DVD and Blu-ray deals

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GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » July 25th, 2009, 3:39 pm

$3 for these season sets?

(... And I am looking for deals on Flintstones sets, too! Preferrably, the original releases and not the limited complete series set.)

All the Big Lots I've been to have had their TV sets on sale for $6 -- and mind you, that's still a great price for these sets!

This convinces me all the more that a lot of these sets are just not selling well. Quite a few of them aren't older than 2 years past original street date release!

Batman:TAS and Superman:TAS are old enough to be on remainder but probably shouldn't be at $3, let alone $6.

The fact that newer set releases are showing up so soon at Big Lots (the king of liquidators if I ever saw one) doesn't bode well for animation series sets sales. The original distributors and vendors (Best Buy, the late Circuit City, Wal-Mart, etc.) have got to be hurting on overstock to be letting things go like that. Big Lots had to have gotten a sweetheart of a deal for these sets!

The thing about Big Lots that we have to constantly remind ourselves about is that every store in the chain is unique. It's not like Wal-Mart were 85%-90% of the merchandise is generally identical store to store no matter where you go in-state. The Big Lots stores are going to have different stock from town to town and even within the same city.

I found both my Animaniacs sets and Pinky & the Brain Vol. 1 when I was visiting my parents in Northwest Ohio. The Big Lots in the immediate vicinity of where I live in Central Ohio had those sets but sold out of them fairly quickly meaning that store didn't get the quantity the other store in NW Ohio got or that the Central Ohio store just get gets more foot traffic. Probably a bit of both.

The moral of this lesson -- keep your eyes open for great deals at the discount chain stores.

Believe me, Big Lots is a much better store now to search through for many things than it was 15 years ago. 15 years ago, Big Lots was a dump no doubt about it! Now, it's actually evolved into a semi-classy store that sells many quality discounted remainder items... and not just DVDs which are the focus of this thread.

One more reminder before I close this post --

check out your local Big Lots on Mondays and Tuesdays... that's when I've been told they get new stock on DVDs. Again, it's pointless to go to the Big Lots website to check for individual DVD releases. I was told by an employee in store that the DVDs pretty much have the same SKU. They have no idea what they get on delivery day until they unpack the product. The best they can tell is that whatever's on the sales floor at the moment is what they have...

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Post by James » July 25th, 2009, 4:51 pm

Yep -- $3!

Batman TAS Vol 1 and Superman TAS Vol 1 were actually $3 a piece as well, but I found one shrink wrapped bundle left with both wrapped together for $3!

Went to two more Big Lots today -- still no luck on Pinky or Animaniacs.
Image

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » July 25th, 2009, 6:01 pm

DELETED previous post and did major re-editing --

reminding myself about what's the point about getting upset about things you can't change?

Let's face it -- the people that oversee programming at many of the multimedia conglomerates are clueless about their company's product and the proper way to market this product.

The best way to market a film or TV series is to actually show it on television!

"Slipping information" about an animation DVD release on a website or blog that's only seen by a few thousand people is not the way to sell this product. Most people do not buy product sight unseen.

I think that's why so many of these animation titles are showing up in Big Lots at such cheap prices. They weren't marketed properly and haven't been for years.


************************

Latest Big Lots sighting --

Josie and the Pussycats: The Complete Series. 2-disc set. $3.

James mentioned that in his area sightings, too.

I'll probably check out another store or two tomorrow to see what else might pop up. There are at least 7 Big Lots stores in the Columbus area and I'll probably check out at least 5 of them.

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Post by Ben » July 26th, 2009, 5:58 pm

I can't remember if I ever picked up the Josie set or not! I'll have to have a dig around as I've lost tabs on keeping even rudimentary lists going. :(

But that's a HECK of a good deal. Heck, "deal" isn't even the word: All that goodness for $18 is a STEAL! :)

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » July 26th, 2009, 10:52 pm

James,

The local Big Lots in my area finally got the Popeye Vol. 1 AND Flintstones Seasons sets 2 and 3 in stock!

These sets were $3, too.

(Yes, I bought them. Already had Popeye Vol. 1 on hand -- got it release day at Best Buy with the first-print exclusive tin -- but $3 was too cheap to pass up a second time.)

Copies of last year's Appleseed: Ex Machina have also started showing up at Big Lots, too. This is the nice steel jacket 2-disc edition with program booklet. It's a pretty good CGI action-adventure sci-fi film from Japan. Dubbed and subtitled so everybody's covered there. I already have it on Blu ray, though.

Blu ray still hasn't generally gone discount yet although I saw Season 6 or 7 of Smallville on sale for $6 on Blu ray at one Big Lots...

I regret that I will probably have to start going to my local Big Lots at least 2-3 times a week to keep up with releases. I don't want to miss the stuff I'm interested in!

Bought myself a brainless Lampoon comedy, too. It's National Lampoon's Repli-Kate with Ali Landry as the title character.

I visited two more Big Lots in the area but found one location so forgettable I'm not bothering to go back there again. The Big Lots near OSU was pretty darn good so I figure I will probably visit them again in the near future when I have business in the area. I talked to a clerk and they had Flintstones in stock there although I'm not sure if he meant multiple season sets or last year's complete series boxset. I doubt it was the complete series set, though. Probably the individual seasons you and I have seen so far.

Pricing seems to be mostly $3 on DVDs at Big Lots but some are $2, too. Sets seem to be $3 or $6 although I saw some anime starter kits (volume 1 of a show with a fancy collector's box) selling for $10 at a location, too. Nothing I wanted from anime, though. It was stuff I passed on years ago and at least two of the DVDs were ones I already have but haven't watched yet...

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » August 3rd, 2009, 12:56 am

A Possibly ILLEGAL source for all those $3 DVD sets on sale at Big Lots?

http://www.thresq.com/2009/07/warner-br ... wsuit.html


********

To sum up the article --

A third-party company was hired by WB to dispose of a bunch of unsold single DVDs and DVD sets.

Said company allegedly did not destroy the 1million+ DVDs it was contracted to destroy and went ahead and sold the unsold DVDs/sets to a third-party (Big Lots?).

Enjoy those cheap DVD sales while you can folks.

It looks like it'll be along time before that happens again!

In the meantime, I still see plenty of copies left of much of the anime features I saw on sale as well as TV volumes. Still seeing Josie and the Pussycats (original animated TV series) as well as Scooby-Doo shows. Saw more copies of Popeye Vol. 1 today, too.

Nobody's touching Wait Till Your Father Gets Home, though! :lol:









(Yes, I saw bits of that show on Cartoon Network a long time ago. It was a lousy show!)

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Post by estefan » August 3rd, 2009, 7:14 am

Oddly enough, the first thing that came to mind is why would Warner Brothers want to destroy some perfectly good copies of Animaniacs and Pinky & the Brain, especially since those sets sold quite well (didn't they?).

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » August 3rd, 2009, 2:34 pm

It's standard practice to destroy returns and overstock from many stores.

What happened in this case -- and people are assuming it's the source of all the animated set sales at Big Lots -- is that somebody broke an agreement and tried to make extra cash on the side by selling a bunch of returns on the tertiary video market. These were practically brand-new sets, not used ones.

WB does NOT want these sales because they cannibalize sales from other vendors.

(It's a waste, yes, but this is what WB wanted done with those sets.)

For instance, I saw Josie and the Pussycats at a Barnes and it was selling at regular price, around $30-$35 (I don't remember the exact amount).

The same set was down the street at Big Lots on sale for $3. Replace "Josie" with any name title set like Looney Tunes, Flintstones, or Batman and where do you think videophiles will stop buy to get a boxset?

Believe me, there was a big rage going on several animation and DVD/Home Theater sites about these sales. People were happy to be able to get things so cheap but everybody was wondering where these sets were all coming from.

I doubt WB will recoup its money -- they say they lost $40 million in potential sales because of this -- but in all likelihood they will try to sue the company that released all those DVD sets out of existence.

This is not the fault of consumers and I don't judge anybody that took advantage of these sales because I sure looked around and got as much as I could while it was available... We're not the crooks, it was a third-party company violating the agreement it had with WB Home Video.

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Post by Ben » August 3rd, 2009, 2:46 pm

You know that "this packaging was made from recycled elements" (or similar) wording on the back of the WB covers?

Now you know where those recycled elements come from! :)

Oh, and they re-record over the old discs with new titles. ;)

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Post by James » August 3rd, 2009, 4:16 pm

I always thought they were talking about their recycled plot lines!

http://www.instantrimshot.com/

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » August 4th, 2009, 10:51 am

James and Ben are kidding, guys. :wink:


The fact of the matter is that it's very difficult to recycle most DVDs. Factory-pressed DVDs and the DVD-R/+R discs you buy in stores are record-only-once affairs. There is no way to erase and reuse these discs.

There is another class of DVDs that are erasable and reusable up to 1,000 times -- those are the DVD-RW/+RWs. I use those for temporary video storage when I'm planning DVD compilations on my computer. I've found them to be the most convenient way to transfer between the HD on my DVD-Recorder to the hard drive on my computer.

Of course, what was on sale at Big Lots were the former category.

What generally happens with returned DVDs is that that they get smashed/cracked into pieces and then put in a landfill. There are programs in some places to try to recycle these but the plastic and metals used in factory-pressed DVDs are hard to separate and really weren't made for reuse. There are a few materials coming down the line that promise recyclability for DVDs but the main obstacle keeping those from being used is cost.

About the only thing you can do with DVDs you don't want anymore is sell them to a used video place, sell them online, or if it's a worthless mailed-in DVD use it as artwork or a coaster for drinks. One family got creative and actually strung a few junk mail DVDs up to use as a glitter scare line for bird pests. Apparently, the birds that were feeding on some of their plants are scared by sudden flashes of light and DVDs make excellent reflectors of sunlight.

GeorgeC

Post by GeorgeC » August 12th, 2009, 2:40 pm

A bunch of Blu rays are on sale this week at Best Buy. I think the sale ends Saturday.

Most are $12.99, a few are down to $9.99...

There are a good chunk of films there including Kubrick (The Shining, A Clockwork Orange), Enter the Dragon, and some other half-decent films.

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Post by Daniel » August 12th, 2009, 4:43 pm

Here are complete lists for anyone interested:
(Hate how BB has their urls :x)

Would love to get Prada, but already have the DVD and don't want to double-dip. (trying so hard!) Sure is a great film, though. Need to get Corpse Bride too, eventually...

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Post by Ben » August 12th, 2009, 8:23 pm

Although there's a range of studio titles there, many of the are actually part of WB's repricing program. Many of these will retain their low value costs, as WB wants to make sure catalog BDs keep going off shelves.

As well as Corpse Bride, I picked up 2001, 2010 and The Shining since they're all-time favorites of mine, but a lot of other stuff I'm being good on. I hardly watch the DVDs I have of many titles so what's the point in owning a BD I hardly watch!? And when I do want to watch certain things, upscaling works just fine.

Amazon has the same titles for the same prices, by the way. I am tempted by Hidalgo and Dark City, but for the most part I am trying to be realistic to keeping my upgrades minimal. But for those wanting to build their collections without those titles on any format yet, there are some good titles and pricings going on right now.

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Post by James » August 12th, 2009, 9:34 pm

Was in store today and picked up The Truman Show for 12.99. Lots of stuff there but gotta watch costs when these sales happen or I'd get too much!

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