Great Article On Physical Media

[num1cboysfn]

http://collider.com/why-you-should-k...rays-and-dvds/

[xander]

You either understand collecting or you don't. For me, I treasure my physical collection. In this day and age of everything being digital and streaming, it's a visceral pleasure every day when I go to select a movie to watch and I get to run my hands over the racks.

Pulling out a title, looking over the front and back and deciding if it's the one for the night excites the kid in me and harkens back to my youth of picking a VHS for Saturday night at the video store, a thrill that modern times has all but extinguished.

Call me old fashioned or waxing poetic through rose tinted glasses, but my collection is the second love of my life after my wife and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

[bigdaddyhorse]

Originally Posted by xander

You either understand collecting or you don't. For me, I treasure my physical collection. In this day and age of everything being digital and streaming, it's a visceral pleasure every day when I go to select a movie to watch and I get to run my hands over the racks.

Pulling out a title, looking over the front and back and deciding if it's the one for the night excites the kid in me and harkens back to my youth of picking a VHS for Saturday night at the video store, a thrill that modern times has all but extinguished.

Call me old fashioned or waxing poetic through rose tinted glasses, but my collection is the second love of my life after my wife and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

I didn't even realize this is a huge part of how I feel about my collection too. Not sure if it's 3rd love after son and wife, but it's close. Well put!

[CinemaScope]

Yeah, I'm waiting for that massive solar flare to knock out all the satellite, & while the world panics (& no downloads of any kind) I'll enjoy myself looking at my Blu-rays of movies & box sets

[anthonyls]

Originally Posted by CinemaScope

Yeah, I'm waiting for that massive solar flare to knock out all the satellite, & while the world panics (& no downloads of any kind) I'll enjoy myself looking at my Blu-rays of movies & box sets

Yep, this is true with music too. Nobody buys music on CD (and download purchases seem to be decreasing too year after year). I got rid of most of my thousands of CDs a dew years ago... but burned everything on to external HDs in their highest audio quality. So I still have everything... and refuse to pay a monthly fee to listen to music.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by CinemaScope

Yeah, I'm waiting for that massive solar flare to knock out all the satellite, & while the world panics (& no downloads of any kind) I'll enjoy myself looking at my Blu-rays of movies & box sets

Haven't you heard? Now it's the reversal of the poles that "could" wipe out our electrical grid and cause havoc. We're technically "overdue" for a reversal by several hundred years now.

[BaronVH]

The article fails to mention several key points, one of which is uncompressed audio. Watching Blade Runner 2049 on my home system, which is an audiophile, but not videophile system, was amazing. Saw it twice in the theater. It was as good as one theater and better than another theater. You do not get that with streaming. Watched Krull last weekend. If you told me that obscure fantasy film would look as good on a streaming service would look as good as my old blu-ray, I will spit in your eye. The other thing the article fails to mention: What if the streaming service goes under? That is not outside the realm of possibilities. Sorry, but we as a society have conditioned ourselves to trade convenience for quality, and that is true in many things other than just movies. It has destroyed the music industry, has made us fat, and dependent on many things we should not be dependent on. I shall get off my soap box now...

[num1cboysfn]

Originally Posted by BaronVH

The article fails to mention several key points, one of which is uncompressed audio. Watching Blade Runner 2049 on my home system, which is an audiophile, but not videophile system, was amazing. Saw it twice in the theater. It was as good as one theater and better than another theater. You do not get that with streaming. Watched Krull last weekend. If you told me that obscure fantasy film would look as good on a streaming service would look as good as my old blu-ray, I will spit in your eye. The other thing the article fails to mention: What if the streaming service goes under? That is not outside the realm of possibilities. Sorry, but we as a society have conditioned ourselves to trade convenience for quality, and that is true in many things other than just movies. It has destroyed the music industry, has made us fat, and dependent on many things we should not be dependent on. I shall get off my soap box now...

Dilly Dilly

[AmishParadise]

[num1cboysfn]

Originally Posted by amishparadise

lol

[The Great Owl]

I don't have a Netflix subscription anymore, because I grew tired of the way that the company emulated the heyday of network television, meaning that the only movies that you have access to are the movies that they decide to show you.

I see this all of the time from my offline friends. “I couldn't find anything on Netflix that was really worth seeing, so I just ended up watching The Blind Side again.”

A big physical Blu-ray collection is a burden in some ways, mostly on the wallet, but it's also intensely liberating when it comes to watching whatever I want to watch whenever the mood strikes me.

[num1cboysfn]

Agreed. Freedom too choose. Holding the box. Reading the description. Then making the choice. And if you have crappy internet like me you never know when you could stream even you want too.

[dig311dug]

I cancelled netflix many moons ago... I just hope they keep releasing their quality original programming on blu (stranger things specifically)

[Ray Jackson]

Originally Posted by dig311dug

I cancelled netflix many moons ago... I just hope they keep releasing their quality original programming on blu (stranger things specifically)

Original programming is the only real selling point for Netflix and HBO these days.

The actual movie content is pretty abysmal for both companies.

Especially HBO.

My god the movies they premiere on Saturday night are terrible.

...just terrible.

[Strapped4Cash]

I definitely agree with the article, but also worry about another factor when it comes to non-physical.

Streaming movies and shows can always be changed, whether it's for something that's insignificant to the plot (such as the decapitated head being removed from Game of Thrones S1) or major (imagine if steaming had been around since the 80's and George Lucas had continually "improved" certain movies).

Physical discs lock in a version you want. Maybe later another version will come along, and you can buy that too, but no one can take away the version you already bought.

[Al_The_Strange]

Over the past few weeks, I started leaning towards more digital. I realize I have a lot of titles in my collection I don't think I care about enough to keep, but can sell many of them off and still retain their digital copies without too much heartbreak. I've also just started up a Hulu subscription--awesome chance to see those seasons of shows I either never bothered to collect physically, or couldn't.

But this article (and thread) does remind me of the downsides of digital. It's especially bothersome to me knowing that some titles continue to be absent digitally (Air Force One is an essential action movie to me, it would bother me to no end to not have access to it). I've had this same issue with music--I'd love to buy more MP3s to fill in gaps in my collection, but I keep finding singles and whole albums (especially from the 90s and 00s) that just aren't available. Seems like yesteryear's hits are always forgotten, so I'm always hunting for physical media to re-experience a favorite thing.

[Bates_Motel]

Originally Posted by Strapped4Cash

I definitely agree with the article, but also worry about another factor when it comes to non-physical.

Streaming movies and shows can always be changed, whether it's for something that's insignificant to the plot (such as the decapitated head being removed from Game of Thrones S1) or major (imagine if steaming had been around since the 80's and George Lucas had continually "improved" certain movies).

Physical discs lock in a version you want. Maybe later another version will come along, and you can buy that too, but no one can take away the version you already bought.

Thats why you buy a download and then you own it. They can't erase it off your hard drive, so it's a non-issue. You just don't get the plastic case and needless packaging. If there's an error — and more and more companies are releasing shoddy product that has to be recalled and replaced because there's no budget for great QC anymore — you just re-download the fixed version. Simple.

[Life Without Death]

Originally Posted by Bates_Motel

Thats why you buy a download and then you own it. They can't erase it off your hard drive, so it's a non-issue. You just don't get the plastic case and needless packaging. If there's an error — and more and more companies are releasing shoddy product that has to be recalled and replaced because there's no budget for great QC anymore — you just re-download the fixed version. Simple.

What if it is like Amazon where you can only access your brought download from their Prime service? It is an issue. A lot of movies can only be bought in download form on services you have to have access to, to use them. In the case of EA the video game developer, if I recall a whole country basically lost their games and ownership of it due to EA no longer having the license there.

[NoirFan]

Originally Posted by Bates_Motel

Thats why you buy a download and then you own it. They can't erase it off your hard drive, so it's a non-issue. You just don't get the plastic case and needless packaging.

If you're just downloading the film itself, you're also losing all of the extras, the booklet essay(s), and, unless you have unlimited storage capacity and can keep hundreds of 25-50 GB files on your hard drives, the film itself will be of compressed, and therefore compromised, quality.

[dr. wai]

In mid January, Amazon put a remastered, proper aspect ratio version of Fright Night part II (1989) on their prime service. I went to watch it last week and it was gone. To me this is the case for why I hate digital. If I had that in my collection, I would be able to watch it whenever I want to. Amazon takes things off of their service all the time after having it there a short while. I will watch Netflix, Amazon, etc but I prefer to have a physical copy as well.