Press Release Wired Press Release: Blu-rays are back; Streaming Isn’t Everything (1 Viewer)

[JQuintana]

Streaming can't replace discs IMO. I've lived with both for years now and there's no comparison. The discs - blu-rays, primarily - offer the best visuals and sound by far, and they're available when I want them, unlike streaming which is at the whim of the streaming service (Netflix, Amazon, etc.). It will always be that way. Also, very rarely have I had to stop a disc from playing to clear a smudge off of it which was impairing its ability to play. Nearly every day, streaming is interrupting by buffering, a lost connection, etc. I roll my eyes at the spinning wheel we get when buffering starts.

Also, I don't know about you, but for decades I have given and got movies and TV shows as gifts, from VHS to CED to laser disc to DVD to blu-ray and UHD. I have never gotten a gift of a streaming film, nor have I given one. It's not the same. Even if and when bandwidth in the United States becomes something that can really support 4k films (a long way off, IMO), the disc-as-gift thing is something that cannot be rectified.

How many friends and family members have been asking for movies on discs as presents from you in the past 1-2 years? My count to date is still at "0". We give Google Play gift cards to use to rent or buy streaming movies and Netflix gift cards are welcomed as well.

 

[Tino]

Nearly every day, streaming is interrupting by buffering, a lost connection, etc. I roll my eyes at the spinning wheel we get when buffering starts.

Which is a result of your equipment not the streaming service. I too have a Verizon gigabyte connection and I never experience those issues.

 

[JQuintana]

Count me in as a no buffer issues user of Netflix and Hulu. I even had great results when we had 50mb speeds.

 

[Dick]

I don’t value that person’s opinion because he doesn’t have any data to back up his opinion in that article. It’s a lazy article. Did any of us learn anything new from that article? Many of us shop the boutique labels for many of our disc titles. But hey, that’s just my opinion.

Not to gang up on you here, Robert, but regardless of how much/little hard data there is here, if taken as opinion, it is as valid as anyone else's. Personally, I grew really angry when articles very much like this kept hammering away about physical discs going away and leaving only streaming, or that 3D is dead long before it was. There is an element of self-fulfilling prophecy involved here. If enough people read such articles, they might begin backing off these formats themselves, fearful it won't be supported the next time they turn around. Nonetheless, those articles were also largely opinion, and as such were also valid.

Conversely, might not an article such as the one posted in this thread by the OP perhaps lead some of us to have a little hope that their collecting has not yet become obsolete (and I do not believe it has)? Yes, of course, your opinion is fine, too, but you sounded openly hostile about this article, almost as though you resented the fact that some of us might take it to be a (finally) optimistic take on the future of physical media. It might well be as ineffectual as you think it is, but it's nice to read something by a writer with a glass-half-full attitude once in a while.

 

[Worth]

I don't think discs are going away anytime soon, but they're no longer the way the mainstream consumes media. They're a niche for film lovers and collectors - laserdisc v2.

I certainly don't want physical media to die out. If there's a film that I really like and know I'll want to watch repeatedly, I'll buy it on disc. If it's something that I'm only likely to watch once - which is the vast majority of titles - I'm perfectly content to stream it.

 

[Bryan^H]

It will be interesting to see the results for Streaming vs. disc sales in 2018, which should be available in January.
For 2017, digital sales(to own) were less than half of disc sales overall. Whereas Digital subscription services(Netflix I assume) dwarfed any of the buy to own formats with nearly $10 billion in revenue

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[jcroy]

For 2017, digital sales(to own) were less than half of disc sales overall. Whereas Digital subscription services(Netflix I assume) dwarfed any of the buy to own formats with nearly $10 billion in revenue​

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This would make sense for stuff that people only watch once or twice. Somewhat pointless to buy a download/disc if one has no intentions to watch it more than once or twice.

 

[TJPC]

I wonder how it compares to movie rentals a decade ago. I know the vast majority of people in the VHS days were “Blockbuster” members. I remember friends saying to me “who would want to own a movie?”
We also rented the vast majority of movies we watched then. They were just not downloaded.

 

[JQuintana]

Main reason I jumped all in with streaming. I learned years and years ago when I started to look at the boxes of "must have" DVD's and Blu discs thinking to myself what a waste of money it ended up being since I rarely if ever re-watched the "must have" movies.

I'm now content with browsing the huge catalogs of movies on my streaming services and if something strikes my fancy, I play it. I have also found that I'm watching more obscure movies and documentaries using streaming than I ever would have buying discs.

 

[Bryan^H]

I'm embarrassed to say that most movies I buy on disc (mainly boutique label titles) I have only watched one time. I would like to re-visit a lot of them but work, and family life suck the time from me. Maybe If I'm lucky enough to live well into my retirement I will finally have that time.

 

[jcroy]

I have also found that I'm watching more obscure movies and documentaries using streaming than I ever would have buying discs.

I have notice this too when I'm watching network tv and basic cable, despite sounding "paradoxical".

I find that I am more likely to watch something as live broadcasts or recorded to the dvr, than watching the same thing on dvd/bluray. For example, I am more likely to watch Star Trek franchise daily reruns on a scifi channel than watching my Star Trek dvds/blurays.

 

[JQuintana]

I'm embarrassed to say that most movies I buy on disc (mainly boutique label titles) I have only watched one time. I would like to re-visit a lot of them but work, and family life suck the time from me. Maybe If I'm lucky enough to live well into my retirement I will finally have that time.

Welcome to my world. When DVD hit, I had no kids, lots of free time, extra$$$ to waste on every disc that caught my eye. Life I thought was grand. The as kiddos came on the scene and life got more hectic and money went to real world things like new AC units, cars, school, I pretty much ended the movie madness and now we mainly stream kid friendly stuff for now.

 

[jcroy]

Maybe If I'm lucky enough to live well into my retirement I will finally have that time.

(This is strictly anecdotal).

I have noticed with my older relatives who are retired, they rarely ever went through their life long collections of music and movies (ie. cds, dvds/blurays, vhs tapes, vinyl, etc ....).

After they retired, they all ended up watching tv all day tuned to a 24 hours news channel (such as CNN, BBC, etc ...) or a sports channel on basic cable.

 

[JQuintana]

(This is strictly anecdotal).

I have noticed with my older relatives who are retired, they rarely ever went through their life long collections of music and movies (ie. cds, dvds/blurays, vhs tapes, vinyl, etc ....).

After they retired, they all ended up watching tv all day tuned to a 24 hours news channel (such as CNN, BBC, etc ...) or a sports channel on basic cable.

This is my mom. I set up a Roku and Netflix for her, got her Harmony remote set for one button viewing, not to mention hand written notes "How to watch Netflix" and she still has watched at most 1 stand up comedian show and the rest of day is Fox News. When dad passed she gave away all his CD's and vinyl stuff since she doesn't listen to music other than in the car.

 

[Bryan^H]

After they retired, they all ended up watching tv all day tuned to a 24 hours news channel (such as CNN, BBC, etc ...) or a sports channel on basic cable.

Oh my gosh, that is what my parents do

 

[titch]

Well, this is what the entire Criterion Collection on blu-ray looks like so far. Every release since they started 10 years ago. When people come over to my place to watch a movie, they spend loads of time looking through all the discs and discussing the various films, genres and directors. And this is only the Criterion section. Sometimes difficult to get folks to sit down and actually watch something, because they just love pulling out stuff and looking at it. Or arguing about my way of curating and cataloguing my collection. Can't recall we ever had that situation when we streamed something from Netflix.

 

[bigshot]

Lately, I've been turning on my iMac when I get home from work and watch something on Netflix. They have some really good "made for Netflix" documentaries and series, especially crime shows. I prefer to be able to start TV shows on my schedule and pause them if I need to. Netflix is perfect for that. I have regular TV too, but I watch that primarily for the news- live event stuff. My home theater serves a different purpose. It's like going to the movies. I put on a disc, turn off the lights and focus on the movie for a couple of hours. That is concentrated time. I don't like binge watching like that.

Broadcast TV, Netflix and watching blu-rays for me are three totally separate things. None of them could replace the other ones at all.

 

[JQuintana]

How many of those bad boys get re-watched each year?

Looks like several $1000's investment. Hope they survive without dry rot or similar.

 

[Worth]

I've found that I'm more interested in seeing something new and there just isn't that much stuff I want to rewatch, and most of it is favourites that I grew up with. I'm also lucky in that a lot of those films show up theatrically fairly regularly - in the last couple of months I've seen Ghostbusters, Alien, Aliens and Blade Runner on an IMAX screen in 4K laser projection.

 

[jcroy]

I'm also lucky in that a lot of those films show up theatrically fairly regularly - in the last couple of months I've seen Ghostbusters, Alien, Aliens and Blade Runner on an IMAX screen in 4K laser projection.

Back in the day in the various towns, I use to check out midnight screenings at some local indie theaters where they would play famous/cult films of yesteryear. For example, stuff like the original Total Recall, Blade Runner, Rocky Horror Show, Terminator 1 and 2, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, etc ...