Quoting mdnitoil:

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The reason you're not able to buy anything in physical stores is because the stuff was no longer selling and just wasting shelf space.

The stuff I talked about is genre movie not mainstream hollywood stuff that are always present in most of the store I frequent. The stores had removed the genre dvd from their shelves not because it didn't sell, but because the big studio give a better return % to kill the independants like they always do and to make place for the blu-ray and HD-DVD (when the 2 format were launched).

It is? Haven't noticed that over here at all. But there's an obvious reason for all this that has no connection to new formats. Almost everything of major importance (as in: commercially relevant) has been available on DVD for years.
Up to a few years ago there were big first time on DVD releases every month. Now they are far and few between. People already bought the classics they wanted, there's no reason to buy those again just so the sales numbers don't go down. We're now approaching a point where studios will have to rely on a steady but lower income from their back catalogue plus whatever their new movies make. It's just a natural development and was inevitable. If the responsible people at the distributors didn't see it coming they're just stupid. It's one of the reasons Disney has their vault system although that wouldn't work for most companies.

Quoting hydr0x:

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Almost everything of major importance (as in: commercially relevant) has been available on DVD for years.

Not everybody collect major studio released and even if we talk only about major studio a lot of important movies aren't on official dvd yet.

Quoting Mark Harrison:

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Quoting mdnitoil:

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The relative proportion of SD versus Blu is changing but, much like sales, total shelfspace is declining.

I've not noticed that at all.

Neither have I.

Quoting AESP_pres:

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Quoting hydr0x:

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Almost everything of major importance (as in: commercially relevant) has been available on DVD for years.

Not everybody collect major studio released and even if we talk only about major studio a lot of important movies aren't on official dvd yet.

Yeah but only those that do matter in the grand scheme of things. Example. I buy Hammer Studio films. I know some of the DVDs I have had a total run of 1000 in Germany. Compare that to the major blockbusters that sell MILLIONS and you know why speciality collectors don't matter at all when it comes to total sales. We once sold more than a thousand copies of some Pixar film in one week in one store in  a <100.000 city.

The same is true for every other niche, B-Movies, Arthouse, Exploitation etc etc

Quoting AESP_pres:

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Quoting mdnitoil:

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This is for southwest Ohio, so according to you guys we're way out of the mainstream.  I suppose we can be some kind of national exception.

It sure depends of the location and the store. When I talk about this I talk about the store where I live and all the major store here (Archambault, HMV and Future Shop) always have the same ammount of shelves space they had 3 or 4 years ago. But as I said they are now filled with mainstream stuff and maybe 25% of this space is for the blu-ray. Of course if you search really really well you can always find a Criterion dvd or a Blue Underground dvd... that make me just sad when I think that less than 2 years ago I was able to find many of the genre film I collect in those stores and encourage our local bussiness doing so.

Fopp a Scottish chain of stores on Rose Street in Edinburgh was a good place to find things that where not so mainstream but they where taken over by HMV in 2007.

After that it's kind of gone down hill a bit but the HMV on Princes Street has a pretty decent world cinema and horror selection.

Quoting gardibolt:

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Quoting FilmAlba:

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Quoting Astrakan:

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Personally I'm convinced we're looking at a dual-format situation for years to come:

1) The mass market format intended for your average Joe. This is currently DVD and it will eventually give way to downloads and streaming.

2) The small market format intended for A/V enthusiasts. This is currently Blu-ray and may eventually give way to some other physical format deemed even better than Blu-ray.

I've been saying this ever since the launch of HD DVD, and since then there's been no new developments that's made me second-guess this conviction.

Please tell me you never thought HD-DVD stood a chance of winning 

Had Warner gone the other way and decided to go HD DVD exclusive (which apparently they almost did, and then switched to BD-exclusive at the last moment) it very well might have.  That's an enormous library of popular movies, and it was Warner's BD-exclusive decision that killed HD DVD.

They hardly put a blind fold on and what ever ione there figure landed on would win. They chose it on the bases of no matter what HD DVD did it was miles behind Blu-ray because it never had the bulk of industry support.