Ok, here is the deal.  I buy a lot of my DVDs Previously Viewed @ Hollywood Video.  Many of these have specific UPCs for the rental version.  I have submitted many of these, by taking the retail UPC and changing it to the rental UPC. Then making any other changes needed.

It just ocured to me, what would the SRP be?  I don't really have a problem leaving it the same as the rental version, but in theory, what would it be.  You cannot buy these new.  So would the SRP be the first price it is avaible at when put out prevously viewed?

For the Simpson's movie (024543484318) it would be 15.99?

Interesting idea.  $0.  Although, it also occured to me, if  I rented this, and lost the DVD, how much would they charge for a replacement?  That I might be able to find out...  I am friendly with the local manager.

Oh man, changing all those Hollywood titles to $0 SRP is really gonna mess up my "money saved from paying full price" stats bad.
Even though I got most of them for under $5, I also have a bunch of former rentals I scanned and submitted with existing info (when it was right, I checked 80-90% of the discs and audited many of them), but never thought about SRP and just left it.

I can see the "they were never for sale" side of it, but kinda feel the first, i.e. highest price they go on sale for could qualify. Even though they aren't meant for sale at first, they always end up for sale and I've noticed universal prices at any Hollywood you go to (local special sales are the exception). The downside to this would be release date. When the disc was available for rent as opposed to for sale, which date? Who was paying attention and can get this info. We need employees from all major rental franchises to report and dig through the old store logs.
Yeah, $0 is probably best, stats be damned.

I'm not sure how this is regulated in the US, in Germany however rental discs DO have an SRP, set by the distributor to be paid by those buying the rental version. The price demanded from the end customer is usually below that, as normally those titles are used goods.

Most of the time the rental titles have a predetermined oeriod during which their sale to the general public is prohibited by the contrctual obligations entered into by the rental store.

However, there's titles that don't have that period, either because their release date is the same as the retail version's, or the distributor simply doesn't care. In those cases (and, while not covered by the contract, in other cases WITH the aformentioned period as well), those titles CAN and ARE ordered by the general public in the rental stores to buy directly.

If someone were to start setting SRPs for rental versions I own to "0" I'd be clicking red for sure.

Quoting Darxon:

Quote:
I'm not sure how this is regulated in the US, in Germany however rental discs DO have an SRP, set by the distributor to be paid by those buying the rental version. The price demanded from the end customer is usually below that, as normally those titles are used goods.

It's the same in the UK. All the Rental DVDs have a SRP which is used to sell these to the dvd rental companies - who then rent them out, and at the end of their shelf life will sell them.

I don't know how we would find the SRP for these rental versions but it certainly shouldn't be zero.

I used to manage a local rental store a few years back.... part of my job was ordering the weekly releases. I remember that we used a company named Ingram... and I also remember noting back then that Ingram charged us the SRP of the retail version for the DVDs I ordered.

That is all the info I can offer. Hope it helps some at least.

Our cost was the actual SRP at the time... but thinking back I think it could have been determined  on the amount of copies we bought. Since we were just a small mom & pops type store... we would only order 1 of each movie so never got any type of break on prices.

Quoting DVDog:

Quote:
Interesting idea.  $0.  Although, it also occured to me, if  I rented this, and lost the DVD, how much would they charge for a replacement?  That I might be able to find out...  I am friendly with the local manager.

At Blockbuster, they charge you the full SRP for the disc, should you fail to return it.  I have no doubt that Hollywood is the same.  I would go and check myself, but my local store closed their doors.