It’s sensible for businesses to shift from physical media sales. Per CNBC’s calculations, DVD sales fell over 86 percent between 2008 and 2019. Research from the Motion Picture Association in 2021 found that physical media represented 8 percent of the home/mobile entertainment market in the US, falling behind digital (80 percent) and theatrical (12 percent).
But as physical media gets less lucrative and the shuttering of businesses makes optical discs harder to find, the streaming services that largely replaced them are getting aggravating and unreliable. And with the streaming industry becoming more competitive and profit-hungry than ever, you never know if the movie/show that most attracted you to a streaming service will still be available when you finally get a chance to sit down and watch. Even paid-for online libraries that were marketed as available “forever” have been ripped away from customers.
When someone buys or rents a DVD, they know exactly what content they’re paying for and for how long they’ll have it (assuming they take care of the physical media). They can also watch the content if the Internet goes out and be certain that they’re getting uncompressed 4K resolution. DVD viewers are also less likely to be bombarded with ads whenever they pause and can get around an ad-riddled smart TV home screen (nothing’s perfect; some DVDs have unskippable commercials).
No DRM digital files downloads is the simple answer. There is no reason to go back to physical media to avoid subscriptions.
Keep in mind that DVDs did have DRM and the corps did try and get at the people who broke it. A new and improved physical media would have DRM and it’s possible the corporations will prevent it being defeated this time.
Which means that yoy would only be able to play it on approved hardware. You can have your shiny disc but they will decide if you can play it. Perhaps they can detect how many people are present via a camera or require you do drink that verification can.
No, RDM is not the answer. If i pay for something i should own it.
Glad that you agree.
Yup, here’s my hierarchy of preference:
- No DRM digital files w/ guaranteed re-downloadability if I have a license key or something
- No DRM physical media
- Offline DRM physical media
- Low cost subscription service with fantastic selection w/ offline viewing capability
Anything after 4 is unacceptable. VHS was 2, DVD and Bluray are 3, and Netflix was 4. Now Netflix has higher prices and worse selection, so it’s now somewhere after 4 and not worth the effort.
I’m willing to pay a premium for 1 or 2, and I’m willing to buy discounted 3, but nothing is offering 4 anymore. 1 & 2 don’t really exist anymore, so if 3 goes away, I guess I’ll go back to the alternatives I used when I couldn’t afford 1-3 and Netflix wasn’t around yet.
VHS was kind of 2.5 thanks to macrovision…
Dropout.TV would definitely fall under #4 if you haven’t checked them out
VHS was 2
VHS did have a halfassed copy protection technology attempted, though, which was Macrovision. It didn’t really work worth a damn in the end, but even in that area the media giants were already huffing on the DRM crack pipe.
You can completely remove copy protections on DVDs and Blu-rays that are protected by DRM with ブルーレイコピーソフト.
Which means that you would only be able to play it on approved hardware.
cough cough 4K bluray cough cough
Thankfully, MakeMKV is able to get through that with certain drives for every disk I’ve tried.
Ripping those disks is legitimately easier than playing them w/o breaking DRM on PCs
For real, VLC is great, I’ve totally had issues playing some of them with it. If I recall there’s supposed to be a way to let vlc use MakeMKV to break them for playback, but yeah, way more work than just ripping it.
In MakeMKV preferences, Integration tab, VLC should be listed there
Legitimately playing 4K blu-ray video on a PC without cracking the DRM requires an insane combination of requirements:
- Windows 10 (not 11)
- An Intel processor between gen 7-10 (nothing newer because Intel ditched SGX in 2021)
- Intel integrated graphics (no nvidia/amd)
- Monitor that supports HDCP 2.2 for DRM (some 4k ones don’t)
- An approved optical drive
- Proprietary playback software which costs about $100 USD, separate from the cost of hardware and Windows
- Miscellaneous other requirements for the motherboard features, bios settings, etc.
Meanwhile MakeMKV can rip them on basically any Windows/Linux/Mac system with a compatible BDXL drive.
🎶Yarr Harr, Fiddle Dee Dee🎶🏴
The enshittification of streaming is enshittifitentional.
Major B&M retailers of physical media are either dead, dieing, or have phased out physical media.
What a perfect time to issue a deathknell to the whole concept physical ownership.
Streaming originals that disappear will come back in limited release. It’ll basically be the Disney Vault of streaming. A company like Netflix would subtly drop references and nods to “removed” popular shows in their new shows to make you nostalgic for the old show. Then bring it back for a couple months.
You’ll especially see them all fighting for the best Christmas specials, but they’ll pull this shit with Stranger Things by the end of the decade. They expect people to plan-hop and will use limited releases and seasonal specials as their carrot.
Why would I want dvds when I can own digital media?
Because the discs will safely store that data for decades longer than any of your hard drives will likely work.
Because the current trend is to ensure the consumer owns less and less and just pays monthly for access rights.
No, the current trend is piracy.
The current user trend may be piracy, the current corporate trend is You don’t own anything, pay a subscription.
extras, commentaries, it’s nice seeing your favorite films on a shelf
I really don’t understand why they don’t include this stuff on streaming services.
Rip your own DVDs and you can have both, with redundancy
Or store them on a portable hdd and have redundancy without hoarding shiny plastic discs.
I store the discs because while ripping is of questional legallity by having the discs I have the morals right.
I find this to be an odd choice. No one is coming to your home to check. You KNOW you paid for the media. I’d throw the disks I know I would never use out, or sell them.
Nobody today is not coming to my house. However the world has not always changed in ways I like. If the media companies want to make an example of somebody they might randomly pick me. If I have physical media they will not be able to convince the general public I’m a dishonest thief and so even though I might be legally in the wrong for ripping DVDs they will stay away: they are going to look for someone who they can make look like a dishonest thief in the court of public opinion. They are not looking to take me to court and win whatever damaged they are owned from my activity (it will cost them about 100 times as much $$$ in lawyers fees - they would probably win but it isn’t worth it), what they would be looking for is to make an example in the news about how much someone loses and if I have physical media they instead look like jerks for enforcing a law on something that the generally public wouldn’t even call a crime.
If you throw away perfectly fine physical copies, you are just contributing to the ever-increasing plastic waste poisoning our ecosystems, and if you sell them then your digital copies are now illegal. Just put them in a disc binder and stick 'em in a closet for fuck sake!
I don’t get the point of having them then. No one will check, they’re just filling space…
If you’re going to sell the disks, just pirate instead, it’s the same in a legal sense (you have something you don’t have a legal claim to).
If you’re worried about space, get a disk binder or something. Disks aren’t that big, cases are, so ditch the case and keep the disk. I keep the disks too, but I have a ton of storage space.
you are just contributing to the ever-increasing plastic waste poisoning our ecosystems
so are you. they’re all going to end up in a landfill one way or another.
Just put them in a disc binder and stick 'em in a closet for fuck sake!
you mean throw the plastic case away?
I’ve started buying DVDs and Blu-ray again after years of not doing so because there have been multiple instances of me purchasing a movie on some streaming platform and then it no longer being available. Also, there have been even more instances where it’s less expensive to buy the physical product and then rip it than it is to buy the digital copy.
We’ll since they are killing Blu Ray you better hope your hardware lasts forever.
No they’re not.
They’re not killing Blu-Ray. They’re killing consumer writeable Blu-Rays. Tell me you only read headlines without telling me you only read headlines.
And even only SONY is stopping production, other manufactures aren’t.
Physical media cannot be altered afterwards. That’s a thing Disney likes to do, for example.
Plus maximum video and audio quality. Some people don’t watch movies on phones or laptops, you know.
All of that can be achieved with digital media.
Nobody is altering the movie file on my computer except me.
Digital rips likewise can be lossless, so there’s no quality differences.
dvds aren’t dying; the media companies who own the rights to dvds and blurays are killing them
what’s the difference?
nothing; just gotta point out that media companies are doing everything they can to stop us from owning our own media.
malicious intent
a Concidence I"m sure…
Are the numbers about DVD sales strictly about DVD sales or do they include all optical formats (Blu-ray/UltraHD Blu-ray)? Because unless I’m getting an old TV show that was only ever SD, my preference is to get a Blu-ray, not a DVD. I suppose if I still saw the super cheap ($3-5) DVDs in the grocery store for something I like but not enough to buy normally (this is how I bought Brewster’s Millions) then I might buy a DVD, but otherwise I at least want HD quality.
Isn’t Blu Ray dead?
No, bluray is 1080p (or 2160p if UHD Bluray) while DVDs are 576p-720p (what looks really shitty on a 4K TV). I only buy BDs and UHD BDs these days
while DVDs are 576p-720p
576p is the absolute maximum. Most DVDs are actually 480p.
I am pretty sure 1080p video will fit on DVD just fine if formatted as regular data disc. But I am not sure if H.264 or anything newer is supported, and video may not have the highest quality, but still better than 720p I guess.
That’s true, but the DVD-Video standard only supports MPEG-2 at 720x576 (PAL), or 720x480 (NTSC).
Sure, you can put a 1080p AVC-encoded video on a DVD formatted as a data disc, but it won’t play on a DVD player.
Huh. I had a vague memory that my DVD player allowed regular movie files to be played, but maybe my memory is just bad.
That would be very device-specific, if they wanted to add additional support for data discs. It would be outside the scope of the actual DVD-video playback functionality.
No.
You’re correct. They are only killing the consumer recordable media. I thought it was all Blu Ray
I think it’s only Sony’s first-party discs, too. So someone else could theoretically manufacture them. I don’t know if anyone else does, though.
There are plenty others who do.
There’s still the public library.
For now.
Shout out to !homevideo@feddit.uk
The trap closes.
Pirate a window
Aye, looks like that’s where we be heading, maytee.
I have a 4k BluRay player I picked up for cheap. But I only have like 2 movies for it.
Does it do 3D?
You know what it might. But I need the glasses for my TV.
I thought those players only worked on special 3D TVs? I’ve never tried the feature because my TVs are always the cheap ones.
Yeah it does require a tv with that feature. Mine supports it but I’ve never thought to try it because it needs glasses. (and probably won’t because they are expensive last I checked)
DVDs, appealing? Have you watched them lately?
Yep. I’ve recently been collecting Criterion Collection blu-rays (and 4k BR in the case of Citizen Kane. Which was incredible btw. First time seeing it too) for some of my favorite films plus classics I haven’t seen yet. If you keep an eye out for sales you can get some really great stuff for under $20. Sometimes under $15.
The picture quality is second to none, the bonus features are always amazing and actually worth checking out, and I own them outright forever.
Edit: oh, you meant like actual old school regular DVDs… Fuck that
I tried to watch a DVD lately (as in past few years). Holy. Yeah. Not as I remembered. It’s not even 720p. Looks like manure on my 65" 4K OLED. 💩 And the audio. I had to stop.
I think it was Band Of Brothers? Had to download a 1080p boxset at least. Then it was consumable.
It’s one of those things were people have gotten used to 1080p or better and they remember DVD being pretty good, but when they go back, yeeesh. I remember thinking that about VHS vs DVD. Got used to DVD, remembered VHS being just fine, put a VHS on, oh boy.
My favorite part about DVDs is how sometimes they look just fine but the video doesn’t actually play. I got a DVD from the library recently that the video stopped 10 minutes in the first episode and you couldn’t even play or rip past that point either.
Physical media still really sucks in a lot of ways.
DVD is better than Blu-ray in that regard - I’ve ripped DVDs that look like they fell off a truck and got run over multiple times and had no problem, meanwhile about 1 out of 5 Blu-rays I got from Netflix would have problems despite looking pristine. It has to do with the data density, Blu-ray packs so much more in the same amount of space, one microscopic scratch wipes out so much data…
Of course some DVDs suffer from bad materials. I was re-ripping my collection recently, and I have a few that have sat in a closet untouched for years, not a scratch on them, but the drive won’t even recognize there’s a disc. Probably oxidation of the reflective layer.
This is what’s made me a little more okay with digital video games. The chance that some bizarre event will lead to that game becoming unplayable is non-zero. But, that’s the case for physical game discs as well.
I’m upset at events like The Crew’s removal and hope for more laws to make such things unlikely. Still, I’m generally accepting that by and large, publishers don’t try to delete or remove access to people’s games. There’s no specific motivation in it for that particular evil.
Movies, however, I’m reticent. I liked being able to buy a few cheap movies on digital services, but Sony’s mass deletion of their library makes me hesitant to continue there.
Likewise, I’m far less hesitant to accept buying digital console games than video because I generally can expect that once I download a game on my one device that I’ll pull out the same device whenever I want to play it and it’ll keep working when offline and even after the servers are gone, until the hardware fails. Modern games’ physical releases rely so heavily on updates and DLC that the cart/disc you get isn’t complete anyway; buying physical effectively becomes a digital game with an extra point of failure (and partial resellability). PC gaming complicates things but at least some games are available completely DRM-free there.
With video content sold online, streaming directly from some server is always the focus. As soon as the server disconnects you become unable to watch by default. Even if some service lets you pre-download within its app and watch offline (which probably won’t work indefinitely without checkins anyway), that’ll defeat the portability expectations for watching your videos on any device interchangeably.
Blu-ray video isn’t ideal considering you cannot watch it on a phone, tablet, or linux system without cracking its DRM, but that’s still way better for lasting access than anything else major movie/TV studios are willing to let consumers access without piracy.
Also, you don’t have to worry about some random service shutting down. There are so many online dependencies with modern consoles that of the service shuts down, you gave an unusable brick, regardless whether you possess the bits they sold you
When someone buys or rents a DVD, they […] can also watch the content if the Internet goes out and be certain that they’re getting uncompressed 4K resolution.
I’m sorry, is this a special version of DVD that can store 4K video? Uncompressed?
At the very least, it’s still (generally speaking) higher quality video than streaming. It’s not uncompressed, though.
Surely not? DVD is 576p/i (PAL) and 480p/i 💀. Not even 720p. 720p looks like garbage on a 4K display IMO. I really hope you are getting higher resolution from your streaming services than that, otherwise I think you’re getting ripped off. (Streaming services are a ripoff to me regardless, but that’s another point.)
Others replying to the comment included Blu-ray, so I did, too. I assumed it was a given to include that since others had already brought it up.
No harm done. I’m mostly just being facetious. 😅❤️
No, you’re absolutely correct. Many people just don’t realize how crappy the resolution is on DVD, and I would hate for people to buy some and be surprised at how bad it looks.
I ripped all of my DVDs because I have them, and combined they’re something like the size of one or two 4k Blurays. So don’t go out and buy a bunch of old DVDs if Blurays are an option for you.
combined they’re something like the size of one or two 4k Blurays
Ha! That’s pretty funny to me.
I think that would be a fun hobby for me, if I had the time for it. To gather a sizable blu-ray collection, and rip into a smaller size media library. There’s so much to get into though, with all the codec options and settings and quantizing and shit. Mind-boggling when you haven’t even started researching yet. 😅
Well, just start somewhere and optimize as you go. I’ve got an 8TB NAS (two 8TB drives in mirror), and it’s not even halfway full, despite having a ton of DVDs and Bluray rips. I haven’t bought many Blurays lately bags because Netflix was good enough, but I’m getting back into it.
DVD max quality is 480p, and it takes up ~2GB for longer movies at super quality m4v format with Handbrake (the first Hobbit movie was 2.5GB). 1080p Bluray rips are like 10x that.
I accidentally ripped a few with the wrong settings, but it’s easy to redo it. So just get started, but make sure you have plenty of disk space. I use Jellyfin for watching on my TV and it works pretty well and was pretty easy to set up.
4K BluRay discs are compressed with HEVC. There’s no way to get consumer 4K video uncompressed.
Uncompressed 4K@30fps requires A 6000mbps data rate. BluRay caps out at 144mbps.
A 90 minute movie would be 4TB. BluRay caps out at 128GB.
Exactly. And a regular DVD caps at 4.7 GB if I’m not mistaken. Not even close.
That’s just single layer - dual layer is something like 8.4 if memory serves (which it often doesn’t…)
It’s easy as long as you’re okay with only being able to fit probably 1-2 minutes of video, the resulting disk not playing in any consumer player ever, and probably not even being capable of real time playback on a powerful PC with a fast drive.
They’re talking about 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, which was introduced in 2016. The video is still compressed, but it’s still much higher quality than DVD and Blu-ray, and can hold 60-100 GB of data.
But they wrote “DVD”. I’m just nitpicking.
Ah, gotcha. It’s annoying when people use “DVD” as a catch-all term for all optical media.
It is 😅 Words have meaning!
Exactly. I can’t play Bluray disks in my DVD player. That’s a pretty important distinction.
One business dying is not the death of a media type, FFS.
Well, it’s not just one business. It’s an 86% reduction in volume that represents the death of the media format.
