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

[Josh Steinberg]

I think Bryan and I had previously talked about this, might have been more in reference to video game collecting but I think the point stands - there are hobbyists and generalists in this world and I think the generalists have a hard time understanding why the hobbyists do what they do. And then there are the hobbyists who understand their own hobby but don’t see how anyone could derive pleasure from any other kind of hobby. Tough as it is (and it took me years to get this), you just have to tune those people out. If you have a hobby and it brings you joy and gives you an activity to fill your days with and isn’t causing harm to you or anyone else, who cares what other people think? I don’t understand why my mom and stepdad have a plethora of bicycles but who cares what I think? They probably don’t get why I don’t even have one.

I think because most people have a more casual relationship with the media they consume, they genuinely don’t get that other people get something deeper from it. And since movies or discs are disposable, one time use only trifles to them, they just don’t understand other people having different perceptions about it.

And then some people are just jerks.

 

[OLDTIMER]

There's one advantage of the falling sales of PM that hasn't been mentioned. At sales you can now pick up Blue-rays for a song. Even 4Ks too. CDs? Well, they give them away!
Strangely however, new vinyl LPs are more expensive than ever!

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I don't see why it would be any different. At this point, it's all digital data anyway, whether it's on a disc or out there in the ether. There are still things to say about the quality of transfers and sound mixes, and of course, the films themselves.

Exactly. We discuss the content here, not the container.

 

[WillG]

There's one advantage of the falling sales of PM that hasn't been mentioned. At sales you can now pick up Blue-rays for a song. Even 4Ks too. CDs? Well, they give them away!
Strangely however, new vinyl LPs are more expensive than ever!

because Millennials are into it too for some reason (and possibly because vinyl is lower volume). Believe me, unless you’re selling life alert necklaces, marketing is millennials, millennials, millennials!

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Until I can sell the rights to the copies of digital titles I've purchased or will my digital collection to my heirs, digital is *not* ownership but long term renting. I'm happy to stream some things but not "own" digital copies for which I've spent real money.

None of my heirs will want my disc collection. It will be just one more thing for them to get rid of.

 

[OLDTIMER]

I just thought of a more foreboding reason why LPs are dearer than ever. The medium becomes obsolete, then someone restores it for a small niche market. Hence the low-production high price. It'll probably happen to today's 12cm discs in the long run.

 

[jcroy]

Exactly. We discuss the content here, not the container.

This may sound very sad and pitiful, but my primary dvd/bluray interest nowadays is in figuring out how the "container" functions.

As mentioned in another thread yesterday, I've been attempting to figure out for myself how the extra BD+ drm functions on bluray discs. (Fox was the only widely known movie company which used BD+ on almost all their bluray discs from late-2007 to the end of 2017. Since December 2017, Fox has largely dropped BD+ from their bluray releases).

 

[Josh Steinberg]

None of my heirs will want my disc collection. It will be just one more thing for them to get rid of.

We should have an “adopt an HTF member” sub forum

I don’t get the argument that if something is non-transferable, it has no value. If I buy a plane ticket, that’s also non-transferable but it presents a certain value; it got me where I wanted to go.

The other thing is - on the whole, I’m finding digital purchases to be cheaper than physical media. And physical media isn’t guaranteed to retain value or use. A first run VHS copy of a movie in the 80s or 90s was about $100 (it was generally only kids movies that were affordable at first release, other movies would cost more at first and then later be “priced to own”). The pan and scan VHS copy of GoldenEye that was $100 then has no practical value today and is by any objective standard a ludicrously poor way to view the film. I really don’t care that I won’t be passing that down. The 4K digital copy of the movie I bought recently was only $5. At that price, I really don’t care that I won’t be passing that down either.

 

[jcroy]

One person's useless junk, is another person's treasure.

 

[jcroy]

How did you go bankrupt? Slowly…. then all at once.

From the video games side Gamestop is nearly dead. It will be a major net positive for the gaming industry as a whole for Gamestop to go away and BestBuy and Walmart to stop selling games at all. But it’s going to be a miserable epoch until we go fully digital. And the gnashing of teeth from those who have shitty internet service will be unbearable.

Death by a thousand cuts?

 

[Worth]

At this point, I'm straddling the fence. Favourites I still buy on disc, because I like the feel of having a physical object, and it (usually) provides the absolute best image and sound quality. But I've also become more comfortable with digital purchases, especially when titles are available for about the price of a rental, versus $20 or more on disc. And things I'm fairly certain I'll only want to watch once, I'll happily rent on iTunes or stream on Netflix or Amazon, or record from one of the movie channels. I feel like there are more options now than there have ever been.

 

[Bryan^H]

I recently asked my sister and her husband if they wanted to take a Blu-Ray of a movie they wanted to see. I have the 4K disc, so they could keep the BD as I will never watch it. They hem-hawed, and eventually (kindly) begrudgingly took it. They really enjoyed the movie, and thanked me later on. But this is the same couple that used to borrow movies, and ask about certain titles all the time on DVD, and well into the BD years. They haven't asked to borrow anything form me in years, and between Netflix, and Amazon Prime they have told me they just don't have time to keep up with all the content to watch.

This is where we are at. Streaming has indeed killed off interest in disc based media for the average consumer. At least that is what I am seeing.

 

[TJPC]

How much time do people actually have to sit in front of TV? We still have a regular cable package, and with that and access to my daughters Netflix account, we have far more available than we could ever watch.

 

[jcroy]

How much time do people actually have to sit in front of TV?

In practice, I have found that most of my episode/film viewing is from the tv playing in the background when I'm at home.

 

[MatthewA]

After someone hacked into my Amazon account, thus limiting my access to all aspects of it, as well as having to deal with authorized use of my Hulu account, my opinion of streaming media has not increased but decreased. It's physical media OR NOTHING from now on. That is non-negotiable. I'm not signing up for any more services just so I can have my pocket picked by someone who's thousands of miles away! This has never happened to me at any physical location I ever bought or sold any video or audio format at.

Death by a thousand cuts?

And not one of them accidental.

In most of my social circles, seeing a house full of movies was typically seen as someone who is a "low brow" bumpkin type..

In contrast, seeing a house full of books was typically seen as someone who was a refined intellectual well-read type.


Both are very unfair stereotypes, which unfortunately persist in my local social circles and numerous other ones I run/ran in over the years.

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

 

[jcroy]

It's physical media OR NOTHING from now on. That is non-negotiable. I'm not signing up for any more services just so I can have my pocket picked by someone who's thousands of miles away! This has never happened to me at any physical location I ever bought or sold any video or audio format at.

(On a tangent).

I would highly agree in the case of cd and dvd, where all (or almost all) of the patents have expired already.

I disagree in the case of bluray, where the most of the patents won't expire until after 2030. Bluray has an insidous revocation system which can deliberately "brick" any bluray player that the aacs folks want to. Less likely to happen for standalone players, but not zero probability.

 

[MatthewA]

Maybe that's part of their motivation: circumventing the Blu-ray Association's fees. Someone mentioned that in another thread as being a cost factor that automatically makes it more expensive to master than DVD, not just increased resolution and more sophisticated compression codecs.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

It’s not to save money on fees.

Its because physical media sales were just over $3 billion last year, while subscription streaming revenue was nearly $16 billion. $3 billion, down from $20 billion a few short years ago. It’s because that disparity shows no signs of slowing. It’s because it doesn’t make sense for every company to continuously spend money on an infrastructure meant to handle ten times more demand than there actually is.

Ten years ago, it was basically the other way around.

I don’t understand why this has been so hard to convey. When you have a business that used to gross $20 billion a year that now only grosses $3 billion a year, something has changed dramatically. And when you have a new business that is eclipsing the old one so clearly, it demonstrates where the market is.

The numbers aren’t this way because people don’t understand what discs offer or because they’ve been swindled into streaming. The numbers are this way because the average consumer is demonstrating a stronger preference for watching a program than they are for having a physical copy of it. And it’s not even close at this point.

If you like movies enough to post on an Internet forum, you’re not an average consumer. If you like movies enough to collect discs, you’re not an average consumer. That doesn’t mean that it’s an invalid preference or a bad hobby. But you’re not in the mainstream for how most people are choosing to spend their entertainment dollars.

I don’t mean to direct this at any one person in particular but over the past 24 hours, I’ve been flabbergasted at some of the commentary I’ve read here, on digital bits, on social media, where a small minority of disc supporters are loudly talking about streaming as if it’s a cult to rescue people from. This minority talks about streaming as if it simply doesn’t work and could never work and seem determined to ignore the reality that for most people, the transition from physical to digital has already begun (if it’s not already finished). It’s all a version of “Well I still buy discs, my shelves are full, so sales can’t possibly be down.” I’m stunned by how many people in this group want the perfect to be the enemy of the good. I’m stunned by how many people think it’s bad to have access to more content than ever before for less money than ever before. I just do not understand the hostility and the denial that these things actually do work as advertised more often than not. I’m not saying go streaming if you don’t want to. I am saying don’t tell me that streaming doesn’t work just because it’s not your preference.

 

[MatthewA]

I just had my privacy violated, so under the circumstances, I couldn't care less about the greed and short-sightedness of the companies pushing streaming on us. And I also couldn't care less about the opinions of anyone who dismisses the collecting of physical media altogether. Maybe if there were more interesting titles being released on disc, there would be more sales. Also, not to sweve into un-permitted territory, but we just got out of a recession, even though home video itself came into existence during one. Movies are a luxury item. You can't eat them, you can't live in them, you can't wear them. They are a want, not a need. Nevertheless, if they do not continue provide what I want, I will not continue to give them my business. It is that simple. And having to go through the same rigamarole twice and still have to wait to gain access to my account is irritating. Even Blockbuster was never that bad.

I get the sense that some people actively want physical media to cease to exist at all independently of consumer demand. If that's their attitude, then I will stop watching new movies and TV shows altogether. Remember DivX, that rent-only disc that Circuit City tried to pawn off on us? The mentality behind this is the same.

For everyone saying "disc sales are down," even if that is technically true, that still is only half the story. I'd like to see a studio-by-studio breakdown inclusive of independent distributors such as Shout! and Criterion.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

A) It’s not greed.
B) It’s not shortsightedness
C) No one is pushing anything
D) Customers have spoken with their wallets that in general they prefer low cost subscriptions over individual purchases.
E) It’s really that simple.