this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2024
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It's sensible for businesses to shift from physical media sales. Per CNBC's calculations, DVD sales fell over 86 percent between 2008 and 2019. Research from the Motion Picture Association in 2021 found that physical media represented 8 percent of the home/mobile entertainment market in the US, falling behind digital (80 percent) and theatrical (12 percent).

But as physical media gets less lucrative and the shuttering of businesses makes optical discs harder to find, the streaming services that largely replaced them are getting aggravating and unreliable. And with the streaming industry becoming more competitive and profit-hungry than ever, you never know if the movie/show that most attracted you to a streaming service will still be available when you finally get a chance to sit down and watch. Even paid-for online libraries that were marketed as available "forever" have been ripped away from customers.

When someone buys or rents a DVD, they know exactly what content they're paying for and for how long they'll have it (assuming they take care of the physical media). They can also watch the content if the Internet goes out and be certain that they're getting uncompressed 4K resolution. DVD viewers are also less likely to be bombarded with ads whenever they pause and can get around an ad-riddled smart TV home screen (nothing's perfect; some DVDs have unskippable commercials).

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[–] [email protected] 187 points 4 months ago (6 children)

No ads when you pause, but holy hell, we've been getting DVDs from the library, and sometimes it's a good ten minutes of crap before the movie actually starts.

[–] [email protected] 100 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 67 points 4 months ago (2 children)

If you don't want to wait for it to rip, you can play it in VLC. It will let you skip anything you want to.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 months ago (4 children)

VLC! Itll let you do anything for only free 99

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Most of the DVDs I've played can skip the previews with chapter selection, but daaang the blu-rays locked that up. Can't skip anything at all!

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 months ago (10 children)

i try to put in the disc, hit play, and just walk away so i miss all the garbage and the paragraphs warning me about prison time. kinda kills the mood

[–] brbposting 25 points 4 months ago
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[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 months ago

Press stop, then stop again, then play on your remote. That's a fairly universal way to skip straight to the movie.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

And lots of that crap is anti piracy propaganda. Stuff, that actual pirates never see.

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[–] [email protected] 93 points 4 months ago (16 children)

It's sensible for businesses to shift from physical media sales.

Sensible to who?

[–] conciselyverbose 60 points 4 months ago (2 children)

For all the reality of "streaming rights are a shitshow", what percentage of the population do you think is willing to buy physical movies?

Because I don't think it's all that high.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 4 months ago (13 children)

Someone go make Steam for videos and I'll pay for media again. My stipulations are:

  • Once I buy it, it's mine forever (otherwise piracy is better)
  • The file is high quality, DRM free, and in a selection of standard formats (otherwise piracy is better)
  • I can redownload it from the service at any time (otherwise piracy is better)
  • I can get everything I want to watch (otherwise piracy is better)
[–] [email protected] 43 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Steam isn't DRM free, though. Most games use Steamworks DRM.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (5 children)

Yeah I don’t think DRM-free is really a requirement for most people.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Companies see that as a mistake. They want you on a subscription for life that they can arbitrarily change at any time.

Profits not increasing enough for this quarter? Better cut content, increase prices, increase the number of ads.

Profits increased amazingly this quarter? Better cut content, increase prices, increase the number of ads.

Profits down? Better cut content, increase prices, increase the number of ads, and start adding extra paywalls to some content

They want you to own nothing. Oh you unsubscribed? Sorry even the content you paid extra to unlock was only available while your subscription continued, you will need to start your subscription again and then pay to unlock the content again.

A show isn't popular enough? Better write it off, pull it from all distribution so you can claim it as a tax write off

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Steam satisfies only your third point, though. Otherwise, no. You don't actually own your Steam library, Steam itself is DRM, and it doesn't have everything.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago

I buy physical dvds. Sometimes I'm all that high when I buy them.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago

The MBAs whose sole purpose on earth it is to inflate margins over and over and over again

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[–] [email protected] 61 points 4 months ago (1 children)

dvds aren't dying; the media companies who own the rights to dvds and blurays are killing them

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago

nothing; just gotta point out that media companies are doing everything they can to stop us from owning our own media.

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[–] freeman 50 points 4 months ago (9 children)

No DRM digital files downloads is the simple answer. There is no reason to go back to physical media to avoid subscriptions.

Keep in mind that DVDs did have DRM and the corps did try and get at the people who broke it. A new and improved physical media would have DRM and it's possible the corporations will prevent it being defeated this time.

Which means that yoy would only be able to play it on approved hardware. You can have your shiny disc but they will decide if you can play it. Perhaps they can detect how many people are present via a camera or require you do drink that verification can.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Which means that you would only be able to play it on approved hardware.

cough cough 4K bluray cough cough

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Thankfully, MakeMKV is able to get through that with certain drives for every disk I've tried.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Ripping those disks is legitimately easier than playing them w/o breaking DRM on PCs

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 4 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 38 points 4 months ago (12 children)

When someone buys or rents a DVD, they [...] can also watch the content if the Internet goes out and be certain that they're getting uncompressed 4K resolution.

I'm sorry, is this a special version of DVD that can store 4K video? Uncompressed?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 months ago (3 children)

4K BluRay discs are compressed with HEVC. There's no way to get consumer 4K video uncompressed.

Uncompressed 4K@30fps requires A 6000mbps data rate. BluRay caps out at 144mbps.

A 90 minute movie would be 4TB. BluRay caps out at 128GB.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago (4 children)

They're talking about 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, which was introduced in 2016. The video is still compressed, but it's still much higher quality than DVD and Blu-ray, and can hold 60-100 GB of data.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I will buy 4k blue rays of movies I like but if that isn't available, eat ass and get fucked I'll steal your shit and you get nothing.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago

I have no issues paying for movies, as long as they’re actually mine. I have major issues with paying for a limited license to stream a movie, until the streaming service decides to end their contract and the streaming rights get clawed back without a refund. If purchasing isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t theft.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago (1 children)

One business dying is not the death of a media type, FFS.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 months ago

Well, it's not just one business. It's an 86% reduction in volume that represents the death of the media format.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (5 children)

I mean......I just bought Batman the animated series on DVD. Whole series too. I never got to watch it as a kid, but I hear it holds up even for adults.

I also bought Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles DVD which has the first 3 movies from the 90s. The stupid Micheal Bay reboot from the 2010s, and also a movie called "Batman vs TMNT". Which sounded bizzare enough for me to buy.

Now I just need time to watch these things.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago (11 children)

Are the numbers about DVD sales strictly about DVD sales or do they include all optical formats (Blu-ray/UltraHD Blu-ray)? Because unless I’m getting an old TV show that was only ever SD, my preference is to get a Blu-ray, not a DVD. I suppose if I still saw the super cheap ($3-5) DVDs in the grocery store for something I like but not enough to buy normally (this is how I bought Brewster’s Millions) then I might buy a DVD, but otherwise I at least want HD quality.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago (15 children)

Several tech YouTubers have talked about moving entirely to Jellyfin or similar, self-hosting their own movies and TV series from legally owned, ripped copies from their own DVD or Bluray collection.

It takes some work and time to rip, encode, and organize the files. But if you want to go this route, there has probably never been a better time. You can routinely purchase used DVDs and Bluray from thrift stores for a few bucks per disc... sometimes less. If I had a server and hard disk space I'd probably be going this route for media consumption.

Eventually the DVDs will go away entirely and then it will be impossible to create your own legal archival copies.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (4 children)

My favorite part about DVDs is how sometimes they look just fine but the video doesn't actually play. I got a DVD from the library recently that the video stopped 10 minutes in the first episode and you couldn't even play or rip past that point either.

Physical media still really sucks in a lot of ways.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago

Gotta cut off any avenue of escape for streamers sick of not owning what they pay for.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Unskippable commercials on DVD? What did I miss?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Oh yeah 100%. Old DVDs had ads that were unskippable, which played before you got to the DVD’s home menu. Usually just ads for other movies that were coming up around the same time the DVD landed. You could usually get around them by hitting Stop twice and then Play to get to the main DVD menu, but not always.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago

I remember this as a kid, where (usually a Disney DVD) would have 2x 3 minute trailers, before you even got to the main menu, for other movies and if you tried to hit Next Chapter it would just spit back "Unable to do this at this time".

Sometimes you might bypass it by hitting Root Menu if your DVD player remote had it, but yes very frustrating.

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[–] spyd3r 13 points 4 months ago (13 children)

DVD is for casuals, Laserdisc is where it's at.

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