Oh noes teh sky is falling!

[flyry]

The stuff i read here on a daily basis never ceases to amaze me. Lol

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by nec1912

It is mostly older TV shows that are more than 10 years old on DVD that is hard to get on amazon.

Even if Amazon doesn't sell them directly the vast majority of DVDs are available from Amazon marketplace sellers, even the obscure ones. They aren't available from Amazon because they are out of print but the used market ensures that they still remain readily available. There is no used market with digital so de-listed means completely gone.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by nec1912

Can you get Miami Vice, Hill Street Blues, Adam-12, Dragnet, old Hawaii Five-0, Hunter, Charlie's Angels, NYPD Blue,Hercules, Xena: Warrior Princess ,JAG,Third Watch and T. J. Hooker.

Some of these older classic cops shows. Are most these TV shows on streaming, netflix and Hulu? .

You can in October.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by mar3o

Oh I agree 100%. Retail is all but worthless now for blu-rays. I was just stating that even though the retail selection is close to worthless now, I still see people in the movie section every time I walk by in the store. So people do still want to buy movies, even those that just wander by. The problem is the selection is so bad most don't end up buying anything.

Really depends on where you live. The Best Buy and Target near me still have very large BD sections. Though to be fair they mostly carry modern films and recent releases from the last year or so, because that is what actually sells.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by Banach

I actually started making backups as well a while ago as well, and that's where my comment about feasibility came from.. it does take up a lot of space. I have been doing this for my cd collection for years (which is more than 6000 units probably) and that takes up several drives. While I'm still in the 3-digit amount of blurays, ripping everything would still take up a lot of drives (even more if you want redundancy in your backups).

I don't know. In some ways I hope that I will come to terms with not having physical copies of everything in the future. It would just simplify matters. I have a background in computer science, so it's not like files are really worth less to me than something on a separate physical disk (apart from paranoia of course), but the collector in me draws too much satisfaction from just standing there and looking at my collection. Which actually gives a rather funny meaning to "I'm watching movies"...

Of course the other problem with keeping them on hard drives is having backups. One catastrophic crash and you could lose an entire 4-6TB drive full of movies (or music too of course). So ideally you would need twice the amount of drives so each could have a backup. It's much easier to make a backup drive than it is to rip all your discs all over again in case of a crash. So that can get even more expensive if you factor in twice the amount of drives needed for backup purposes. Lots of additional room needed too to keep the backup drives somewhere safe.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by nec1912

For the most part you can get more popular movies and new stuff be it DVD or blu ray.

Just don't look for TV shows and movies more than 5 years old.

Not in any retail stores near me - not in any reliable fashion. They get titles nilly-willy and you never know what they will/won't have. Maybe one random film out of a series. And often they won't re-stock titles when they sell the one copy they have. Of course the situation is much better online if you don't mind getting 50%-75% of your cases crushed in during shipping due to lousy packaging.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by Arch Stanton

Unless you've got very obscure film taste, most films made before 2005 are available on Blu Ray as of now.

Are you serious? Not even close.

[nec1912]

Originally Posted by mar3o

Not in any retail stores near me - not in any reliable fashion. They get titles nilly-willy and you never know what they will/won't have. Maybe one random film out of a series. And often they won't re-stock titles when they sell the one copy they have. Of course the situation is much better online if you don't mind getting 50%-75% of your cases crushed in during shipping due to lousy packaging.

What I was saying is you should be able to get 90% DVD movies from the 80's and 90's from amazon.

TV shows from 80's and 90's on amazon will be harder to get if it is not popular.

In store where I'm at Target and Best Buy hardly keep TV shows and movies more than 5 years old.

Even popular TV shows with large fan base like Stargate, Star trek, Battlestar Galactica, NCIS and CSI they do not have in my city any more now.

I no longer go to Target and Best Buy to get TV shows now because they do not carry TV shows more than 5 years old.

Some thing popular like walking dead TV series or the star trek original classic remote to blue ray they will have. And forget deep space nine or voyager. The star trek next generation will be hit and miss.

That is how bad it is at Target and Best Buy where I'm at.

[Banach]

Originally Posted by mar3o

Of course the other problem with keeping them on hard drives is having backups. One catastrophic crash and you could lose an entire 4-6TB drive full of movies (or music too of course). So ideally you would need twice the amount of drives so each could have a backup. It's much easier to make a backup drive than it is to rip all your discs all over again in case of a crash. So that can get even more expensive if you factor in twice the amount of drives needed for backup purposes. Lots of additional room needed too to keep the backup drives somewhere safe.

Yeah, backups of the backups would be a necessity. Copying everything from scratch again.. uhrg. So still, taking backups of a 1000 movies would probably require 15 4TB drives or so assuming something like 30GB on average.

[HotRats]

There's also the cost of replacing hard drives as most are guaranteed only for three to five years according to type. We're now seeing the 8-10TB helium drives and Samsung has a 16TB 2.5" SSD for about $7000 so there seems to be no upper limit to size, just how much money you can afford. Personally, I think downloads and streaming are the future, but people have to have faith in the companies involved. It's one thing to pay a few dollars to stream a film but if you pay for a download you can keep you're betting on the durability of your storage and the longevity of the company. Personally I'd like to see all digital media providers (games and music as well as films) forced to contribute to an insurance scheme guaranteeing compensation to anyone who buys a digital product, in case the provider ceases to exist

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by HotRats

Personally I'd like to see all digital media providers (games and music as well as films) forced to contribute to an insurance scheme guaranteeing compensation to anyone who buys a digital product, in case the provider ceases to exist

If I buy a movie, TV show, video game, or album it's because I want access to that content. Giving me the price I paid for it back (or more) isn't much consolation. When a title is available on physical media I'm confident it will remain available. If my copy breaks I can buy a used copy from one of the thousands of people who still has a working copy long after the original studio has stopped providing access.

Just imagine that you bought your favorite movie for $10 and then it became unavailable. Would $20 be adequate compensation for never being able to watch your favorite movie ever again? Money is not the issue with content being removed.

[Banach]

I would think that the insurance would need to be something of the format where all the companies who provide streaming content comes together and pays for having a centralized backup somewhere, so in case of bankruptcy or similar, the customers can obtain "their" material from this site instead. As PenguinMaster stated, money back is not really much of a consolation. Of course, such a solution would depend on companies wanting this. I don't think the majors do, they are probably very satisfied with the prospect of being able to delete things or changing content in the catalog.

With storage prices coming down, maybe it will be possible to make safe backups yourself of downloaded material in high resolution (like 1-1 BD images) in the not so far away future. But of course, then comes UHD and 4k, so we're back to square one again..

[PenguinMaster]

Originally Posted by Banach

I would think that the insurance would need to be something of the format where all the companies who provide streaming content comes together and pays for having a centralized backup somewhere, so in case of bankruptcy or similar, the customers can obtain "their" material from this site instead. As PenguinMaster stated, money back is not really much of a consolation. Of course, such a solution would depend on companies wanting this. I don't think the majors do, they are probably very satisfied with the prospect of being able to delete things or changing content in the catalog.

The most common reason for content being removed is disputes over copyrights. In that case no company has the legal right to offer the content. That would also be a ridiculously huge undertaking. I believe strongly that no company (or individual) should have to support their products forever but they also shouldn't make products that requires their continued support. I can't imagine any scenario where digital media can continue to be available independent from the companies that own the rights.

Originally Posted by Banach

With storage prices coming down, maybe it will be possible to make safe backups yourself of downloaded material in high resolution (like 1-1 BD images) in the not so far away future. But of course, then comes UHD and 4k, so we're back to square one again..

If any of the companies really wanted people to have the ability to make back-ups of their content they wouldn't have filled it all with DRM. But even with back-ups you can still lose your digital content and if it has been delisted there is no legal way to get it again.

My backups for my physical media are the thousands of other people who also own a disc. It's not free to replace anything but I can be certain that it'll always be possible to replace any title that's lost.

[pmil]

Originally Posted by nec1912

What I was saying is you should be able to get 90% DVD movies from the 80's and 90's from amazon.

TV shows from 80's and 90's on amazon will be harder to get if it is not popular.

In store where I'm at Target and Best Buy hardly keep TV shows and movies more than 5 years old.

Even popular TV shows with large fan base like Stargate, Star trek, Battlestar Galactica, NCIS and CSI they do not have in my city any more now.

I no longer go to Target and Best Buy to get TV shows now because they do not carry TV shows more than 5 years old.

Some thing popular like walking dead TV series or the star trek original classic remote to blue ray they will have. And forget deep space nine or voyager. The star trek next generation will be hit and miss.

That is how bad it is at Target and Best Buy where I'm at.

Target carries older TV shows, just not very many. They are typically on display on the end caps of aisles.

[Rinzler]

Originally Posted by Cranston37

Also, I encourage anyone who finds this discussion interesting to watch the documentary "All Things Must Pass" about the demise of Tower Records.

It literally ends with the one guy who had worked in the original store since the day it opened saying "I mean even I don't buy music anymore."

It has a great BD release that I highly recommend.

[Musicguy]

I've worked for some of the top film Studios (in Home Video) and I know contracts are for a limited time. They expire, some never get renewed, others fall in litigation hell and others just aren't worth the cost. Studios lose the rights through mergers and corporate takeovers. Then there are the music rights issues. A favorite cult film will disappear. Just because it's out there today doesn't mean it won't disappear tomorrow. But hey I still have laserdiscs from the 80's

[78deluxe]

Originally Posted by Arch Stanton

Unless you've got very obscure film taste, most films made before 2005 are available on Blu Ray as of now.

Actually only a tiny fraction of movies that have been made before 2005 are available on Bluray.

Movies made in the 30s, 40s, 50s, etc we consider ourselves lucky to see a release on Bluray. Yes there are releases from this time frame, but nothing compared to the moves that actually were made during those eras.

[pmil]

Originally Posted by mredman

I see what you mean now. But Even when Blu-Ray first came to the market they wouldnt do unpopular movies in HD. I mean why bother. I can certainly understand them for not doing that. But that has absolutely nothing to do with streaming or digital. It has to do with people don't buy those old unpopular movies.

In fact the only movies right now i want on Blu-Ray is What Lies Beneath, six days and seven nights, True Lies, Panic Room, Abyss. And the Abyss is coming next year on Blu-Ray to big applause at comic con.

For movies, off the top of my head, I want Breakdown and a proper American version of Mothman Prophecies with corrected video quality. Thankfully I own practically all my favorite movies in Blu-Ray.

Most of what I want are older TV shows such as CHIPs, Starsky and Hutch, The Odd Couple, Taxi, The Brady Bunch, Charlies Angels, Fantasy Island and many other shows from the 70s and 80s, my favorite decades.

[pmil]

Originally Posted by 78deluxe

Actually only a tiny fraction of movies that have been made before 2005 are available on Bluray.

Movies made in the 30s, 40s, 50s, etc we consider ourselves lucky to see a release on Bluray. Yes there are releases from this time frame, but nothing compared to the moves that actually were made during those eras.

Younger people today don't realize how many movies used to be made, even as recently as the 80s. Constantly one right after the other. So many movies.

[Cranston37]

Originally Posted by Rinzler

It has a great BD release that I highly recommend.

$26 for the blu-ray on Amazon vs. $6.99 buy/$.99 rent on iTunes or free with a subscription service like Showtime - I know which one most consumers are picking