't care about quality that much. I only got a blu-ray player because a movie I wanted had a blu-ray exclusive release, otherwise I would have stuck with DVD-only sets for a long time. |
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John Thacker
Posts: 1006 |
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People tend to be pretty bad at figuring out how much, if any, of the added content of a bundle of any sort affects the end price, especially when there's substantial overhead and so forth. In the days of VHS, people were baffled as to why dub-only tapes were cheaper than sub-only tapes of the same show, despite dubs themselves being more expensive to produce. (At the same time, as expected, less popular shows only get subs.) People are generally wrong with their intuition about what unbundled prices would look like. |
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Kicksville
 Posts: 1175 |
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One niche use: Watching old anime that doesn't have and probably won't get an HD remaster on a CRT TV. I was watching the Ghost Sweeper Mikami DVDs this past October, and while they're OK at best on an HD TV (you can see all the little problems with the color and what not), they looked amazing on a CRT. And since that's what you'd be watching it on back in the day, it makes sense doesn't it?
Of course, you can still connect a Blu-ray player to one for BD on SD releases. But for DVDs already around, that's a thing you can do. |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2245 |
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Yeah, I honestly think the biggest holdover of DVDs are laptops; most of the ones I received during college and grad school didn't come with a built-in Blu-ray player, or I had to download separate software. If you're lucky enough to have a strong connection on campus, you could always torrent, but that gets really dicey on-campus using their networks, so even a disc-less existence is tricky to pull off.
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9840 Location: Virginia |
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I think it all comes down to personal preference, and, in some cases, available money. I dislike combo packs because they require wider cases. While the difference is small, it adds up and space is tight. This is a minor issue, more an irritation than anything else. However, given the choice I will buy Blu-ray only instead of a combo pack.
For those who will not upgrade because their DVD player isn't worn out, if that is your approach, more power to you. I've been buying home entertainment electronics since the mid 60s and I can't remember wearing out any of it. One audio system I was able to trade in, but everything else went to family members or friends. There is always something better in electronics. |
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Koda89
 Posts: 278 |
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I actually like the combo packs. Honestly, combo packs tend to be how I buy my Blu-ray releases. Yeah I know Blu-ray looks better, but I'm fine with how DVDs look, so if my choice is between DVD-only or Blu-ray-only, I'm going with the DVD because it is usually the cheaper option. Only when the Blu-ray copy is somehow cheaper, like during a sale, will I grab it over DVD.
However, combo packs always trump either, for me. It's weird, but I think my brain sees it as a better deal, and one way to look at is is, with combo packs, I'm getting a backup copy of the show or film for just a few bucks more. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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I used to work at a donation center. We'll take DVDs without their packaging...though we wouldn't really put them in the shop area as no one really wants them that way (and they're more likely t get outright shoplifted instead). We just sent them to the central headquarters for them to deal with.
Heh, that's quite the position to be able to give away all these DVDs. I guess a college is one such setting, though on the other hand, they may not have a means to play these, or they might just prefer to consume it sans a physical medium.
That's probably the idea behind Hollywood mostly packaging them like this too. (The value for the moeny you paid, not making AMVs, I mean.)
I actually once asked about this (not sure if it's Answerman or someone else, but it wasn't about anime specifically, but about home video releases in general), as I thought the Blu-Ray on its own should be significantly less, considering the DVD on its own typically is. I got the answer as was stated here: Manufacturing costs are minuscule compared to the labor costs of making the thing to put onto the discs in the first place.)
It costs less. That's about all the reason that's needed. Well, there's also the idea that some people will have fully functioning DVD players and don't feel like paying more for a device that serves the same function as what they already have. Our household didn't have any means to play Blu-Rays until several years later when I got Frozen and saw there were so many more bonus features on the Blu-Ray than the DVD. At that time, getting a refurbished one was $80. For that matter, we didn't have a TV that did 1080p until 2009 when the CRT on the living room finally went kaput.
Me, I can see the difference. I just don't care. Actually, in addition, the TV we have our Blu-Ray hooked up to...its screen broke while under warranty, so we sent it back to Samsung to get it repaired. We got it back, but now the HDMI was broken, and the warranty period had expired. So we just watch everything in SD because I don't feel like paying for repairs to this TV or buying a new one.
My father was very good at seeking out electronic appliances to last. Almost nothing he got that ran on electricity broke down to simple wear and tear. (Other people misusing them or damaging them was a different story.) It helped that he was an electrical engineer, so he understood how these appliances worked enough to repair them if anything went wrong. He had a VCR that lasted at least two decades, and the only reason I couldn't tell anymore was because it was stolen. |
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Danette-Anime-Otaku
Posts: 115 |
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Thanks Justin for answering my questions
 At least it makes sense from the business end of things since its normal to cut costs and save money where they can. Honestly I might have bought the Blu-ray version if it was just the Blu-ray discs and not a combo pack. Me and my husband do have a PS3 and Xbox one so we can watch Blu-ray if we want. I admit that I (and my husband as well) can't really see a big difference in quality between DVDs and Blu-rays so that's why I still don't mind DVDs. I actually wanted to pre-order the DVD of Sailor Moon SuperS part 2 set on Robert's Anime Corner Store but they weren't showing it, I emailed them and they responded saying that the BD/DVD of SuperS part 1 outsold the standard DVD editions 16:1 and that there weren't going to carry any but will carry a few since it's been requested, so yeah, I'm clearly in a minority group  . I don't mind changing to Blu-ray, I just wasn't wanting both Blu-ray and DVD, just one or the other. It was nice to read though the comments get others perspectives on the combo packs and why they don't mind them.
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fuuma_monou
 Posts: 1817 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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One thing I don't get is a combo pack where the Blu-ray is just upscaled from SD masters.
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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I still like combo releases, and the extra space created by the additional discs is pretty negligible. Compared to older releases like Gate Keepers, which features 30 episodes in 10 standard DVD cases, adding an extra 0.5-1 case worth of space is nothing.
But I understand companies' decisions, as IIRC Nozomi said that doing combos would double their packaging/replication costs and disc QC time/expenses. So I can see why they'd go Blu-Ray only for shows with HD materials available, or DVD/SDBD for titles only available in SD. Doing initial combo releases and later BD-only versions is fine too, as long as they're not releasing combos to start with, then doing DVD-only later and leaving the Blu-Rays out-of-print.
* Travel/portability -- laptops with Blu-Ray drives and portable Blu-Ray players are either expensive or non-existent, compared to portable devices that can play DVDs. * Giving away / lending discs, as Justin and others have outlined. * Subtitle/audio locking -- some releases may lock out audio/subtitle switching during playback on the Blu-Rays, but not on the DVDs. Some people may want to watch anime in raw Japanese, or in English with English subtitles, either due to hearing issues or wanting to compare scripts. * Extras -- Funimation's extras are unwatchable (at least to me) on Blu-Ray, since the menus disappear and force a disc restart after every trailer/commercial/creditless OP/ED. The DVDs don't have this issue.
Very true. I was looking forward to testing out some old DVDs on my CRT earlier this year after getting my 15-year-old DVD player fixed up (it was still functional as a home theater / surround sound system, but the tray wasn't opening, among other issues), only to find/remember that several buttons on the remote weren't working, including Play. I guess there was a reason I got that Blu-Ray player back in 2014, beyond merely "getting with the times." At least the CRT is still useful for ancient video game consoles 
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