Oh noes teh sky is falling!

[rickah88]

Maybe streaming is in decline? I wouldn't know as I never signed up for Netflix streaming, just kept disc rental, when they split the two services.
I don't see any decline in disc rental. I have over 400 discs in my immediate queue and another ~300 in my saved queue. About half of which is BD.
That company will go out of business before I run out of disc rentals, even averaging ~14 discs/month on the 3 disc plan.
It used to be more discs/month but Netflix stopped processing Mail on Saturdays.

[AgentOrange]

Originally Posted by rickah88

Maybe streaming is in decline? I wouldn't know as I never signed up for Netflix streaming, just kept disc rental, when they split the two services.
I don't see any decline in disc rental. I have over 400 discs in my immediate queue and another ~300 in my saved queue. About half of which is BD.
That company will go out of business before I run out of disc rentals, even averaging ~14 discs/month on the 3 disc plan.
It used to be more discs/month but Netflix stopped processing Mail on Saturdays.

I don't know if the average hours watched is in decline overall, but from my view the selection available to stream has been in a drastic decline. Which makes sense, as they struggle to make money.

It was an absolute steal for a long time, it's still a good deal since it's relatively cheap, but the selection is really starting to put that to the test for me.

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by rickah88

Maybe streaming is in decline? I wouldn't know as I never signed up for Netflix streaming, just kept disc rental, when they split the two services.
I don't see any decline in disc rental. I have over 400 discs in my immediate queue and another ~300 in my saved queue. About half of which is BD.
That company will go out of business before I run out of disc rentals, even averaging ~14 discs/month on the 3 disc plan.
It used to be more discs/month but Netflix stopped processing Mail on Saturdays.

I don't think streaming is in decline. People use Netflix even more than they did a couple years ago. Netflix's selection absolutely IS in decline, though, and I think sooner or later even the extremely passive people that use Netflix primarily are going to notice and demand more options. I think the problem is partly that studios are seeing Netflix's success, getting mad, and pulling their material from it, sometimes in attempts to push their own streaming services which are all doomed to failure (ex, Warner Instant). I think at some point we'll get more consolidation as they realize they're not going to get any of them off the ground.

Amazon's selection is improving. Their clients are all still garbage compared to Netflix, but their integration of being able to "rent" is one huge thing they have over Netflix.

I've heard that Netflix's end-game is to basically turn themselves into a cable channel and get bought out by cable companies, though, hence the greater and greater focus on originals and the smaller and smaller selection of everything else. That would be something. If that service went away, I guess Amazon would be unchallenged.

[asianxcore]

Originally Posted by MrHT

When I see Best Buy's BD/DVD sections getting slimmer, it scares me about the future of physical media.

It's not even just Best Buy either, it's a lot of local & chain stores that sell physical media.

Here in Northern California, we have Rasputin Music that has several locations, all of which sell new & used Vinyl, CDs, VHS and DVD/BD. Over the last few years I have noticed even although they carry more than most other chains, they have definitely been shrinking their DVD/BD sections.

[StingingVelvet]

Retail chains making their movie sections smaller has a lot more to do with Amazon than it does the market. New release movies still sell pretty well, the drop in sales is because no one's replacing their catalog DVDs with BDs.

[rickah88]

Originally Posted by cakefactory

I don't think streaming is in decline. People use Netflix even more than they did a couple years ago. Netflix's selection absolutely IS in decline, though, and I think sooner or later even the extremely passive people that use Netflix primarily are going to notice and demand more options. I think the problem is partly that studios are seeing Netflix's success, getting mad, and pulling their material from it, sometimes in attempts to push their own streaming services which are all doomed to failure (ex, Warner Instant). I think at some point we'll get more consolidation as they realize they're not going to get any of them off the ground.

Amazon's selection is improving. Their clients are all still garbage compared to Netflix, but their integration of being able to "rent" is one huge thing they have over Netflix.

I've heard that Netflix's end-game is to basically turn themselves into a cable channel and get bought out by cable companies, though, hence the greater and greater focus on originals and the smaller and smaller selection of everything else. That would be something. If that service went away, I guess Amazon would be unchallenged.

How did you arrive at the conclusion "Netflix's selection absolutely IS in decline"?
I ask, because I've been on the disc rental plan for over a decade and have only seen my disc rental queue grow. Sure I don't expect that to last forever, but it's been going strong to this point.(btw, watching OitNB S3 BD now )

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by rickah88

How did you arrive at the conclusion "Netflix's selection absolutely IS in decline"?
I ask, because I've been on the disc rental plan for over a decade and have only seen my disc rental queue grow. Sure I don't expect that to last forever, but it's been going strong to this point.(btw, watching OitNB S3 BD now )

Their streaming movies. My list went down by over 50% in the last couple years and I never removed anything manually.

[rickah88]

Originally Posted by cakefactory

Their streaming movies.

Like I said in my original post, I never opted for their streaming services.
So, apologies for the miscue.

[adamclark83]

In my country's Stack magazine that I get from JB Hi-Fi, there's an interview with Quentin Tarantino about his latest movie and he says he will always choose physical discs over digital downloads. Until he actually has a movie on disc in his hand, he won't feel he truly owns it.

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by adamclark83

In my country's Stack magazine that I get from JB Hi-Fi, there's an interview with Quentin Tarantino about his latest movie and he says he will always choose physical discs over digital downloads. Until he actually has a movie on disc in his hand, he won't feel he truly owns it.

That's how I feel right now, too, both with music and movies. I assume most on this board feel that way as well. If they come up with some kind of digital collection that's more permanent and MUCH wider-ranging than UV/itunes, has bonus features, and is stored in such a way it's not vulnerable to hard drive failure and is easily accessible through streaming (not through linking my computer to my TV) then maybe I'll get over it That "disc to digital" thing on UV is a good first step, but it only works with a small number of my discs and obviously the quality is lacking.

[knight17]

Originally Posted by adamclark83

In my country's Stack magazine that I get from JB Hi-Fi, there's an interview with Quentin Tarantino about his latest movie and he says he will always choose physical discs over digital downloads. Until he actually has a movie on disc in his hand, he won't feel he truly owns it.

I agree with him and will always do the same. There are several reasons but my main reasons for sticking to physical media would be that I am in complete control once I have purchased an item and will never agree to studios trying to enforce further restrictions once I have purchased them.

Like I have mentioned before, there is also a sense of satisfaction in actually owning something as opposed to streaming and or downloads stored on a computer.

[bigshot]

If I could magically snap my fingers and instantly have all 8 thousand video discs in our collection instantly transferred to lossless MKV files stored on a protected disk array and media server running Plex, I would do that in a heartbeat. Plex is better than gold. It organizes our collection and gives us a Netflix style menu system by film genre, title crew, etc. I'm converting our DVD collection now and I'm about half way through. By the time I finish, storage should be cheap enough to move on to the blu-rays.

[thatguamguy]

Originally Posted by rickah88

How did you arrive at the conclusion "Netflix's selection absolutely IS in decline"?
I ask, because I've been on the disc rental plan for over a decade and have only seen my disc rental queue grow. Sure I don't expect that to last forever, but it's been going strong to this point.(btw, watching OitNB S3 BD now )

If you are always adding to your queue, you probably don't notice when titles get dropped, but if you are primarily streaming and only sometimes check the disc listings, you'd see that it's on the decline. Which makes sense; as more and more discs go out of print, they won't be able to replace damaged stock, and that's to say nothing of titles they actually pull for one reason or another.

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by bigshot

If I could magically snap my fingers and instantly have all 8 thousand video discs in our collection instantly transferred to lossless MKV files stored on a protected disk array and media server running Plex, I would do that in a heartbeat. Plex is better than gold. It organizes our collection and gives us a Netflix style menu system by film genre, title crew, etc. I'm converting our DVD collection now and I'm about half way through. By the time I finish, storage should be cheap enough to move on to the blu-rays.

I have been slowly doing this with my collection using external hard drives. I am to 17 TBs and I need close to 50 TBs.

[BuckNaked2k]

Originally Posted by bigshot

If I could magically snap my fingers and instantly have all 8 thousand video discs in our collection instantly transferred to lossless MKV files stored on a protected disk array and media server running Plex, I would do that in a heartbeat. Plex is better than gold. It organizes our collection and gives us a Netflix style menu system by film genre, title crew, etc. I'm converting our DVD collection now and I'm about half way through. By the time I finish, storage should be cheap enough to move on to the blu-rays.

What software do you use to extract the files from your DVDs? Is it included with the Plex package?

[rickah88]

Originally Posted by thatguamguy

If you are always adding to your queue, you probably don't notice when titles get dropped, but if you are primarily streaming and only sometimes check the disc listings, you'd see that it's on the decline. Which makes sense; as more and more discs go out of print, they won't be able to replace damaged stock, and that's to say nothing of titles they actually pull for one reason or another.

I'm editing my queue, at least, twice a week. I'd know if a title was dropped or if it wasn't available in my desired format as Netflix posts the change at the top of the queue page. Even if they didn't and omitted the disc outright, I would see the quantity drop. If this has ever happened, to me, it must be quite rare as I don't recall my disc quantity dropping,for no apparent reason, in over a decade of use.

[mogwai_macabre]

Originally Posted by bigshot

If I could magically snap my fingers and instantly have all 8 thousand video discs in our collection instantly transferred to lossless MKV files stored on a protected disk array and media server running Plex, I would do that in a heartbeat. Plex is better than gold. It organizes our collection and gives us a Netflix style menu system by film genre, title crew, etc. I'm converting our DVD collection now and I'm about half way through. By the time I finish, storage should be cheap enough to move on to the blu-rays.

I played around with Plex a few years ago and didn't like how it handled special features. I think I converted to MKV and the features were just Title01, Title02, etc. which wasn't very helpful. I don't recall how it handled commentary tracks.

Has that process improved?

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[thatguamguy]

Originally Posted by rickah88

If this has ever happened, to me, it must be quite rare as I don't recall my disc quantity dropping,for no apparent reason, in over a decade of use.

Sorry, are you seriously trying to say that Netflix hasn't dropped a significant number of movies from the disc service when compared with a decade ago? I don't know what to tell you, other than "you're definitely misremembering".

[rickah88]

Originally Posted by thatguamguy

Sorry, are you seriously trying to say that Netflix hasn't dropped a significant number of movies from the disc service when compared with a decade ago? I don't know what to tell you, other than "you're definitely misremembering".

Maybe they have but it wasn't any disc that I had added to my queue.

[IXOYE1989]

Originally Posted by bigshot

If I could magically snap my fingers and instantly have all 8 thousand video discs in our collection instantly transferred to lossless MKV files stored on a protected disk array and media server running Plex, I would do that in a heartbeat. Plex is better than gold. It organizes our collection and gives us a Netflix style menu system by film genre, title crew, etc. I'm converting our DVD collection now and I'm about half way through. By the time I finish, storage should be cheap enough to move on to the blu-rays.

Wouldn't that require you to rip your blu-ray disk to create MKV files? How do you rip blu-ray movies? I thought there were legal issues regarding ripping movies.