DVD collecting has become the preferred hobby of millions of film lovers replacing the VHS format that has rapidly become outdated. Here's what I've learned about the hobby of DVD collecting.
Much like videotapes and compact discs, DVDs go out of print on a regular basis. Just because a film is available on DVD today doesn't mean that it always will be easily available for purchase. When a DVD is discontinued by its manufacturer it doesn't mean that that copies are no longer available. There will still be copies available for a limited time in stores and offered for sale on-line. As those copies are sold, the remaining unsold copies often become more expensive as the demand exceeds the supply. This result is most noticeable on Walt Disney titles that have been pulled from the sales market after a limited time.
Major studios often discontinue producing titles and then re-release them shortly afterwards with new covers or different special features. Sometimes they do this because they have a better transfer of the film they want to put on the market. Often they do this in the hopes of getting the consumer to "double dip" or repurchase a product that they've already purchased in the past. Another common occurrence is where a studio will still continue to produce a certain DVD title but will drop one of the special features on the DVD. This happens most often with so-called "flipper" discs. These are DVDs that have a full screen version of the film on one side of the disc and a widescreen version of the film on the other. In most cases the later pressings of the DVD will only contain the full screen version of the film, dropping the widescreen version completely. The earlier pressing of these titles become increasingly hard to find as the widescreen version is more desirable to most videophiles.
Films that are in the public domain rarely ever go completely out of print. One manufacturer may discontinue producing a certain title as sales decline but another manufacturer is just as likely to start producing the same title. Since the films are in the public domain and any company can produce DVDs of these titles you will often see the same title marketed by several different companies at the same time.These DVDs vary in quality as different companies use different prints of the film to manufacture their particular title on DVD.
A DVD containing a public domain film does not automatically mean that the product is inferior. Many classic films starring top Hollywood actors have fallen into the public domain. It's true that many of the public domain DVDs contain inferior quality transfers but many are also of fairly high quality considering the age of the film and other factors. While it's true that the majority of DVDs containing public domain films have little to no special features on the disc, some do. It depends on the resources of the company who manufactured the disc and on how much money they want to invest in creating a certain title. Many of these manufacturers do little more than transfer the film from video to DVD and add a menu that will allow the watcher to access certain scenes in the film.
The more obscure a DVD title is, the more likely it seems to be to go out of print. Major Hollywood blockbusters will, for the most part, always be available in one form or another. The companies may change the cover art or some of the special features but it will stay in print continuously. A more obscure film such as a film made by an independent film studio may only get one release on DVD. Titles such as documentaries, low budget films, sports and exercise programs, music video compilations and concert DVDs fall into the same category. If you would like to own a particular title on DVD from a category like this, it's better to purchase it as soon as you can as it may be hard to find a year or two down the road.
Many titles were never released on videocassette. Many of the ones that were released on video will never be released on DVD. Sometimes the film studios who own these programs feel that the demand for the title is not high enough to warrant a DVD release. In other cases the title may be tied up in some kind of legal wrangle where two or more companies feel they have legal rights to the film. Programs or movies that contained a lot of popular music may not get released on DVD because paying for the rights to use the music is felt to be prohibitive by the film studios. Sometimes these films are released with different music replacing the more fondly remembered music that was in the film originally. Many videophiles frown on this practice and will not purchase a DVD they know to contain replacement music.
