How do you explain your love of physical media in an era of streaming? (1 Viewer)

[Sam Posten]

All of this comes down to “I don’t want rights holders to have soooo much control over who can see their movies”. Guess what? You don’t get to control that and organizing blocks of enthusiasts to keep buying disks isn’t going to change that.

As much as I want SOTS on any format I respect it’s in Disney’s court to control that. I have refused to buy a bootleg so far because of that respect. Others may disagree or have different moral stances. But arguing about any of this with fellow enthusiasts at HTF isn’t going to change anyones opinions, the law, and most likely the corporations decisions.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

If your ISP has issues, you get no content

Speaking only for myself, I’m not really moved by the ISP part of the equation any more than I would be if someone said, “books are better than movies because movies require electricity and what if you lose power?”

Now that may be speaking from a position of privilege but internet access will continue to improve with time for those who don’t already have good access right now - that’s more of what I’d consider to be an infrastructure issue in general and not specifically a streaming issue. In the end, all of our jobs and lives will one day require more bandwidth and that’ll get figured out along the way.

All of this comes down to “I don’t want rights holders to have soooo much control over who can see their movies”. Guess what? You don’t get to control that

Pretty much. And going all in on a physical format doesn’t really do anything to address that concern if the material an individual is looking for doesn’t get released on that format. I like 3D movies more than most. I buy 3D discs. Studios aren’t happy with the low sales potential of that format and are withdrawing support. Hardware manufacturers are making fewer devices capable of playing that format. Many of the titles I enjoy most have gone out of print. There’s nothing i can do to change any of that. All I can do is enjoy what I do have for as long as it still works. The rest is out of my hands. I may have the physical object but I certainly don’t feel like I’m in control of that situation. The control is an illusion.

 

[Bryan^H]

Still waiting for Digital purchases to "catch up" to Physical BD. Day that happens is the day I change in favor of digital.

 

[Sam Posten]

So even if you could get higher quality releases for less money than what’s available on disk you won’t buy anything digital until more other people are buying doing so than are buying disks? That’s a really weird metric but you do you

 

[Carl David]

All of this comes down to “I don’t want rights holders to have soooo much control over who can see their movies”. Guess what? You don’t get to control that and organizing blocks of enthusiasts to keep buying disks isn’t going to change that.

As much as I want SOTS on any format I respect it’s in Disney’s court to control that. I have refused to buy a bootleg so far because of that respect. Others may disagree or have different moral stances. But arguing about any of this with fellow enthusiasts at HTF isn’t going to change anyones opinions, the law, and most likely the corporations decisions.

Fair comment.

One can only be grateful for the options we currently have and hope they continue.

Ultimately, yes we can't even have a glimmer of hope for trying to influence which way we may want anything to go.

Best to just enjoy your hobby and let the market go wherever it goes.

 

[Bryan^H]

So even if you could get higher quality releases for less money than what’s available on disk you won’t buy anything digital until more other people are buying doing so than are buying disks? That’s a really weird metric but you do you

Sorry I meant to add streaming services content too that is the biggest deal to me.
A ton of stuff on streaming that I cannot buy digitally.

 

[Carl David]

Still waiting for Digital purchases to "catch up" to Physical BD. Day that happens is the day I change in favor of digital.

Have you had any issues with your digital purchases already made?

Hard Drive failure or loss of the file/download altogether?

 

[Bryan^H]

Have you had any issues with your digital purchases already made?

Hard Drive failure or loss of the file/download altogether?

No I love my digital purchases. To date they have been far more reliable than physical. Except for problems w/ my purchases in the infancy of digital buys which I have referenced far too many times.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I interpreted Bryan’s post as waiting for lossless audio and higher bandwidth video on streaming before switching from physical, which I get.

But I’d just point out that what separates us enthusiasts from the general public is that streaming has already met that metric for them. Most people aren’t viewing their content on screens so giant or seating distances so close that the theoretical minor differences between a disc version and a slightly more compressed streaming version are apparent. Most people aren’t listening through sound systems powerful enough and loud enough to discern the difference between a lossless audio track on a disc and a gently compressed track on a streaming version.

For the vast majority of consumers, streaming simply works. It looks and sounds better than anything they’ve had before, and is more affordable than whatever it replaced for them.

 

[Bryan^H]

I interpreted Bryan’s post as waiting for lossless audio and higher bandwidth video on streaming before switching from physical, which I get.

But I’d just point out that there what separates us enthusiasts from the general public is that streaming has already met that metric for them. Most people aren’t viewing their content on screens so giant or seating distances so close that the theoretical minor differences between a disc version and a slightly more compressed streaming version are apparent. Most people aren’t listening through sound systems powerful enough and loud enough to discern the difference between a lossless audio track on a disc and a gently compressed track on a streaming version.

For the vast majority of consumers, streaming simply works. It looks and sounds better than anything they’ve had before, and is more affordable than whatever it replaced for them.

Streaming can only go so far for me. Like watching a 19 season show, and right in the middle it is pulled with no alternative ways to watch. Doggone it, give me the option to buy it digitally for the remainder. I will give the studios all my money. Digital purchases are getting left in the dust from physical, and streaming services.

 

[Carl David]

No I love my digital purchases. To date they have been far more reliable than physical. Except for problems w/ my purchases in the infancy of digital buys which I have referenced far too many times.

Do you make copies?

What do you use generally to store them on?

USB flash drives?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Streaming can only go so far for me. Like watching a 19 season show, and right in the middle it is pulled with no alternative ways to watch. Doggone it, give me the option to buy it digitally for the remainder. I will give the studios all my money. Digital purchases are getting left in the dust from physical, and streaming services.

If you’ll forgive me, this is one of those murky comparisons I try to avoid. A subscription streaming service isn’t meant to be the equivalent of disc ownership, so a program vanishing from a subscription service that was never meant to be equivalent of disc ownership isn’t really a fair comparison between the two.

Obviously, it’s a bummer that something you had enjoyed on your subscription is no longer part of that subscription. I don’t mean to make light of that.

But it’s apples to oranges.

Some rights holders choose not to make their content available for a la crate purchase. That was true when it was an all physical media world, and it’ll almost certainly remain true in an all digital world. It’s a bummer when that happens. But it’s not, in my view, the fault of any one format for existing. That’s just a decision that a rights holder made for whatever reason they decided to make it.

 

[jcroy]

Speaking only for myself, I’m not really moved by the ISP part of the equation any more than I would be if someone said, “books are better than movies because movies require electricity and what if you lose power?”

(On a tangent).

This is the type of argument I would have made when I was younger.

Though back in the day, it was more like thinly disguised intellectual snobbery than anything to do with media quality.


As I got older, I gradually came to the realization that I was lazy and found it was easier to just waste 2 hours watching a crappy sci-fi movie, than wasting many hours over several evenings on reading then-current sci-fi novels which turned out to be really disappointing.

Basically through a lot of trial and error, I learned in practice what "Sturgeon's Law" really meant.

Sturgeon's law - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[jcroy]

Hard Drive failure or loss of the file/download altogether?

(On an adjecent).

I have had disc rot happen already on a few cd and dvd discs. Though not a major problem yet.

 

[Bryan^H]

If you’ll forgive me, this is one of those murky comparisons I try to avoid. A subscription streaming service isn’t meant to be the equivalent of disc ownership, so a program vanishing from a subscription service that was never meant to be equivalent of disc ownership isn’t really a fair comparison between the two.

Obviously, it’s a bummer that something you had enjoyed on your subscription is no longer part of that subscription. I don’t mean to make light of that.

But it’s apples to oranges.

Right, I understand that. I know that streaming isn't made for ownership. I'm saying if the content available in beautiful HD exists on streaming services, it should be available to purchase digitally also from whatever studio that owns it.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Right, I understand that. I know that streaming isn't made for ownership. I'm saying if the content available in beautiful HD exists on streaming services, it should be available to purchase digitally also from whatever studio that owns it.

It sure would be nice if that was the case.

Sometimes it’s ineptitude on the part of the rights holder. Other times, there are rights issues that prevent that from being a possibility. Subscription streaming is treated as equivalent to broadcast on a contractual level, while digital purchases are akin to physical purchases. It happens, particularly with legacy content, that the contracts don’t allow for home video sales without additional (and expensive or hard to come by) clearances but do allow for broadcast and syndication sales without any extra effort, and that’s often why those things happen.

 

[Carl David]

(On an adjecent).

I have had disc rot happen already on a few cd and dvd discs. Though not a major problem yet.

Yes.

That concerns me with disc purchases.

I'd probably go into a meltdown if my whole collection did that.

It will be interesting to see when some of them generally start to rot in a lot of personal collections.

When that happens we might start to get a gauge of the longevity of Blu Ray discs etc.

I heard Joe Dante say Laserdiscs are prone to disc rot.

Have many collector's been victim to this?

 

[jcroy]

Yes.

That concerns me with disc purchases.

I'd probably go into a meltdown if my whole collection did that.

It will be interesting to see when some of them generally start to rot in a lot of personal collections.

When that happens we might start to get a gauge of the longevity of Blu Ray discs etc.

I heard Joe Dante say Laserdiscs are prone to disc rot.

Have many collector's been victim to this?

There is a long pinned thread in the dvd subsection of this message board, which collected anecdotal accouts of Warner dvd discs manufactured during the mid-late 2000s, which have started to go bad and have significant playback problems.

Warner DVD's not working thread - watch to make sure they still play

I just felt like posting this to make other collectors aware or if anyone else had the same playback problems. The past year and a half I have had several Warner DVDs start to freeze at different chapters - mostly toward the middle and goes on ranging from one to two chapters to the end of the...

www.hometheaterforum.com

 

[Bryan^H]

It sure would be nice if that was the case.

Sometimes it’s ineptitude on the part of the rights holder. Other times, there are rights issues that prevent that from being a possibility. Subscription streaming is treated as equivalent to broadcast on a contractual level, while digital purchases are akin to physical purchases. It happens, particularly with legacy content, that the contracts don’t allow for home video sales without additional (and expensive or hard to come by) clearances but do allow for broadcast and syndication sales without any extra effort, and that’s often why those things happen.

That is where I was going in my next post, but you beat me to it. Most likely. In the meantime my original statement when I said digital purchases were being left in the dust. Content only available on a streaming service, and nowhere else, isn't ideal for any of the fans of the content being offered. For a limited time.

 

[Carl David]

Streaming can only go so far for me. Like watching a 19 season show, and right in the middle it is pulled with no alternative ways to watch. Doggone it, give me the option to buy it digitally for the remainder. I will give the studios all my money. Digital purchases are getting left in the dust from physical, and streaming services.

They should as a minimum state that the content is only available for a certain time. Seems a little naughty to me.

If the rights owners have the option to pull the plug unexpectedly then a simple "this content could be removed at short notice due to rights issues" warning would be sufficient to at least inform you that you could end up missing much of the series.

They may even have this already in their terms and conditions.

Problem is if it is in there nobody reads them anyway as they are usually about 1000 pages long.