Oh noes teh sky is falling!

[dallywhitty]

I think streaming and physical media can co-exist. I own close to 800 films between my Blu-rays and DVDs but I still use Netflix occasionally. It's simply very convenient and it allows me to see films I've been curious about for ages. For example, I recently watched Hardware via US Netflix and I loved it. And I have every intention of buying it on Blu-ray in the near future. Why buy it on Blu-ray when I can just re-watch it on Netflix? Well, extras help but my primary reason is because if I love a film enough, I want to add it to my collection and you don't get that sense of ownership through streaming.

[TheProf89]

Originally Posted by dallywhitty

I think streaming and physical media can co-exist. I own close to 800 films between my Blu-rays and DVDs but I still use Netflix occasionally. It's simply very convenient and it allows me to see films I've been curious about for ages. For example, I recently watched Hardware via US Netflix and I loved it. And I have every intention of buying it on Blu-ray in the near future. Why buy it on Blu-ray when I can just re-watch it on Netflix? Well, extras help but my primary reason is because if I love a film enough, I want to add it to my collection and you don't get that sense of ownership through streaming.

I wish more people used streaming the way you do.

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by Groot

The real question is, how many people are sitting around concerned with minor PQ issues for most films? Not many. A goodmajority of the public still thinks dvds are a good option PQ wise.

Right, but those people are just ignorant or complacent. I and many here are not.

[Truewitt]

Originally Posted by 42041

Personal anecdotes aren't very useful data points. These problems have not been widespread enough (or people don't care enough) to stop streaming from being a big business.

My example wasn't a personal anecdote. It was about being in a large market and still only having slow speeds, which are marketed as broadband. It speaks to the point that people having "broadband" doesn't mean they have the speeds and service necessary for streaming to replace their film watching. This is a lot of people.

[deto]

i have been a physical media collector since the VHS days of the 80's and evolved with every physical media to date, but i am all for streaming. I love vudu for the fact that i can watch things on my iPad, macbook and phone, whenever i want. I'm an elementary school teacher and on the rare occasion we are allowed to watch a film, albeit for a lesson or just for fun, i love that i can turn on my laptop and connect it to the projector and stream it. it's also convenient for my son who stays 2 nights a week at grandmas house and he can stream his shows and movies while he's there.

[seannyd]

I just read through all 26 pages of this thread and came away with one conclusion: People like different things but some people just HATE that.

I own nearly 700 titles on Blu-Ray alone. And it would be cool if studios would put a little more effort into their physical goods. But I am not threatened by streaming.

I prefer to have a physical copy of a thing and I'm a long ways away from purchasing movies in a digital format because I just don't feel confident that it will always be there for me. Plus, I really enjoy displaying my collection.

But I have no problem renting or buying individual TV episodes on something like VUDU because it's just crazy convenient and provides comparable quality to Blu-Ray, given my needs.

Going back to the start of this thread, that article was really interesting in the ways that a lot of smaller companies have been able to fill in some of the gaps left by the larger studios who are more concerned with streaming or just don't find it lucrative to release some of these. And that's awesome!

I definitely think it's rude to call people "ignorant or complacent" because the fact of the matter is: they don't care. I can't imagine it would go over well with literally all of my friends if I called them "ignorant" or "complacent" for not being concerned with the highest of highest quality picture and sound. I can't think of one other person I know in the real world who cares about such things and a lot of these people really like movies too.

They're not doing it wrong. They're just coming at it from a different perspective. What works for every individual here is fine. I can't argue with anyone's personal preference. What's silly is that we all seem to love the same thing (movies) and yet are going to argue over how a person accesses that? It's very strange to me.

[Packerfan75]

Originally Posted by dallywhitty

I think streaming and physical media can co-exist. I own close to 800 films between my Blu-rays and DVDs but I still use Netflix occasionally. It's simply very convenient and it allows me to see films I've been curious about for ages. For example, I recently watched Hardware via US Netflix and I loved it. And I have every intention of buying it on Blu-ray in the near future. Why buy it on Blu-ray when I can just re-watch it on Netflix? Well, extras help but my primary reason is because if I love a film enough, I want to add it to my collection and you don't get that sense of ownership through streaming.

Not to mention that it'll also disappear from Netflix in a couple months.
I'm definitely not anti-streaming. I use Netflix, Crackle, YouTube, etc. I just get reminded that internet is unreliable by picture degradation and signal loss. Even at its best, is still inferior to bluray in terms of audio and picture quality.

[blonde_devil]

Originally Posted by 42041

That's good for you, not so much for the businesses. All the money you save buying bargain bin discs is money no one makes - and that's actually bad for physical media.

Yes and no. The physical media costs far less to produce then they actually sell it for. I know discs are pressed and not burnt but you can buy a 100 pack of dvd-r for under $30 so you now the actual media is costing them pennies. Same with the cases. The disc production isn't expensive either as it is done in Mexico or someplace else cheap. So even at $5, they are not really losing money since that disc probably costs no more than $3-4 to produce. Only reason they say it loses money is because they are not making back the profit they want but really, they are not. Price is a motivator - if these older movies were $5 to download instead of to rent, people would be more into downloads. It's part of the reason why Blockbuster went under - would you rather spend $8 a month on Netflix or $8 a movie at Blockbuster? By selling these older releases at cheaper prices, they are generating sales because people are more willing to spend $20 and buy a couple movies than 1 movie. dvds are 20 years old with no real changes - prices should be coming down for those more than they are. We are not paying for the process or anything like that anymore, we are paying because studios want to make more money. It's the same reason why downloads are so expensive - you don't have a disc or case or anything but it costs a fortune because that is the prices studios feel they should get.

[blonde_devil]

Originally Posted by Packerfan75

Not to mention that it'll also disappear from Netflix in a couple months.
I'm definitely not anti-streaming. I use Netflix, Crackle, YouTube, etc. I just get reminded that internet is unreliable by picture degradation and and even at its best, is still inferior to bluray in terms of audio and picture quality.

And variety. What you get on Netflix depends on where you are - Canada, US, etc are not constant. So while it may be okay for someone in the States to use Netflix and get TNG in HD, us in Canada have no choice right now but to buy the blu-rays. In the States, you can download a movie from Amazon.com but we can't from Amazon.ca. A lot has to do with where you are and what is available but most people live within an hour or so from a Walmart and they all sell dvds and blu-rays so physical media is still a viable option for most people.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by HD Goofnut

Right, but those people are just ignorant or complacent. I and many here are not.

They aren't ignorant in the way you are implying just because they use film as a passive form of entertainment and not a hobby.

The problem with this so called debate is how negative one side is vs the other. If you like physical media, which clearly most people here do/did at some point, no one is taking it away from you. Streaming and digital downloads is a reality and it's growing in numbers. You can rally against it all you like but that doesn't make the streamer wrong simply because they don't need the extras you do for each title.

[Ms45]

I was always against streaming, but lately I've decided to cut way back on the amount of films I purchase - I plan to only purchase 70s/80s horror/genre movies - as those are the ones I re-watch the most - I'll use my amazon prime, netflix, and hulu account to watch everything else - along with redbox.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by Ms45

I was always against streaming, but lately I've decided to cut way back on the amount of films I purchase - I plan to only purchase 70s/80s horror/genre movies - as those are the ones I re-watch the most - I'll use my amazon prime, netflix, and hulu account to watch everything else - along with redbox.

That's the way I was too. I've now not purchased a TV show in over two years. I watch Netflix/Hulu branded shows all the time. I even got my parents up to speed on how to chromecast and use Netflix to watch Longmire. I still buy big releases on blu for special editions, but blu buying in general has been drastically cut.

[spiderfan1985]

Originally Posted by Packerfan75

Not to mention that it'll also disappear from Netflix in a couple months.
I'm definitely not anti-streaming. I use Netflix, Crackle, YouTube, etc. I just get reminded that internet is unreliable by picture degradation and and even at its best, is still inferior to bluray in terms of audio and picture quality.

Yeah, I read that Netflix was about to drop a whole bunch of films from their streaming inventory once they let their deal with Epix expire. However, they have an exclusive deal with Disney meant to start next year so they are hoping that will make up for it. As I've said before, I'll stick with Blu and physical. For as long as possible anyway because the last I checked Netflix, which my parents still have, there are so many films on there that I have never even heard of and they are all DTV sh*t. Yeah, that is just one reason I got out of Netflix. No content that actually appeals to me on any level. To each their own though. I use all my UV copies now that come with my Blu purchases strictly for "on the go" use. Travel use, as it were.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by chip75

I wasn't comparing the two, just that when renting physical rentals declined the industry declined with it. And remember that all those discs made for rental were part of the physical industry. I'm sure they're making far less of them now. In the UK we have Rental and Retail copies, since Blockbusters has gone I'd imagine the Rental Copy production isn't anywhere near the size it was a few years back. 30 years ago rental tapes were probably a huge percentage of the home video industry.

I'm not saying that physical production will disappear completely (it's just going to get smaller). I wouldn't want that to happen, but eventually it's going to be a very small minority of buyers that want physical products over digital ones.

Originally Posted by mredman

you don't know that. And don't you dare compare movies and tv shows on Blu and dvd to music. Its not even in the same ballpark. music you can do everything while listen to. Movies you have to keep your attention on the screen. And its more presitige to own movies than music.

You've lost me, mate. I didn't mention music. Now that you have mentioned it there's probably far more prestige been a music enthusiast than there is with been a movie enthusiast. At least that's the impression I get from vinyl collectors! I don't think anyone but us lot are impressed with large movie collections, but vinyl fans give their music their full attention and they get into their hobby just as much as we get into ours.

But different folks ...

[PCFan]

Originally Posted by Packerfan75

I'll add 2 more cents. I streamed my first football game yesterday using the NFL app on my Xbox One. Everything was set up perfectly, I had 4/4 bars of signal strength on TWC broadband, I'm located in the second largest market in the U.S. and it crapped out on me twice in the first quarter. I had severe dropouts in PQ, and pauses for rebuffering. I had to shut down and reset the system twice from being cut off. I missed my teams first touchdown and most of the first quarter of play. It was infuriating. There's no way I'm gonna be reliant on tech like that to watch movies, which I've also had problems with via Netflix in the past.

Last week I was streaming a movie I own through Vudu and my internet went out and Vudu gave a buffering message and the movie stopped playing. That night the internet worked on and off and we had to get the tech guy to come over to fix it. Well all was going fine until an hour ago, when I was streaming another movie I own through Vudu and then movie stops playing with a buffering message, and once again my internet goes out. My internet is working on and off again and I had to quit streaming the rest of the movie for now, and I decided just to watch a movie that I ripped to my hard drive from one of my blu-rays instead, which does not require internet connection plus the image and sound quality is better. I'm blaming my internet connection for both these times. I regret selling most of my Blu-ray collection now and I think I'm going to have to go back to Blu-ray for my movie watching. I think having an unstable internet connection about a week ago and right now, while streaming a movie, was the last straw for me for streaming movies. At least I never bought a digital movie at full price and most were from the codes that come with the blu-rays and about 7% of my collection on Vudu is from D2D.

[Terrorfirmer]

I like that my bluray/dvd/vhs doesnt have to stop and load every 2 minutes when the weather is bad.

[Blu-21]

Originally Posted by Crimson King

I'll take a vhs over streamng anyday of the week, not a fan of streaming, and never will be.

That's taken things a bit far isn't it? VHS might be physical media, but its low quality and a lot are in pan and scan.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by Blu-21

That's taken things a bit far isn't it? VHS might be physical media, but its low quality and a lot are in pan and scan.

Well, this is the internet, after all. Hyperbole is par for the course.

[dublinbluray108]

I still think that whatever the ISP companies are providing to their customers in terms of broadband speed for all of us to do streaming of any kind; the online servers overall are still providing a very slow broadband infrastructure to the masses.

We're getting a lot of over-hyped announcements for 5G broadband to come in and make our internet connections faster. But that luxury won't come for us until 2017; a long two years away. For ourselves to be getting 5G broadband into our homes; we will have to be wait until the suitable infrastructure for it is actually built to make a difference to our personal lives. Not only that as it's a new technology it will be even more expensive to install 5G and use it properly for streaming movies and for people's other online items in the home.

Physical media thankfully does not have that crucial and unhelpful limitation of being tied to a broadband connection.

That is why physical media will always be the overall winner for any format in this cycle of home media distribution. There are always going to be limits and challenges in how people all over the world use their broadband connection if they make a rational decision to properly stream movies.

I still use and buy physical media to obtain the best quality possible for my movies. I don't wish for other market forces to destroy that path of enjoyment and entertainment speaking for myself. But I know that it won't do that in anyway that is logically possible. If both physical and digital downloads can co-exist with one another well than I can live with that.

However in the world of video gaming there is some possibility that Microsoft and Sony will build and launch digital-based video game element as their next mass market console releases. One release being the new Playstation VR Headset which will be launched for next year. Sony is expecting this headset is going to cost as much as a new playstation console.

http://www.gamesradar.com/playstation-vr-price-console/

On that current note physical is overwhelmingly good. Digital - not so much (It depends on their quality).

[eiknarf]

Originally Posted by Groot

That's the way I was too. I've now not purchased a TV show in over two years. I watch Netflix/Hulu branded shows all the time. I even got my parents up to speed on how to chromecast and use Netflix to watch Longmire. I still buy big releases on blu for special editions, but blu buying in general has been drastically cut.

Here's a strike against Streaming (and a +1 for physical media):

If you decide to press "mute" on your TV, Hulu now can decide to un-mute it whenever they want so you can hear an ad. They're overriding controls in the player to force you to listen to ads.