AfterDawn: News

Warner to release all Blu-rays as BD/DVD combos

Warner Home Video has announced that beginning in the Q1 2010 all of their new Blu-ray releases will include a standard definition DVD copy as well, making all Warner releases the aptly dubbed "Combo Packs."

All Combo Packs will include a digital copy as well.



Making the move even more aggressive is that Warner will no longer offer straight Blu-ray films, and the Combo Packs will remain the same price as current Blu-ray releases, with no added premium.

Most of the major studios now offer combo discs, with Disney and Warner pioneering the way.


Additionally, Warner will begin offering Blu-ray Double Features beginning in February, which will offer two BD catalog films for an MSRP of $25 USD. The first to be released are includes Dirty Harry/Magnum Force, Analyze This/Analyze That, Presumed Innocent/Frantic, Miss Congeniality/Miss Congeniality 2 and Grumpy Old Men/Grumpier Old Men.

“When people experience Blu-ray—they love it, and with Blu-ray combo packs on all of our top new releases, we are giving consumers the titles they want without having to sacrifice convenience and portability,” says Ron Sanders, president at Warner Home Video, via VB. “And our new Blu-ray Double Feature sets make it easier and more affordable than ever for consumers to build or expand their home movie libraries and discover why Blu-ray is simply the best way to watch movies at home.”

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 20 Dec 2009 12:33

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• 10 comments

• jos22

  at no xtra cost ya right.
  
  when I buy a blu-ray I don't want a DVD of the same movie well as for double feature great but let hope they wont just dumped 2 sub stardard transfer on to 1 bluray disk with digital instead of HD master audio

  21.12.2009 00:27 #1

• xmas2009

  SPAM removed

  21.12.2009 00:53 #2

• emugamer

  I like it. Portability is nice. Buy the blu and throw the DVD in the car for the kids.

  21.12.2009 08:00 #3

• KillerBug

  Yes, it is still a rip-off when you consider how much it costs to print a bluray and a DVD...but at least it is not AS MUCH of a rip-off if you get a DVD that you can sell.
  
  However, I don't see a lot of people lining up to buy combo packs like this before they have a bluray player; unless the bluray+DVD pack is the same cost as the DVD.

  22.12.2009 05:08 #4

• HDNow

  From the Warner press release:
  
  Quote:For no additional cost, Blu-ray combo packs offer consumers significantly more value by merging the unsurpassed quality of Blu-ray with the convenience of being able to watch the film in any format, on just about every playback device.http://www.timewarner.com/corp/newsroom/...1948456,00.html
  
  
  Speaking of prices - from amazon (as of today 12/22/09):
  
  Inglourious Basterds
  2-Disc BluRay - $17.99
  2-Disc DVD - $21.49
  
  District 9
  BluRay - $17.99
  2-Disc DVD - $22.99
  
  The Hangover
  BluRay - $17.99
  DVD - $19.99
  
  I wonder if the DVD buyers are feeling ripped-off.

  22.12.2009 08:42 #5

• DVDdoug

  Quote:Yes, it is still a rip-off when you consider how much it costs to print a bluray and a DVD
  Is "printing" the only cost? No! It's one of the variable costs. You also have other variable costs as well as various fixed-costs and overhead costs. And, if you follow the finincial news, you'd know that Time Warner is currently loosing money, so you can't really accuse them of making an "unfair profit".
  
  Apples & oranges grow on trees... Oil comes out of the ground... But, these things are not free!

  22.12.2009 16:16 #6

• KillerBug

  Quote:Quote:Yes, it is still a rip-off when you consider how much it costs to print a bluray and a DVD
  Is "printing" the only cost? No! It's one of the variable costs. You also have other variable costs as well as various fixed-costs and overhead costs. And, if you follow the finincial news, you'd know that Time Warner is currently loosing money, so you can't really accuse them of making an "unfair profit".
  
  Apples & oranges grow on trees... Oil comes out of the ground... But, these things are not free!Time Warner is a huge company that does a lot of things poorly. They make a lot of terrible movies, print way too many of them, then pay outside companies to shred the disks just so that they can print more...while the company paid to shred the disks sells them on the street. This is just the public side of their DVD business...you can imagine the things that go on behind closed doors in their cable TV business.
  
  I know there is more to making a bluray that pressing the disk, printing the art, making a case, and shipping it out...but I still can't see it costing more than $5 to get a bluray+DVD combo pack onto a shelf at a retailer. That means they are still making at least $10 on each sale. I can see how repeatedly paying some company to destroy your product can get very expensive, but I should not have to pay for their psycotic business model. If they didn't push terrible movies so hard, then it would not be an issue in the first place.

  22.12.2009 23:07 #7

• ichido

  In regards to HDnow, tou can't paint the picture you are, without looking at the complete picture. Take a statistics course and you will learn. your two examples mean nothing, do that for every Blu-ray release and then I will give your example some creedence.
  for years they add an extra disc and add $2 to $5. we can buy dvd blanks for .23 tax included. so I am sure they can get them for have or less. like I always say, charge a fair price and sell more.
  we have seen lots of posts about this B43 so I will not even get into that.
  We already seen that merger is flawed and they are separating agian. So Killerbug makes the right point about the business model. I guess bigger is not always better.

  26.12.2009 23:10 #8

• ronhondo

  This is why I liked HD-DVD better. They were able to make discs with both a DVD layer and an HD-DVD layer on a single disc. I guess Blu-ray can't do that ? Anyway ... Who cares about Blu-ray. DVD is fine for me. As for price .. Just rent them and copy them. Now you have a very inexpensive item !

  2.1.2010 23:32 #9

• 250ruthya

  spam edited by ddp

  19.1.2010 21:48 #10