What's new

Physical Media might not be dead, but Physical Media in Retail Stores are accelerating the death (1 Viewer)

TJPC

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jul 15, 2016
Messages
4,820
Location
Hamilton Ontario
Real Name
Terry Carroll
I had a friend return a treasured LP once with the words “sorry, Billy (their 4 year old) took this record and played it on his record player! I told him to keep it, and bought another one.
 

The Drifter

Screenwriter
Joined
Jan 29, 2019
Messages
1,143
Real Name
Jim
I'd bet it's far fewer than you think and counter that the "DVD looks good enough to me so why do I need BR?" crowd is much larger.

I see what you mean; I guess my opinion has been affected by multiple people I've talked to (or overheard in stores) being willfully ignorant re: Blu players being backwards compatible.

I agree that DVD players & DVD's being cheaper & readily available (than Blu players/Blu disks) have a lot to do with "John/Jane Q. Public" not embracing the Blu format more readily.

Streaming is also a huge factor as well. As I've mentioned multiple times on this forum, there are many out there who have no DVD/Blu player(s) and stream exclusively. Typically, I see this in people in their 20's/early 30's - i.e, they didn't really grow up with physical media to any great extent, so don't see the value.

Conversely, I grew up collecting CD's, and later got into DVD's - and much later, Blu's. So, even though I've been streaming since 2012 in some capacity, I still prefer physical disks.
 
Last edited:

BobO'Link

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 3, 2008
Messages
11,450
Location
Mid-South
Real Name
Howie
Not nearly as large as the crowd who sees no need for discs at all.
Exactly.

The people who thought it'd be "neat" to own a few movies realized they rarely, if ever, rewatched them (unless it was one of the kid's movies and those would be regularly destroyed by the kids who, much like their parents, often have little concept of proper care) and discovered streaming. For them, streaming is "good enough" for what they normally watch and especially enticing for their kids to have a seemingly endless selection of stuff they like with no possibility of damage to a disc. And it's much less expensive than owning physical product.

While I'm not much of a fan of streaming (IMHO suffering from general poor selection, horribly designed interfaces, and far too many services) I also see why the general public loves it. It's not that different than having the rental store in your home for much less expense and the quality is "good enough" for most people.

What's happening is disc ownership is settling into the somewhat niche product it probably should have been all along.
 

Mr. Handley

Supporting Actor
Joined
Apr 20, 2013
Messages
874
Real Name
Paul
I have a co-worker who offers to lend me DVDs he thinks I'll like. I always decline, citing my strict policy. If I truly want to watch something, I'll buy it. Hey, sometimes you just gotta set some hard boundaries!
 

jcroy

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2011
Messages
7,916
Real Name
jr
If you want optical discs to be "forever" AND you don't have any technical expertise, in priciple bluray/4Kbluray would be a a really bad choice due to its built-in revocation system.

In principle, all the AACS guys have to do is revoke any and all host and drive certificates in the MKB_RO.inf updates on newer discs. Essentially an easy way to deliberately "brick" ANY bluray program/player they want

In contrast, cds and dvds do not have any built in revocation system that deliberately "bricks" any cd/dvd player.
 

jcroy

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2011
Messages
7,916
Real Name
jr
In the "MrEvil" type of "nuclear option" scenario, in principle the AACS folks can force everybody to 4Kbluray if they wanted to, just by revoking all the host and drive certificates of conventional bluray players.

The AACS2 system used on 4Kbluray is completely independent of the older bluray-only AACS1 system, when it comes to revocation of specific programs/players.
 

jcroy

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2011
Messages
7,916
Real Name
jr
One big reason which turned me off immediately on 4Kbluray, is that there is an optional AACS2 provision where the encryption keys are not on the actual 4Kbluray discs, but are stored on a remote server online. Effectively such 4Kbluray discs are "coasters" if that remote key server is taken offline (whether temporarily or permanently).

This optional insidious version of AACS2 is outlined in the leaked Sony documents from a number of years ago, which is now on wikileaks.

No idea if any movie 4Kbluray discs has used this isidious version yet.

So far all the 4Kbluray discs released which have been cracked by grey market ripping programs, have used the non-isidious AACS2 version which has the encrypton keys on the actual 4Kbluray disc.
 

jcroy

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2011
Messages
7,916
Real Name
jr
I'd bet it's far fewer than you think and counter that the "DVD looks good enough to me so why do I need BR?" crowd is much larger.

(Going on a huge tangent).

A few cases where this underlying assertion is very true and extremely annoying, are tv shows (or movies) which were originally shot on 35mm film or modern HD/4K/8K+ digital cameras, but were put through a "crappy-fying" filter to deliberately make the video look like a soft 480i (or 480p) SD ntsc video.

The worst culprits of this deliberate "crappy-fying" practice, are current tv shows like Criminal Minds and the original NCIS. (The NCIS spinoffs LA and NO don't appear to be doing this "crappy-fying" of the image quality). The original CBS HD broadcasts of current episodes, look just as bad as the dvd versions of the same episodes.

In contrast the original CSI didn't do this deliberate "crappy-fying", if you compare the respective bluray and dvd versions of seasons 1 and 9 of the original CSI (or the HD reruns on various basic cable channels).
 
Last edited:

Bryan^H

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jul 3, 2005
Messages
9,515
One big reason which turned me off immediately on 4Kbluray, is that there is an optional AACS2 provision where the encryption keys are not on the actual 4Kbluray discs, but are stored on a remote server online. Effectively such 4Kbluray discs are "coasters" if that remote key server is taken offline (whether temporarily or permanently).

I don't understand. Wouldn't you have to have a 4K player that is always online for the disc to be bricked? My player is not, and never will be online.
 

jcroy

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2011
Messages
7,916
Real Name
jr
Every bluray and 4Kbluray disc manufactured with aacs encryption, has an MKB_RO.inf file in the /AACS directory. You will see this if you look at the disc on a computer bluray-r drive.

When a bluray player reads any bluray disc, it will read the MKB_RO.inf file and immediately update the revoked host + drive blacklists which are stored in a flash memory chip on the player. If your player just happens to be on the revoked host + drive blacklists, it will immediately "brick" your player.
 

jcroy

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2011
Messages
7,916
Real Name
jr
I, too, waited for the format war to end but it still took me a while to upgrade to BR. Mine was sometime in 2015.

The only reason I ever bought a bluray player, was when I first saw tons of dump bin $5 (or less) blurays of movies which I liked.

If dump bin blurays were still over $10 a pop, I probably would have never purchased a bluray player.
 

mark27b

Second Unit
Joined
May 26, 2012
Messages
304
Real Name
Mark Pledger
Another big thing which seems to be going against discs, is the rise of digital video-on-demand on cable services during the 2000s decade...

the evolutionary jump from Video cassette to DVD was massive not so much the jump from DVD to Blu-ray and that's even before you consider the jump from DVD first had a format war between HD-DVD format and Blu-ray format which meant early HD-DVD adopters lost out with machines and discs and the general user would have held back staying with DVD during the battle to see who won the format wars that the jump from video cassette to DVD didn't have (excluding niche Laser Disc).
 
Last edited:

BobO'Link

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 3, 2008
Messages
11,450
Location
Mid-South
Real Name
Howie
The only reason I ever bought a bluray player, was when I first saw tons of dump bin $5 (or less) blurays of movies which I liked.

If dump bin blurays were still over $10 a pop, I probably would have never purchased a bluray player.
FWIW - my first player was given to me by a friend. I had a CRT with composite inputs but not HDMI. He purchased a new player and game me his old one which had those composite outputs I needed. By that time the manufacturers no longer made BR players with composite outputs so it was get an old one or an HDMI-composite adapter. He solved my problem. A year or two later I got an HDTV and then upgraded to a BR player for which a region free hack was available (I also had some BRs that wouldn't play on that old player). That one's since died and was replaced by one that *doesn't* have a code (a 4K/3D model at the bargain price of $50 on clearance) so I purchased a region free DVD player for my region free DVD collection (it was less expensive to do that then purchase a BR player with region free DVD capability - and I don't have any region locked BRs so I wasn't worried about that being region free).
 

Josh Steinberg

Premium
Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jun 10, 2003
Messages
26,274
Real Name
Josh Steinberg
If we’re talking long term viability/usability of physical media, I’m more concerned with failures over long term due to glue failure at the layer change and other tiny manufacturing defects that may take years to reveal themselves. I have pressed discs that played (and ripped) perfectly a decade ago that have simply ceased to work. It’s not a ton, but it’s more than zero, and it’s happened enough to make me rethink the idea that once I bought a disc, I had that movie forever. I’m not so sure any more. Probably the things that are safest are the titles where I have the disc, have the movie ripped to my HTPC, and then also have a digital copy thanks to an included code - three different version stored in different formats in different locations, I feel confident I don’t have to worry as much about those.

The thing is, if you have 500 discs and 20 go bad, statistically that’s not terrible. But if those 20 include a single disc out of a big set, or an out of print title, that suddenly becomes a bigger problem.
 

John Dirk

Premium
Ambassador
HW Reviewer
Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 7, 2000
Messages
6,720
Location
ATL
Real Name
JOHN
Probably the things that are safest are the titles where I have the disc, have the movie ripped to my HTPC, and then also have a digital copy thanks to an included code - three different version stored in different formats in different locations, I feel confident I don’t have to worry as much about those.

You raise a good point. In the HT world we do tend to think of physical media as permanent but we shouldn't. With all data, a backup is recommended for the very reasons you mentioned.

I speak from experience. I just lost about a years worth of my own data because I lazily failed to back it up on a regular basis. I'm talking PC data here but the concept is the same for any physical media. "If it's important then make sure it's backed up.
 

BobO'Link

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 3, 2008
Messages
11,450
Location
Mid-South
Real Name
Howie
You raise a good point. In the HT world we do tend to think of physical media as permanent but we shouldn't. With all data, a backup is recommended for the very reasons you mentioned.

I speak from experience. I just lost about a years worth of my own data because I lazily failed to back it up on a regular basis. I'm talking PC data here but the concept is the same for any physical media. "If it's important then make sure it's backed up.
Multiple backups... when I finally ripped my huge CD collection, due to getting a car with no CD player, I backed up the files on 3 different drives and have thought about several flash drives as well (it's ~350GB of FLAC files). Surprisingly, I had only 3 or 4 discs out of over 1400 that gave me trouble (wouldn't rip properly although they'd play without issue), and they were newer purchases. I have CDs that were purchased in 1985 that still play perfectly. I've found 3 or 4 DVDs (out of ~3000) that've failed. All the failures are dual layer. I suspect there are more but it could be some time before those are discovered. I have several hundred TVonDVD seasons as well as a few hundred movies still waiting to be watched so the things that actually get rewatched are almost exclusively favorites.

Until I discovered those "sudden" failures I pretty much considered the discs to last "forever" (at least until I've passed from the earth) because I've had no CD failures in over 30 years of collecting.
 
Last edited:

jcroy

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2011
Messages
7,916
Real Name
jr
I knew all about optical disc failures way back in the early/mid-1990s.

I had several audio cds which suddenly had playback problems one day sometime around 1993 or 1994, which I purchased back in the mid-late 1980s. (There was no visible damage to these discs). When I later checked these cds on the computer after I first purchased a computer with a cd-rom drive, I saw right away that it encounter unreadable bad sectors.

This was when I knew that optical discs were "NOT forever". By the time dvd came around several years later, I knew that it would have the same "rotting" type problems which will eventually render sectors to be unreadable.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Latest Articles

Forum statistics

Threads
356,815
Messages
5,123,830
Members
144,184
Latest member
H-508
Recent bookmarks
0
Top