DVD Bargains, Part Two
October 26th 2006 05:35
In the last part (link) of the series, I talked about how it was fairly easy to get a bargain on any major movie DVD. Sometimes, it’s a bit trickier to find a bargain on other types of DVD media.
With DVD Box Sets, you’ve got to have realistic expectations. You’ll get a bargain on a DVD Box set, but it’s not going to be at the insane level of 80-90% discounts seen on regular movie DVDs. One thing to understand is that with the advent of DVD box sets, many older TV shows were made into box sets, and they do not drop in value nearly as much as the newer DVDs.
The reason for this is that older television shows, having not been on the air for a while, came out to huge fan demand, while newer shows came out because of temporary popularity. To give you an idea of how this stacks up, let’s compare 3 DVDs that were released in 2004:
Shrek 2: $29.99
Green Acres, Season 1: 29.98
Everybody Loves Raymond, Season 1: $44.98
Now, their current prices on Half.com:
Shrek 2: $3.22
Green Acres: $18.47
Everybody Loves Raymond: $16.89
Clearly the newer shows depreciate faster. In the long term, these older shows don’t depreciate a whole lot, either on Overstock (link) or on Half.com, so your best bet may just be to wait to six months and buy them, because it will be a long time until it gets to be extremely inexpensive.
The second type of film is the long multi-part PBS documentary. These probably hold the value best of any DVDs:
Liberty: The American Revolution: $50.00 (Half.com price $36.14)
Ken Burns’ Baseball: $179.99 (Half.com price $114.62.)
Ken Burns’ The Civil War: $129.99 (Half.com price (Half.com price $97.95)
Ken Burns’ Jazz: $199.92 (Half.com price $139.99)
These are nice discounts of 20-30%, but certainly not what people are used to on other types of DVD. These have constant demand. What happens is that they’re run on public television stations across the country during telethons, so people see the documentary and want to buy it without handing over the absurdly high donation price to purchase it from the network. So, you’ll rarely get a huge discount on these.
One key is to remember that VHS tapes will still play if you have a VCR, so purchasing videos could get you a much better bargain. The only risk is missing out on DVD extras. Fun, but they may not be worth the price.
Finally, you have the rare DVD. It’s an Independent release: a movie that did not make all the theaters. You may not find it on half.com, but you can check e-bay (link) as well. You may end up doing a search by Froogle, and if wasn’t very popular, it’s improbable someone could have bought and sold the exact item. Be patient and keep searching and you’ll find a bargain, even if you have to dig a bit for it.
With DVD Box Sets, you’ve got to have realistic expectations. You’ll get a bargain on a DVD Box set, but it’s not going to be at the insane level of 80-90% discounts seen on regular movie DVDs. One thing to understand is that with the advent of DVD box sets, many older TV shows were made into box sets, and they do not drop in value nearly as much as the newer DVDs.
The reason for this is that older television shows, having not been on the air for a while, came out to huge fan demand, while newer shows came out because of temporary popularity. To give you an idea of how this stacks up, let’s compare 3 DVDs that were released in 2004:
Shrek 2: $29.99
Green Acres, Season 1: 29.98
Everybody Loves Raymond, Season 1: $44.98
Now, their current prices on Half.com:
Shrek 2: $3.22
Green Acres: $18.47
Everybody Loves Raymond: $16.89
Clearly the newer shows depreciate faster. In the long term, these older shows don’t depreciate a whole lot, either on Overstock (link) or on Half.com, so your best bet may just be to wait to six months and buy them, because it will be a long time until it gets to be extremely inexpensive.
The second type of film is the long multi-part PBS documentary. These probably hold the value best of any DVDs:
Liberty: The American Revolution: $50.00 (Half.com price $36.14)
Ken Burns’ Baseball: $179.99 (Half.com price $114.62.)
Ken Burns’ The Civil War: $129.99 (Half.com price (Half.com price $97.95)
Ken Burns’ Jazz: $199.92 (Half.com price $139.99)
These are nice discounts of 20-30%, but certainly not what people are used to on other types of DVD. These have constant demand. What happens is that they’re run on public television stations across the country during telethons, so people see the documentary and want to buy it without handing over the absurdly high donation price to purchase it from the network. So, you’ll rarely get a huge discount on these.
One key is to remember that VHS tapes will still play if you have a VCR, so purchasing videos could get you a much better bargain. The only risk is missing out on DVD extras. Fun, but they may not be worth the price.
Finally, you have the rare DVD. It’s an Independent release: a movie that did not make all the theaters. You may not find it on half.com, but you can check e-bay (link) as well. You may end up doing a search by Froogle, and if wasn’t very popular, it’s improbable someone could have bought and sold the exact item. Be patient and keep searching and you’ll find a bargain, even if you have to dig a bit for it.
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