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

[flyry]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

It is going to be interesting when the day comes when the digital copy owner receives an email that says, “I order to continue viewing title XYZ please deposit 5 more dollars.” I would wager that most digital users have never read the digital TOS. I will pay ONLY for titles that I do not have on disc.

Will never happen. And if it did that provider would be sho*ting themselves in the foot and people will just use another MA provider.

[The_Donster]

Hey Dustin44, good to be back. Got some good news from our realtor about our new home. Hoping once the seller signs off on things and we can get things in motion finally. Luckily we have this place we are staying at until the middle of August.

Which is why I’d need an Apple HDMI Adapter to hook up my iPhone to their old flatscreen. Hell, I had to break out the old A/V Xbox cables for my son to play his 360. Of course now that he got a Switch for birthday he’s playing that more. Which is cool because of the flexibility of where he can play it.

I knew what you meant Vilya. I’m sure the member who had to deal with flood damage from that hurricane thought the same thing. I was just saying there are viable options. Most smart phones and other devices have mirror casting. My BD’s are still back in Washington State, but I have my digital copies on my phone apps.

As far as digital providers dropping titles that seems highly unlikely. It might have changed since the last time I checked, but all studios with the exception of Lionsgate, Paramount and MGM we’re backing Movies Anywhere. Not to mention most discs come with digital copies anymore. So it is only a matter of time before they come on board too.

Another thing I’d like to point out is it isn’t just the “kids” glued to their phones. I recently took my son to see a movie and *gasp* seniors were glued to their smart phones too. One of them was constantly checking it during the movie despite the disclaimers before the beginning of the movie.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by flyry

Will never happen. And if it did that provider would be sho*ting themselves in the foot and people will just use another MA provider.

Has nothing to do with the provider per say, this is in regards to the content owner. It appears you have not read the TOS.

[Wendell R. Breland]

IMO, digital is all about control, nothing more. With digital the content owners regain 100% control of their content (or so they think). It all started with Universal and Disney losing the βetamax (Sony) lawsuit. Next came disc which is covered by the First Sale Doctrine and again they (content owners) have little control other than release dates.

UV came about in order to try and get folks used to the idea of watching content via the internet in hopes they would switch to purchasing content via digital. UV failed to gain traction so some content providers switched to MA. Time will tell if it is any more successful than UV.

BTW, all of you that purchase digital codes supplied with disc do realize you are in violation of the TOS if you redeem such codes?

[veritas]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

BTW, all of you that purchase digital codes supplied with disc do realize you are in violation of the TOS if you redeem such codes?

I mean to be fair the last time a judge looked at that portion of the TOS he found it unenforceable as it was written. its been rewritten but we will have to wait for the next stage of the redbox v disney case to see if its enforceable now.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by veritas

I mean to be fair the last time a judge looked at that portion of the TOS he found it unenforceable as it was written. its been rewritten but we will have to wait for the next stage of the redbox v disney case to see if its enforceable now.

That pertains to selling digital codes. I will burn mine, give them away or use them for toilet paper if I so desire . IMO, Redbox will win that one because they are buying Disney titles at box stores (no contract).

I was making reference to Redeeming digital codes that you purchased from someone that had purchased a physical copy. If you redeem said code then you are in violation of the TSO that you agreed to. You also agreed to the TOS could be changed at any time with out notice.

[The_Donster]

Good gravy, has the discussion become so stale that we have to bring up TOS and licensing agreements I’ve brought this up before, but how is what digital doing different than cable plans

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by The_Donster

Good gravy, has the discussion become so stale that we have to bring up TOS and licensing agreements I’ve brought this up before, but how is what digital doing different than cable plans

Digital is a purchase. Pay once for a title and watch it as often as you like for as long as you like- that is what they would have you believe, anyways. The EULA and the Terms of Service governing digital purchases and providers make no such guarantees.

A cable plan, with or without a DVR, is a service that gives you access to select TV channels on a month to month basis provided you pay the recurring fee for that access. Stop paying and the access stops, too. You are not paying for a specific title just once; you are paying for a service that grants access to TV channels for only as long as you keep paying for it.

I have already been down the EULA rabbit hole on this thread; I will let others do so now. I would still wager that very few people have read the things and therefore they have no idea to what terms they have agreed.

[stonesfan129]

Buy the disc. Make your own digital copies.

[The_Donster]

Potatoe-Potato. Either way you are paying for something you don’t own. That’s your words, not mine folks If I had my way we’d be down to just physical and digital streaming, but the MiL has put in her request for any and every cable channel available

[veritas]

Originally Posted by The_Donster

Good gravy, has the discussion become so stale that we have to bring up TOS and licensing agreements I’ve brought this up before, but how is what digital doing different than cable plans

Their aren't any differences really which is kind of the problem. You don't own cable you lease it month to month and they are using the same tos for vod services which should be kind of scary for the consumer. If I go to buy a car they charge me the price to buy a car but hand me a contract for a lease and say its to cover their own ass and they wont actually take the car back in 3 years I would be very worried and that's essentially what they did in the tos terms for digital media. Digital media for years has essentially been saying you own it but in fine print saying you lease it and we can take it away from you or charge you for access for it after a couple of years.

Anyway its just my general experience with digital content they say you own it and will have access forever but then the servers go down or pay walls are added and in general digital media (music games movies etc) just has a finite life. Of course physical media also has a finite life but its more likely to make it into the the double or triple digits and its only relient on the quality of materials used to make it not the whims of providers and studios ( shut down a video service and they have to rebuy a movie you know they will do it eventually its just a matter of when).

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

Even without the TOS or EULA the idea that a one-time purchase of a movie means that the digital provider must keep paying to make sure that movie remains available for the rest of your life is ridiculous. Why should a single $5-$20 purchase guarantee decades of service for that movie? And why would anyone expect it to?Anyone who complains about streaming but has a cable subscription is a hypocrite. Streaming subscriptions are basically the same as cable subscriptions and both are equally terrible. Physical media is the only format that gives customers control over the content and that is why it is the only format I support.

Discs have no such guarantee, either, but I prefer to take my chances with them as opposed to being at the mercy of digital providers and their one-sided EULAs. My discs won't stop working because of some corporate decision to stop supporting a digital title deemed no longer profitable.

I support physical media. I insist upon the quality and the control over the content that they alone provide. Streaming, for me, is just a way to sample something I am unsure about before making a disc purchase decision. I ditched cable four years ago and at the moment the only streaming service I have is Amazon Prime. I only have it because it is included with my Prime membership, which I use almost entirely for the shipment of physical media to my home.

In my estimation cable is much worse than streaming. It is far costlier and all but the premium channels have about 19 minutes of commercials per broadcast hour. I refuse to pay for a "service" that is one-third advertising. No more enduring erectile dysfunction drug commercials. No more drug ads targeting impotent old men. No more ads about bladder control problems and constipation. I am not paying money to watch pharmaceutical advertising, or any other type, ever again.

[Vor4]

Originally Posted by PCFan

Cinemanow went out of business a few years ago and it used to be run by Best Buy. Didn't customers lose their purchased non-UV compliant movies that they purchased from Cinemanow when it went out of business since the non-UV movies could only be accessed through Cinemanow? Is this proof enough that physical media is better than digital media for ownership (something you don't want to lose)? A retail store can't break into your house and steal your blu-rays, DVDs, CDs and physical video games you bought from them when it goes out a business.

CinemaNow along with their content was all part of UV.

There is a greater chance of damaged discs, missing discs in the packaging, unplayable discs, disc rot, and Blu-ray and 4K players unable to read discs or freeze playback than digital media.

Retail stores can ban a person from the store if he/she abuses the return policy. Retail stores can also report that person that abuses the return policy to their competitors.

There you again putting down digital media and praising physical media. A week later you probably praise digital media and put down physical media. At this point, I think that you’re unsatisfied with both formats. You probably have at least 950 digital hd movies and it keeps on growing. You are buying more iTunes movies each week when they have $4.99 sales weekly or you buy when a good deal is on a movie series, and you also buy iTunes or Movies Anywhere movie codes. You should be happy with digital media and it’s too late for you to go back to physical media.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Vor4

There is a greater chance of damaged discs, missing discs in the packaging, unplayable discs, disc rot, and Blu-ray and 4K players unable to read discs or freeze playback than digital media.

I have never seen a quantified figure expressing the risk of disc failure over a given time period. From my experience of collecting movies for about 30 years and counting, I have had maybe, maybe, three dozen fail and two-thirds of those were laserdiscs. Laserdiscs were somewhat notorious for their failure rate. Even so, I still have 179 working laserdiscs and a working laserdisc player- that player is 22 years-old, too.

I wonder how many of the digital codes redeemed today will still allow access to the movie associated with them in another decade? Or two decades? Or more?

In most instances, very rare as they have been, when a DVD or a blu-ray disc failed to play, the studio replaced it free of charge, after I wrote to them, and despite the disc being long out of warranty. I have only had to exchange one defective 4K disc so far and that was probably due to damage incurred in shipment.

I have never had a package with a missing or duplicate disc, either. Not once in over 30 years (dating back to laserdiscs). Even if it ever does happen to me, I would just exchange it.

Digital codes and subscription streaming require an internet connection, obviously, and I can recount nearly innumerable instances where that same internet service made streaming either unbearably bad or outright impossible.

Between May 11th and June 8th of this year I have had 42 internet service outages. My discs and their players are infinitely more dependable. Just one collector's experience here, but I would not still be buying discs after all of these decades if they were prone to failure.

My internet service IS very much prone to failure and I will never allow myself to become reliant upon it for the viewing of movies or TV shows.

The CDs I bought in 1983 still play fine, too. My first CD player was the Yamaha CD-X1; it cost me $550 in 1983- that's $1,389 today. Tech is such a bargain now! I even recall one stereo salesman telling me then that the CD was just a fad that would not last more than a year or two (his store did not sell CD players).

[Show spoiler]

[veritas]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

One more collector here, same experience. Decades of collecting discs and not a single disc that broke after years of use.

ya the lifespan of discs is absurdly long. Digital will have its life span measured in years (digital providers come and go all the time it would seem) but discs will probably last half a century to over a century before we see many failing discs.

[CV19]

Originally Posted by Vilya

The CDs I bought in 1983 still play fine, too.

I agree with everything you wrote regarding physical media. I also have my first CD's from 1983 which are perfect - in fact the vast majority of my CD collection comprises of several hundred titles from the 1980's and all continue to play as well as the day I bought them.

Same goes for DVD's - I have lots of titles from the late 90's/early 00's which are still in regular use.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Vor4

CinemaNow along with their content was all part of UV.

There is a greater chance of damaged discs, missing discs in the packaging, unplayable discs, disc rot, and Blu-ray and 4K players unable to read discs or freeze playback than digital media.

Retail stores can ban a person from the store if he/she abuses the return policy. Retail stores can also report that person that abuses the return policy to their competitors.

There you again putting down digital media and praising physical media. A week later you probably praise digital media and put down physical media. At this point, I think that you’re unsatisfied with both formats. You probably have at least 950 digital hd movies and it keeps on growing. You are buying more iTunes movies each week when they have $4.99 sales weekly or you buy when a good deal is on a movie series, and you also buy iTunes or Movies Anywhere movie codes. You should be happy with digital media and it’s too late for you to go back to physical media.

Lol. It’s never too late to go back to disc.

Digital HD is just a placeholder while streaming builds up even more momentum. It will be disc for the hardcore, streaming for the casuals (mainstream) and Digital HD for those that backed a dead horse. Even now, imo Digital HD is sliding. Last time I checked, Digital HD was still single digit growth and it is even more reliant on box office than Blu-ray. I believe most of its sales comes from animated films and that will soon end when Disney push their Netflix-challenging streaming service next year.
I predict growth will stall to maybe 1-2% by 2020. As I have said before, I think Digital HD is this generation's MP3 download.

[AmishParadise]

Originally Posted by CV19

I agree with everything you wrote regarding physical media. I also have my first CD's from 1983 which are perfect - in fact the vast majority of my CD collection comprises of several hundred titles from the 1980's and all continue to play as well as the day I bought them.

Same goes for DVD's - I have lots of titles from the late 90's/early 00's which are still in regular use.

At this very moment I'm listening to the first CD I ever purchased back in 1983.

Release Date: September 15, 1983

[Show spoiler]

[Vor4]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Lol. It’s never too late to go back to disc.

But if someone that has a huge digital media collection and decides to go back to disc that person wasted all that money on digital media, even if he/she doesn't watch most of the flims and tv shows that were bought digitally. If that happens that person may have to rebuy their favorite flims on disc, even if they have to pay top dollar for out of print discs, or have to rebuy every movie on bluray or 4k bluray that he/she owned before switching to digital media.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Vor4

But if someone that has a huge digital media collection and decides to go back to disc that person wasted all that money on digital media, even if he/she doesn't watch most of the flims and tv shows that were bought digitally. If that happens that person may have to rebuy their favorite flims on disc, even if they have to pay top dollar for out of print discs, or have to rebuy every movie on bluray or 4k bluray that he/she owned before switching to digital media.

Resuming the purchase of discs will not make your digital library disappear; you still have access to that content for as long as the digital providers permit it.

You could choose to repurchase on disc only those titles that are either on sale or just those titles that you especially love. Going forward I would recommend buying subsequent new additions on disc. I would replace those digital only titles on a case by basis over time based on both price and level of personal interest.

It is no surprise that I think digital only purchases are a poor choice and for a lot of reasons. Clearly, not everyone agrees with me. Had I made such poor choices, I would rather learn from my mistakes and not just continue to repeat them. It is never too late to embrace the best in quality, and in control of content, that only physical media offers.