You don't know what you've got till it's gone.

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).

  • AbidanYre@lemmy.worldEnglish
    183·
    5 months ago

    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.

  • azuth@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    511·
    4 months ago

    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.

    • mrvictory1@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      4 months ago

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

      cough cough 4K bluray cough cough

      • morbidcactus@lemmy.caEnglish
        13·
        4 months ago

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

          • zarenkiEnglish
            8·
            4 months ago

            Legitimately playing 4K blu-ray video on a PC without cracking the DRM requires an insane combination of requirements:

            • Windows 10 (not 11)
            • An Intel processor between gen 7-10 (nothing newer because Intel ditched SGX in 2021)
            • Intel integrated graphics (no nvidia/amd)
            • Monitor that supports HDCP 2.2 for DRM (some 4k ones don’t)
            • An approved optical drive
            • Proprietary playback software which costs about $100 USD, separate from the cost of hardware and Windows
            • Miscellaneous other requirements for the motherboard features, bios settings, etc.

            Meanwhile MakeMKV can rip them on basically any Windows/Linux/Mac system with a compatible BDXL drive.

          • morbidcactus@lemmy.caEnglish
            2·
            4 months ago

            For real, VLC is great, I’ve totally had issues playing some of them with it. If I recall there’s supposed to be a way to let vlc use MakeMKV to break them for playback, but yeah, way more work than just ripping it.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      6·
      4 months ago

      Yup, here’s my hierarchy of preference:

      1. No DRM digital files w/ guaranteed re-downloadability if I have a license key or something
      2. No DRM physical media
      3. Offline DRM physical media
      4. Low cost subscription service with fantastic selection w/ offline viewing capability

      Anything after 4 is unacceptable. VHS was 2, DVD and Bluray are 3, and Netflix was 4. Now Netflix has higher prices and worse selection, so it’s now somewhere after 4 and not worth the effort.

      I’m willing to pay a premium for 1 or 2, and I’m willing to buy discounted 3, but nothing is offering 4 anymore. 1 & 2 don’t really exist anymore, so if 3 goes away, I guess I’ll go back to the alternatives I used when I couldn’t afford 1-3 and Netflix wasn’t around yet.

      • azuth@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        If there’s momentum for a return to physical media the copyright owners won’t start printing DVDs or BluRays for new or republished media.

        They will push a new format with new media and players. They will use all they have learned from their previous failures to put more effective technical and legal hurdles to the users.

        Perhaps we will break it again but it is not a given. If we don’t they will decide how youn can use your media.

  • Victor@lemmy.worldEnglish
    37·
    4 months ago

    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?

    • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.eeEnglish
      28·
      4 months ago

      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.

    • TheImpressiveXEnglish
      19·
      4 months ago

      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.

    • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      4 months ago

      It’s easy as long as you’re okay with only being able to fit probably 1-2 minutes of video, the resulting disk not playing in any consumer player ever, and probably not even being capable of real time playback on a powerful PC with a fast drive.

    • Gestrid@lemmy.caEnglish
      53·
      4 months ago

      At the very least, it’s still (generally speaking) higher quality video than streaming. It’s not uncompressed, though.

      • Victor@lemmy.worldEnglish
        9·
        4 months ago

        Surely not? DVD is 576p/i (PAL) and 480p/i 💀. Not even 720p. 720p looks like garbage on a 4K display IMO. I really hope you are getting higher resolution from your streaming services than that, otherwise I think you’re getting ripped off. (Streaming services are a ripoff to me regardless, but that’s another point.)

        • Gestrid@lemmy.caEnglish
          7·
          4 months ago

          Others replying to the comment included Blu-ray, so I did, too. I assumed it was a given to include that since others had already brought it up.

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              2·
              4 months ago

              No, you’re absolutely correct. Many people just don’t realize how crappy the resolution is on DVD, and I would hate for people to buy some and be surprised at how bad it looks.

              I ripped all of my DVDs because I have them, and combined they’re something like the size of one or two 4k Blurays. So don’t go out and buy a bunch of old DVDs if Blurays are an option for you.

              • Victor@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                4 months ago

                combined they’re something like the size of one or two 4k Blurays

                Ha! That’s pretty funny to me.

                I think that would be a fun hobby for me, if I had the time for it. To gather a sizable blu-ray collection, and rip into a smaller size media library. There’s so much to get into though, with all the codec options and settings and quantizing and shit. Mind-boggling when you haven’t even started researching yet. 😅

                • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                  1·
                  4 months ago

                  Well, just start somewhere and optimize as you go. I’ve got an 8TB NAS (two 8TB drives in mirror), and it’s not even halfway full, despite having a ton of DVDs and Bluray rips. I haven’t bought many Blurays lately bags because Netflix was good enough, but I’m getting back into it.

                  DVD max quality is 480p, and it takes up ~2GB for longer movies at super quality m4v format with Handbrake (the first Hobbit movie was 2.5GB). 1080p Bluray rips are like 10x that.

                  I accidentally ripped a few with the wrong settings, but it’s easy to redo it. So just get started, but make sure you have plenty of disk space. I use Jellyfin for watching on my TV and it works pretty well and was pretty easy to set up.

  • StaySquared@lemmy.worldEnglish
    261·
    4 months ago

    At first I was cool with buying digital copies of movies from streaming services, when they first offered them. Until my neighbor apparently got his account suspended and had absolutely no access to all the digital copies of movies he had bought. I then realized… it’s true, we’re entering an age of, “you will own NOTHING and be happy”.

    So I rather support pirates.

    • Zetta@mander.xyzEnglish
      19·
      4 months ago

      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.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      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.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      6·
      4 months ago

      Yup, but only physical media, not streaming services or anything with online DRM. If I can’t play their media offline legally, I’ll find other ways of getting that data to work offline.

    • Schorsch@feddit.orgEnglish
      2·
      4 months ago

      Some people pay in order to be able to anonymously download movies. (Totally not me though, as that’s illegal.)

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish
    20·
    5 months ago

    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.

        • Capt. Wolf@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          4 months ago

          The whole cast is amazing. I had no idea they had so many people from TNG on there until my wife told me last night…

          Let’s also not forget Keith David… That man could talk me to sleep any time…

    • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.eeEnglish
      4·
      4 months ago

      May not be the same type of stuff, but I’ve seen comple box sets of shows like Courage the Cowardly Dog, Edd Ed N Eddy, and a few other shows for roughly around $30 a set at my local Walmart. It’s absolutely beautiful to see physical media box sets at a reasonable price crushes streaming prices.

    • GamingChairModel@lemmy.worldEnglish
      30·
      5 months ago

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

  • jqubed@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18·
    5 months ago

    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.

      • thisNotMyName@lemmy.worldEnglish
        19·
        4 months ago

        No, bluray is 1080p (or 2160p if UHD Bluray) while DVDs are 576p-720p (what looks really shitty on a 4K TV). I only buy BDs and UHD BDs these days

        • TheImpressiveXEnglish
          10·
          4 months ago

          while DVDs are 576p-720p

          576p is the absolute maximum. Most DVDs are actually 480p.

          • Matriks404@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            4 months ago

            I am pretty sure 1080p video will fit on DVD just fine if formatted as regular data disc. But I am not sure if H.264 or anything newer is supported, and video may not have the highest quality, but still better than 720p I guess.

            • TheImpressiveXEnglish
              8·
              4 months ago

              That’s true, but the DVD-Video standard only supports MPEG-2 at 720x576 (PAL), or 720x480 (NTSC).

              Sure, you can put a 1080p AVC-encoded video on a DVD formatted as a data disc, but it won’t play on a DVD player.

              • Matriks404@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                4 months ago

                Huh. I had a vague memory that my DVD player allowed regular movie files to be played, but maybe my memory is just bad.

                • jqubed@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  2·
                  4 months ago

                  That would be very device-specific, if they wanted to add additional support for data discs. It would be outside the scope of the actual DVD-video playback functionality.

  • mctoasterson@reddthat.comEnglish
    17·
    4 months ago

    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.

    • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
      9·
      4 months ago

      Honestly, I’d rip my collection, but at the time it takes to download that quality rip I’d be quicker just typing them all into Radarr and coming back later…

    • thecookie94@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      9·
      4 months ago

      “Self hosting their own movies and TV series from legally owned, ripped copies from their own DVD and BluRay collection”

      Ngl, whenever they say that they be doing that in said videos I smirk a lil. Yeah sure, that’s what you say when you’re in front of the camera&recording a video pointing out what others could be doing as well. All while they likely got stuff obtained from the seven seas on there as well, just like folk that are going to replicate that setup are going to have as well. Let’s not kid ourselves, a whole lot of content is only legally accessible via streaming services with no other options (shortly before it gets removed from the streaming services, leaving no legal way to access it), and that amount is becoming more each and every single day 😅

    • Entropywins@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      4 months ago

      Be careful I started down that road with a 500gb external hdd and now I’ve got a 40tb raid array and a homelab consuming my walk in closet.

    • DrowningInteger@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      I’ve had enough movies and shows unavailable to me that I’m doing exactly this. I bought a PC just to use as a media server, set up Plex, and started ripping all my DVDs to the computer and I can stream them to my Chromecast. No ads, available permanently. I can buy movies from thrift shops and garage sales, and at least for now DVDs are super cheap. It’s not high quality video but I don’t really care too much.

    • GladiusB@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      4 months ago

      Ok someone explain Jellyfin. I tried to figure it out and it just wasn’t clicking.

      • eletes@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        4 months ago

        If you know plex it’s the same thing just open source.

        But they are just video player front ends for your media libray

        • GladiusB@lemmy.worldEnglish
          21·
          4 months ago

          I mean I have VLC. I have no issues with most media. I was under the impression it was a source for the media. Thanks.

          • FlavoredButtHair@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            4 months ago

            Plex and Jellyfin organize your media using metadata and it’s pretty much your own Netflix, Hulu type thing.

            However, if you get a Plex pass you can stream your media outside of your network to friends and family. Or just yourself when you’re out of the house. But your PC would need to stay on, unless you have a NAS bay with the hard drives in it.

            • GladiusB@lemmy.worldEnglish
              11·
              4 months ago

              I didn’t see any channels. Is it like Kodi? Maybe I’m just using it wrong.

              • FlavoredButtHair@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                4 months ago

                Not like kodi. There are channels to watch stuff for free, kinda like Pluto TV. However, I do think you can stream your own content from your PC using kodi, not sure though.

      • histic@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        It’s basically a gallery for all your downloaded movies/shows, that you can just click play on whatever you have downloaded.

    • Malfeasant@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      I’ve been doing this since 2008 - although I only recently setup Plex in 2017, before that I just ran a web server and played movies in a browser on various smart TVs, but around 2017 was when my main TV got an update that rendered its browser mostly useless… Fuck Sony by the way. And before smart TVs I just had a video card with TV out and long cables… Or burning VCDs, I still have my 5-disc DVD changer that could play VCDs as long as they were burned to CD-RW discs, though it’s just gathering dust now.

  • Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish
    203·
    4 months ago

    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.

    • Katana314@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      4 months ago

      This is what’s made me a little more okay with digital video games. The chance that some bizarre event will lead to that game becoming unplayable is non-zero. But, that’s the case for physical game discs as well.

      I’m upset at events like The Crew’s removal and hope for more laws to make such things unlikely. Still, I’m generally accepting that by and large, publishers don’t try to delete or remove access to people’s games. There’s no specific motivation in it for that particular evil.

      Movies, however, I’m reticent. I liked being able to buy a few cheap movies on digital services, but Sony’s mass deletion of their library makes me hesitant to continue there.

      • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        4 months ago

        Also, you don’t have to worry about some random service shutting down. There are so many online dependencies with modern consoles that of the service shuts down, you gave an unusable brick, regardless whether you possess the bits they sold you

      • zarenkiEnglish
        2·
        4 months ago

        Likewise, I’m far less hesitant to accept buying digital console games than video because I generally can expect that once I download a game on my one device that I’ll pull out the same device whenever I want to play it and it’ll keep working when offline and even after the servers are gone, until the hardware fails. Modern games’ physical releases rely so heavily on updates and DLC that the cart/disc you get isn’t complete anyway; buying physical effectively becomes a digital game with an extra point of failure (and partial resellability). PC gaming complicates things but at least some games are available completely DRM-free there.

        With video content sold online, streaming directly from some server is always the focus. As soon as the server disconnects you become unable to watch by default. Even if some service lets you pre-download within its app and watch offline (which probably won’t work indefinitely without checkins anyway), that’ll defeat the portability expectations for watching your videos on any device interchangeably.

        Blu-ray video isn’t ideal considering you cannot watch it on a phone, tablet, or linux system without cracking its DRM, but that’s still way better for lasting access than anything else major movie/TV studios are willing to let consumers access without piracy.

    • Malfeasant@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      4 months ago

      DVD is better than Blu-ray in that regard - I’ve ripped DVDs that look like they fell off a truck and got run over multiple times and had no problem, meanwhile about 1 out of 5 Blu-rays I got from Netflix would have problems despite looking pristine. It has to do with the data density, Blu-ray packs so much more in the same amount of space, one microscopic scratch wipes out so much data…

      Of course some DVDs suffer from bad materials. I was re-ripping my collection recently, and I have a few that have sat in a closet untouched for years, not a scratch on them, but the drive won’t even recognize there’s a disc. Probably oxidation of the reflective layer.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.worldEnglish
      18·
      4 months ago

      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.

      • SendMePhotos@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        4 months ago

        UNLESS you buy the dvd or Blu-ray from the UK. I found that out when I bought the UK version of a movie and when I put the disc in… The movie just fucking started. No earnings, no ads, no features, no menu. Just… Movie.

      • Malfeasant@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        4 months ago

        Wow, I don’t even remember that. I’ve been playing DVDs on a computer basically forever, which rarely obeyed such restrictions…

    • JustARegularNerd@lemmy.worldEnglish
      13·
      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.