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

[jcroy]

Interestingly I do not seem to have the same condition with relation to my book collection.

I only ever read them once but I stil keep them (collect?). I have never read a book twice in my life I don't think.
I still think it is important to keep them just in case I may need to reference them in some capacity despie how unlikely that is ever to occurr.

I do to a lesser degree maybe select a book to read from my mood but it is less extreme than when I decide to watch a film.

It might have to do with the nature of the type of books I read.

Most of my "pleasure reading" are highly technical books with equations and difficult to understand explanations. So most of the time I am going through passages (or chapters) from several books, and sometimes working out some of the technical details with pencil and paper to understand the explanations.

 

[BobO'Link]

Do you have slower internet? Or a great upscaling display? I’m finding streaming looks as good or better than HD cable broadcast. And both look better than DVD. I haven’t done rigorous comparisons, but I’m struggling to believe DVD looks better than nominal HD streaming?

400Mbps internet, a 4K BR player (that upscales very well), and a 49" display (I'm guessing it upscales quite well itself as my region free DVD player also looks good on it - but most of that is pre-HD R2 TV shows which are going to look better than NTSC anyway). I stream on an XBox-360 (on a wired connection - does a fairly good job streaming but has a rather clunky interface) or my laptop (has 5G NIC and typically gets ~250Mbps on speed tests - very good for streaming but I'd rather watch on the TV). I feel those DVDs of The Orville look quite good on my TV, actually a bit better than I recall it looking when originally watching on my laptop (that video had clear signs of compression artifacts and occasional blockiness - even on my far more than fast enough internet). Are they as good as the current streaming version? I have no idea and am not going to buy a digital copy to find out. I couldn't tell you what a "HD cable broadcast" looks like as my set hasn't been connected to cable for several years.

 

[TJPC]

The only time I seem to see a movie on disc more than once is when I upgrade. When I replaced my tape collection with DVDs, I watched those discs, and now I am watching the Blu ray versions. I watch the ones I have just bought to make sure they are OK, and plan to re-watch the favourites later. I have never been able to get ahead. The drawer I keep the latest ones in always has new discs I have to watch first.
I bought the complete Monty Python 15 years ago on DVD and watched it once of course. Now I am watching disc one of the Blu ray set.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Before I buy a new edition of anything I already have on another format, I have to watch the copy I have on my current equipment both to see if the quality of the old copy is really lacking and if I even like the movie enough to buy it again. Even if I just have something on VHS, I will watch that and then decide if I really like the movie enough to buy it again. (As a rule, I never get rid of the older copies regardless, especially since they usually aren't even worth anything to anyone else.)

 

[Carl David]

Before I buy a new edition of anything I already have on another format, I have to watch the copy I have on my current equipment both to see if the quality of the old copy is really lacking and if I even like the movie enough to buy it again. Even if I just have something on VHS, I will watch that and then decide if I really like the movie enough to buy it again. (As a rule, I never get rid of the older copies regardless, especially since they usually aren't even worth anything to anyone else.)

I think that is good practice not to get rid of anything. Because most people have thrown away VHS and other types of media as it is "worthless" it could potentially be very scarce in the future and could command a premium.

I think this will be the case with a lot of things such as VHS players etc. I am aware of things like D-VHS and Betamax films selling for healthy prices on some titles.

The same goes for all computer consoles and games. You seen the prices some of them go for now? Especially if they still have the original box with them too. You can say the same for toys too whether general or toys from films such as Star Wars etc.

It's also fun from a notsalgic perspective having a collection of all different types of media assuming you have that variety in your collection.

 

[TJPC]

I think that is good practice not to get rid of anything. Because most people have thrown away VHS and other types of media as it is "worthless" it could potentially be very scarce in the future and could command a premium.

I think this will be the case with a lot of things such as VHS players etc. I am aware of things like D-VHS and Betamax films selling for healthy prices on some titles.

The same goes for all computer consoles and games. You seen the prices some of them go for now? Especially if they still have the original box with them too. You can say the same for toys too whether general or toys from films such as Star Wars etc.

It's also fun from a notsalgic perspective having a collection of all different types of media assuming you have that variety in your collection.

Ahh, you have not lived through the great beanie baby crash of ‘05!

 

[OLDTIMER]

More generally, I see a similar behavior and patterns in my older relatives, where they spent an entire lifetime accumulating many tapes, discs, books, etc .... After they retired, they hardly ever used any of the stuff they had. For example after my father retired, he ended up just watching tv all day tuned to CNN (or another 24 hours news channel) and almost never used any of the cds, tapes, dvds, vinyl records, books, etc .... he had collected over the past 50+ years.

Not always so! I'm 84 years of age and long retired. My DVD/Blu-ray/4K collection totals more than 1000 movies. My wife and I watch at least 4 or 5 of these movies every week. We also watch the occasional streaming or free-to-air movie. I have around 800 CDs and many mini-discs (containing my former LP collection) which I listen to regularly. I am also still buying new DVDs, Blu-rays and 4Ks. My greatest concern is that I won't live long enough to get through my complete collection.

 

[Carl David]

Ahh, you have not lived through the great beanie baby crash of ‘05!

I have never heard of or have any idea of what you mention.

 

[Carl David]

Not always so! I'm 84 years of age and long retired. My DVD/Blu-ray/4K collection totals more than 1000 movies. My wife and I watch at least 4 or 5 of these movies every week. We also watch the occasional streaming or free-to-air movie. I have around 800 CDs and many mini-discs which I listen to regularly. I am also still buying new DVDs, Blu-rays and 4Ks. My greatest concern is that I won't live long enough to get through my complete collection.

That's great you are enjoying the benefits of your personal collection.

I hope you get the opportunity to get through your whole collection at least once.

 

[Carl David]

I have been looking for the link in this thread to the physical media sales for 2019.

Could not find it so I will just ask.

I think the data confirmed the total revenue for physical media was $3 billion and for streaming it was $15 billion or something like that.

Does anyone know if this was for global sales or just United States?

 

[jcroy]

The discs I am buying generally are films that I intend to watch repeatedly over time. Trying to be objective I think most of the films I buy are considered excellent films whether by critics or audiences alike.

I don't have 100+ 80s slasher films in my collection or every 50s Sci-Fi B picture ever released or an abundance of Schlock etc.

In fact I don't even think I have more than 1 film in each category of those types. I'd like to think my collection is predominantly functional.

(Long rant).

As a result of the jedi mindfucks of "no bluray = no sale" and "no 4Kbluray = no sale" that I've been repeatedly saying to myself as a way of tricking myself into NOT buying a lot of movies, most of my remaining purchases has only really been scifi movies. Unfortunately most of it was largely garbage that was being "passed" as scifi movies.


One extreme case almost led to me buying a 4Kbluray UHD player, but I ended up using a convoluted mindfuck to talk myself out of buying 4Kbluray. This was the movie "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" which was released on 4Kbluray in late 2017. The convoluted mindfuck I was playing on myself to fool myself into NOT buying a 4Kbluray player, was to read through every single review of Valerian and repeatedly re-read all the bad reviews.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerian_and_the_City_of_a_Thousand_Planets

I was about to buy a 4Kbluray UHD player, but by chance I saw the dvd version of this Valerian movie for $5 and decided to buy that dvd instead and not the 4Kbluray player. I wanted to see whether the bad reviews were actually for real or not. It turns out after watching the movie once, I realized right away it was a rather lousy movie which didn't really hold my attention. (Otherwise it had decent special effects, with a lackluster story).

Since this "close call" where I just missed out on buying a 4Kbluray player, I have come to the realization that there were hardly any good scifi movies released over the past 20+ years or so.


I have extremely high standards for scifi movies and tv shows, of which very few end up having any replay value for me. For me, it has to be in the league of classics like: the original Terminator 1 and 2, the original Total Recall, the first Blade Runner, etc .... Otherwise most scifi films end up as garbage stuff I end up watching only once or twice.

 

[jcroy]

Here's another case of a scifi movie, which turned out to fall flat for me on dvd (or bluray).

Back in the day when The Matrix was in the theaters, I was very obsessed with this movie that I ended up watching it over a dozen times in the theater.

Though when I picked up the dvd version, I ended up only watching it two times from start to finish. The dvd had no rewatch value for me.

For that matter when I finally picked up The Matrix trilogy on bluray, I only watched the blurays once. Since then, I have had very little to no desire to watch The Matrix trilogy again. (Not even just the first Matrix movie).

 

[TJPC]

I have never heard of or have any idea of what you mention.

Ok, here goes. In the early 2000s, people amassed huge collections of little stuffed animals called Beanie Babies. There was at least two magazines devoted to collectors. Regular ones cost around $15.00 each, but there were “rare” ones — like a Lady Dy commemorative that sold for 3 figures.

We were caught up in the frenzy and spent a lot of time seeking them out. We must have had at least a couple hundred. We were all convinced that we would make a fortune from the collectable market. I remember hoping I could amass money to pay for my daughters university.

Then the bottom dropped out. The prices went down and down. The last we were able to sell went for $2.00. Eventually the rest were donated to the good will.

That is my experience with “collectables”.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

My experience with collecting has taught me that with very few exceptions, no one is more interested in the item being collected than the collector who bought it in the first place. Yes, there’s the occasional thing that retains or increases its value, but when it comes to the sum total of all discs ever released, there are very, very few that are actually investments. And even when you get one that could be worth something, it’s all about finding the right person to buy, which is rarely as easy as it sounds. Of everything I have on disc, my Disney Treasures tins have retained/gained the most value. Some of those titles fetch $300 each. But the number of people willing to pay $300 is pretty low. I’m not going to find someone off the street or a used disc shop that would give me anywhere close to that. I’d only get it if I was willing to list it for sale online, hold the line on asking price and wait months or likely years for the right buyer. If you scale that up for larger collections, that’s a lot of time and space to invest to hope for the best resale outcome.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

You know what. If I ever make it to retirement I will probably do the same thing and just casually watch TV every day and stream movies.

I can understand the mentality from doing that once in retirement.

I am 3+ years into retirement, and my viewing habits haven't changed much. I still watch pretty much only live sports via TV, with the rest of my viewing being either movies or TV shows on disc or streaming. The only real difference for me is the addition of watching material via streaming instead of viewing all that material via disc only, and that has nothing to do with me being retired.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

My experience with collecting has taught me that with very few exceptions, no one is more interested in the item being collected than the collector who bought it in the first place.

I've had a different experience over the past year. I used to collect comic books in my younger days, and my collection has sat in our basement untouched since we moved into our current home 25 years ago. My wife, with my permission, took it upon herself to begin selling the books via Facebook Marketplace and Ebay. So far, she has earned me over $4,000 and has sold only about 10% of the collection.

I also had some vintage toys in the basement from my childhood that were just taking up space. My Aurora slot car racing set sold for about $100, and we just sold my old electric football game (the one with the vibrating field) for $150 - - it was Super Bowl IV Chiefs versus Vikings. Other items sold in the past were my original handheld Mattel electronic sports games (the ones with the LED lights for players).

My wife's efforts over the past year funded a new set of golf clubs and a new Canon EOS R camera (photography is a big hobby of mine), and I still have money left.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Clearly I’ve been collecting the wrong stuff!

 

[jcroy]

My experience with collecting has taught me that with very few exceptions, no one is more interested in the item being collected than the collector who bought it in the first place. Yes, there’s the occasional thing that retains or increases its value, but when it comes to the sum total of all discs ever released, there are very, very few that are actually investments. And even when you get one that could be worth something, it’s all about finding the right person to buy, which is rarely as easy as it sounds. Of everything I have on disc, my Disney Treasures tins have retained/gained the most value. Some of those titles fetch $300 each. But the number of people willing to pay $300 is pretty low. I’m not going to find someone off the street or a used disc shop that would give me anywhere close to that. I’d only get it if I was willing to list it for sale online, hold the line on asking price and wait months or likely years for the right buyer. If you scale that up for larger collections, that’s a lot of time and space to invest to hope for the best resale outcome.

Definitely.

I realized this early on back in the day, when I tried selling my old vinyl record collection when the audio cd format first became ubquitious around 1990 or so. By that time, many titles I was interested in were only being released on cd and no longer on vinyl.

The best offer anybody would offer me at the time for my old record collection, was basically pennies on the dollar. They told me upfront that there was no more market for vinyl records at that particular point in time, back in 1990-1991. (I was completely ignorant of the notion of "supply and demand" in those days).

In the end, my old vinyl record collection ended up collecting dust in storage at my parents' home for over 25 years.

 

[jcroy]

Nowadays I don't bother selling my old stuff. Too much effort for very little in return.

I just give away my old stuff to nearby relatives and friends. For example, I gave away my old comic book collection to some younger relatives who were into superhero type stuff. (Including the valuable X-Men issues).

If I'm going to be selling much of anything, it would have to be something that will bring in at least over $10000 in one transaction (such as a house). Nowadays I'm not going to waste my time selling stuff which only brings in a few thousand dollars over many many transactions (such as selling on ebay) and dealing with all the headaches involved (ie. returns, etc ...).

 

[jcroy]

Clearly I’ve been collecting the wrong stuff!

Collectables is a lousy market to be "investing" in, unless you're an "expert" in that particular market and know how to move stuff easily. (ie. Amateurs need not apply, who are fleeced easily in a darwinian manner).

If I'm looking for something which is strictly an "investment", at minimum I would be better off just leaving my cash in short term federal government treasury bills/notes or even a bank cd.


(This is not meant to be investing advice).

In general I assume most assets will not be going up. Not even just tracking inflation.