Warner parties likes it's 2006 and brings back Combo ("Flipper") Discs!

GizmoDVD

Once again reminding all of us how HD DVD was a format from the future, Warner is now doing Combo discs for New Blu-ray releases!

Enjoy Harold and Kumar as a Combo title! Blu-ray on one side and DVD on the other! As a bonus, the Extended Cut has revolutionary Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio track!

What did Warner do this? Probably to screw over the rental market for places like Redbox and Blockbuster who are forced to buy retail copies because Warner is to greedy and wants a 8 week rental delay window.

Not sure how this will stop them (guess they will buy more copies!).

bruceames

Wow, this is news to me. Is that the first WB flipper combo on Blu-ray? I remember Universal tried it on some catalogs a few years ago, but they haven't done it since (that I recall).

I see this as a good and necessary move to keep Redbox from getting a 2 for 1 on the street purchases and to stop the overcirculation of copies on OD.

__________________
RIP Kosty.

PSound

They kind of had to do this.

Blu-ray needs DVD in the box to sell (even with combos, BD barely grew 20% in 2011). And having the DVD in the box hurts DVD sales as those discs get redistributed/sold.

It will be interesting to see if DVD gets more of a boost then BD gets dinged.

leevitalone

Do you have a link to where you learned this? Interested in the DD part.

GizmoDVD

For Warner, yes. Universal and Summit have dabbled in Combo's for both New Releases (store exclusives too!) and some Catalog, but Warner looks to be making this a permanent change.

What used to be three discs (BD, DVD, DC) is now One Disc (BD/DVD) and a Code.

This move will help retailers once they start shrinking OD in coming weeks. They will simply need one SKU and there is little confusion. Best Buys recent firesale helped move a lot of SKUs (with little to no change in BD Revenue week to week).

But we all know this is to attack Redbox/Netflix, but savvy consumers will just torrent what they want. It just means I buy less if I can't sell off the DVD. Oh well.

GizmoDVD

Err, I have this title. But you can check out the "official" Blu-ray page where they are discussing it (among other places). The 3D Set suffers the same fate (except it has it's own 3D Disc - of course it's only the Theatrical version since Warner is cheap as shit).

Kosty

Its always interesting on how you can ignore that the box office strength was down -8.7% or over $800 M less in 2011 compared to the strength of 2010 releases.

Kosty

It would seem that the genre of the movie here as a comedy may also have something to do with the decision to use this form factor for the release.

Lee Stewart

LOL - amazing how you ignore the fact that almost all new BD releases are combo releases which BTW has nothing to do with BO strength and everything to do with the fact that consumers just weren't buying BD only new releases in the numbers the studios were happy with.

GizmoDVD

Why would Comedy mean a Combo disc? Please explain the logic.

GizmoDVD

Exactly. Blu-ray failed to sell by itself so it had to be packed with DVDs and given other incentives (early releases, exclusive features, coupons) just to sell.

PSound

What is there to ignore?

The results are the results. You not liking them does not change them.


BD was up a very weak < 20% in 2011, despite some extraordinary opportunities including the release of the crown jewel series for Home Video (Star Wars) and an exclusive BD-only sell through window for a well established summer blockbuster sequel.

GizmoDVD

You forgot that several other titles were DVD+BD in a DVD Case and were counted towards Blu-ray revenue.

Blu-ray was pretty much given every chance this year and was only up a pathetic 20%....and that's from an already pathetic 1.8ish billion. 20% is not even that big of an increase, but an increase from such a low number is even worse!

But hey, Jaws and ET will be huuuuuuuuuuge sellers this year.

bombsnizzle

Yeah but HD DVD is dead. It failed to make more money than bluray, it failed to even survive. It was aborted, because it was unwanted.

So, in summary, it was a true failure according to every metric of failure I read here.

Lee Stewart

You missed the point. HD DVD introduced the HDM/DVD flipper; two different disc formats, one disc.

But hey - let's go with your post . . . BD is now using a disc type from a failed disc format - should be the key to success