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

[jcroy]

The failure of DIVX probably helped to increase the availability of DVD titles. According to Wikipedia, "DreamWorks, 20th Century Fox, and Paramount Pictures … initially released their films exclusively on the DIVX format."

Many DIVX discs contained butchered Pan-and-Scan versions of movies. This raises the possibility that had DIVX taken off, we might have lost the option to purchase, or even rent, OAR versions of many films.

If DIVX won and dvd died back in the late 1990s, this could have also prolonged the laserdisc market where oar versions were already available back in the early 1990s (and possibly earlier).

 

[jcroy]

Nevertheless if DIVX had become the home video disc standard and not dvd, it likely would have eventually also become obsolete by streaming.

 

[jcroy]

Right but as your own comment illustrates, Internet reliability [and even availability] is highly dependent on geography. Where I live outages are common, sometimes lasting over 24 hours. There is nothing I can do about it, regardless of how much I pay.

I get outages whenever there is thunder lightning. If I had to guess, the lightning strikes were triggering the circuit breaker either at the electricity plant and/or at the cable company.

 

[kalm_traveler]

What happened in the movie theater that soured you on movie theaters (the way I'm reading this)?

Nothing happened in the movie theaters - my home theater just improved to the point where there's no more benefit for me to going into a cinema theater full of sick people, people who talk the whole time, little kids crying, etc.

My seats are more comfortable (and almost certainly more sanitary), there's no sticky food on my floor, no crying kids, my sound is cleaner and tighter (and at whatever level I'm comfortable with), etc. The theater's screens are still larger but I prefer being able to see the entire screen without having to move my head at all so a giant screen is a moot point if I'm already achieving that at home.

I wouldn't say that cinemas are bad, or dissuade anyone from enjoying them - just that I like my home setup now enough that it is my preferred viewing environment.

 

[jcroy]

My seats are more comfortable (and almost certainly more sanitary), there's no sticky food on my floor ...

The worst was stepping into a spilled soda "puddle" that wasn't cleaned up.

The last straw for me was there was a "food fight", where a large cup filled with soda pop was thrown and landed on the floor next to me blowing up. (The thrown large soda filled cup missed its intended target).

 

[Kiev7385]

I'm noticing that friends and family increasingly think I'm nuts for being so interested in having a decent home theater setup and collecting movies, tv etc in whatever highest possible disc format they can be had in which got me wondering how do you guys explain it?

In my case, I have always been a technology enthusiast so I think it's great that we have the streaming capabilities that we do now - something I couldn't have imagined 20+ years ago, but as for why I want physical copies of things I really enjoyed watching (and plan to rewatch) there are a few points that come to mind and I'm curious to know what your reasons are as well:

• control of the viewing experience - if you don't have a physical copy, there are are multitude of factors that can take your ability to view it away (power outage, internet service issue, online streaming platform decides to stop streaming it, etc)
• consistent quality - with streaming I notice occasional stutters or funny compression artifacts especially during peak times. With a disc, as long as it's not scratched and your player doesn't die it just 'works'
• ability to make your own backup to something like an in-home Plex server both for preservation and ease of watching. If that's the plan, you retain the option of using the disc but can store it somewhere out of the way
• preservation of more niche works that may not be available on any streaming platform. I've run into this with a lot of anime since I only watched it from about the early 90's through late 2000's and many of the series or movies I liked have been OOP for decades and not rescanned for blu ray releases. Also, the movie Titan AE.

Anyway, that's all I can think of off the top of my head but what are your reasons for sticking with physical media?

I enjoy Physical Media because it enables me to watch what I want when I want....of course, I am not watching or streaming much of anything new except News ...My collection of DVDs provides my own Media Needs...I can arrange my viewing wants anywhere anytime....So far for me streaming doesn't provide what I want nor does it stream well all the time...I realize I am bucking the Trend of the future....

 

[Kiev7385]

Nothing happened in the movie theaters - my home theater just improved to the point where there's no more benefit for me to going into a cinema theater full of sick people, people who talk the whole time, little kids crying, etc.

My seats are more comfortable (and almost certainly more sanitary), there's no sticky food on my floor, no crying kids, my sound is cleaner and tighter (and at whatever level I'm comfortable with), etc. The theater's screens are still larger but I prefer being able to see the entire screen without having to move my head at all so a giant screen is a moot point if I'm already achieving that at home.

I wouldn't say that cinemas are bad, or dissuade anyone from enjoying them - just that I like my home setup now enough that it is my preferred viewing environment.

Cell phones and talking ended my Movie Theater Days....also lack of interest in almost 95% of what is popular in the theater World Now....I improved my Home Media and don't miss the Theater experience.....

 

[Bryan^H]

I understand the theory and the logic behind what you’re saying, but at the same time this is also true for me: no one will want my disc collection when I’m gone. It’s just junk from my hobby to everyone I know. I’m sure the same will be true for my digital collection as well. It’s the plight of most collectors, whatever their specific hobby or collection is.

Collections of any physical media are pretty much worthless. Around the time they are available. I have so watched so many collections of different formats skyrocket after I gave them all to the Goodwill for free. Audio tapes, records, Laserdiscs, and my huge VHS collection. I did a rough estimate a while back on all those things together if selling them on E-Bay. It came out to be roughly $14,000. And that was a very conservative estimate.
IT wasn't a good day upon that realization!

 

[Robert Crawford]

Should've kept them. Today, 80's and 90's kids that are stuck in the past are paying premium prices for VHS tapes.

No room! I have 13 book cases with six shelves each plus the top of each case for disc storage and I'm at 90% storage capacity for my disc library. Those 13 book cases are in four different rooms in my multi-floor condo. I'm about out of storage space.

 

[Bryan^H]

No room! I have 13 book cases with six shelves each plus the top of each case for disc storage and I'm at 90% storage capacity for my disc library. Those 13 book cases are in four different rooms in my multi-floor condo. I'm about out of storage space.

The main reason I gave away all my stuff.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I stream about 110% of my viewing and buy about 3% of what I watch.

Okay, I gotta ask... is this some new kind of math?

 

[DaveF]

Okay, I gotta ask... is this some new kind of math?

I figure I’m watching at least 10% more streaming than most people. And discs are a much smaller percent of what I watch.

 

[jcroy]

Collections of any physical media are pretty much worthless. Around the time they are available. I have so watched so many collections of different formats skyrocket after I gave them all to the Goodwill for free. Audio tapes, records, Laserdiscs, and my huge VHS collection. I did a rough estimate a while back on all those things together if selling them on E-Bay. It came out to be roughly $14,000. And that was a very conservative estimate.
IT wasn't a good day upon that realization!

(On a tangent).

Some remain worthless (or almost worthless) forever, both in monetary and "utility" value(s). For example, old books.

Many years ago I was visiting relatives in israel, where they gave me a box of old books inherited from an older then-recently passed away relative. They didn't have the heart to throw away old books and kept it on the bookcase for years, until they noticed I took a great interest in reading these particular books. They were old engineering and math type books from early 1930s Germany, which my israeli relatives didn't have any engineering training nor any interest in.

I wouldn't be surprised after I pass away, my relatives would have very little to no interest in my book collection. That is, unless a nephew/niece has great interest in engineering, math, computers, etc ... type stuff.

 

[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

what is your digital purchase, streaming and physical ratio when watching content?

I'm about 60% streaming, 30% physical, and 10% digital purchase.

 

[John Dirk]

I understand the theory and the logic behind what you’re saying, but at the same time this is also true for me: no one will want my disc collection when I’m gone. It’s just junk from my hobby to everyone I know. I’m sure the same will be true for my digital collection as well. It’s the plight of most collectors, whatever their specific hobby or collection is.

I don't know about that. Think about collections of things like baseball cards, stamps etc. These routinely sell for astronomical prices in secondary markets. I just heard an unopened copy of the original Mario Brothers sold for something like $14,000.00. What collectibles are worth usually depends on their age, condition and contemporary availability. If physical media does in fact disappear and our collections are properly preserved for long enough, there is no telling what they might be worth.

Don't believe me? Consider this.

Super Mario Bros 2 Round Seal WATA 9.0 B+ Factory Sealed NES New Nintendo VGA | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Super Mario Bros 2 Round Seal WATA 9.0 B+ Factory Sealed NES New Nintendo VGA at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I feel like that’s the exception that proves the rule. There might be a few discs that carry astronomical value - you can already get hundreds for some OOP Disney Treasures tins - but most discs aren’t going to come anywhere near that.

 

[jcroy]

I feel like that’s the exception that proves the rule. There might be a few discs that carry astronomical value - you can already get hundreds for some OOP Disney Treasures tins - but most discs aren’t going to come anywhere near that.

Case in point, there were tons of comic book titles from the 1990s which had extremely high print runs such as the relaunched X-Men, Death of Superman, etc .... which are dump bin fodder since then.

 

[John Dirk]

I feel like that’s the exception that proves the rule. There might be a few discs that carry astronomical value - you can already get hundreds for some OOP Disney Treasures tins - but most discs aren’t going to come anywhere near that.

Good point. Certainly in our lifetimes mainstream disc media would never reach cult status. If and when it ever happened it would likely be because the vast majority of titles produced that way were obscure memories of a time long past.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Nothing happened in the movie theaters - my home theater just improved to the point where there's no more benefit for me to going into a cinema theater full of sick people, people who talk the whole time, little kids crying, etc.

My seats are more comfortable (and almost certainly more sanitary), there's no sticky food on my floor, no crying kids, my sound is cleaner and tighter (and at whatever level I'm comfortable with), etc. The theater's screens are still larger but I prefer being able to see the entire screen without having to move my head at all so a giant screen is a moot point if I'm already achieving that at home.

I wouldn't say that cinemas are bad, or dissuade anyone from enjoying them - just that I like my home setup now enough that it is my preferred viewing environment.

Same for me for the most part (and I'm sure many other HTFers).

I do still go to the theaters once in a long-ish while, but usually, it's more for the social aspect of going w/ a buddy or three and/or some event-ish screening perhaps... although the (near-post-)pandemic environment has renewed my interest a tad, but mainly for something that deserves/warrants a giant screen, full/true IMAX experience at the singular theater in uptown Manhattan over here...

_Man_

 

[Wookie Groomer]

I'm not about to read through 14 pages and hundreds of comments to address the original topic so I have no idea how badly it veered off tangent, if at all.

Physical media is your license for the content. You can transfer it if you so chose to. Ownership means you have the legal right to give that disc away, resell it, trade it, loan it etc... that's why corporations invest so heavily into digital streaming and coming up with clever mind tricks to entice people to pay for it. They want to get paid whenever someone's eyes or ears experience that content because they want to be in your home or in your car monitoring what you do with it.

With digital, you "buy" that film, it sits on some cloud server that you may forget about or lose your login credentials to access or it may shut down and the content will be gone forever. With so many things tied to a virtual account you may as well watch that title a couple times then throw it in the trash because it's not an asset to you. You have no ownership to do with it as you please.

I'm not opposed to digital when it comes to paying for Disney+ or Netflix since those services are meant to feed mass consumption of disposable content not meant for the collector or enthusiast. They are excellent sources of TV Programming. The primary question is will someone spend full price on virtually stored cloud based content they have zero ownership or control over at lesser quality than the real product. The answer should always be no because as consumers turn more into unknowing sheep they give corporations the ok to push things further and see how far they can reach into peoples pockets without giving them anything in return.

The problem is accelerating much faster in the gaming industry as it's dictated completely by a.d.d. consumers throwing money at studios and publishers no matter what stunts they pull. If you have had a STEAM account for any real period of time you know there is crap in there you will NEVER load and there's nothing you can do about it. Imagine being able to gather all those garbage titles that have no value to you anymore and trade them all in for a one new game. Sorry, not with big digital brother breathing down your neck. PC gaming is cursed to begin with because you can't buy your games and haven't been able to in what seems like more than a decade, maybe two. You can lease them forever but never own them.

Unfortunately, the real reason to choose physical over virtual is dictated by the circumstances. Having a well thought out dedicated home theater meant for the cinema at home experience on a large projected screen demands physical media. Most of the time you get a nice 3D audio track and high bitrate video encode. If you have two dogs and 3 kids screaming and running around in your living room with their toys all over the place and the windows wide open and you think your 55" TV and soundbar are a home theater, you are the target audience for the corporate wolves telling you about the conveniences of digital. Honestly, the virtues of physical content is lost on that consumer and they shouldn't be buying it anyways. And sadly, those types of consumers far outweigh the enthusiasts watching the industry wash their dreams away.

I would consider it clinically insane to spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on an 11 - 16 channel DTS:X / Dolby Atmos dedicated home theater system with a $18,000 4K projector on a 150" or larger screen to actually pay for or buy a digitally compressed stream that is only in 5.1 and the bitrates are less than that of a standard 1080p bluray. But it happens because people are impatient and will spend money on whatever they can get first. What's a man to do when their wife keeps bitching at them about the new Chris Hemsworth movie or their kid is freaking out that Trolls 9 is out.

The major scam in the industry right now is to offer you the digital version first and in turn lessening the physical content sales because the hype has ended.

Kaleidescape is the only service in existence offering as good or better quality for digital content as the physical. It comes at an obscene price tag and it's target audience has no desire to debate the meaning of "value" or "dignity". Who's to say if or when Kaleidescape folds and what will happen to the thousands of dollars spent on it's proprietary hardware and DRM'd all to hell digital content. Will that consumer just shrug it off since it was disposable income? Probably, that's one of many mentality's that are killing the retail business of actual media.

People will pay any asking price for instant gratification and convenience even if the quality suffers.

I'm perfectly secure in saying that the bulk of the recent collectible 4K titles will be the last time many films will see a release on physical formats. The combination of industry "gerrymandering" with how content is made available and how it's accessed has caused people to walk right into that trap with zero thoughts of the consequences it will have over time.

Serious home theater enthusiasts are the real victims here. The days of appreciating quality and hard work are nearly over. Trying to explain why owning a physical disc to someone with a dead look in their eyes waiting to stream Dune again is all we have left in home entertainment yet they still feel they are home theater enthusiasts and we must continue to honor them with diversity and pity.