TheLonelySquire
Vice Admiral
You can buy Voyager season dvd's for about $34.99 each season online. That's what I paid.
Why are the DVDs so expensive?
- Thread starter spoonunseptium
- Start date
You can buy Voyager season dvd's for about $34.99 each season online. That's what I paid.
I bought mine in JB HiFi just before Christmas last year - they had heaps of 'em - but I also saw it stocked at Galaxy Bookshop, Sydney, Borders, and several other places.
"The Menagerie" two-parter in HD ran on the big screen at the Hayden Orpheum last year (and in Melbourne and Brisbane), complete with the intro from Rod Roddenberry, and Paramount Home Video had people in Starfleet uniforms distributing fliers for the Season One set.
Ring Paramount Home Video and ask them who still has it in stock, or search online.
Less in fact. I'm completing my Voyager set gradually and I ordered S4 on Play yesterday - £13. Same on Amazon but with slower shipping.
That's... not really expensive for an entire season of TV.
It is when you consider that "The West Wing", "Smallville", "24", etc. can all be had for about $35 - 40 per season. "Lost", season 4 just came out for around $49.
Paramount just likes to gouge.
If you like those shows, then buy them.
If Paramount has a show people like so much, why shouldn't they ask people to pay what the show is worth? Maybe "The West Wing", "Smallville" and "24" have limited life as syndicated shows, where ST is still in demand.
TV on DVD got its start with The X-Files in 2000, where you were lucky to get a season for under $100. FOX thought it would be such a niche item it would be hard to sell so priced it for the hard core fan (plus Duchovny, Anderson, and Chris Carter got a good cut of the profits). It sold far beyond the studio's expectations. FOX learned it could sell a season for that price and kept the remaining seasons at that price level for several years until they released season 9 and the slimline sets stripped of the extras. Recently the entire series was on sale for like $150.
I remember buying the first seasons of 24, CSI, SG-1, and Sliders for over $60 each. Of course the prices for these have all dropped dramatically due to price competition and targeting the more casual fan.
Paramount did 2-episode discs of TOS for, what, $15-20? They were used to selling Trek episodes on video for $10-15 each. They probably figured at first $100 for a season of TNG was generous. And of course people bought them as they have come out, so Paramount had no reason to lower the price as quickly as with other franchises.
A quick glance at Amazon US shows TNG-DS9-VGR-ENT all going for $50-55 a season.
I bought all of TNG, DS9, and the first 5 seasons of VGR as they came out <ouch$$$>. But I finally finished VGR when Amazon UK had the R2 slimline editions on sale for like £16 each. So you can find deals out there.
Like, recently I did a blind buy of Buffy. It was $70 for the complete series from Amazon UK. And you can even get Farscape for $22 shipped a season from CD WOW in Australia. Might have to try Farscape sometime...
I remember buying the first seasons of 24, CSI, SG-1, and Sliders for over $60 each. Of course the prices for these have all dropped dramatically due to price competition and targeting the more casual fan.
Paramount did 2-episode discs of TOS for, what, $15-20? They were used to selling Trek episodes on video for $10-15 each. They probably figured at first $100 for a season of TNG was generous. And of course people bought them as they have come out, so Paramount had no reason to lower the price as quickly as with other franchises.
A quick glance at Amazon US shows TNG-DS9-VGR-ENT all going for $50-55 a season.
I bought all of TNG, DS9, and the first 5 seasons of VGR as they came out <ouch$$$>. But I finally finished VGR when Amazon UK had the R2 slimline editions on sale for like £16 each. So you can find deals out there.
Like, recently I did a blind buy of Buffy. It was $70 for the complete series from Amazon UK. And you can even get Farscape for $22 shipped a season from CD WOW in Australia. Might have to try Farscape sometime...
Ahh, quoted for truth. This is true across the board of course.
I have never paid more than $32 for any Star Trek season set and never more than $9 or $10 for the movies. The trick is to NOT buy them when they first come out. Yes they are slightly reduced from the regular price on the day they come out but in a few years they will come down dramatically. $70 a season for Voyager is about as high as you will see now. They were well over a hundred bucks at one point. Wait for them to go on sale. Deepdiscount had some great sales during the holidays. You could have saved loads of money on them. Unfortuantely Its NOT the time to buy them after Christmas. Wait until next christmas and try again.
I disagree, your economics are wrong. I personally do not buy ST DVD's because of the price. If they were priced lower, I would buy them. So instead of getting $40 per set they get $0. Other more popular shows that are in higher demand are priced lower than Trek. Plus, just about every season of Trek is currently on at least one cable channel during the week. Paramount hasn't impressed me with their intelligence lately.
Like, why remaster episodes in HD but release them in standard format DVD's?
I think they took their pricing guide from what the videos had been selling for. It made perfect sense if people would pay say $80 for a VHS season set they would pay $100 for DVD, since the DVD had more. Would have been no sense it being cheaper than the videos (back then)
X-Files may have the first to do VHS series boxsets too. They did release two episodes a time before this, but stopped after 2 volumes, I think it was just taking them too long! But had they not abandoned volumes in favor of whole seasons you have to wonder if seasons of all shows on DVD would have taken off quite as quick as it did.
When I still bought Star Trek VHS tapes (10 years or more ago), one TNG tape with two episodes on it cost around 30 dollars.. Now you can buy a whole season of TNG for 20 dollars 
So no, I wouldn't say VHS were cheaper back in the day.
(Disclaimer: I'm operating with prices outside the US here, for all I know the VHS tapes were a lot cheaper in the US)
So no, I wouldn't say VHS were cheaper back in the day.(Disclaimer: I'm operating with prices outside the US here, for all I know the VHS tapes were a lot cheaper in the US)
They don't need your money yet. You're not a high enough tier in their demographics. If Paramount dropped prices to equal other TV series' boxed sets, they could not keep up with demand, and it would be very tricky to keep the sets on shop shelves. Then, when the market saturates too quickly, they'll be left with a huge backlog and no one to buy them, because they've already bought them at the reduced price.
Correct. But these are shows that do not have proven longevity, and syndicators are not convinced that they'll still be popular years down the track. So the companies putting these out are hitting the lower-tiered customers fast while the show's beacon is still alight.
Exactly. If everybody owned cheap DVD sets, there'd be no market for episodes in syndication.
It's not you they have to impress, it's Paramount shareholders.
Because HD players are no longer being made - Blu-Ray won that particular format - but there was still fan demand that the new CGI footage for Seasons Two and Three be released in a format they could play on their regular DVD players. Season One came out as a HD/DVD combo. Now there's no need for combo.
TOS was remastered to keep the syndicators happy about the coming of HD televisions, and still having TOS that would play well on the new technology. 60s TOS FX weren't deemed acceptable for broadcast in HD. Releasing the CGIed episodes on DVD was a bonus.
Okay I will research it. I have bought the boxed sets of DS9, VOY and ENT from EZ dvd (http://www.ezydvd.com.au/item.zml/796526, the VOY one). Besides looking great they work out to around 40.00 a season. I have been asking them about the TOS-R for over a year and they have no information on it. Perhaps I neglected to ask JB-hifi recently about it, though I know in the past I've been told they have yet to carry it.
Wait.. I see they have TOS-R season 1 listed, but it is "Release date unknown". Was this what you bought?
http://www.ezydvd.com.au/item.zml/801176
99.00 a season?! Ugh, why no slimlines yet.
Of course. In the lead-up to Christmas 2007. Just checked: Yep, First week of December '07 it was in all JB HiFi stores and Galaxy.
Because they haven't sold all the original packages yet?
Both places you asked have the info on their websites. Obviously, the pages were never updated with a date, but the sets have been available for over 12 months now. If you're not prepared to pay $99 for the first season, you're hardly going to be clamouring for Seasons Two and Three. And they'll probably come out in the canisters, then a three-pack first... long before slimlines. I don't think anywhere in the world have TOS in slimlines yet.
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Just until about 6 months ago, DS-9 seasons were about $60-70 dollars, at the same time Voyager DVD's were about $130 and they stayed at that price for almost a year. That was the only reason that I did not purchase any Voyager until they finally, they lowered the price of Voyager to the same price of DS-9. I have not checked on the price of TNG or ENT what is the going price for them???
No I am NOT prepared to pay 99.00 for them. I still have old videos of TOS. I can wait.
Sorry but I think these special edition Trek sets where you are paying 184.00 for one season of ENT etc.. are ridiculous. I have happily bought 19 seasons of Trek altogether over 4 series when they are at a normal price, a price equivalent to other DVD sets. People can defend Paramount all they like but I think they are ripping off fans because they know they can get away with it. Oh wow a PLASTIC coffin-esque case, yeah that is worth charging over 3 times the price of other series. IMHO the people that came up with this idea see fans as having SUCKER stamped to their forehead.
what burn me up is that they stopped making Enterprise because of 'low ratings' yet there's such great 'demand' for it that they charge nearly $200 per season.
That price is subsidizing all the people who copy the disks they got from netflix or off the web.
Here, in Croatia, you can't even buy DVD's because everyone steals them off the web. (You can rent them though. But there is a limited selection)
A related question is why are CD's so expensive. It costs a lot less to press 1,000,000 CD's than it does 1,000,000 albums. The answer is that, they think they can get away with it.
When CD's 1st came out, they were 4x the price of an album. The price's never went down. So now the high prices are subsidizing all the people who steal music off the web because of years of gouging by the record companies.
That price is subsidizing all the people who copy the disks they got from netflix or off the web.
Here, in Croatia, you can't even buy DVD's because everyone steals them off the web. (You can rent them though. But there is a limited selection)
A related question is why are CD's so expensive. It costs a lot less to press 1,000,000 CD's than it does 1,000,000 albums. The answer is that, they think they can get away with it.
When CD's 1st came out, they were 4x the price of an album. The price's never went down. So now the high prices are subsidizing all the people who steal music off the web because of years of gouging by the record companies.
True. Not enough US TV viewers supported ENT when it was airing. Its ratings were tiny compared to TNG. But less are also being sold, so the price point per unit will be higher - plus it's newer at the moment, while TNG has been selling in DVD sets for a long time and is closer to market saturation.
The answer is (partly) that the actors, musicians and writers also get paid a royalty for every disk sold. If their work is coming out on DVD, then that reduces the likelihood of TV repeats, so they deserve to be compensated for doing popular, successful work.
As for illegal (or even legal iTunes) downloading, I can understand the yearning to save money and download, but I want the product, with its packaging, liner notes, bonus features and commentaries. And that's what you also pay for.
I wholeheartedly agree with them being too expensive. I have recently rediscovered my love for Trek, so I've been Netflix'ing seasons. Although, I was able to grab TNG Seasons 3 & 4 used for $40 ea. last week. Although $40 even seems a little inflated for a USED DVD set.
