For Those Who Still Think Physical Media Has No Place in the 21st century...

(On a tangent).

I still prefer "physical" paper books, than digital ebooks.

Apparently too many publishers are still very incompetent when it comes to books with a lot of mathematical symbols, which are frequently not rendered properly in the ebook verisions.

Really stupid stuff like plus "+" signs which are not rendered properly, and end up looking like "-" signs.

 

With most of the final few dvd-video patents expiring over the next several years, in principle there is nothing to stop anybody from manufacturing their own pressed dvd discs. Once expired, the patent holders can't use patent law to kill the dvd-video format.

 

So, if sites like Disney+ have a download feature, how hard is it for someone to download a show and put it on a blu-ray (for their own personal use only, of course; I in no way advocate bootlegging)? I prefer physical media as a storage device. All of my music - even downloads I have purchased and backed up - are on CD.

 

They don't let you do that - it's copy protected.

 

I think how it's all changing is interesting. So basically, how many streaming services does one have to get to be able to see every movie? Physical media makes this a hell of a lot easier and I can see this being one reason it sticks around longer than some have thought.

 

Disney+ has a download feature?

It better be worth more than what vudu offers last I looked as they only offered bit-reduced downloads for most movies that looked worse than the same movie streamed and they only offered it in 1080p.

With a good playback device 4k downloads could be something that would win a lot of people over who do not like to be dependent on their internet when they watch a movie or who have such low bandwidth that they could never stream a movie in top quality.

 

No such thing as a 4K download from any of the streaming digital services.

1080P only.

 

The home video charts at the-numbers.com shows physical media is still a force, selling a couple million units per week (combined blu/dvd). This includes a surprising number of catalog titles that appear to be selling 20-30,000 copies per week, such as The Goonies, San Andreas, Hocus Pocus, Matilda, Gone with the Wind, Gremlins, and the original mini-series of Stephen King's 'It'.

This can still add a significant amount to a title's bottom line, as bigger titles are still selling $40 million or more worth of physical discs (Captain Marvel $65m; Avengers: Endgame over $80m; Shazam! $32m; Aquaman $48m). That's an amount that cannot be ignored by the studios.

Plus, it would take a lot of $10/month subscriptions to make up that money, and not all of those who buy discs are even interested in streaming, or do not have the necessary high-speed Internet access to even make it possible.

 

As someone who was given a number of the earliest Japanese music CDs from a Brazilian producer friend at Som Livre back in 1982, I can attest to the fact that those I have still play perfectly and have no surface anomalies...yet. So I wonder just how long a disc that was pressed on a stable blank and was taken care of might last. The problem rests with sub-standard blanks it seems. I've seen "100 year guaranteed" DVD and BD blanks for sale. Of course, how can the manufacturers guarantee 100 years? Still, if the downloading of true HD or even 4K "bought" media ever comes around I'd sure go out of my way to figure out how to create a disc from that purchase. That's NOT bootlegging, it's preservation, whatever the greedy studios may think.

 

I guess it figures that neither studios nor services have much interest in such a distribution model but who knows if with the competition between streaming services these things will change.

 

I wouldn't really call San Andreas a catalog title just yet, but some of the "physical media is dying" stories gave some declining numbers for new releases, saying that they sold less in their first week than other titles out previously did in theirs. That's a bad way to think, since not everyone can buy everything that comes out in its first week. I will do that for long-awaited titles (or 3D now, just to encourage them to keep coming out) but if I don't buy something that soon doesn't mean I won't eventually.

 

Oh I have no doubt that 4K downloads are coming. It’s a matter of when not if.

 

Same here. It's very rare that I buy anything in its first week of release. Sometimes if it's a title I'm looking forward to, and it's under $20, I'll pick it up. But usually I wait until it's available for $15 or less.

 

I should have mentioned that it is actually available with Kaleidescape but I had something both more accessible and affordable in mind. I sincerely hope you are right and that when we will get it the quality will be better than what we can stream in real time and not worse, not sure if that will materialize though or if we will again get some watered down version of the stream.

 

Well there was Kaleidescape, but I’m not sure if they are still in operation or not.

 

Physical media absolutely has a place in the 21st century...it just has no place in my house.

 

How were you able to download 4K? Onto what device?

 

I'm pretty sure Kaleidescape is still open I'm still hearing about people getting their players and using their store. Also their website is still in operation. https://www.kaleidescape.com/movie-players-servers/

 

Directly onto the multi terabyte hard drive of their several thousand dollar players.