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.world
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    4 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.

  • mctoasterson@reddthat.com
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    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.

    • Entropywins@lemmy.world
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      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.

    • thecookie94@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      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 😅

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      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…

      • eletes@sh.itjust.works
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        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.world
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          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.world
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            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.

    • Zetta@mander.xyz
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      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.world
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      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.works
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      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.org
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      4 months ago

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

  • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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    4 months ago

    The enshittification of streaming is enshittifitentional.

    Major B&M retailers of physical media are either dead, dieing, or have phased out physical media.

    What a perfect time to issue a deathknell to the whole concept physical ownership.

    Streaming originals that disappear will come back in limited release. It’ll basically be the Disney Vault of streaming. A company like Netflix would subtly drop references and nods to “removed” popular shows in their new shows to make you nostalgic for the old show. Then bring it back for a couple months.

    You’ll especially see them all fighting for the best Christmas specials, but they’ll pull this shit with Stranger Things by the end of the decade. They expect people to plan-hop and will use limited releases and seasonal specials as their carrot.

  • StaySquared@lemmy.world
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    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.

    • Victor@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I tried to watch a DVD lately (as in past few years). Holy. Yeah. Not as I remembered. It’s not even 720p. Looks like manure on my 65" 4K OLED. 💩 And the audio. I had to stop.

      I think it was Band Of Brothers? Had to download a 1080p boxset at least. Then it was consumable.

      • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        It’s one of those things were people have gotten used to 1080p or better and they remember DVD being pretty good, but when they go back, yeeesh. I remember thinking that about VHS vs DVD. Got used to DVD, remembered VHS being just fine, put a VHS on, oh boy.

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      Yep. I’ve recently been collecting Criterion Collection blu-rays (and 4k BR in the case of Citizen Kane. Which was incredible btw. First time seeing it too) for some of my favorite films plus classics I haven’t seen yet. If you keep an eye out for sales you can get some really great stuff for under $20. Sometimes under $15.

      The picture quality is second to none, the bonus features are always amazing and actually worth checking out, and I own them outright forever.

      Edit: oh, you meant like actual old school regular DVDs… Fuck that

  • Victor@lemmy.world
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    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?

    • TheImpressiveX@lemmy.ml
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      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.world
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      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.

    • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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      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.

      • Victor@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Exactly. And a regular DVD caps at 4.7 GB if I’m not mistaken. Not even close.

        • Malfeasant@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          That’s just single layer - dual layer is something like 8.4 if memory serves (which it often doesn’t…)

    • Gestrid@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

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

      • Victor@lemmy.world
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        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.ca
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          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.works
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              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.world
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                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.works
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                  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.

    • 0x0@programming.dev
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      4 months ago

      Because the current trend is to ensure the consumer owns less and less and just pays monthly for access rights.

    • t_berium@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Physical media cannot be altered afterwards. That’s a thing Disney likes to do, for example.

      Plus maximum video and audio quality. Some people don’t watch movies on phones or laptops, you know.

      • Grimy@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I really don’t understand why they don’t include this stuff on streaming services.

    • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Because the discs will safely store that data for decades longer than any of your hard drives will likely work.

    • Drusas@kbin.run
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      4 months ago

      I’ve started buying DVDs and Blu-ray again after years of not doing so because there have been multiple instances of me purchasing a movie on some streaming platform and then it no longer being available. Also, there have been even more instances where it’s less expensive to buy the physical product and then rip it than it is to buy the digital copy.

      • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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        4 months ago

        Or store them on a portable hdd and have redundancy without hoarding shiny plastic discs.

        • bluGill@kbin.run
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          4 months ago

          I store the discs because while ripping is of questional legallity by having the discs I have the morals right.

          • EngineerGaming@feddit.nl
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            4 months ago

            I find this to be an odd choice. No one is coming to your home to check. You KNOW you paid for the media. I’d throw the disks I know I would never use out, or sell them.

            • bluGill@kbin.run
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              4 months ago

              Nobody today is not coming to my house. However the world has not always changed in ways I like. If the media companies want to make an example of somebody they might randomly pick me. If I have physical media they will not be able to convince the general public I’m a dishonest thief and so even though I might be legally in the wrong for ripping DVDs they will stay away: they are going to look for someone who they can make look like a dishonest thief in the court of public opinion. They are not looking to take me to court and win whatever damaged they are owned from my activity (it will cost them about 100 times as much $$$ in lawyers fees - they would probably win but it isn’t worth it), what they would be looking for is to make an example in the news about how much someone loses and if I have physical media they instead look like jerks for enforcing a law on something that the generally public wouldn’t even call a crime.

            • Agrivar@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              If you throw away perfectly fine physical copies, you are just contributing to the ever-increasing plastic waste poisoning our ecosystems, and if you sell them then your digital copies are now illegal. Just put them in a disc binder and stick 'em in a closet for fuck sake!

                • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                  4 months ago

                  If you’re going to sell the disks, just pirate instead, it’s the same in a legal sense (you have something you don’t have a legal claim to).

                  If you’re worried about space, get a disk binder or something. Disks aren’t that big, cases are, so ditch the case and keep the disk. I keep the disks too, but I have a ton of storage space.

              • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                you are just contributing to the ever-increasing plastic waste poisoning our ecosystems

                so are you. they’re all going to end up in a landfill one way or another.

                Just put them in a disc binder and stick 'em in a closet for fuck sake!

                you mean throw the plastic case away?