More studios offering Blu-ray-DVD combos

The "Marley & Me Bad Boy Edition" includes both a Blu-ray and DVD, but we hope the final packaging will make that more obvious.

(Credit: Amazon)

More movie studios will begin offering Blu-ray Disc movies with an included DVD, according to a recent report by Video Business.

The article mentions that "Marley & Me," "The Princess Bride," and "T2 Complete Collector's Set" will be getting this treatment, and that Disney is planning on releasing seven Blu-ray-DVD packages this year. While several Blu-ray movies include a Digital Copy that allows you to copy the movie to a computer, a standard DVD is compatible in more locations.

This is a smart move by the studios, as one of the biggest drawbacks to buying Blu-ray movies now is their lack of portability. Since a Blu-ray Disc will play only where you have a Blu-ray player, many people often can't watch their new movie in the bedroom or car, on a plane, or in any other place where they only have a DVD player.

The packaged combos may also make the relatively high cost of Blu-ray movies easier to swallow, if consumers feel like they're getting more for their money, with both discs included.

Will an included standard DVD make you more likely to buy Blu-ray movies? Is Blu-ray still just too expensive, even with the extras? Or are you waiting for portable Blu-ray players, like the Panasonic DMP-B15? Let us know in the comments.

(Sources: Video Business via Engadget HD)

[amber0728]

I own a Philips BluRay player because the employee affiliates deal was too good to pass up. So far, I only own four BR movies. One is a 3D BR movie, and the other are all BR / DVD packages. In other words, yes - I will add to my collection of films by adding new and/or previously unowned titles IF they are bundled with a DVD. Otherwise, I will continue to primarily use my BR as an upconverter.

[mcatusf]

I would absolutly purchase a dvd-blu-ray combo if offered. However the caveat is that the combo is at most 2 dollars extra than a regular blu-ray disk. Or better yet, if one side were blu-ray and the other were dvd.

[AnthonyNYC]

I don't think that is physicall possibly to have one side bluray and one side dvd. Because they would have to glue the two discs together then I think the disc might be too thich and heavy to be in dvd specs. To still fit into ddvd players that you slide the disc into, and also if it is too heavy it might not spin properly on some older machine that weren't designed for it. I am assuming this because the blu-ray disc has the extra layer of hard plastic protection. But maybe I am wrong? Maybe they can make such a double layered disc.
They had done it with HD-DVD on one side and dvd on the other so it might be possible.
i think that would be better for companies than giving an extra dvd which people could give away to friends and relatives which would equate to lost dvd sales and thus the studios would need to raise prices on the existing sales to make up for it.t

[FremontJay]

I bought a BR player in early January 2009. i also joined NetFlix specifically to rent movies. After years of buying DVD's my wife and I learend the insanity of filling our shelves with movies that we only watch once or twice. I get all the flexibility I need for watching Blu-Ray movies by renting them and returning them when I'm ready to. Frankly, even if prices for BD fell to parity with current DVD's, I doubt that would change for me.

[AnthonyNYC]

This is probably why Netflix reported 40% increased profits even in this bad economy. I believe many couples like yourselves are realizing the same thing, and deciding this time around to just rent bluray movies rather than start yet another collection that will become worthless when technology changes yet again.
People collected DVD movies because they thought, DVD would be around forever and they'd have something valuable to perhaps pass down to their grandkids and future generations.
But now they are realizing, having a dvd collection is about as valuable as that record collection is now,
you can't even give vinyl collections away anymore. And cd music collections are a big waste of space too now, mp3's allow people to remove the clutter from their homes.
So I think just more and more people are getting smart to the fact that buying movies and starting a collection is really a big waste of money and not the great investment or something valuable to have in the future that they once thought it would be.

[bryanlyle]

Keep them coming. Certainly makes it easier to have the DVD along with the Bluray. Last time I checked, the kids didn't have portable Bluray players :-)

[gsmiller88]

It took them this long to take the idea from HDDVD (with their hybrid discs, still not quite the same but close)?

[timber2005]

No, it seems it took them this long to just remove the HDDVD layer... and the DVD flipside.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/18/threes-company-warner-patents-all-in-one-hybrid-disc/

Now, there are 3 seperate discs (1 "Digital Copy", one dvd, one blu-ray).

[usarioclave1]

A friend of mine has a blu-ray player. He says that the quality is so good that he can see the faces of the stunt doubles.

BluRay: too much quality.

[timber2005]

Sounds like he's either a) watching the movies too much, too closely, or b) he doesn't need to ever see a theatrical production of any type. Especially a school play.

[AnthonyNYC]

Well HDTV in general is almost too much resolution actually. Take for example the news and footage where people haven't had the opportunity to use make-up or have the lighting adjusted and soft filters applied to remove wrinkles, molds, pimple, ahh, a little too many imperfections are visible now on peoples faces blown up on 65" screens! LOL
:)

[yuri_stout]

Seems like they are desperate. Blu-ray is ridiculously overpriced. People are going to have a hard time switching from DVDs at about $10-$20 to buying discs that are $30 and up. And the players themselves are ridiculously expensive.

I bought a VUDU Box and I get amazing quality movies for DVD prices. And I don't have to leave my house. I think digital delivery is the future, and discs will be obsolete soon. Oh, and my VUDU Box cost less than most Blu-ray players.

[E B]

Packaging the two types of disc together is interesting, and quite useful if you expect to be trying to travel with a disc. Many of us don't travel with our DVDs often, but then most households won't buy two Blu-Ray players, either.

I like the idea, particularly for kids movies that look good enough that a Blu-Ray edition is a plus, but which the kids may want to watch in another room on a standard DVD player. For the most part, however, I'll either get the DVD if it's not a special-effects driven movie (for the cost), and get the Blu-Ray if it is (unless it's close to the DVD price).

[btbeme]

Blu-ray is just to expensive. No way will I pay $25 for a movie. Frankly, I balk at paying $10 for a regular DVD unless I know I will watch it several times (kid movies). For me, renting the disk makes much more sense. I mean, really, how many DVDs do YOU own, and how many of those have YOU watched more than 2x in the last year or two? Is it really worth $10-15 per viewing for Blu-ray?

God Bless my AppleTV - quick, car-free rentals and reasonable purchase prices. I think Blu-ray missed the boat by a couple of years while fighting it out with other formats. I think Steve Jobs is right - as America gets faster internet connections, I see less reason to leave my house to buy or rent, and more reason to push a button on the remote. Give me internet deliverable HD content and I will never buy another disc.

[AnthonyNYC]

I agree, and people constantly say the rural areas will never have the high speed internet we have in big cities. But I think just like FDR put people to work during the depression by building roads and highways, so too will Obama stimulate the economy now by finally investing in our internet infostructure. And we should all have high speed broadband internet no matter where you live in the coming years. It will be here faster than i think bluray will have completely replaced dvd the way dvd has replaced vhs has.

[ducttape36]

uh oh. hd-dvd tried the same thing right before they went under. dvd on one side of the disc, hd-dvd on the other. im not suggesting blu-ray will go under, but i dont think this is a good sign.

[r13k1]

People do not care about this. I think it is a good sales tool. The real problem is many of the people I tell about how clear the hd picture is, just don't care. Many of them still have regular cable and directv, with no hd package because it costs too much and they say they don't see enough difference or just don't watch that much tv. I got 3 blu-ray movies, good movies when I purchased my player and only watched them once. If they did not come with the purchase of the player I would not waste the money on them. I learned my lesson with collecting video tapes.

[CaptThom]

Much as I love BluRay (and it's a lot), this won't entice me. I buy a movie I intend to watch once, on DVD. If it is a particularly strong title and will benefit from a good BluRay treatment, I splurge for the BR disc -- when it's on sale. Price---price---price is what is holding BluRay back, not the inability to play the movie in your car. Price the discs a few bucks over standard DVDs and you'll see the market change dramatically. I guarantee it -- and my name isn't even George Zimmer.

[AnthonyNYC]

well of course price is holding bluray back, but having to buy 2 discs adds to the price don't you think?
I mean, say a typical family of 4 buys a movie on bluray. They can all enjoy it in HD in the family room yes, but how can any of them watch it more than that once in their bedrooms? or in the car? or on vacation, in hte plane or in the hotel room? They end up needing to purchase the same movie again on regular dvd format, thus adding to the cost,no?
Or they can choose to just buy it on DVD to begin with, skipping bluray altogether and that allows them to watch it in all thos places I mentioned ( the portability factor). So it is a step in lower the cost by giving the free dvd with the bluray purchase, because then the family can afford to buy the bluray and not need to spend more money on the dvd version also. See, why they are doing this? It is in hopes of preventing the portability issue and expense from preventing sales of bluray discs even to those families who already own a bluray player but also own about 5 dvd players besides that.

[RighteousSoutherner]

Blu-ray will go the way of the LaserDisc. Remember those? Only videophiles ever messed with them and they eventually died out. NetFlix and soon to launch Comcast will no doubt kill Blu-ray. It's a waste of money folks. Chalk it up to obselescence.

[arunas11]

Issue number 1 with Blue Ray is the lack of cheap region-free players. I travel constantly and buy dvd's from many countries - they generaly don't play in USA, but hacked Chinesse players fix that. I refuse to buy anything that has those kinds of protections. Also, good upconverting player makes DVD's look very similar to Blue Ray, may it rest in peace.

[darthstupid]

Where is the outrage? I remember people popping veins in their foreheads when HD-DVD debuted Combo discs. It was a technically better solution than pressing yet another disc and creating more eventual landfill waste. So, where is the outrage this time?

[Pmeyers1978]

I would never buy such a movie. I refuse to pay mor efor extras i do not want, if i buy a BD its because i want it in HD and i do not want a crappy DVD to boot that adds $2 to it. BD are here to stay, the fact that HD TV's are selling like hot cakes ensures this. Add that to the fact that he US broadband is to slow and way to over priced to support main stream digital movie Downloads for the majority of americans. If they want BD to take over then they will just stop selling DVD players and it will happen. Does any one remmeber when DVD first arrived and VHS was still king. VHS went out fast and DVD will go that way too. BD offers every advantage DVD had over VHS. Its simply the natural course of tech taht it will come to be the leader.

[justsayyes]

I only own two HD-DVD's and they're both combo disks. That's why I actually watch them..on a plane, train, car, hotel, or vacation and have zero regret for purchasing. As opposed to my BRDs that I only watch on my HT system. For any movie that my kids want, I only buy the DVD precisely due to BRD's lack of OEM support outside of dedicated HT players.

I WOULD buy more BRD if the MSRP drops 33% AND a standard DVD was included or a DVD quality digital copy with limited rights management (e.g., a single burn-to-disk limit). Without a commensurate drop in BRD MSRP I can only see severely math impaired consumers jumping on board.

And on the outrage subject...HD-DVD was everything BRD 2.0 is, only two years earlier - better required video codec, finalized interactivity spec, support for lossless audio and DD+, required Ethernet connections on players, combo-disk support, lower production costs. And an equivalent copy protection scheme, which is to say equally ineffective.

I wonder how many studios are suffering from buyers remorse? BTW, I live in Silicon Valley and I'd sure like to know who is buying those 80M BRDs as most people I know don't have a BRD player unless it's a PS3 that their kids insisted on buying for a few cool games...to go along with their Xbox 360 and Wii gaming consoles.

[AnthonyNYC]

In retrospect, Toshiba actually won the format war by dragging Sony's attempt to overtake the natural progression to HD-DVD with bluray out long enough to make people content with neither and allow upscaling dvd players to sell into almost all homes with HD TV sets and by doing that, now most people are just happy with DVD as the sucessor to DVD in the HD era. I think Toshiba has the patent rights to dvd and gets royalties from it, right? Not sure, but if so then it is probably pretty happy right about now with each and every dvd sale way into 2009. One would have thought DVD would have been replaced by another format years ago. And it probably would have had it not been for the long drawn out battle, which allowed just about every regular dvd player to be replaced with a upconverting one rather than any high def format one. Interesting strategy, either way they come out ahead. I guess sony will just keep trying, they always do. But I believe the sucess of DVD to remain as KING for this long will be one for the history books.

[AlSleet]

Blu ray movies cost too much. The copy protection is a waste of time. If I had kids I'd only buy DVDs and make a copy for when they: A.dropped them in the shredder B. the dog ate them. C shrug their shoulders and have no idea what happened to the missing disc. Now that prices for currently available Blu Ray players are rising (that will really have them knocking at the doors guys) I'm hoping lower priced alternatives are released before I lose all interest and sit this nonsense out for another year.

[AnthonyNYC]

Well I disagree with a few of your comments. DVD had so much to offer that VHS didn't. It was easier to store, took up less space for a collection. It wasn't magnetic so you couldn't damage it by putting them near the speaker or other magnets by accident. You didn't need to rewind it, finding a certain chapeter in move was finally so simple. You could pause it and fast forward clearly withou the scan lines, basically a dvd was digital and tapes were analog. Also a dvd more than doubled the resolution, from about 230 lines of interlaced resolution to like 500 lines of prgressive scan image on a dvd.
So it was a night and day image upgrade. If you remember the tapes getting ruined in the machines because of bad pinch rollers and dirty heads, you had to try and fix them but the tapes were all chewed up, DVD's didn't have all those issues, that is why it took off so quickly!
So from DVD to Bluray there is no where near the conditions motivating people to want to upgrade. Most people are perfectly happy with dvd quality, and if they got a better TV that had progressive input they'd even get a better image from dvd than they are currently getting with their old analog tv's. And that is whithout even needing to upgrade the dvd player as most have progressive output but never had it turned on in the menu.
So it was a bad analogy and what we are experiencing currently whith this upgrade is unique and has never happenned before so there is nothing really to compare it with.
Also as you said, they'd have to stop selling dvd players, and we are far from that!
If you go to a store and check out the sales counter, dvd players for about $75 and upcoverters are selling like hotcakes now, no one is buying the buray in equal number, far from eqaul, dvd players are still outselling bluray players so what you said isn't happenning yet. see?
It is totally unlike any upgrade in our technology history so far.

[AnthonyNYC]

Personally, I own a Panasonic BluRay player, a Toshiba HD-DVD player, and a Toshiba DVD-Recorder.
I only view the HD format DVD's in the livingroom HT system (the larger set) and recently I've been just viewing movies on my Roku Netflix device, streaming movies. It's the most convenient for me, when i am not watching HD recorded shows off my TimeWarner HD DVR.
I rarely buy movies any more neither bluray or dvd.
But if bluray discs came with a dvd also, that would make it a no brainer chosing between bluray and dvd if I were going to buy a movie.