Why are 4K Blu-rays still so expensive while 4K digital movies are getting cheaper?

[DaDude]

It's amazing that on Vudu, GoogePlay and ITunes, they always have a lot of 4K movies on sale that you can buy for as low as $5. And it's great because most 4K TVs are smart TVs so everyone is set up to watch them. However with 4K Blu-ray, they are still about $30 a movie. Maybe $20 if you're lucky. And not to mention you still have to spend another $200 for a player.

So why are 4K Blu-rays still so expensive? Why don't they drop in price like digital movies are?

[Peresvet]

Let's see: a physical, tangible product that needs to change hands several times in the supply chain before it gets transported to a retail store vs digital. Hmm...🤔

 

 

[DaDude]

Well digital movies used to be more expensive. But that seems to be changing as digital movies are starting to drop in price.

 

It makes 4K Blu-ray a tough buy for me since I have to shell out money for a player and then spend inflated prices for movies. I can already stream the 4K content right onto my TV, so I don't see how 4K Blu-rays are going to become successful if this continues.

[Powerless]

Streaming 4K quality vs 4K disc quality?

[trag3dy]

4 hours ago, DaDude said:

Well digital movies used to be more expensive. But that seems to be changing as digital movies are starting to drop in price.

 

It makes 4K Blu-ray a tough buy for me since I have to shell out money for a player and then spend inflated prices for movies. I can already stream the 4K content right onto my TV, so I don't see how 4K Blu-rays are going to become successful if this continues.

Until your internet goes out and you can't watch a movie.

[DaDude]

15 hours ago, trag3dy said:

Until your internet goes out and you can't watch a movie.

I've had one outage in five years. I think it's manageable. Internet doesn't go down very frequently, at least not where I live.

[d5aqoëp]

Physical 4K disc is only needed if you wish to watch highest video quality with highest bitrates and uncompressed Audio like DTS-X, DTS-HD.MA or Dolby ATMOS.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

20 hours ago, Peresvet said:

Let's see: a physical, tangible product that needs to change hands several times in the supply chain before it gets transported to a retail store

this is the reason price remains a bit higher for physical discs

 

on the digital front encoding processes have improved over the years. Going from x264 encoding to x265 had a MAJOR jump; file sizes got a LOT smaller and easier to stream. I don't do 4K so can't give an exact comparison but using 1080p for example a 1 hour show went from around 6GB to around 500MB. Scale that up to 4K and you can see how that makes a difference for downloading/streaming bandwidth allowing for easier decreases in price.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

Just now, Satico Satellite said:

I can't remember the last significant Internet outage... Are you still on DSL or have Comcast? LOL

lol F Comcast. They're like the worst ISP in the US lol

 

I swear they have outages almost weekly across the country causing issues with Credit Card processing and the like.

[DaDude]

3 hours ago, Brandon H said:

lol F Comcast. They're like the worst ISP in the US lol

 

I swear they have outages almost weekly across the country causing issues with Credit Card processing and the like.

My parents use Spectrum and they say they always have a couple of outages every month, which is concerning to hear. I really wonder if they are having a router or modem issue because I can't imagine how a cable provider will allow that many frequent outages. That's just unacceptable!

[Orange]

I think there is pros and cons to both. I was a big lover of Blu Ray's - Had over 400 to my collection over the years but sold them all last year. I stream some, download some. But then Netflix for example never keeps the same film for long. So having that copy on Blu Ray would be the better option. With today so many streaming services i think Blu Ray will lose out, I can see 8K being more and more expensive and less popular. Streaming will be the new way of film watching.

[Dick Montage]

On 4/8/2020 at 11:11 PM, DaDude said:

It makes 4K Blu-ray a tough buy for me since I have to shell out money for a player and then spend inflated prices for movies.

So don't!?

On 4/8/2020 at 11:11 PM, DaDude said:

I can already stream the 4K content right onto my TV

So do!?

 

On 4/8/2020 at 11:11 PM, DaDude said:

I don't see how 4K Blu-rays are going to become successful

Become?  August 5, 2015 is when 4K Blu-ray became a thing, and since then they have sold just fine (to the limited market that know what they are buying).

[George P Global Moderator]

Making 4k UHD BDs aren't like making original FHD BDs, in many cases the 4k versions have more layers, so more complex and it costs time and money to make, and ship them.  Plus retail is going to want it's cut, a piece of that price goes to the retailer.   The other factor is streaming now, more people just stream and don't buy physical media as much anymore.   Look at music for example, streaming way outstrips physical CD sales now.    Movies are following that trend, and have been.  Games also are following that trend, they've been digital download heavy with gaming on the PC for way longer, thanks to steam etc.   

 

While you can make a case that you then don't actually own anything when it's just digital, and I get it, but when you're paying a fraction of the price compared to the physical version, losing access to that, say, 5 years later, isn't going to hit you as hard.   And that is if you even do lose access to it, to date more people just go for the spotify/netflix sub and just stream without actually buying anything, so they don't really care when something is removed from the library in the future.

[Fezmid Reviews]

4k UHD disks are routinely on sale for $10-$15, and they usually come with a digital copy as well... Yeah, new releases are usually $20-$30 at first, but they always seem to go on sale. For example, here's a bunch of films on sale:

https://slickdeals.net/f/14826871-4k-movies-1917-or-top-gun-12-each-john-wick-chapter-2-10-more

 

 

[spaceelf]

15 minutes ago, Fezmid said:

4k UHD disks are routinely on sale for $10-$15, and they usually come with a digital copy as well... Yeah, new releases are usually $20-$30 at first, but they always seem to go on sale. For example, here's a bunch of films on sale:

https://slickdeals.net/f/14826871-4k-movies-1917-or-top-gun-12-each-john-wick-chapter-2-10-more

Usually when I get a digital copy key included with a bluray it expired three (or more) months ago

[Dick Montage]

25 minutes ago, LostCat said:

Usually when I get a digital copy key included with a bluray it expired three (or more) months ago

I'd be taking it back to the store and complaining.  

[Fezmid Reviews]

36 minutes ago, LostCat said:

Usually when I get a digital copy key included with a bluray it expired three (or more) months ago

Really? I don't think I've seen more than a couple of them expire -- I literally just digitized my entire DVD/BD collection about a year ago and redeemed all of the digital codes in the movies - and they almost all worked, even when they said they expired. Either I'm really lucky or you're really unlucky.

[xMorpheousx416]

Production costs. Plain and simple. We're talking about having to have buildings, machines and people to create the disks, labels, boxes, inserts.. etc.

 

And like others have mentioned, there's a long chain of hands that physical products go thru before they get to yours.

 

Digital is (basically) just one computer system to the next... and even with the costs of that upkeep, it will be far cheaper than the other option.