Physical & Digital EST: The Future of Home Video Discussion Thread

[octagon]

Originally Posted by flyry

This sounds like a one off garage sale or craiglist/offerup dump. Where did you purchase?

Either that or it's a season of a TV show and he's counting the box, the slip, the three discs, the 12 episodes and the special features as separate items

[TROLLY]

Originally Posted by veritas

I bought a fair amount of stuff today so I figured for the lolz I would compare how much I payed to how much I would pay if I had bought them digitally at the same quality.

For the physical I payed $21 for 23 items (and 300 drm points) and if I had bought them digitally it would have cost me $254 for 19 items with 4 not available digitally at the time.

If I really waited a bunch of years I probably could have gotten these for for around 150 digitally to be fair but still the difference between buying physical and digital pricing is insane. The price gap is so large its cheaper to buy most films that allow disc to digital on physical and do the conversion then to buy digital media directly.

on a similar note I sold a blu ray and a dvd yesterday for $17 if I wanted to sell the digital copy of those films I could not even get a dollar because you cant sell your digital collection.

Physical media costs less, has a higher second hand value and in most cases comes with a free digital copy also. In terms of pricing physical vs digital physical wins in every category most of the time.

Many Blu-ray titles I come across, don’t have a digital copy provided. It depends on the distributor.


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[BluPat]

I will always prefer PHYSICAL media discs and copies. I like looking at and collecting my favorite movies and being able to physically look at it and revisit the artwork, packaging, etc.
With digital, you don't really ever 'own' anything. Its just on a server somewhere out there on the internet.
Physical always for me. Period.

[slimdude]

Originally Posted by Fiffy

Too late. After wasting some time trying to sell my old DVDs and some redundant BDs individually last year, I gave up (threw away the DVDs and sold the BDs in bulk to a shop for about the price of a dinner). Unless they are pretty new or rare OOP titles, DVDs and BDs don't fetch enough to justify the hassle of putting them on Ebay IMO.

DVDs hardly have any resale value anymore, unless they are OOP or limited edition titles. The cheapskate buyers and the swindlers on ebay have an tendency to want something for nothing, which means they want the sellers to practically give their items away. For me personally, that's not going to happen. I just relist the movies until they sell because eventually somebody will have an interests and want to buy it at a reasonable price.

[TROLLY]

Digital is much better IMAO


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[moviegeek1992]

I think it all depends on what type of film fan you are honestly. For those of us who enjoy cult movies such as those Arrow put out then very few of them are available digitally (legally at least). For those titles you'd have to have a physical copy no matter how much you loved digital. I used to love physical media but for the past few years have been watching 70% of movies and TV shows digitally using Netflix etc. If I want to watch a particular movie I have on disc then I'll go and fetch it but if I don't have a particular movie in mind, Netflix etc is where I browse first before looking at my blu-rays/DVDs.

Another benefit to digital is you save space. I've got three bookcases crammed with cases and I'm slowly selling them off. Starting with the limited edition stuff and then moving onto the stuff that's only worth pennies, that I'll list on eBay and see if anyone bites for a decent price and if not then I'll try bulk selling them.

For those talking about how you don't actually "own" digital movies well what about how you've constantly had to upgrade to the next big format VHS-DVD-Blu-ray. Sure you can have a VHS copy that still plays fine but similarly I also have songs on my iTunes/Amazon account going back to 2012. At the end of the day we're all cogs in the Hollywood home video machine, does it really matter how we're watching our movies provided it's not torrenting?

[moviegeek1992]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

I know this is anecdotal, but honestly my wife and I haven't been going to the theater as much as we used to, and it's largely because of the movies that are coming out.

We do go see the Marvel MCU movies (we are going to see the new Thor tomorrow night). We saw Wonder Woman, which was good. My wife isn't looking forward to Justice League, but I'll go see it (though even I'm not expecting much after Batman V Superman). I am interested in seeing I, Tonya.

But most other films this past summer were either things that we had no interest in, or if we did, it wasn't worth rushing out to the theater to see them.


Cars 3 was probably the closest that we were to going to see a movie that we ultimately skipped. Though we don't have kids, we do enjoy many Disney and Pixar movies. But neither of us were really "jumping" to go to the theater to see it. Cars 2 not being all that great didn't help (though I believe this one is supposed to be better). I will be getting the 4k Blu-Ray pack when it comes out.


Pirates 5... I just couldn't see going to the theater to see it. The first couple of movies were good, the third one was pretty bad, the 4th one was okay, but no where near as good as the first two IMO. And the films do feel like they drag a bit. So we waited for Blu-Ray. I did buy the 4K Blu-Ray combo pack of the new film (haven't watched it yet) since I do have all of the other movies, and at some point will watch it.

Despicable Me 3... though not Disney and/or Pixar, we liked the first movie a lot. The second one was alright. But going to see another film with redundant minions jokes (after they had their own movie) just wasn't something we were in a rush to see. This one will also be a blind buy.


I know the third Planet of the Apes movie came out and was largely critically acclaimed. But I never really got into any version of PotA, so this wasn't something I had any desire at the time to see. Having heard good things about the more recent films, I did pick up the 4k Trilogy set at Walmart since it was only $40. So I'll be giving these a chance in the near future.


Most everything else either looked like crap or just something I wasn't interested in.

The new Mummy? The trailers and ads did absolutely nothing for me. And I actually liked the first two Brendan Fraiser movies. This just seemed very "phoned in" for lack of a better way of putting it.

Transformers 5? No thanks. I gave up after the second movie. The first one was alright. The second was crap. Most reviews and opinions of the following films don't make them sound like enough of an improvement for me to have any remote desire to see them.

Baywatch? I'm not surprised it bombed. Even for a movie that was more or less making fun of the show, it seemed to fail to capture the essence of it (not that it was exactly a high brow show to start with). I was semi interested at first, but that quickly waned, especially after reviews came out. I have not purchased it or seen it at all yet. I'm in no hurry to change that.




I won't go over each and every movie that came out, but overall it was mostly a crap shoot IMO. Most of it just feels like phoned-in redundant drivel. If it's not a sequel or remake of an established film or franchise, it still feels not far off (I'm thinking of many of the comedy films that came out this summer... I'm actually a big comedy fan, that genre is a huge part of my collection, but most that have come out any time recently have just not been of interest to me).


Hollywood has a few problems on it's hands. They need to give filmmakers freedom to make good movies. They need to stop having absurd budgets for any and all "blockbuster" films. Sure, some of them need it. It would be hard to pull of the Marvel or Star Wars films without them. But not all "big" films have to cost $250 million dollars to make.

While I know the scale of budgets and box office returns is much higher these days, when you look back at the mid 70s through the 80s, which was more or less the "birth" of the blockbuster, most of the big movies were inadvertent. Both Jaws and the original Star Wars were movies that their directors had to fight to get made and were plagued with technical problems throughout production, but ultimately went on to be huge.

Back to the Future shares some similarities. While it didn't suffer from major technical, special effects related issues, it was a movie that Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis tried for several years to get made (it was only after Zemeckis directed Romancing the Stone, which did well, was he able to make BTTF).

Ghostbusters wasn't envisioned as a "big" summer blockbuster, but became one.

These are just a few examples. Even when adjusting for infation, their budgets were no where near that of movies today. And I know times and technology have changed. But while an occasional special effect here and there might look dated, for the most part these films still hold up relatively well.

And the thing that these films all have in common is that the people who made them were passionate about doing so, and the end result were some really great movies (and in some cases some great sequels). The special effects were there to support the story and characters, not be the end all, be all aspect of these movies.


That's what filmmaking needs to get back to, at least to some extent. Sometimes having a smaller amount of really well thought out special effects is better than just being bombarded with tons of random effects left and right to the point where it almost loses all meaning (I'm looking at your, Michael Bay Transformers films).

I get that studios want a "guaranteed hit" and don't want to bank on new films and ideas that may not catch on. But the problem is that the "Hollywood Machine" has gotten so predictable and redundant that the "guaranteed hits" are no where near as "guaranteed" anymore.

They need to find a happy medium. Find an idea that the filmmaker is passionate about. Give it a reasonable budget (enough to make the film, but nothing insanely expensive), let the effects play more of a supporting role, get a decent advertising campaign, and see what happens. If the budget is low enough, even if the film under performs, it shouldn't be too hard to at least make the money back in time. And if it does even half decent, it could be profitable. If it goes on to be a huge hit, then of course that is fantastic. But they need to stop assuming that throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at any pre-existing brand/franchise will be default result in huge profits.

I think you're half right. You ultimately failed to take into account that the audience is like the studio and also the presence of social media. Just the like the studio want guaranteed successes that make them money, the audience also want to go see movies that are guaranteed to entertain them. Given the choice the average moviegoer is more likely to go watch the latest Spider-Man than an original movie, even one getting good reviews. There's the element of the Spider-Man movie being an event something that they can discuss on social media and be a part of the in-crowd, how many average moviegoers are discussing Robert Pattinson's latest film? Then there's the fact that people like to watch special effects on the big screen, you mentioned special effects are overdone but the average moviegoer loves them on the big screen and the studios take advantage by charging more for IMAX and 3D, small dramas or comedies can be watched at home, they don't deem it necessary to watch them in a cinema hall.

We're all guilty of this, reading the posts over the past couple of pages even those not interested in going to the cinema might only consider it for a blockbuster in the future. Giving movies a medium budget and an original story will only work if there's a big name actor supporting it, otherwise it'll just be considered another small film worth only watching on Netflix or Redbox.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by moviegeek1992

For those talking about how you don't actually "own" digital movies well what about how you've constantly had to upgrade to the next big format VHS-DVD-Blu-ray. Sure you can have a VHS copy that still plays fine but similarly I also have songs on my iTunes/Amazon account going back to 2012. At the end of the day we're all cogs in the Hollywood home video machine, does it really matter how we're watching our movies provided it's not torrenting?

Yes, I think it's all relative now all those arguments about Digital HD are fading away. With the right set up and Bandwidth watching your favorite Movies and TV Shows are the same to Disc. I really don't watch anything on Disc anymore, but I can see where you still might want to do it. I still have a large Collection of Discs, and I sell them as I convert to Digital HD. Some Classic Movies I will still hang on to Disc. My main Streaming Providers are Amazon and Vudu, but now with MA, Fandango, Sony Ultra, YouTube, and the list goes on and on. If you are not Streaming Digital HD, you are way behind The Curve!

[Jumpman]

Originally Posted by Vor4

I went to Best Buy today and they don't have any physical media anymore except for video game section that is shrinking. I asked one of the sales associates there and he told me no one buys physical media anymore and that they shipped back the movies to the vendors yesterday evening. He said by the end of this week, they'll ship back all the 4k UHD Blu-ray players, blu-ray players, and dvd players. The same thing is happening at Walmart and Target.

That's BS. I run the media department at my Best Buy and while yes, the act of buying physical media has faded, Best Buy's not about to give up it's media section...yet.

There's a reason why Best Buy is always getting the exclusive steelbooks in the States 70% of the time; it's a ploy to get people back to buying these discs.

In my experiences over the last 2.5 years running the media department, what I see is this; the new releases sell. They don't sell as much as the company wants it too but they sell. Mainly the steelbooks, 4K releases, and the 3D releases. What doesn't sell is TV shows. I don't care how often Best Buy tries to entice people to buy television shows on disc, they just don't move. When television premiere month begins and the previous season of a show is released, Best Buy tends to just go all out and bring back previous seasons in the store to entice people to not only buy the new season that just released on disc but to get the previous ones. It doesn't work. The only time it really works is during Black Friday. That's it.

Same thing goes for restocking certain movies based on holidays. I just put all out the Christmas releases for the next two months and it's the same releases every year, just repackaged in a different way. Christmas movies tend to sell a bit but again, not really that much. It's mainly there for the one person who is REALLY looking for a holiday title they realized they didn't have.

If I was running Best Buy corporate when it comes to media, the first decision I'd make is get rid of DVD releases on new releases. Nobody walks into Best Buy to buy a DVD. You go to WalMart for that. I would have more Blu-Ray's in store except the difference is that i'd have a larger variety of Blu-Ray titles on the floor instead of taking one title and spreading it over 5 different spots (this drives me UP the wall). The other change is not selling television seasons anymore unless it's for the big time television shows (Game of Thrones type). Again, television doesn't sell anymore thanks to Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon.

There's a way to get people to buy discs again at Best Buy but the current plan doesn't really work. It's just recycling the same titles over and over again, year after year. Back in the day when I worked for Best Buy during the DVD boom, we had so many titles, it was ridiculous how much we carried. Now, because the media section is planogrammed to death, we just don't carry that much.

Yes, there were "rumors" that a small, select group of Best Buy stores got rid of their media sections but that was never confirmed. I can tell you that the gaming department did take a hit last holiday season at Best Buy. The numbers were way down for the company. That might change this year with the fact that you have the PS4, X Box One X, and the Switch all out at the same time. But, it wouldn't shock me if gaming took another hit this year.

Whether people want to accept it or not, the future is digital...mainly subscription. The question really is, how long before you can't find discs anymore. I still think we're way off from that. But, the window is closing.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

One thing Best Buy really needs to do on the gaming end of things is really advertise the Gamers Club Unlocked and the benefits of it. They would probably get more people buying physical copies from them if the knew about it.

I only discovered for myself a little over 2 years ago, and I've saved SO much money using it. I just renewed it a couple of months back and that's already more than paid for itself in savings since that time.


As for Blu-Rays, DVDs, etc., I see your points on a lot of that, especially TV shows. I still buy a lot of TV content on Blu-Ray and DVD, but I know I'm in the minority on that. I took advantage of savings like when they had the $10 off a purchase of $50 or more in TV show releases. But when I go to my local store, for some shows, they may not get in more than 2 or 3 copies.


I try to support in-store purchases as much as possible. I like being able to get them in person, and make sure that the packaging is in good condition and so forth.

Even if physical media sections in stores continue to shrink, and eventually stop being sold in some or all physical stores, I don't think it will completely go away. Best Buy and Amazon will likely still sell them online.

Instead of having to maintain sections in physical stores for releases that not enough people in the local area are buying, they have it stores in a warehouse or two, and shipped to anyone anywhere from there. There is an increased efficiency in that sense, even if there are other downsides (i.e. things arriving damaged).

I don't see the stores just getting rid of Blu-Ray and DVD players entirely. I don't know what Vor4 is smoking, but there is no way that the stores are just getting rid of those things.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by Vor4

I went to Best Buy today and they don't have any physical media anymore except for video game section that is shrinking. I asked one of the sales associates there and he told me no one buys physical media anymore and that they shipped back the movies to the vendors yesterday evening. He said by the end of this week, they'll ship back all the 4k UHD Blu-ray players, blu-ray players, and dvd players. The same thing is happening at Walmart and Target.

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

Even if physical media sections in stores continue to shrink, and eventually stop being sold in some or all physical stores, I don't think it will completely go away. Best Buy and Amazon will likely still sell them online.

Instead of having to maintain sections in physical stores for releases that not enough people in the local area are buying, they have it stores in a warehouse or two, and shipped to anyone anywhere from there. There is an increased efficiency in that sense, even if there are other downsides (i.e. things arriving damaged).

I don't see the stores just getting rid of Blu-Ray and DVD players entirely. I don't know what Vor4 is smoking, but there is no way that the stores are just getting rid of those things.

Even though I think like Vor4, I don't know where he lives his Profile doesn't say and his Posting don't say. So we really can't verify his statement. If he comes back and tells us where he lives, we might be able to check and verify things.

[macawmatt]

We CAN stream at home, and do a lot that way. Shows look "ok" on our TV but then we are sharing an at best 4Mbps rural wifi among 5 people and don't expect much. We upgraded to a UHD TV earlier this year and have bought 6 movies now on disc so that we can really appreciate it. Until the local telephone/fiber company decides to expand down our road with their gigabit service, to get truly good looking movies it has to be on disc.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

As for Blu-Rays, DVDs, etc., I see your points on a lot of that, especially TV shows. I still buy a lot of TV content on Blu-Ray and DVD, but I know I'm in the minority on that. I took advantage of savings like when they had the $10 off a purchase of $50 or more in TV show releases. But when I go to my local store, for some shows, they may not get in more than 2 or 3 copies.

I don't see the stores just getting rid of Blu-Ray and DVD players entirely. I don't know what Vor4 is smoking, but there is no way that the stores are just getting rid of those things.

Originally Posted by macawmatt

We CAN stream at home, and do a lot that way. Shows look "ok" on our TV but then we are sharing an at best 4Mbps rural wifi among 5 people and don't expect much. We upgraded to a UHD TV earlier this year and have bought 6 movies now on disc so that we can really appreciate it. Until the local telephone/fiber company decides to expand down our road with their gigabit service, to get truly good looking movies it has to be on disc.

For Streaming you need a lot more than 4Mbps, that's where Disc is really needed especially for UHD. Talking about TV Shows, I really like that on Digital HD it makes it real easy to watch the Series and pick up where you left off. Some Shows like Blindspot didn't include Digital HD in the last Series. I know you can get it Digital HD on Vudu, but even for $20 it's a little too high. For Streaming and IPTV people are going to need Bandwidth, and I keep saying that the Infrastructure has to be Fiber. There are three Major Companies that can provide this, AT&T, Google, or Verizon. So if you are on their Radar, you have to seek them out!

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Why is my post quoted in the above reply to macawmatt? My post had nothing to do with streaming, and his was all about it.

[PCFan]

Originally Posted by alchav21

For Streaming you need a lot more than 4Mbps, that's where Disc is really needed especially for UHD. Talking about TV Shows, I really like that on Digital HD it makes it real easy to watch the Series and pick up where you left off. Some Shows like Blindspot didn't include Digital HD in the last Series. I know you can get it Digital HD on Vudu, but even for $20 it's a little too high. For Streaming and IPTV people are going to need Bandwidth, and I keep saying that the Infrastructure has to be Fiber. There are three Major Companies that can provide this, AT&T, Google, or Verizon. So if you are on their Radar, you have to seek them out!

I actually find it hard sometimes to know where I left off watching in TV shows in iTunes in my Apple TV. Episodes I already watched are not marked as watched in some of the TV shows I have in my iTunes account, for example, Boardwalk Empire: The Complete Series, and as a result I have to try to remember or take a guess in what episode I last watched which sometimes involves replaying a few minutes of the beginning of an episode I already watched. Also it would be easier to watch this TV show using the Vudu app since I have it in my Vudu account as well and Vudu at least shows the progress bar under each episode so I know how much of it I watched without testing to see if I already watched the episode, but unfortunately this TV show is only in SD in the Apple TV's Vudu app even though I own it in HDX, so that's not an option for me at this time.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

Why is my post quoted in the above reply to macawmatt? My post had nothing to do with streaming, and his was all about it.

It was mainly for the TV Shows, I was saying that Streaming TV Shows is better than watching it with Disc. Vudu has a Watched Section where you can pick right up and continue watching your Series.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by PCFan

I actually find it hard sometimes to know where I left off watching in TV shows in iTunes in my Apple TV. Episodes I already watched are not marked as watched in some of the TV shows I have in my iTunes account, for example, Boardwalk Empire: The Complete Series, and as a result I have to try to remember or take a guess in what episode I last watched which sometimes involves replaying a few minutes of the beginning of an episode I already watched. Also it would be easier to watch this TV show using the Vudu app since I have it in my Vudu account as well and Vudu at least shows the progress bar under each episode so I know how much of it I watched without testing to see if I already watched the episode, but unfortunately this TV show is only in SD in the Apple TV's Vudu app even though I own it in HDX, so that's not an option for me at this time.

I don't know about iTunes, but Amazon, Vudu, and most other Providers have a Watched Section that you can pick right up and keep watching where you left off. That's the best feature I like about Digital you don't have to hunt for where you left off. TV Shows have to come down in price, I'm still waiting on Blindspot Season 2 at a decent price.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by alchav21

It was mainly for the TV Shows, I was saying that Streaming TV Shows is better than watching it with Disc. Vudu has a Watched Section where you can pick right up and continue watching your Series.

[Steedeel]

I see it’s been revealed that Disney were interested in Fox. That could still happen and probably will. Especially if (as expected) Murdoch doesn’t get the takeover of Fox/Sky approved. You guys STILL think we aren’t heading for a U/PG landscape across the board? first Apple declare no Violence, Sex, nudity or swearing and now Disney want to take ove a studio like Fox. Oh dear, this digital stuff really isn’t panning out very well is it? I imagine the next Alien film will be a PG and you can forget any hardcore stuff from Fox if Disney get their claw in. Disney doesn’t do R rated.

This is being discussed in another thread.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

I know, I know.

On Blu-ray, winter is coming in GOT. On digital, ‘pixels are coming’