Time yet to get ‘em while they last?
by Pravin on March 1st, 2008 in shopping.
Now that Paramount has stopped making new discs, their entire HD DVD collection is about to enter the “get them while they last” phase. Paramount rolled out a huge discount on about two dozen titles earlier in the week, and this showed up at Amazon, DeepDiscount.com and Fry’s right away. We’ll have to see whether that discount is extended to more titles in the coming week or further down the line. The new low pricing on those titles ($10 or $11.95 depending on the store) is bound to make them sell out faster than the movies that haven’t gone on sale yet, so you might want to consider whether to get them now or keep waiting.
Universal had a promotion in February that resulted in Amazon’s month-long 50% off sale, and $12 titles at DeepDiscount.com. Warner had a similar sale, and it looks like their new one for March has started up and brings some new savings on Harry Potter titles among others.
The sales can only get better and continue from here on in, so here’s a quick recap of the promotions that are going on right now:
- Selected Paramount titles 60% off at Amazon and DeepDiscount
- Planet Earth and Sunrise Earth sales at Discover Channel Store
- Amazon 50% off sale on 150 titles which includes the bigger sale on selected Paramount titles
- 56 Warner titles up to 57% off at Amazon
- Plenty of popular discs for $10 and $12 at DeepDiscount.com
March 1st, 2008 at 12:45 pm
In your opinion, how long will you think it will be before all studios stop making HD DVD titles? I heard that Warner will be around until June but Paramount seemed to bail rather faster than expected.
March 1st, 2008 at 2:37 pm
My best guess is that if a studio has already manufactured a significant number of discs, then they’re probably going to follow through and let those discs come out. Discs to be released in April and May could be cancelled if they’re not far enough along.
Universal only has Fletch and Atonement lined up for March and nothing listed for April and May. It’s possible that this will be how their story ends.
Warner has quite a few movies planned, and some of the March releases are due to their self-imposed three-week delay policy. Though they have a release slate that goes out to May (and June because of that 3 week delay), I wouldn’t be surprised if they scaled back and only put out the bigger names like I Am Legend.
There are a lot of smaller studios with releases lined up for March and beyond, and I bet most of those will come out, like Disco Pigs and a bunch of IMAX titles, if they’re already replicated.
March 2nd, 2008 at 9:12 am
Lets just hope that WB does not follow suit and discontinue further releases (I am legend, Twister, etc…). Funny how American Gangster was the number one HD movie last week! This after all manufactured support of the format has stopped, and the format is technically “dead”. Universal should be looking at these numbers and wondering why was this movie number one on HD?
What has always amazed me is during these past months (Nov. until Feb.) everyone has been comparing sales of HD DVD to BD. It is always 75/25 or 78/22 this number can be matched with studios supporting HD DVD to BD. Since Paramount , Universal, Dreamworks, and until lately Warner Bros. all supported HD DVD we can assume Sony had more support of movie releases. About 65/35 I would say. So of course BD is going to look like the winner to anyone! When you have 65 percent of all studio support this means more then 2/3 of all titles released each week are only on BD, of course sales are going to favor BD.
Remember Godzilla, size matters right? But the movie sucked so plot really should matter. Any movie compressed to 15 gb is going to look and sound great. The funny story most movies are only filmed in 720p not 1080p. A 720p movie (also 1080i) takes up less room, looks just as good to the naked eye (visually you will never see a difference) and sounds perfect even at 9 gb. Illegal downloaders (not that we are) can squeeze a 720p movie down to 5 gb using a matroska video codec converter (aka MKV file extension). So tell me again why size matters?
And for us right now is the perfect time to stock up on all your favorite HD DVDs, I personally bought 14 from deep discount for less than $160 with free shipping. One problem is stocks are low and some titles are on back order. But for $10 a copy I will wait a couple of extra days. Also Deep Discount is still taking pre-orders for Bee Movie which hopefully can mean only one thing, it is still coming out on HD DVD!
March 2nd, 2008 at 10:56 pm
I’m not sure what fantasy world you’re living in but the simple fact of the matter is size matters for several reasons:
1) Quality. 1080p really becomes noticeable on 50 inch televisions and REALLY noticeable at 60 inches and more
2) Most films are shot at either 2K (2048 x 1080) or 4K (4096 x 2160)
3) Compression = loss in quality no matter how many ways you look at it. Granted 1080p Divx looks amazing on my 17″ laptop screen but shifting that to a big screen TV (or a home theater) and you’ll see the difference.
4) HD content. The dual sided disc on HD DVD was another drawback. They threw extra content on the DVD side. If you are about extra content, space is everything. I really wished Blu ray went with HDi, that way it would have been the clear format of choice on all fronts except for its manufacturing costs (I say manufacturing costs because retail prices were pretty much the same throughout the war)
5) Sound. This was another edge that Blu ray had: it sounds incredible because it has less compression on its audio.
Though I am impressed with your 14 movies for 160 bucks. If you have HD DVD, power to ya and snag the deals, but don’t think that size doesn’t matter because it does, no matter how many times she says it doesn’t
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:36 am
Well all you Blu-Ray fans need to go back to your overpriced Blu-Ray discs. If any HDDVD owners live in SoCal
Movie Gallery was selling of their HDDVD’s. THey were 14.95 for all the new releases and boxed sets. Not as good as deepdiscount.com
but since they were new releases I stocked up on a few. Good luck and happy hunting