DVDs are dying right as streaming has made them appealing again
It's sensible for businesses to shift from physical media sales. Per CNBC's calculations, DVD sales fell over 86 percent between 2008 and 2019. Research from the Motion Picture Association in 2021 found that physical media represented 8 percent of the home/mobile entertainment market in the US, falling behind digital (80 percent) and theatrical (12 percent).
But as physical media gets less lucrative and the shuttering of businesses makes optical discs harder to find, the streaming services that largely replaced them are getting aggravating and unreliable. And with the streaming industry becoming more competitive and profit-hungry than ever, you never know if the movie/show that most attracted you to a streaming service will still be available when you finally get a chance to sit down and watch. Even paid-for online libraries that were marketed as available "forever" have been ripped away from customers.
When someone buys or rents a DVD, they know exactly what content they're paying for and for how long they'll have it (assuming they take care of the physical media). They can also watch the content if the Internet goes out and be certain that they're getting uncompressed 4K resolution. DVD viewers are also less likely to be bombarded with ads whenever they pause and can get around an ad-riddled smart TV home screen (nothing's perfect; some DVDs have unskippable commercials).
No ads when you pause, but holy hell, we've been getting DVDs from the library, and sometimes it's a good ten minutes of crap before the movie actually starts.
Just rip it and skip it!
If you don't want to wait for it to rip, you can play it in VLC. It will let you skip anything you want to.
VLC! Itll let you do anything for only free 99
Anything??? 😈
Any. Thing
You can do anything at https://zombo.com/
On a specific DVD I skipped straight to beginning of movie and had playback errors, I had to skip to menu and start movie from there.
Most of the DVDs I've played can skip the previews with chapter selection, but daaang the blu-rays locked that up. Can't skip anything at all!
I guess I've just been spoiled on Criterion Collection as that's the only Blu-ray media I buy these days, because there's nothing before the menu besides maybe a splash screen with the Criterion logo.
If you keep an eye on prices on Amazon, these versions are not as pricey as they used to be.
Press stop, then stop again, then play on your remote. That's a fairly universal way to skip straight to the movie.
i try to put in the disc, hit play, and just walk away so i miss all the garbage and the paragraphs warning me about prison time. kinda kills the mood
You wouldn't download a car
I would absolutely download a car 😆
Free and instantaneous creation of a useful asset? Sign me up
That's a big part of why I have a 3D printer.
Just need one more upgrade....
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Motors
I just need a bigger 3d printer.
I usually don't even turn on the TV until the teeny display on the player is showing "MENU". Achieves the same thing without requiring me to get up.
I still have that habit even when don't need to lol
Do you know where I can go right to the movie and not see all that stuff about the FBI?
On all the movies I download.
And lots of that crap is anti piracy propaganda. Stuff, that actual pirates never see.
Ironic
Way back when I used to copy movies to .avi files, my computer was in one room, my TV in another, I had a video card with TV out and a long set of cables, I'd preserve the copyright warning because it gave me time to start the movie then walk to the living room to watch it...
Hilariously VLC will happily skip the "unskippable" ads on DVDs
Sensible to who?
For all the reality of "streaming rights are a shitshow", what percentage of the population do you think is willing to buy physical movies?
Because I don't think it's all that high.
Someone go make Steam for videos and I'll pay for media again. My stipulations are:
Steam isn't DRM free, though. Most games use Steamworks DRM.
Yeah I don’t think DRM-free is really a requirement for most people.
So then we have iTunes. The only one it does not cover is the permanent ownership. Companies have yanked stuff from iTunes libraries before.
See also https://us.7digital.com/; there are a number of places you can buy and download CD-quality music files. I believe iTunes actually lets you download music you buy as normal audio files as well.
ITunes sells videos as well, which I believe they were referring to.
Oh yeah you’re right, I mixed up what conversation I was in.
That’s why you download it. Luckily iTunes m4a files are high quality and unlocked so I can instantly play them in anything, even my Synology apps.
Video isn’t the same though. That’s all still encrypted.
Steamworks DRM is not a requirement though.
I know, I modified it to make more sense for video.
Companies see that as a mistake. They want you on a subscription for life that they can arbitrarily change at any time.
Profits not increasing enough for this quarter? Better cut content, increase prices, increase the number of ads.
Profits increased amazingly this quarter? Better cut content, increase prices, increase the number of ads.
Profits down? Better cut content, increase prices, increase the number of ads, and start adding extra paywalls to some content
They want you to own nothing. Oh you unsubscribed? Sorry even the content you paid extra to unlock was only available while your subscription continued, you will need to start your subscription again and then pay to unlock the content again.
A show isn't popular enough? Better write it off, pull it from all distribution so you can claim it as a tax write off
Yarrrrrrrr
Yarrrrrr indeed
I wouldn't even mind the subscription if all the content was there reliably, and I only needed one.
I subscribe to a music service, because all the music is there and it's easier than swiping it.
If I had to subscribe to four different ones to get access to all the artists I listen to, then I'd still be pirating that.
Steam satisfies only your third point, though. Otherwise, no. You don't actually own your Steam library, Steam itself is DRM, and it doesn't have everything.
I know. I changed the terms. Pray I don’t change them further.
Pay so I don’t change them further.
FTFY
More like
I was pissed when suddenly I could no longer play any of my purchased steam games on my Windows 7 desktop that had all worked perfectly before. Eventually all your steam games are going to be unplayable on your current OS, and any game that is no longer profitable to support on the latest OS will be permanently unplayable. That's why I always prefer to buy games on GOG over steam. When you buy a game on GOG you really do own the game forever.
I honestly don't mind copy protections, I just don't like online DRM. If the service is good enough, I'll look past that particular portion.
I won't. "Copy protection" is much more about restricting and potentially even removing your access to something you've paid for than it is about preventing copying. I am not willing to buy something that can be revoked when alternatives are available.
Offline copy protection, like the copy protection in DVDs and Bluray, can't be revoked, they're literally designed to be static. It's really not an issue since, given time, it'll be cracked (and both are, I literally just finished ripping my collection). I'm fine with that form of copy protection, I'm not fine with online-only DRM because that's totally revokable.
Disagree. In order to keep those keys secure they can’t publish them, so they’ll have to license some sort of decryption chip. That just pushes the price up as some manufacturer ends up taking a cut from every player sale.
Also means you can’t do what you want with it. You probably can’t play it on an open source device. Etc etc.
Sure, I'd need specific hardware to access the media, but after I rip it, I can access it anywhere. The benefit to me of something like a Bluray isn't the disk itself, but being able to legally buy media and rip it to a digital format at home. That's a legally gray area since breaking copy protection measures is technically a copyright violation, but there's also legal protection for backing up media for personal use, so it's a bit of a gray area.
Given that there are no other legal or mostly legal alternatives, I'm satisfied with that as an option. Media companies rarely, if ever, go after people who rip media for personal use (probably because it's not worth their time and it's a legal gray area), so I'm okay with that status quo. If there were a legal option to get DRM-free media for offline use, I'd totally go for that. I tried that with streaming services, but the apps I used (Netflix and Disney+) failed when I actually needed them (my downloaded files "expired" on a trip when I didn't have internet access), so that's not going to work for me.
If this legally gray area goes away and I can't easily rip media into a DRM-free format for personal use, I'll go back to the alternatives I used when I couldn't afford physical media and Netfilx wasn't yet a thing.
Yeah I’m not paying for something and it still be illegal. I’d rather stick to piracy. I get your point and if it works for you that’s cool. But it’s not for me.
A good usenet setup with the Arr stack can automatically download basically anything you want and costs tens of dollars per year to run with very little, if any risk. (have there been any prosecutions for people downloading from usenet?)
With a little bit of work and an old computer for a server you can basically run your own automated piracy streaming service.
DRM = copy protection
Not necessarily. DVDs and Blurays have copy protections, but they don't require access to any servers. Online DRM sucks because if your internet goes out, their servers are having troubles, or they just shut down the servers for whatever reason, you cannot use your media.
So I'm mostly fine with offline copy protections (someone will crack it eventually), I'm not okay with DRM that requires online access.
Yeah, this is basically what we need.
FYI Steam had videos a few years ago, new purchases are discontinued but one can still playback their existing library.
I buy physical dvds. Sometimes I'm all that high when I buy them.
The MBAs whose sole purpose on earth it is to inflate margins over and over and over again
For the businesses.
Yes, the costs to actually make and distribute a physical disc are relatively low on a unit basis, but the cost of distributing a digital copy online make physical media look astronomical.
Even outside of cost, the level of control they can exert is vastly higher than any physical media.
Being able to prevent someone from reselling the movie or game they bought is very appealing to rights holders.
And customers. Almost everyone prefers to consume media in a simple way and that is streaming. Almost no one will go back to physical media. If streaming becomes absolutely unbearable, people would turn to digital downloads.
*whom
😝
Says so right in your quote
Physical is practically dead.
One by one I've seen pretty much any shop that specialises in physical media go bust. Virgin Megastores, HMV, Blockbuster, Game. The media section in my local supermarkets have gone from several aisles of games and movies, down to a single rack of recent releases. Even in gaming, I've had my disc PS5 for two years now, and the only thing I've put in it was Top Gun on 4K disc. The other games (BG3, Talos Principle 2) I purchased weren't even available on disc.
Consumers don't want it in large numbers, so they stop making it.
Really? Because used media stores are booming all over the place. Stores that sell new and used records alongside CDs, Movies, and video games seem to be in every mid size town I pass through.
The smaller towns like mine feel the effects first. It'll trickle up.
Game went that way, eventually being taken over by the used section, and now all we have left locally is CEX, which is used only. Most of the prices are about the same as buying new from Amazon. Anything really cheap is often the same stuff in subscription services.
Game still exists, but it's tucked away at the back of Sports Direct shops in out of town shopping centres, and their main products appear to be plushies and funko pops.
It is dying, and I'm not convinced it can be saved at this point. Who has a CD player any more? DVD players have gone from a £30 box that everyone had to something stuffed in the attic and the apps are built into the TV. A 4K BR player is still £150+ even for a cheap one. You don't even get Dolby Vision at that price point. I don't expect the next generation of consoles to have disc drives at all.
Physical media is on life support, and it won't be long before they pull the plug completely.
When I think small town, I'm thinking a couple hundred people. I've never seen such stores there. Medium is a few thousand. They usually have one.
The nice thing is that there are millions of discs and players still out there. For anyone who prefers physical media and avoids streaming (this guy!) there is no shortage. Prices could stand to come down. But even if they do quit making them, there are lifetimes worth of vintage media, and newer isn't always better.
I'm talking a town of 35,000-40,000 people. There is not a single dedicated new physical media shop here. The most we have is the rack in the supermarkets. It all went online to Amazon, etc, and now it doesn't look like it has long there either.
And while that old media will last a decent while, it doesn't last forever. The discs degrade, and fairly soon compared to CDs. Like 25 years or so.
And if nobody is making discs any more, the drives won't be far behind. It's full of moving parts, so stock up on them. It happened to floppy discs, it'll happen to optical discs too.
I didn't say new store, I said vintage. If you don't have one, I'd be surprised. There's gonna be one somewheres nearby.
As for aging media, you're right about that. Best make sure we reform copyright law soon. They don't deserve to gatekeep the entire world's cultural history.
You are really missing out then, because if you know where to look (like psprices.com) you will often find sales on only physical copies at Amazon, Best Buy or GameStop.
I'm talking like significant sales. Like AAA games less than a year old (that still costs $60 on PSN) for $15.99 kind of sales.
I cannot tell you how many PS4 and PS5 games I've gotten, and which, for 40%+ off. Too many to count. I've saved hundreds if not over a thousand dollars doing this.
dvds aren't dying; the media companies who own the rights to dvds and blurays are killing them
what's the difference?
nothing; just gotta point out that media companies are doing everything they can to stop us from owning our own media.
malicious intent
No DRM digital files downloads is the simple answer. There is no reason to go back to physical media to avoid subscriptions.
Keep in mind that DVDs did have DRM and the corps did try and get at the people who broke it. A new and improved physical media would have DRM and it's possible the corporations will prevent it being defeated this time.
Which means that yoy would only be able to play it on approved hardware. You can have your shiny disc but they will decide if you can play it. Perhaps they can detect how many people are present via a camera or require you do drink that verification can.
cough cough 4K bluray cough cough
Thankfully, MakeMKV is able to get through that with certain drives for every disk I've tried.
Ripping those disks is legitimately easier than playing them w/o breaking DRM on PCs
Legitimately playing 4K blu-ray video on a PC without cracking the DRM requires an insane combination of requirements:
Meanwhile MakeMKV can rip them on basically any Windows/Linux/Mac system with a compatible BDXL drive.
For real, VLC is great, I've totally had issues playing some of them with it. If I recall there's supposed to be a way to let vlc use MakeMKV to break them for playback, but yeah, way more work than just ripping it.
In MakeMKV preferences, Integration tab, VLC should be listed there
https://www.makemkv.com/libmmbd/
No, RDM is not the answer. If i pay for something i should own it.
Glad that you agree.
Yup, here's my hierarchy of preference:
Anything after 4 is unacceptable. VHS was 2, DVD and Bluray are 3, and Netflix was 4. Now Netflix has higher prices and worse selection, so it's now somewhere after 4 and not worth the effort.
I'm willing to pay a premium for 1 or 2, and I'm willing to buy discounted 3, but nothing is offering 4 anymore. 1 & 2 don't really exist anymore, so if 3 goes away, I guess I'll go back to the alternatives I used when I couldn't afford 1-3 and Netflix wasn't around yet.
VHS did have a halfassed copy protection technology attempted, though, which was Macrovision. It didn't really work worth a damn in the end, but even in that area the media giants were already huffing on the DRM crack pipe.
Dropout.TV would definitely fall under #4 if you haven't checked them out
VHS was kind of 2.5 thanks to macrovision...
🎶Yarr Harr, Fiddle Dee Dee🎶🏴
I'm sorry, is this a special version of DVD that can store 4K video? Uncompressed?
4K BluRay discs are compressed with HEVC. There's no way to get consumer 4K video uncompressed.
Uncompressed 4K@30fps requires A 6000mbps data rate. BluRay caps out at 144mbps.
A 90 minute movie would be 4TB. BluRay caps out at 128GB.
Exactly. And a regular DVD caps at 4.7 GB if I'm not mistaken. Not even close.
That's just single layer - dual layer is something like 8.4 if memory serves (which it often doesn't...)
Yep, single-layer.
They're talking about 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, which was introduced in 2016. The video is still compressed, but it's still much higher quality than DVD and Blu-ray, and can hold 60-100 GB of data.
But they wrote "DVD". I'm just nitpicking.
Ah, gotcha. It's annoying when people use "DVD" as a catch-all term for all optical media.
It is 😅 Words have meaning!
Exactly. I can't play Bluray disks in my DVD player. That's a pretty important distinction.
It's easy as long as you're okay with only being able to fit probably 1-2 minutes of video, the resulting disk not playing in any consumer player ever, and probably not even being capable of real time playback on a powerful PC with a fast drive.
😅 I'm not sure if I am, to be honest.
At the very least, it's still (generally speaking) higher quality video than streaming. It's not uncompressed, though.
Surely not? DVD is 576p/i (PAL) and 480p/i 💀. Not even 720p. 720p looks like garbage on a 4K display IMO. I really hope you are getting higher resolution from your streaming services than that, otherwise I think you're getting ripped off. (Streaming services are a ripoff to me regardless, but that's another point.)
Others replying to the comment included Blu-ray, so I did, too. I assumed it was a given to include that since others had already brought it up.
No harm done. I'm mostly just being facetious. 😅❤️
No, you're absolutely correct. Many people just don't realize how crappy the resolution is on DVD, and I would hate for people to buy some and be surprised at how bad it looks.
I ripped all of my DVDs because I have them, and combined they're something like the size of one or two 4k Blurays. So don't go out and buy a bunch of old DVDs if Blurays are an option for you.
Ha! That's pretty funny to me.
I think that would be a fun hobby for me, if I had the time for it. To gather a sizable blu-ray collection, and rip into a smaller size media library. There's so much to get into though, with all the codec options and settings and quantizing and shit. Mind-boggling when you haven't even started researching yet. 😅
Well, just start somewhere and optimize as you go. I've got an 8TB NAS (two 8TB drives in mirror), and it's not even halfway full, despite having a ton of DVDs and Bluray rips. I haven't bought many Blurays lately bags because Netflix was good enough, but I'm getting back into it.
DVD max quality is 480p, and it takes up ~2GB for longer movies at super quality m4v format with Handbrake (the first Hobbit movie was 2.5GB). 1080p Bluray rips are like 10x that.
I accidentally ripped a few with the wrong settings, but it's easy to redo it. So just get started, but make sure you have plenty of disk space. I use Jellyfin for watching on my TV and it works pretty well and was pretty easy to set up.
Yeah I have like 16 TB of raw storage (no backups, kek) but I'm nearing filling that up soon actually. 🏴☠️😅
But I do intend to set up a NAS and a Pi or something that talks to the NAS and serves Plex or (preferably) Jellyfin. Also it would act as a seed box.That would be sweet. I don't know where to start looking into what I need though. I want a Pi because it should run 24/7 and reboot very seldom, and it needs to be small because I live in an apartment and don't have a basement or anything like that. This is all so I can let my desktop computer rest when I'm not using it.
Yarr harr harr
🏴☠️ Yo-ho! 🫡
yall paying for movies?
I will buy 4k blue rays of movies I like but if that isn't available, eat ass and get fucked I'll steal your shit and you get nothing.
You had me at eat ass
I recently got the Twister 4K steelbook. It’s my favorite movie.
I have no issues paying for movies, as long as they’re actually mine. I have major issues with paying for a limited license to stream a movie, until the streaming service decides to end their contract and the streaming rights get clawed back without a refund. If purchasing isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t theft.
Yup, but only physical media, not streaming services or anything with online DRM. If I can't play their media offline legally, I'll find other ways of getting that data to work offline.
nope
Some people pay in order to be able to anonymously download movies. (Totally not me though, as that's illegal.)
At first I was cool with buying digital copies of movies from streaming services, when they first offered them. Until my neighbor apparently got his account suspended and had absolutely no access to all the digital copies of movies he had bought. I then realized... it's true, we're entering an age of, "you will own NOTHING and be happy".
So I rather support pirates.
Yo ho!
One business dying is not the death of a media type, FFS.
Well, it's not just one business. It's an 86% reduction in volume that represents the death of the media format.
I mean......I just bought Batman the animated series on DVD. Whole series too. I never got to watch it as a kid, but I hear it holds up even for adults.
I also bought Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles DVD which has the first 3 movies from the 90s. The stupid Micheal Bay reboot from the 2010s, and also a movie called "Batman vs TMNT". Which sounded bizzare enough for me to buy.
Now I just need time to watch these things.
Check out Gargoyles too, that shit rules
The dulcet tones of j. frakes is enough reasonto watch gargoyles rawr. Still mad at demora. Gargoyles is good.
The whole cast is amazing. I had no idea they had so many people from TNG on there until my wife told me last night...
Let's also not forget Keith David... That man could talk me to sleep any time...
May not be the same type of stuff, but I've seen comple box sets of shows like Courage the Cowardly Dog, Edd Ed N Eddy, and a few other shows for roughly around $30 a set at my local Walmart. It's absolutely beautiful to see physical media box sets at a reasonable price crushes streaming prices.
I just downloaded them, saved my wallet and the environment.
Are the numbers about DVD sales strictly about DVD sales or do they include all optical formats (Blu-ray/UltraHD Blu-ray)? Because unless I’m getting an old TV show that was only ever SD, my preference is to get a Blu-ray, not a DVD. I suppose if I still saw the super cheap ($3-5) DVDs in the grocery store for something I like but not enough to buy normally (this is how I bought Brewster’s Millions) then I might buy a DVD, but otherwise I at least want HD quality.
Isn't Blu Ray dead?
No, bluray is 1080p (or 2160p if UHD Bluray) while DVDs are 576p-720p (what looks really shitty on a 4K TV). I only buy BDs and UHD BDs these days
576p is the absolute maximum. Most DVDs are actually 480p.
I am pretty sure 1080p video will fit on DVD just fine if formatted as regular data disc. But I am not sure if H.264 or anything newer is supported, and video may not have the highest quality, but still better than 720p I guess.
That's true, but the DVD-Video standard only supports MPEG-2 at 720x576 (PAL), or 720x480 (NTSC).
Sure, you can put a 1080p AVC-encoded video on a DVD formatted as a data disc, but it won't play on a DVD player.
Huh. I had a vague memory that my DVD player allowed regular movie files to be played, but maybe my memory is just bad.
That would be very device-specific, if they wanted to add additional support for data discs. It would be outside the scope of the actual DVD-video playback functionality.
No.
You're correct. They are only killing the consumer recordable media. I thought it was all Blu Ray
I think it's only Sony's first-party discs, too. So someone else could theoretically manufacture them. I don't know if anyone else does, though.
There are plenty others who do.
Several tech YouTubers have talked about moving entirely to Jellyfin or similar, self-hosting their own movies and TV series from legally owned, ripped copies from their own DVD or Bluray collection.
It takes some work and time to rip, encode, and organize the files. But if you want to go this route, there has probably never been a better time. You can routinely purchase used DVDs and Bluray from thrift stores for a few bucks per disc... sometimes less. If I had a server and hard disk space I'd probably be going this route for media consumption.
Eventually the DVDs will go away entirely and then it will be impossible to create your own legal archival copies.
Honestly, I'd rip my collection, but at the time it takes to download that quality rip I'd be quicker just typing them all into Radarr and coming back later...
"Self hosting their own movies and TV series from legally owned, ripped copies from their own DVD and BluRay collection"
Ngl, whenever they say that they be doing that in said videos I smirk a lil. Yeah sure, that's what you say when you're in front of the camera&recording a video pointing out what others could be doing as well. All while they likely got stuff obtained from the seven seas on there as well, just like folk that are going to replicate that setup are going to have as well. Let's not kid ourselves, a whole lot of content is only legally accessible via streaming services with no other options (shortly before it gets removed from the streaming services, leaving no legal way to access it), and that amount is becoming more each and every single day 😅
Be careful I started down that road with a 500gb external hdd and now I've got a 40tb raid array and a homelab consuming my walk in closet.
Um, I would like one of those.
Say this now. And you start self hosting everything and have 2 40tb raids
I've had enough movies and shows unavailable to me that I'm doing exactly this. I bought a PC just to use as a media server, set up Plex, and started ripping all my DVDs to the computer and I can stream them to my Chromecast. No ads, available permanently. I can buy movies from thrift shops and garage sales, and at least for now DVDs are super cheap. It's not high quality video but I don't really care too much.
I've been doing this since 2008 - although I only recently setup Plex in 2017, before that I just ran a web server and played movies in a browser on various smart TVs, but around 2017 was when my main TV got an update that rendered its browser mostly useless... Fuck Sony by the way. And before smart TVs I just had a video card with TV out and long cables... Or burning VCDs, I still have my 5-disc DVD changer that could play VCDs as long as they were burned to CD-RW discs, though it's just gathering dust now.
Ok someone explain Jellyfin. I tried to figure it out and it just wasn't clicking.
It's your personal netflix with your stuff on it.
If you know plex it's the same thing just open source.
But they are just video player front ends for your media libray
I mean I have VLC. I have no issues with most media. I was under the impression it was a source for the media. Thanks.
Plex and Jellyfin organize your media using metadata and it's pretty much your own Netflix, Hulu type thing.
However, if you get a Plex pass you can stream your media outside of your network to friends and family. Or just yourself when you're out of the house. But your PC would need to stay on, unless you have a NAS bay with the hard drives in it.
I didn't see any channels. Is it like Kodi? Maybe I'm just using it wrong.
Not like kodi. There are channels to watch stuff for free, kinda like Pluto TV. However, I do think you can stream your own content from your PC using kodi, not sure though.
It's basically a gallery for all your downloaded movies/shows, that you can just click play on whatever you have downloaded.
My favorite part about DVDs is how sometimes they look just fine but the video doesn't actually play. I got a DVD from the library recently that the video stopped 10 minutes in the first episode and you couldn't even play or rip past that point either.
Physical media still really sucks in a lot of ways.
This is what's made me a little more okay with digital video games. The chance that some bizarre event will lead to that game becoming unplayable is non-zero. But, that's the case for physical game discs as well.
I'm upset at events like The Crew's removal and hope for more laws to make such things unlikely. Still, I'm generally accepting that by and large, publishers don't try to delete or remove access to people's games. There's no specific motivation in it for that particular evil.
Movies, however, I'm reticent. I liked being able to buy a few cheap movies on digital services, but Sony's mass deletion of their library makes me hesitant to continue there.
Also, you don’t have to worry about some random service shutting down. There are so many online dependencies with modern consoles that of the service shuts down, you gave an unusable brick, regardless whether you possess the bits they sold you
Likewise, I'm far less hesitant to accept buying digital console games than video because I generally can expect that once I download a game on my one device that I'll pull out the same device whenever I want to play it and it'll keep working when offline and even after the servers are gone, until the hardware fails. Modern games' physical releases rely so heavily on updates and DLC that the cart/disc you get isn't complete anyway; buying physical effectively becomes a digital game with an extra point of failure (and partial resellability). PC gaming complicates things but at least some games are available completely DRM-free there.
With video content sold online, streaming directly from some server is always the focus. As soon as the server disconnects you become unable to watch by default. Even if some service lets you pre-download within its app and watch offline (which probably won't work indefinitely without checkins anyway), that'll defeat the portability expectations for watching your videos on any device interchangeably.
Blu-ray video isn't ideal considering you cannot watch it on a phone, tablet, or linux system without cracking its DRM, but that's still way better for lasting access than anything else major movie/TV studios are willing to let consumers access without piracy.
DVD is better than Blu-ray in that regard - I've ripped DVDs that look like they fell off a truck and got run over multiple times and had no problem, meanwhile about 1 out of 5 Blu-rays I got from Netflix would have problems despite looking pristine. It has to do with the data density, Blu-ray packs so much more in the same amount of space, one microscopic scratch wipes out so much data...
Of course some DVDs suffer from bad materials. I was re-ripping my collection recently, and I have a few that have sat in a closet untouched for years, not a scratch on them, but the drive won't even recognize there's a disc. Probably oxidation of the reflective layer.
DVD is for casuals, Laserdisc is where it's at.
Nobody is touching my library of RCA CED Videodiscs.
Laserdisc is for posers, VHS is the business.
Lol, virgin VHS vs Chad BetaMax
we all secretly worship video 2000 though
How's that recording time, buddy
Virgin Blu-ray@2160p vs Chad VCD@240p.
Not really the same ballpark. VHS was wildly successful for over a quarter century... Maybe younger people don't realize how ubiquitous they were.
Laserdiscs were always super rare (at least in my working/middle class area)
All pale to the satisfaction of inserting a digibeta tape.
obviously in turn paling in comparison to a well-made flipbook and a live orchestra
I prefer a 35mm film roll and a piano. It's a bit easier to store.
lmao
Where do you store those? Together I assume, but it's gotta be a big box.
I sold my car to make space in the garage.
Worth it.
Unskippable commercials on DVD? What did I miss?
Oh yeah 100%. Old DVDs had ads that were unskippable, which played before you got to the DVD’s home menu. Usually just ads for other movies that were coming up around the same time the DVD landed. You could usually get around them by hitting Stop twice and then Play to get to the main DVD menu, but not always.
UNLESS you buy the dvd or Blu-ray from the UK. I found that out when I bought the UK version of a movie and when I put the disc in... The movie just fucking started. No earnings, no ads, no features, no menu. Just... Movie.
Wow, I don't even remember that. I've been playing DVDs on a computer basically forever, which rarely obeyed such restrictions...
I remember this as a kid, where (usually a Disney DVD) would have 2x 3 minute trailers, before you even got to the main menu, for other movies and if you tried to hit Next Chapter it would just spit back "Unable to do this at this time".
Sometimes you might bypass it by hitting Root Menu if your DVD player remote had it, but yes very frustrating.
If you had unskippable commercials on dvds, you probably missed pirated dvd stores like this one:
Gotta cut off any avenue of escape for streamers sick of not owning what they pay for.
Per CNBC’s calculations…
🙋🏽♂️I found the problem!!!
The trap closes.
When corpos close the door, I pirate a window
Aye, looks like that's where we be heading, maytee.
The enshittification of streaming is enshittifitentional.
Major B&M retailers of physical media are either dead, dieing, or have phased out physical media.
What a perfect time to issue a deathknell to the whole concept physical ownership.
Streaming originals that disappear will come back in limited release. It'll basically be the Disney Vault of streaming. A company like Netflix would subtly drop references and nods to "removed" popular shows in their new shows to make you nostalgic for the old show. Then bring it back for a couple months.
You'll especially see them all fighting for the best Christmas specials, but they'll pull this shit with Stranger Things by the end of the decade. They expect people to plan-hop and will use limited releases and seasonal specials as their carrot.
I have a 4k BluRay player I picked up for cheap. But I only have like 2 movies for it.
Does it do 3D?
You know what it might. But I need the glasses for my TV.
I thought those players only worked on special 3D TVs? I've never tried the feature because my TVs are always the cheap ones.
Yeah it does require a tv with that feature. Mine supports it but I've never thought to try it because it needs glasses. (and probably won't because they are expensive last I checked)
There's still the public library.
For now.
Why would I want dvds when I can own digital media?
Rip your own DVDs and you can have both, with redundancy
Or store them on a portable hdd and have redundancy without hoarding shiny plastic discs.
I store the discs because while ripping is of questional legallity by having the discs I have the morals right.
I find this to be an odd choice. No one is coming to your home to check. You KNOW you paid for the media. I'd throw the disks I know I would never use out, or sell them.
If you throw away perfectly fine physical copies, you are just contributing to the ever-increasing plastic waste poisoning our ecosystems, and if you sell them then your digital copies are now illegal. Just put them in a disc binder and stick 'em in a closet for fuck sake!
I don't get the point of having them then. No one will check, they're just filling space...
If you're going to sell the disks, just pirate instead, it's the same in a legal sense (you have something you don't have a legal claim to).
If you're worried about space, get a disk binder or something. Disks aren't that big, cases are, so ditch the case and keep the disk. I keep the disks too, but I have a ton of storage space.
I mean, that's just what I do. With some of my games, I have bought them on Steam (because I did want the devs to get paid) and have a pirated version for the sake of ownership, which imo is fair. If I was insistent on paying, I would rather buy a digital copy and download a DRMless one, if there is no DRMless purchase outright.
so are you. they're all going to end up in a landfill one way or another.
you mean throw the plastic case away?
Nobody today is not coming to my house. However the world has not always changed in ways I like. If the media companies want to make an example of somebody they might randomly pick me. If I have physical media they will not be able to convince the general public I'm a dishonest thief and so even though I might be legally in the wrong for ripping DVDs they will stay away: they are going to look for someone who they can make look like a dishonest thief in the court of public opinion. They are not looking to take me to court and win whatever damaged they are owned from my activity (it will cost them about 100 times as much $$$ in lawyers fees - they would probably win but it isn't worth it), what they would be looking for is to make an example in the news about how much someone loses and if I have physical media they instead look like jerks for enforcing a law on something that the generally public wouldn't even call a crime.
extras, commentaries, it's nice seeing your favorite films on a shelf
I really don't understand why they don't include this stuff on streaming services.
I've started buying DVDs and Blu-ray again after years of not doing so because there have been multiple instances of me purchasing a movie on some streaming platform and then it no longer being available. Also, there have been even more instances where it's less expensive to buy the physical product and then rip it than it is to buy the digital copy.
We'll since they are killing Blu Ray you better hope your hardware lasts forever.
They’re not killing Blu-Ray. They’re killing consumer writeable Blu-Rays. Tell me you only read headlines without telling me you only read headlines.
And even only SONY is stopping production, other manufactures aren't.
No they're not.
Because the current trend is to ensure the consumer owns less and less and just pays monthly for access rights.
No, the current trend is piracy.
The current user trend may be piracy, the current corporate trend is You don't own anything, pay a subscription.
Physical media cannot be altered afterwards. That's a thing Disney likes to do, for example.
Plus maximum video and audio quality. Some people don't watch movies on phones or laptops, you know.
All of that can be achieved with digital media.
Nobody is altering the movie file on my computer except me.
Digital rips likewise can be lossless, so there’s no quality differences.
Because the discs will safely store that data for decades longer than any of your hard drives will likely work.
Shout out to !homevideo@feddit.uk
DVDs, appealing? Have you watched them lately?
I tried to watch a DVD lately (as in past few years). Holy. Yeah. Not as I remembered. It's not even 720p. Looks like manure on my 65" 4K OLED. 💩 And the audio. I had to stop.
I think it was Band Of Brothers? Had to download a 1080p boxset at least. Then it was consumable.
It's one of those things were people have gotten used to 1080p or better and they remember DVD being pretty good, but when they go back, yeeesh. I remember thinking that about VHS vs DVD. Got used to DVD, remembered VHS being just fine, put a VHS on, oh boy.
Bingo.
Yep. I've recently been collecting Criterion Collection blu-rays (and 4k BR in the case of Citizen Kane. Which was incredible btw. First time seeing it too) for some of my favorite films plus classics I haven't seen yet. If you keep an eye out for sales you can get some really great stuff for under $20. Sometimes under $15.
The picture quality is second to none, the bonus features are always amazing and actually worth checking out, and I own them outright forever.
Edit: oh, you meant like actual old school regular DVDs... Fuck that
Yeah. I didn't even know people sometimes used DVD to mean just all sort of optical discs. Nothing against Blu-Ray, their quality is excellent. DVDs on the other hand, off.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The end of Redbox marks another death knell for the DVD industry at a time when volatile streaming services are making physical media appealing again.
But on Wednesday, Judge Thomas M. Horan of the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware approved a conversion to chapter 7, signaling the liquidation of business, per Deadline.
Redbox's remaining 24,000 kiosks will close, and 1,000 workers will be laid off (severance and back pay eligibility are under review, and a bankruptcy trustee will investigate if trust funds intended for employees were misappropriated).
In April, Target confirmed that it will only sell DVDs in stores during "key times," like the winter holiday season or the release of a newer movie to DVD.
But as physical media gets less lucrative and the shuttering of businesses makes optical discs harder to find, the streaming services that largely replaced them are getting aggravating and unreliable.
Still, places that offer DVDs have gotten significantly rarer recently, and relying solely on an increasingly cable-like streaming industry for home entertainment is a scary proposition.
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a Concidence I"m sure....