DVD Prices

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Too good to be true, too ridiculous for words, or maybe just 'market forces' in action?

I'm approaching this from the standpoint of someone who grew up in an era when films and TV series were not available in pre-recorded format (eg vhs or dvd) - either you saw them on TV or at the cinema, or you missed out.

I remember when films first became available on VHS video tape (and Betamax at that time) at the start of the 1980s. A single tape would cost £30-40, about £150 in today's money. Prices drifted downwards throughout the decade, but were still far higher by 1990 or even 2000 than they are today.

This trend didn't abate in the 21st century either. You now have a situation in the UK where films on DVD are sold secondhand in charity shops and at outlets like CEX for £1 each and the latter company pays just £0.01 (one penny!) to buy most films from customers. I've seen films on DVD being sold at 3 for £1 in secondhand shops, and even 10 for £1.

Even boxsets of very high quality TV series are available from around £3-£15 from CEX. I've just acquired a 19 disc 112 episode set of 'Tales of the Unexpected' in virtually mint condition for the ridiculous price of £35, and that's right at the top end of the price scale for this sort of product.

I'd be interested to hear from members what the situation is in other parts of the world. I'm obviously not complaining about this fabulous opportunity to buy some excellent entertainment products at ludicrously low prices, but it does kind of puzzle me a bit all the same. I actually thought about 20 years ago that films or TV series on DVD might be a good financial investment, LOL!

While I don't live there, I can tell you as a fan of anime (and other Japanese media), DVDs (and BDs) in Japan are pretty damn expensive.

An anime series I like that just finished airing last week, Delicious Party Precure, has an MSRP of ¥4180 ($32.51) per DVD volume, with each DVD only having three episodes on it. The entire series isn't on DVD yet, but considering the series ran for 45 episodes and with three episodes per release, it'll be 15 total DVD volumes and a total price of ¥62,700 ($487.66!! !) for the entire show.

Mind you, discounts are a thing (if you buy the 8 currently released volumes off Amazon Japan, it'll run you only ¥26,157 instead of ¥33,440 but that's still $203.48 for just TWENTY FOUR EPISODES)

The less I say about the BD prices, the better.

Oh and as far as where I live goes (the US): DVDs are cheap as anything here. Go to Walmart and they'll literally have bins full of random movie DVDs for $5 a pop and unless it's like a massive set or whatever, most TV series DVDs are probably like $20-30 nowadays here at the most.

I wonder how much something like YouTube influences this situation. I'm constantly discovering that a film (or even a whole TV series) that I own on DVD is available for free on YouTube.