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 ads when you pause, but holy hell, we’ve been getting DVDs from the library, and sometimes it’s a good ten minutes of crap before the movie actually starts.
Just rip it and skip it!
Most of the DVDs I’ve played can skip the previews with chapter selection, but daaang the blu-rays locked that up. Can’t skip anything at all!
I guess I’ve just been spoiled on Criterion Collection as that’s the only Blu-ray media I buy these days, because there’s nothing before the menu besides maybe a splash screen with the Criterion logo.
If you keep an eye on prices on Amazon, these versions are not as pricey as they used to be.
And lots of that crap is anti piracy propaganda. Stuff, that actual pirates never see.
Ironic
Way back when I used to copy movies to .avi files, my computer was in one room, my TV in another, I had a video card with TV out and a long set of cables, I’d preserve the copyright warning because it gave me time to start the movie then walk to the living room to watch it…
i try to put in the disc, hit play, and just walk away so i miss all the garbage and the paragraphs warning me about prison time. kinda kills the mood
You wouldn’t download a car
I just need a bigger 3d printer.
I still have that habit even when don’t need to lol
It’s sensible for businesses to shift from physical media sales.
Sensible to who?
For all the reality of “streaming rights are a shitshow”, what percentage of the population do you think is willing to buy physical movies?
Because I don’t think it’s all that high.
Someone go make Steam for videos and I’ll pay for media again. My stipulations are:
- Once I buy it, it’s mine forever (otherwise piracy is better)
- The file is high quality, DRM free, and in a selection of standard formats (otherwise piracy is better)
- I can redownload it from the service at any time (otherwise piracy is better)
- I can get everything I want to watch (otherwise piracy is better)
Steam isn’t DRM free, though. Most games use Steamworks DRM.
Steamworks DRM is not a requirement though.
I know, I modified it to make more sense for video.
Companies see that as a mistake. They want you on a subscription for life that they can arbitrarily change at any time.
Profits not increasing enough for this quarter? Better cut content, increase prices, increase the number of ads.
Profits increased amazingly this quarter? Better cut content, increase prices, increase the number of ads.
Profits down? Better cut content, increase prices, increase the number of ads, and start adding extra paywalls to some content
They want you to own nothing. Oh you unsubscribed? Sorry even the content you paid extra to unlock was only available while your subscription continued, you will need to start your subscription again and then pay to unlock the content again.
A show isn’t popular enough? Better write it off, pull it from all distribution so you can claim it as a tax write off
Yarrrrrrrr
Yarrrrrr indeed
Steam satisfies only your third point, though. Otherwise, no. You don’t actually own your Steam library, Steam itself is DRM, and it doesn’t have everything.
I was pissed when suddenly I could no longer play any of my purchased steam games on my Windows 7 desktop that had all worked perfectly before. Eventually all your steam games are going to be unplayable on your current OS, and any game that is no longer profitable to support on the latest OS will be permanently unplayable. That’s why I always prefer to buy games on GOG over steam. When you buy a game on GOG you really do own the game forever.
I know. I changed the terms. Pray I don’t change them further.
I honestly don’t mind copy protections, I just don’t like online DRM. If the service is good enough, I’ll look past that particular portion.
I won’t. “Copy protection” is much more about restricting and potentially even removing your access to something you’ve paid for than it is about preventing copying. I am not willing to buy something that can be revoked when alternatives are available.
Offline copy protection, like the copy protection in DVDs and Bluray, can’t be revoked, they’re literally designed to be static. It’s really not an issue since, given time, it’ll be cracked (and both are, I literally just finished ripping my collection). I’m fine with that form of copy protection, I’m not fine with online-only DRM because that’s totally revokable.
Disagree. In order to keep those keys secure they can’t publish them, so they’ll have to license some sort of decryption chip. That just pushes the price up as some manufacturer ends up taking a cut from every player sale.
Also means you can’t do what you want with it. You probably can’t play it on an open source device. Etc etc.
Sure, I’d need specific hardware to access the media, but after I rip it, I can access it anywhere. The benefit to me of something like a Bluray isn’t the disk itself, but being able to legally buy media and rip it to a digital format at home. That’s a legally gray area since breaking copy protection measures is technically a copyright violation, but there’s also legal protection for backing up media for personal use, so it’s a bit of a gray area.
Given that there are no other legal or mostly legal alternatives, I’m satisfied with that as an option. Media companies rarely, if ever, go after people who rip media for personal use (probably because it’s not worth their time and it’s a legal gray area), so I’m okay with that status quo. If there were a legal option to get DRM-free media for offline use, I’d totally go for that. I tried that with streaming services, but the apps I used (Netflix and Disney+) failed when I actually needed them (my downloaded files “expired” on a trip when I didn’t have internet access), so that’s not going to work for me.
If this legally gray area goes away and I can’t easily rip media into a DRM-free format for personal use, I’ll go back to the alternatives I used when I couldn’t afford physical media and Netfilx wasn’t yet a thing.
DRM = copy protection
Not necessarily. DVDs and Blurays have copy protections, but they don’t require access to any servers. Online DRM sucks because if your internet goes out, their servers are having troubles, or they just shut down the servers for whatever reason, you cannot use your media.
So I’m mostly fine with offline copy protections (someone will crack it eventually), I’m not okay with DRM that requires online access.
Yeah, this is basically what we need.
FYI Steam had videos a few years ago, new purchases are discontinued but one can still playback their existing library.
I buy physical dvds. Sometimes I’m all that high when I buy them.
For the businesses.
Yes, the costs to actually make and distribute a physical disc are relatively low on a unit basis, but the cost of distributing a digital copy online make physical media look astronomical.
Even outside of cost, the level of control they can exert is vastly higher than any physical media.
Being able to prevent someone from reselling the movie or game they bought is very appealing to rights holders.
And customers. Almost everyone prefers to consume media in a simple way and that is streaming. Almost no one will go back to physical media. If streaming becomes absolutely unbearable, people would turn to digital downloads.
*whom
😝
sensible for businesses
Says so right in your quote
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.
Which means that you would only be able to play it on approved hardware.
cough cough 4K bluray cough cough
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 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.
Dropout.TV would definitely fall under #4 if you haven’t checked them out
VHS was kind of 2.5 thanks to macrovision…
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?
deleted by creator
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…)
a regular DVD
Yep, single-layer.
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.
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.
😅 I’m not sure if I am, to be honest.
At first I was cool with buying digital copies of movies from streaming services, when they first offered them. Until my neighbor apparently got his account suspended and had absolutely no access to all the digital copies of movies he had bought. I then realized… it’s true, we’re entering an age of, “you will own NOTHING and be happy”.
So I rather support pirates.
Yo ho!
yall paying for movies?
I will buy 4k blue rays of movies I like but if that isn’t available, eat ass and get fucked I’ll steal your shit and you get nothing.
You had me at eat ass
I recently got the Twister 4K steelbook. It’s my favorite movie.
I have no issues paying for movies, as long as they’re actually mine. I have major issues with paying for a limited license to stream a movie, until the streaming service decides to end their contract and the streaming rights get clawed back without a refund. If purchasing isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t theft.
nope
Yup, but only physical media, not streaming services or anything with online DRM. If I can’t play their media offline legally, I’ll find other ways of getting that data to work offline.
Yarr harr harr
🏴☠️ Yo-ho! 🫡
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
I mean…I just bought Batman the animated series on DVD. Whole series too. I never got to watch it as a kid, but I hear it holds up even for adults.
I also bought Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles DVD which has the first 3 movies from the 90s. The stupid Micheal Bay reboot from the 2010s, and also a movie called “Batman vs TMNT”. Which sounded bizzare enough for me to buy.
Now I just need time to watch these things.
May not be the same type of stuff, but I’ve seen comple box sets of shows like Courage the Cowardly Dog, Edd Ed N Eddy, and a few other shows for roughly around $30 a set at my local Walmart. It’s absolutely beautiful to see physical media box sets at a reasonable price crushes streaming prices.
DVD is for casuals, Laserdisc is where it’s at.
Laserdisc is for posers, VHS is the business.
Lol, virgin VHS vs Chad BetaMax
How’s that recording time, buddy
Virgin Blu-ray@2160p vs Chad VCD@240p.
Not really the same ballpark. VHS was wildly successful for over a quarter century… Maybe younger people don’t realize how ubiquitous they were.
Laserdiscs were always super rare (at least in my working/middle class area)
Gotta cut off any avenue of escape for streamers sick of not owning what they pay for.
There’s still the public library.
For now.
Per CNBC’s calculations…
🙋🏽♂️I found the problem!!!
