Best Buy to stop selling DVD's in 2024

[bing101]

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/13/best-buy-will-stop-selling-blu-rays-dvds-in-2024.html
This is very expected given that in some stores Best Buy has been expanding their TV sections that mentions if it runs on Roku OS, Android TV, Fire TV, Apple TV for some time this in turn cuts the DVD section of the store. Also Phones providers such as T-Mobile, At&t and Verizon has been putting booths at Best Buy to sell phones there too.


https://www.tcl.com/us/en/products/home-theater/compare

[JayhawkCO]

I haven't owned a DVD player in about 10 years.

[1995hoo]

I haven't owned a DVD player in about 10 years.

Heh. Off the top of my head, and counting Blu-ray players, I think we have seven, although they're not all hooked up for video playback (a couple are connected for audio playback only).

[algorerhythms]

Best Buy still exists? Thought they went the way of Circuit City...

[LilianaUwU]

BREAKING: Best Buy goes bankrupt.

[Max Rockatansky]

Best Buy still exists? Thought they went the way of Circuit City...

They recovered and started doing okay/well again.  I just bought a new oven from them a couple weeks ago.

[jeffandnicole]

We still have dozens of DVDs, if not 100+.  And yes, a working DVD player also.

[Max Rockatansky]

I usually just buy my wife DVDs for birthdays and Christmas. 

[US 89]

My parents probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 150-200 DVDs. I think they have at least two DVD players too, one of which is a Blu-Ray. (Remember when that was The Thing?)

Then again, they also have probably 50-100 VHS tapes and a VCR, which is well over 20 years old and hasn't been plugged in since the last move 13 years ago (50/50 shot on whether it still works). They aren't exactly the type to get rid of stuff.

[Rothman]

I have a DVD player and a VCR still plugged in and operational.

That said, I haven't bought physical media in years.

[kendancy66]

I have a DVD player and a VCR still plugged in and operational.

That said, I haven't bought physical media in years.

I have a VCR/DVD combo that I bought from Best Buy at Christmas in 2014.

[ZLoth]

The fact that yet another retailer (Best Buy) has announced the discontinuation of DVD and BluRay sales after the 2023 Christmas season. This really doesn't come as a surprise to me from a business standpoint as one of the measures of success is how quickly the product goes from shelf to being sold. The DVD's heyday was from 1999 until 2008. After 2008, sales declined and the studios cut back on the supplemental material included in DVDs/BluRays. Costco/Sam's Club stopped selling physical media a few years ago. Many folks have also turned to a monthly streaming service, thus you need a search engine like Just Watch or Reel Good to figure out which service is carrying which film or TV show.

Look, I certainly don't want back to the "good old days" where it was the broadcasters who decided what films should be broadcast, when I should see the film, and hack it up to bits just to fit in more commercials not to mention language and content reasons. The VHS rental store opened the door to some interesting titles (albeit in 240i resolution), but it was DVDs (480i resolution) and later BluRays (1080p and then 4K) that opened the door to actually building movie and television collections... especially for an entire season or series of a TV show. While the VHS releases were usually straight dumps from the film (dirt, film fade and bad colors), the DVD and BluRay releases caused many of the studios to go back, revisit some of their back library, and perform restorations to assist in the compression of the media both in physical release as well as streaming release. Plus, the additional commentary tracks have been educational from the actors/producers/directors/composers/film historians standpoint. I've lost count of the number of niche titles that I was able to collect and view over the years, not to mention the foreign film and television titles which included not only the English dubs (of various quality), but also the original language track with subtitles.

The challenge I have with video streaming is how it's done. Video streaming utilizes codecs which can adjust the resolution and video quality due to network congestion. In addition, the studios can yank the titles from the streaming services with little to no notice, and exile it from public view. With physical copies, there is the concern about Out-of-print copies, but no studio executive will request the return of a title that I have owned for years.

That said, I haven't bought physical media in years.

Besides being a wannabe road geek, I'm also a wannabe film geek as well. So, yes, I still collect physical media. Some of the titles are definitely in the niche department.

[Rothman]

I have a DVD player and a VCR still plugged in and operational.

That said, I haven't bought physical media in years.

I have a VCR/DVD combo that I bought from Best Buy at Christmas in 2014.

Heh.  Mine is considerably older.

[Billy F 1988]

With Best Buy discontinuing DVD and Blu-ray sales, it's really the slow walk to the end of the Blu-ray and DVD's usefulness in our society. Even though I order some through Amazon, and have ordered one from Barnes and Noble, I do think they'll be next in line to let the sales loose on the last shreds of DVD's and Blu-ray's for however much longer the manufacturers in Mexico have to burn the video files on them and haul like crazy to get the last bits of them to whatever second hand retailer will distribute them. I do what I can to get a hold of whatever suits my collection. My own movie shelf spans just about 35 years or so of films digitized to DVD from the likes of Teen Witch to Clueless to the animated Barbie-verse (excluding the *ahem* *cough*Margot Robbie*hack* live action version - I heard that one's chock full of cringe all the way around; don't buy that one, for pete sakes!) minus a couple of the holiday films from the early 2000's. Yes, I am a sucker for the animated Barbie-verse. Thank my sister, Alyssa for that! It took over a year for me to complete an entire anime series to collect, that being Wedding Peach, even if it meant taking some concessions to getting one second hand from Amazon. I don't think I'll be able to make future attempts at another anime or western animation collection just because of the high demand for them and what collectors ask pricing wise. The current stack I have on my shelf is about as good as I'm gonna get until the last DVD and Blu-ray are shipped out and they become no more.

[LilianaUwU]

I have a DVD player and a VCR still plugged in and operational.

That said, I haven't bought physical media in years.

I have a VCR/DVD combo that I bought from Best Buy at Christmas in 2014.

Heh.  Mine is considerably older.

My current only option for DVD playback is the PS2 I bought second hand in 2022.

[kendancy66]

I have a DVD player and a VCR still plugged in and operational.

That said, I haven't bought physical media in years.

I have a VCR/DVD combo that I bought from Best Buy at Christmas in 2014.

Heh.  Mine is considerably older.

I think I was "scraping the bottom of the barrel" when I bought mine.

[epzik8]

With Best Buy discontinuing DVD and Blu-ray sales, it's really the slow walk to the end of the Blu-ray and DVD's usefulness in our society.

Hell, physical entertainment media in general.

[formulanone]

"Streaming services charging more/aren't profitable" and "retailers to stop selling physical media" is the ugly car crash we all expected.

[jeffandnicole]

My parents probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 150-200 DVDs. I think they have at least two DVD players too, one of which is a Blu-Ray. (Remember when that was The Thing?)

Then again, they also have probably 50-100 VHS tapes and a VCR, which is well over 20 years old and hasn't been plugged in since the last move 13 years ago (50/50 shot on whether it still works). They aren't exactly the type to get rid of stuff.

I recently went to my mom's house to use their VCR to grab some video of my cousin who had passed away.  His daughter didn't have much video of him so I had a bit to offer.

Had to plug it in and hook up the cables to the TV, but it worked.  And then going from 1980's tech to 2020's tech, I used my phone to take video from the TV screen.

[mgk920]

Remember those DVDs that were coated with something that oxidized and made them unplayable a couple of days after the package was opened?

Mike

[ZLoth]

Remember those DVDs that were coated with something that oxidized and made them unplayable a couple of days after the package was opened?

Are you talking about the Flexplay Discs that were unplayable after opening 48 hours? Never owned one.

[kkt]

Remember those DVDs that were coated with something that oxidized and made them unplayable a couple of days after the package was opened?

Mike

"This message will self-destruct in five seconds" - Mission Impossible, and the triumph of planned obsolescence

[mgk920]

It was a content 'rental' scheme that only could have been dreamed up by lawyers.  Just like the similarly cockamamie 'DIVX' format scheme that was briefly available at Circuit City (remember them?).

Mike

[tmoore952]

My trips to Best Buy became severely curtailed when the stores near me dropped CDs.

I never went there to get DVDs, mainly because the ones that I or my wife would be interested in, were generally special interest things I could more reliably find at Borders, which has a location not far from my most-visited Best Buy. Or I just saved the gasoline and the mileage, and bought online.

In general, I used to do "physical media" trips at least once or twice a month (and 30 years ago, multiple times a week). Nowadays it only occurs maybe twice a year (holidays, and maybe at another time of year if I am looking for something very specific).

[fhmiii]

I try to own physical media as much as possible.  I tend to buy them off the discount rack or at the thrift store (or when Amazon has a 5 or 10-movie pack for $20).  I've switched to only buying Blu-Ray, though, because DVD quality is noticeably worse in 4K even with upscaling.  I can't stand having to sign up for all these different streaming services, and most of them have only one or two shows and maybe 10 movies I actually want to watch.  Finding the movies I actually want is almost impossible except to rent.  Seriously, yes I want to watch "Mr. Baseball," but not for $4.99 per viewing.

I have a Plex server set up in my basement that runs the movies (it's just a PC with the Plex software on it).  I rip them from the DVD/Blu-Ray (yes, that's perfectly legal as long as you don't distribute the copy to others), and then I can watch them whenever I want.

Including the scene where Han shot first.