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

[MatthewA]

Well, one night I watched two old Hayley Mills movies: In Search of the Castaways and The Moon-Spinners. The former was on laserdisc, and the latter was a DVD whose transfer was obviously a laserdisc port. The laserdisc looked better and offered lossless sound, something the DVD could have theoretically offered but did not.

And for the original Lion King, the picture improvements do not negate the alterations made to the film since then, especially the inferior replaced animation of one shot of "I Just Can't Wait to Be King." For that reason, I kept the CAV Laserdisc box set.

Outside of Disney, who has always been inconsistent despite proving time and time again that they're capable of doing more, there were plenty of public domain labels just grinding out discs of public domain movies from age-old analog tape transfers. Some of them extrapolated their bad habits onto Blu-ray, trying to pass off ugly examples of overdone digital noise reductions as "restorations."

Some of the early Fox DVDs were also not even 16x9 enhanced, just ports of the old laserdisc transfers. MGM cranked out a bunch of titles without remastering them, and some of them still have yet to be remastered; 1975's Smile is one such example.

 

[jcroy]

Well, one night I watched two old Hayley Mills movies: In Search of the Castaways and The Moon-Spinners. The former was on laserdisc, and the latter was a DVD whose transfer was obviously a laserdisc port. The laserdisc looked better and offered lossless sound, something the DVD could have theoretically offered but did not.

(On a slight variation of this).

The worst case of something similar I ever came across in a different context, was the Spawn bluray which looked like they just used the old laserdisc transfer on the bluray.

 

[jcroy]

In a more direct apples-to-apples comparison, the case where I found the laserdisc version was superior to the then-current dvd version at the time, was Blade Runner.

For many years, the Blade Runner dvd was a lousy bare bones disc with the director's cut version. The transfer didn't look very good.

The Criterion laserdisc version of Blade Runner looked a lot better at the time, and had some special features such as an art/sketch gallery.

 

[MatthewA]

Both of those transfers I mentioned seem to have been made around the same time, and Disney has only released the first one to Blu-ray at this time. For what it's worth, the guy who was running home video in the early DVD years now runs the parks.

Criterion will often have different extras on the same title than the same release by a studio of the same movie. Even now, that is the case with the two Blu-rays of All About Eve. The same goes for MGM; they remastered and released some titles themselves, then some got deluxe upgrades and new extras from third-party licensees. In their case, their patchwork library seems to make more money for them than new movies simply because they own so many movies.

Ghostbusters got a Criterion laserdisc with exclusive extras that RCA/Columbia never bothered to include in the pre-DVD days. Meanwhile, Annie, which the Torch Lady kept to herself for laserdisc, got treated better in Region 2 than Region 1 in the DVD era. It was then, the mid-2000s, that I finally went region-free.

 

[jcroy]

... reminded me how bad the worst DVDs can be, and also why it was two years into the format's existence before I adopted it.

(From a personal historical perspective).

My dvd adoption journey turned out to be even more protracted than two years.

Back in the day circa the late-1990s, my first dvd purchase was Terminator 2 (T2) which turned out to be a defective disc. 20 minutes into the movie, the dvd player + disc froze where I had pull the electrical plug and plug the player back in to take the defective disc out of the dvd player's tray. That defective T2 disc went back to the retailer for a return. (They had no more copies of that T2 dvd on the shelves that day, and just offered a straight refund).

This very much abruptly ended any and all possible "dvd collecting hobby" for me at the time. In the end, I didn't formally accept dvd until over a decade later, where I only really started buying a lot of dvds/blurays in 2011. (Over the entire 2000s decade, I had very little to no interest in dvd and bluray).

 

[MatthewA]

From the time I was about 20 months old, I had never known a time without home video in the home, so each new format seemed like a natural progression from the other.

 

[jcroy]

From the time I was about 20 months old, I had never known a time without home video in the home, so each new format seemed like a natural progression from the other.

(I don't know how old you are).

I didn't have any home video at all, until I was in high school. My parents didn't buy a vhs machine, until it became inexpensive enough.

In those days, the least expensive blank vhs tapes were $5 a pop in mid-1980s dollars. The better quality blank vhs tapes were easily $10 a pop.

 

[MatthewA]

I'm in my mid-30s, so that was the mid-1980s when my family first got into it. I noticed in the 1990s, blank VHS tapes got longer — BASF made a T-200 that could hold 10 hours in EP mode — but not necessarily better in quality. The tapes just seemed flimsier and more easily breakable compared to the older ones. So children of the 1980s (and the late 1970s if you were lucky enough to be in a family of early adopters) are unique in this respect because we grew up with home video but not the Internet, whose explosion into people's homes was a decade away.

 

[jcroy]

Thinking about it more, I don't think I would have ever started collecting dvds/blurays if I had to watch through every dvd / bluray disc I own.

Back in the laserdisc and vhs era, the few discs/tapes I purchased were primarily movies where I would sit down and devote my full attention to watching from start to finish. I never had any obvious ocd compulsive collecting/hoarding impulses when it came to laserdisc and vhs.


Since 2011 when I first started buying a lot of dvds and blurays, I have largely substituted computer "disc ripping" in place of any actual viewing. (ie. Rip now, watch later if ever). This may sound extremely irrational, but this is exactly what is going through my mind when it comes to my frequent dvd/bluray buying binges.

In contrast, there was no easy way to "rip" laserdiscs to the computer. Also dubbing vhs->vhs or laserdisc->vhs was so time consuming, that I'm essentially watching the entire movie at the same time while "ripping" a copy, which completely defeats the purpose of "rip now, watch later".

 

[jcroy]

So children of the 1980s (and the late 1970s if you were lucky enough to be in a family of early adopters) are unique in this respect because we grew up with home video but not the Internet, whose explosion into people's homes was a decade away.

This time period ^ of "growing up with home video but not the internet" only lasted about 5 years or so for me. I first got onto the internet in 1990.

By the time my parents purchased a vhs machine, I was more interested in hanging out with friends at the local pool hall or video arcades, than watching tv. The last tv show I followed regularly at time, was the first season of the original MacGyver. After that, I was hardly home during prime time evenings. I was mostly hanging out with friends at the local pool hall or nearby malls.


So "home video" was largely peripheral and not a big thing at all in my youth. For all practical purposes, I largely grew up without much of any home video at all.

 

[Mike Frezon]

I’m not Dave, but... I would say that I might just consider the streaming version the release. For a lot of things these days, I’m finding I have a choice between a DVD version as the only disc option, or an HD version that’s a digital exclusive. It’s harder for me to accept watching a DVD version when I know that it’s available in HD.

I faced the same dilemma with The Orville. I decided not to buy the DVD, even though I love the show. My household is subscribed to the commercial-free version of Hulu, which is how we watched it (in HD) in the first place and where it resides in perpetuity. So for me, it was a question of, why spend $20 for a standard definition copy of something I already have access to an HD copy of? Since I’m already paying for Hulu no matter what, why buy the extra thing?

Or, in the case of CSI. They put out some seasons on BD, but the later seasons are DVD only. I collected all the early seasons on disc back when DVD was the only format and got BD when they started coming out that way. But when they went to back DVD only for the last years, I stopped buying. Truth be told, that was just a coincidence on my part because I had lost interest in the show. Flash forward to last year, and I wanted to finish it. The DVDs have bonus features; the iTunes versions don’t but are in HD. And I had already started collecting the show on physical media. But I realized I had never watched the vast majority of those bonus features, so I went with the better quality version.

I love when the physical media version of something is the best version out there. When it is, I buy without hesitation. I buy with utter delight. But... if what’s on disc is not the best version, it’s really hard for me to buy these days.

Somebody give me a larger budget and a house and I’ll be glad to reconsider

But that's not the question I asked, Josh. If the only option is a DVD, you guys wont buy it?

Or is it--as Dave noted later--

What they said. I’m not buying HD shows downgraded to SD.

I only ask because there are several DVDs I've purchased in recent months. Mostly, films that have been released on DVD only. So I guess I'm wondering if the "No DVD" policy would apply to that scenario for you if it was a film you really wanted to see/own. I guess I would be surprised if so.

 

[jcroy]

But that's not the question I asked, Josh. If the only option is a DVD, you guys wont buy it?

I'll chime in on a slight tangent, in a very different context.

As a way of squelching my ocd compulsive collecting/hoarding behavior, I've been using a jedi mindfuck mantra of "no bluray = no sale" to trick myself into NOT buying a particular title which has not been released on bluray.

For example, such as many tv show season sets and various less popular non-genre type movies (ie. lousy action movies, romcoms, generic dramas, etc ...). Outside of genre stuff, my other big weakness is for lousy action movies which litter many dvd dump bins.

 

[jcroy]

I won't buy a DVD of a show that was originally broadcast in HD.

This is exactly ^ the type of thing that I've been using my jedi mindfuck "no bluray = no sale" mantra on, primarily to severely restrict my ocd compulsive impulse buying of tv show season sets.

 

[DaveF]

But that's not the question I asked, Josh. If the only option is a DVD, you guys wont buy it?

Or is it--as Dave noted later--



I only ask because there are several DVDs I've purchased in recent months. Mostly, films that have been released on DVD only. So I guess I'm wondering if the "No DVD" policy would apply to that scenario for you if it was a film you really wanted to see/own. I guess I would be surprised if so.

I'm not buying HD-native material downgraded to SD. The Good Place is HD streaming, so I'd subscribe to Hulu to rewatch if I wanted to over buying it on DVD.

I'll consider buying SD-native material in SD, but it's got to be something I love (and in which case I probably already own it) or something I'm remiss in not yet having seen that I'll still consider it (e.g. The Wire).

I can't think of any movies that I love that are only on VHS or DVD. There are some standard-def TV shows I'd consider buying on DVD to watch. But there's so much stuff to watch, that those are ever lower priority for me.

 

[jcroy]

(Further elaboration).

Since one of my big non-genre weaknesses is for lousy action movies whether on bluray or dvd, another variation of the jedi mindfuck I've been using is "no 4Kbluray = no sale". Currently I don't even own a 4Kbluray UHD player.

Action movies ranging from excellent to outright garbage, seems to be a mainstay of bluray releases since its inception in 2006. Over the years I've found that most of the action movie blurays I buy, were only watched once or twice. So I've been finding ways to severely restrict my impulse buying of such stuff.


So these twin jedi mindfucks of "no bluray = no sale" and "no 4Kbluray = no sale", have been semi-effective at tricking myself into NOT buying many such dvds and blurays of lousy action movies and other genre stuff.

 

[jcroy]

Nowadays I mostly watch recent/current action movies on basic cable channels. Not so much anymore on bluray (or dvd).

 

[Bryan^H]

I'm not buying HD-native material downgraded to SD.

Would you buy native 4K remastered material only available on standard BD? The case with many, many BD titles

 

[jcroy]

Would you buy native 4K remastered material only available on standard BD? The case with many, many BD titles

Does this include old film which was scanned again at 4K or higher resolutions? How about stuff that was digitally filmed originally at 4K/8K or even higher resolutions?

 

[jcroy]

As far as retiring DVD, what if they quietly discontinued DVD-only players but kept selling those ultra-cheap $50 Blu-Ray players, clearly marked that they can also play DVDs? Someone needs a new player and doesn't want to spend a lot gets a cheap Blu-ray player since that's their only choice, keeps watching their DVDs on it but gets new stuff on Blu-Ray from then on?

Isn't there also the possibility that somebody will simply not buy a bluray player, after their old 10+ year old dvd-only player abruptly dies?

Such a person might just move on to streaming, and give away their old dvds and/or donate it to a charity thrift shop (such as goodwill or the salvation army).

Whether due to stupidity or ignorance (or both), such a person might not know (or even care) that a bluray player can also play dvds.

It has already been seen that the bluray advocates have completely failed in their propaganda / advertising efforts in convincing the general public to buy their product. (ie. People who are not hardcore tech/av types). At this point I suspect any further efforts at advertising (or "education"), will be falling on deaf ears.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

But that's not the question I asked, Josh. If the only option is a DVD, you guys wont buy it?

Forgive me, I misunderstood. If there’s something I want to see and it’s truly DVD-only - not a choice of DVD or streaming but DVD or you don’t get to see the thing at all - I’ll do a DVD.

Just bought the DVD of a 1950s sitcom called “Our Miss Brooks” - it doesn’t stream and there’s not gonna be a BD. There are a bunch of older movies that are DVD only and aren’t available streaming, I have those on DVD too.