For Those Who Still Think Physical Media Has No Place in the 21st century… (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

I actually think DVD is more likely to be the last physical format that survives. The numbers aren’t trending in a great direction for any disc format long term. DVD still has the largest consumer install base. For circumstances where streaming isn’t used, it’s more likely to be because someone never moved past DVD.

There is a small but relatively robust specialty market for DVD coming from places where picture quality isn’t a consideration and where streaming is not yet practical. For example, schools. It’s still easier in a lot of schools to wheel in a cart with a TV and DVD player to show something than it is to install WiFi and streaming boxes. People who check out physical media at public libraries statistically are much more likely to be watching on DVD.

DVD has value as a lowest common denominator and that’s what will likely keep it afloat as the last physical format. By the time we get there, they won’t be moving many units, but I think that’ll be the last one to go.

There you go with another anti-disc post.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

There you go with another anti-disc post.

Guess who just got a new DVD in the mail this week?

 

[Ronald Epstein]

While I won't buy anything on DVD unless I absolutely must, I tend to agree that DVD could survive.

I know a few people that have older televisions, are not into the home theater experience, have not adopted to Blu-ray and still buy DVDs.

 

[MatthewA]

If DVD survives well into this decade, it will likely be as a "court of last resort" for obscure movies and unreleased 1980s sitcoms shot on tape. Meanwhile, who's going to buy a DVD of a show you can already stream in HD or purchase in HD from iTunes?

What is your logic for that conclusion? Those that are going to buy UHD have already forsaken DVD, unless a film title is only available in the DVD format.

And future adopters of UHD will likely do the same. Meanwhile, the only way Blu-ray will grow from here on in is if it replaces DVD in the places Josh mentioned. DVD has survived 10+ years of Blu-ray competition, but when it launched, streaming was still nothing then compared to what it is now and 4k was something only movie theaters had. People forget how quickly they stopped making laserdiscs after DVD came along, yet in this case they haven't abandoned the old format for the new one. Blu-ray also has more independent, foreign, and classic movies available than 4k, so that will probably be the format of choice for those for the foreseeable future.

 

[bmasters9]

Probably never seriously occurred to them that it was possible to own “Friends” on PM.

And without all the commercials that chew up more and more time lately (or servers that can go down at any time)!

 

[titch]

The situation is comparable with Super Audio CD's. A correctly mastered SACD can provide a listening experience far superior to listening to the same album on vinyl or regular compact disc, akin to listening the original master studio tapes. Sony made an effort 20 years ago to launch the format but only a small fraction of music listeners had playback equipment that could play SACDs. They were often considerably more expensive than regular CDs and needed a dedicated SACD player. So after five years Sony pulled the plug. Today there are two or three manufacturers making limited runs of SACDs and they sell like hot cakes to collectors. Just last month I purchased two Bill Evans SACDs that were only released on SACD in Japan. 99% of the population listens to music via streaming services but there is a small niche of serious audiophile collectors, who are still buying SACDs. Even blu-ray audio discs are still being released, to those with deep pockets and large amounts of shelf space!

In a couple of years, only boutique blu-ray labels will remain and will be selling to collectors. Everyone else will be happy with streaming. And that's fine by me.

 

[BobO'Link]

I actually think DVD is more likely to be the last physical format that survives. The numbers aren’t trending in a great direction for any disc format long term. DVD still has the largest consumer install base. For circumstances where streaming isn’t used, it’s more likely to be because someone never moved past DVD.

There is a small but relatively robust specialty market for DVD coming from places where picture quality isn’t a consideration and where streaming is not yet practical. For example, schools. It’s still easier in a lot of schools to wheel in a cart with a TV and DVD player to show something than it is to install WiFi and streaming boxes. People who check out physical media at public libraries statistically are much more likely to be watching on DVD.

DVD has value as a lowest common denominator and that’s what will likely keep it afloat as the last physical format. By the time we get there, they won’t be moving many units, but I think that’ll be the last one to go.

According to "Media Play News" research, BR, since its inception, has only outsold DVD a couple of months and even then only by a small margin. UHD sales are even smaller. That trend doesn't look to be changing.

I'm a network administrator for a large school district (~10,000 users). All our campuses have corporate class wifi and every classroom has some form of wireless device connect to a projector (Apple TV or Airtame). Mostly due to bandwidth issues we block most video streaming services (mainly allowing filtered youtube for instructional classroom use) and purchase desktop systems with DVD drives so there's no "cart with a TV and DVD player" to deal with. And we're not alone as even the smaller schools (~1000 users) in our state have similar setups/issues.

 

[Kyrsten Brad]

While I won't buy anything on DVD unless I absolutely must, I tend to agree that DVD could survive.

I know a few people that have older televisions, are not into the home theater experience, have not adopted to Blu-ray and still buy DVDs.

Colorized I Love Lucy episodes for example.
I just got that DVD set.

 

[BobO'Link]

Guess who just got a new DVD in the mail this week?

I got a new BR set (some obscure space opera movies from some guy named Lucas) and have a DVD on order (should arrive next week).

While I won't buy anything on DVD unless I absolutely must, I tend to agree that DVD could survive.

I know a few people that have older televisions, are not into the home theater experience, have not adopted to Blu-ray and still buy DVDs.

I purchase DVDs for those movies and TV shows that've not received a BR release and are likely to not receive such a release. Due to the size of my collection that's now few and far between.

If DVD survives well into this decade, it will likely be as a "court of last resort" for obscure movies and unreleased 1980s sitcoms shot on tape. Meanwhile, who's going to buy a DVD of a show you can already stream in HD or purchase in HD from iTunes?

Me. And likely quite a few others on this forum.

Just the fact those "obscure movies" and unreleased sitcoms (not necessarily from the 1980s) are generally *not* on streaming services makes the services less attractive to me. In spite of that I'm finding Amazon to be quite a good source for streaming many of those things. Right now I'm watching Cybil (a 1990s sitcom) on Amazon streaming. It has no R1 disc release. Sure I'd like one but at least I can see it.

I keep waiting to hear that Disney+ has added 20th Century's back catalog of movies and TV so that one will have some worth to me.

 

[jcroy]

They'll be sorry if books meet the same fate. Printed media isn't doing too hot if MAD Magazine went under.

I'll guess that the most problematic case of this happening, is when extensively researched history books are no longer being published.

A lot easier to "manipulate history" when there are no stable hardcopy records.

 

[jcroy]

I actually think DVD is more likely to be the last physical format that survives. The numbers aren’t trending in a great direction for any disc format long term. DVD still has the largest consumer install base. For circumstances where streaming isn’t used, it’s more likely to be because someone never moved past DVD.

Unfortunately I would agree with this. The DVD-video and redbook audio CD formats becoming the "energizer bunny" and/or "cockroach" of the packaged media market.

By sheer coincidence, they both also have no effective drm security at all and have no "revocation" mechanism (other than the disc rotting away).

 

[WillG]

And without all the commercials that chew up more and more time lately (or servers that can go down at any time)!

Definitely have noticed that Hulu commercials have grown in length.

 

[jcroy]

If DVD survives well into this decade, it will likely be as a "court of last resort" for obscure movies and unreleased 1980s sitcoms shot on tape. Meanwhile, who's going to buy a DVD of a show you can already stream in HD or purchase in HD from iTunes?

Me !!!!

As a current real world example, so far I have not purchased The Big Bang Theory (TBBT) complete series in any format (neither discs nor digital). Currently I still watch the daily reruns on the tv in the background, when I get home every day.

With that being said. In the hypothetical scenario were I to buy The Big Bang Theory complete series, most likely I would buy the dvd version and not the bluray nor digital versions.

The primary reason for this, is that I do not want to spend 12+ hours checking and ripping all the 24+ bluray discs in the bluray complete series set of TBBT. For a two-layer bluray disc (up to 50 gigabytes per bluray disc), it takes around 30 minutes to rip the entire disc's iso to the computer. In contrast, a two-layer dvd disc (up to 9 gigabytes per disc) only takes around 11 minutes to rip an entire disc's iso to the computer.

In addition, I'm not as critical in regard to picture quality when it comes to goofy sitcoms and generic dramas which are not scifi / superhero type stuff. (Scifi and other genre stuff is an entirely different matter when it comes to picture quality and writing quality).

 

[jcroy]

In the case of scfi and other genre type shows, I have largely exited the tv on bluray market for many reasons completely unrelated to picture quality. I wrote about this six months ago in another thread on here:

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/co...v-shows-do-you-still-buy-on-dvd.362179/page-3


My main issue with scifi / fantasy / superhero etc ... type shows, is writing quality and execution. When the latter two factors fall by the wayside and/or flushed down the toilet completely, it drastically affects how I think about the show. No point in wasting cash on the blurays, when the show turned to shit in later seasons.

 

[SultanOfWhat]

I've been following a thread on Hi Def Forum for years that tracks Blu-ray/DVD sales. The numbers for 2019 are in this post:

https://www.highdefforum.com/1425447-post5396.html

From the post by Bruce Ames:

Last week's numbers are in, so the 2019 totals are (in millions):
OD: $3393.39 -17.6% YoY (last year YoY was -12.9%)
DVD: $1792.13 -20.4% YoY (last year was -20.7%)
Blu-ray $1601.28 -14.1% YoY (last year was -1.2%)
Blu-ray share vs. DVD: 47.2% (last year was 45.3%)
Box office power: -9.7% (last year was +15.2%)

Main thread:

https://www.highdefforum.com/high-d...-ray-dvd-digital-est-uv-sales-thread-361.html

 

[jcroy]

Me !!!!


The primary reason for this, is that I do not want to spend 12+ hours checking and ripping all the 24+ bluray discs in the bluray complete series set of TBBT. For a two-layer bluray disc (up to 50 gigabytes per bluray disc), it takes around 30 minutes to rip the entire disc's iso to the computer.

As a concrete example of this, back in the day I purchased the three original Star Trek TOS bluray sets and the Stargate Universe season 1 bluray on the same day. As excited as I was at the time of purchase that day, my excitement was short lived when I got down to ripping all these bluray discs to the computer.

It took me almost two days over several sessions to rip all 20+ discs to the computer, and to copy all the isos to an external hard drive. For the most part, it was a rather unpleasant experience overall.

To add insult to injury, the external hard drive I copied all these ripped TOS and SGU iso files to, ended up abruptly dying two years later. Since then, I have not bothered ripping all these Star Trek bluray discs again. (In practice, I end up watching the semi-daily Star Trek reruns on various basic cable channels whenever I'm working from home).


Never again. This is why I am very reluctant to buy bluray sets with a very large number of discs.

 

[TJPC]

And you don’t just play the discs because?....

 

[jcroy]

And you don’t just play the discs because?....

Pure laziness. Plain and simple.

Easier to just watch the semi-daily Star Trek reruns on a basic cable channel.

This is the exact same reason why I listen to music on youtube, instead of playing the actual audio cd disc from my collection.

 

[jcroy]

Thanks for bringing up the question Terry. Now that I think about it more, this is a very excellent point regardless of whether your original intention was sarcasm or something else.

In a more general sense, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the shift away from discs to flat-rate streaming has a lot to do with pure laziness.

If this type of laziness can happen very easily to a hardcore disc collector person such as myself, then it can certainly happen for a lot of other people who have very little to no interest in cd/dvd/bluray discs.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

What you’re calling laziness is what another person might simply call “meeting their needs.”

Just as you’re finding that you’re content with whatever TV show happens to be on when you turn on the box, or that you’re satisfied typing the name of a piece of music into the computer and having it just play, that’s where the average consumer is with streaming. They either have streaming built directly into their Smart TV or have a box attached, they have a service to a subscription like Netflix or Amazon Prime, they see a list of what’s available and pick from that and move on.

I know you weren’t meaning anything negative by calling this “laziness” but I’m just not sure I’d do the same. To return to my earlier example of how I wanted to rewatch Frasier, almost bought the show on disc, and then realized it was being offered on three different services I already had... it’s just a better use of resources, including money and time. What’s the smarter move? “Spend money to buy something, wait for it to arrive, then watch”? Or, “turn on TV right now, press button, watch immediately for free”?

That’s why you’re not going to win the general public back to physical media as the default or first choice viewing method. From their perspective, their smart TV and subscriptions already give them what they want. Why should they go out and buy a disc of something that’s already right there on their TV? Is “Frasier” more real on disc than on streaming? Of course not.

That’ll leave discs for people like us who are enthusiasts who care about specific details of the experience that just aren’t important to most viewers. I’m okay with this. I think it’s great that the general public’s needs are being met with services and technology that offer them a good product at a reasonable cost, and I’m glad to have access to those resources while also being able to use discs when I want.