Breaking the silence


	A commentary by Mike Long

DVD Goes Mainstream

It's always nice to view the statistics on how many DVD players have been sold in the U.S. and to check out the Top 10 DVD titles to see how many copies of "The Matrix" or "The Mummy" have been sold, but these stats may not tell the whole story about the success of DVD. In my view, DVD will not be wholly successful until it has been embraced by the mainstream. While some purists may scoff (or cringe) at this idea, the time is coming and I got a huge dose of this reality on Thanksgiving Day.

As with most Americans, my newspaper on Thanksgiving was stuffed like a gobbler with sale ads and circulars for the "After Thanksgiving" Sales. When I perused these ads, I noticed two things.
1) A lot of stores were going to open insanely early on the 25th.
2) A lot of DVD related stuff.

All of the electronics stores, had DVDs or DVD players prominently displayed on the front pages of their ads. One store was offering "The Matrix", "Enemy of the State" and "Titanic" for $12.99 on Friday morning. $12.99? That's lower than some Internet sites! And "Titanic" and "Enemy of the State" each retail for $29.99.
While it's true that most DVD addicts would have already purchased these titles, you must consider what this offer says to the average consumer. It says, "Hey! Look at me! You can get DVDs for the same price (or cheaper) than VHS tapes!"
Besides this offer, I noticed that several other stores, including department stores, had DVDs (often "The Matrix") priced for less than $15. And of course, everyone was pushing the Disney DVDs...

So what? Anybody can get a cheap DVD if they want to. But there was more. Most of the stores also had DVD players on sale. One electronics store had an "early bird" special of $169 for a DVD player!


	The most shocking ad was for a close-out/overflow store which had a player for $199. This store usually caters to middle-class to lower-middle class consumers and it was an eye-opener to see them offering a DVD player (and at a great price). The wonderful thing about DVD players (that the average consumer may not know) is that there isn't a whole lot of difference between the low-end models and the high-end ones. As long as you have a decent TV and some sort of surround sound system, you're going to get a pretty nice viewing experience with DVD. (I'm not saying that we all shouldn't work towards a 16x9 TV and a killer sound system, I'm just making a point.) To the uninitiated consumer, these ads say, "Hey! Look at me! I'm no more expensive than a nice VCR. Why don't you give me a try?"


	The wonderful thing about DVD is that there isn't a whole lot of difference between the low-end models and the high-end ones


	And I think that's what this Christmas will be about -- More people are going to give DVD a try. I imagine that there are plenty of folks out there who have seen DVDs in the store (since most stores, including Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and Target now have DVD displays), or heard others talking about them and wanted to give it a try. With these major ads and the unbeatable prices, I believe that more people will take the plunge.

So, what does this mean to us DVDphiles? As far as I'm concerned, it can only make things better. Gone are the days when laserdiscs were for snobby collectors only. Now we can buy DVDs anywhere and there is greater competition between stores to have the best price. As more consumers buy DVD players, the software manufacturers should be forced to create supeior products. Hopefully, we will see more studios making special editions and adding more special features to their titles. While these additions may not mean much to most laymans, once they get their first taste of deleted scenes or an educational commentary track, they are going to want more. (By way of comparison, just look at the quality of today's VHS tapes -- Dolby Surround, THX certification -- the companies have gone out of their way to make sure that these are nice products, so why wouldn't they do the same for DVD?) The only potential downside to all of this would be the prospect of "rental pricing" for DVDs, which we've all heard about. I would just die.

So, I hope that everyone had a nice Thanksgiving holiday. And ask around, see if anyone that you know took advantage of any of those great deals that were available over the weekend. You may find a new DVD-buddy. Remember, there is always strength in numbers. So, don't be a DVD-snob. If Joe Six-Pack wants a DVD player, that's great. And he can have all of the copies of "Days of Thunder" that he wants.


		December 6, 1998


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