Driving the news: Beginning in 2024, Best Buy will stop selling DVDs and Blu-ray discs in-store and online — marking a major shift for the electronics company as streaming platforms continue to dominate the arena.
Best Buy customers looking to purchase DVDs or Blu-ray discs will have to find another retailer after the 2023 holiday season. Starting in 2024, sales of hard copies of movies and TV shows by the consumer electronics seller will cease, according to Variety and The Digital Bits.
Best Buy will stop selling Blu-rays, DVDs in 2024: 'The way we watch movies and TV shows is much different today' It's going to get a little bit harder to get your hands on a physical copy of your favorite movie.
But it still hit me hard when Best Buy announced it will wind down sales of DVDs and Blu-ray discs, ending sales completely early in 2024. Physical movies will be sold in stores and online through the holidays, and video games aren't affected by the change.
According to Forbes, Samsung is discontinuing the production of new 4K Blu-ray players in the USA. And at least in 2019 the company will not introduce any new devices worldwide. Existing players will at least continue to be sold off.
Is Best Buy Done With Blu-ray/DVD? | Physical Media is Changing
What will replace Blu-ray?
Sony and Panasonic have named the next-generation storage discs that will be the successor to Blu-Ray. They revealed it will be called the Archival Disc. It will eventually hold 1TB of data, the equivalent of 250 DVD films.
When stored properly (away from heat, humidity, UV rays), tapes can last 30 – 50 years. According to the Canadian Conservation Institute, which publishes a paper on media longevity, BD-R discs are expected to last between 5 and 20 years, depending on the material they are made out of.
Best Buy is bidding adieu to DVDs and Blu-Ray discs. The electronics retailer announced on Friday that it will stop selling the once-essential movie-viewing tool online and in stores after the 2023 holiday season as consumers continue to shift to streaming services over physical discs.
Streaming is a popular way to consume media these days, and DVD sales have declined by 86% since 2008. Curiously, many stores fill their shelves with DVDs and Blu-rays, and Technicolor Home Entertainment Services plans to ship as many as 750 million discs in 2022.
Are DVD's obsolete? No, in fact, now might be the time to begin adding new movies and series sets to your collection because the future of DVD's is looking bright, shiny, and silver.
Reasons some consumers prefer Blu-rays to streaming include higher video quality, the tactile nature of owning a film physically, elaborate packaging, bonus features, and the desire to own or watch films that are not available in streaming services' libraries.
First, the product had bad timing. Blu-ray launched in 2006, offering higher quality video and audio than DVDs; then, in 2007, Netflix launched its initial online streaming service. Online streaming was the way of the future, and Blu-ray's demise was only a matter of time. Insufficient marketing also played a role.
A DVD will only be able to store about 4.7 GB of data, which equals about two hours of a movie. A Blu-ray can hold about 25 GB of data, which allows for more high-definition information. It can hold about 13 hours of standard definition information or about two hours of high-definition information.
The consumer-electronics retailer will phase out sales of DVDs and Blu-ray discs both in-store and online in early 2024, according to industry sources familiar with the company's plans. Best Buy made the initial decision to end DVD sales nine months ago, according to one source.
Sony and Panasonic have named the next-generation storage discs that will be the successor to Blu-Ray. They revealed it will be called the Archival Disc. It will eventually hold 1TB of data, the equivalent of 250 DVD films.
Will Best Buy no longer carry physical movies in 2024?
If you still play your favorite films and TV series on DVD, you'll soon have one fewer place to shop. Driving the news: Beginning in 2024, Best Buy will stop selling DVDs and Blu-ray discs in-store and online — marking a major shift for the electronics company as streaming platforms continue to dominate the arena.
You won't get high-definition movie viewing on your DVD, just 480 SD. On the other hand, Blu-ray is made for HD, and you'll get the best picture possible, with 1080 HD capability for your Blu-ray movies. So if you are looking for a quality picture, Blue Ray is the clear winner.
Uncompressed quality: Physical media like Blu-ray discs offer superior image and sound quality compared to digital streaming. This is because physical media can store large amounts of data and doesn't require compression.
How much do used Blu-rays sell for? It depends on what you're selling. Rarer and more obscure titles tend to be worth a little more but most Blu-rays are worth something, and the amount you make soon adds up!
Best Buy exited China in 2011, with market failure attributed to the negative impacts of counterfeit markets, pricing, and its big-box retailer format.
Best Buy will sell movies and TV shows on physical discs until the end of the 2023 holiday season, then discontinue sales in its 1,129 locations with 969 in the U.S. The company will still sell video games.
According to the sources, Best Buy won't even sell physical movies online, including 4K titles and special-edition steelbooks that collectors look forward to. The DVD end times could start next year as early as Q1.
In fact, back in 2019 the executive director of the 8K Association, Chris Chinnock, cast doubt on the possibility of 8K Blu-rays ever happening. Four years ago, he said that the chances of an 8K physical format were "a low probability" as the Blu-ray Association decided against moving forward with 8K Blu-rays.
Blu-ray Discs definitely cost more to manufacture than DVD, for a number of reasons: Because the cost of replicating equipment is much higher than for DVD, there are far fewer plants which can produce BD-ROM discs (a Sony division holds a large share of the market), so there is less competition.
There are a few reasons why Blu-ray technology never really took off. Firstly, the cost of Blu-ray players and discs was always quite high, so many people stuck with DVDs instead. Secondly, streaming services like Netflix became very popular, so people didn't need to buy or rent physical discs anymore.
