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We all took the DVD boom era for granted

filmstories.co.uk

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Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#101

Post by nemomarx »

dylan604 wrote: post #96
zild3d wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to borrow my friends' VHS tapes. Trying to stop people from sharing is barking up the wrong tree, just make it easy enough for people to do the right thing that sending a large file around and getting it to play on their TV seems like a pain in comparison.

Sharing a physical product is not even close to the same as sharing a digital file. If you share a book/VHS/DVD, that physical item is no longer usable by the original person until it is returned. A digital file shared means the both people now have a file for as long as they want it and now each can share as much as they want.

people could make copies of the physical object, right? you should always record a new album onto a cassette or etc.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#102

Post by alsetmusic »

rob74 wrote: post #98

Stange that the article opens with a picture of the The Matrix DVD, but then doesn't mention it in the text. This was actually the first DVD I bought (even though back then I didn't have a DVD player, just a DVD drive for my PC) and spent hours exploring the extras. Looks like I wasn't the only one who was impressed: https://theextras.buzzsprout.com/1781599/episodes/9714540

Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” had extra menus that I couldn’t reach with a remote but could click with a mouse. I genuinely thought it was a bit unkind to fans who couldn’t access them on a tv.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#103

Post by Y-bar »

goosedragons wrote: post #61
vouaobrasil wrote: post #57

I wish there were a way to just pay for a movie on a site and download it as an mp4 in 1080P or 4K. I hate streaming because I only want to watch 1-2 movies per month and they are very specific (like a specific martial arts movie or action movie). Streaming interfaces often have DRM and horrible interfaces and I don't want to pay a monthly fee for something I'll rarely use. Don't understand the DRM because pirates ge…

There are places that still let you download movies like iTunes. They are of course riddled in DRM so it's not much help...

I can't download any 4K movies from iTunes, only 1080p.

(source: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/119599)

For some of the movies I have bought I have ended up also torrenting a copy to have and be sure I can play it. Really tempted to get a bluray player and go back to disks.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#104

Post by alt227 »

bamboozled wrote: post #97
codedokode wrote: post #94

The problems with streaming services: - they do not allow anonymous usage (you need to provide a visa application worth amount of personal information) - stupid geographical restrictions - they tend to limit quality, both for copyright and traffic saving purposes As an intermediate result, a generation of people is growing who got used to watching digitally compressed audio and video (social media, especially for mob…

- You need to subscribe to ten different services rather than just having one subscription to see the thing you want to watch. Before you just needed a DVD player

> Before you just needed a DVD player

However you also needed to physically buy a copy of every movie you want to watch, instead of signing up for one service and having access to thousandsd immediately.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#105

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #57

I wish there were a way to just pay for a movie on a site and download it as an mp4 in 1080P or 4K. I hate streaming because I only want to watch 1-2 movies per month and they are very specific (like a specific martial arts movie or action movie). Streaming interfaces often have DRM and horrible interfaces and I don't want to pay a monthly fee for something I'll rarely use. Don't understand the DRM because pirates ge…

I wish there were ready-made hosted Plex servers that could accept a file transfer. Buy a movie online and give them your server "address" and they send the movie to your Plex server.

We have been robbed of so many possibilities by copyright bullshit.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#106

Post by gwbas1c »

One of the turning points for me was when the extras went from captivating to drivel: Extras used to be based on promo videos that you'd find on 1990s cable TV; for example, a promo that would be on the Disney Channel or Nickelodeon to get you into the theater. Later, the extras turned into something that an intern would slap together, with a bunch of people involved with the movie back-slapping each other.

I stopped buying DVDs around 2005-ish: With BluRay coming around, and everyone saying that film was closer to 4k, why would I want to invest in a disk, only to need to rebuy it in BluRay and then 4k every few years? I also realized that most movies I only watch once, so streaming makes a lot more sense.

Now that I have a 4k player I've gone back to buying 4k disks if I think I'll re-watch them.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#107

Post by alt227 »

alsetmusic wrote: post #102
rob74 wrote: post #98

Stange that the article opens with a picture of the The Matrix DVD, but then doesn't mention it in the text. This was actually the first DVD I bought (even though back then I didn't have a DVD player, just a DVD drive for my PC) and spent hours exploring the extras. Looks like I wasn't the only one who was impressed: https://theextras.buzzsprout.com/1781599/episodes/9714540

Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” had extra menus that I couldn’t reach with a remote but could click with a mouse. I genuinely thought it was a bit unkind to fans who couldn’t access them on a tv.

Maybe other DVD player remotes allowed those things to be accessed?

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#108

Post by fidotron »

Not mentioning the non-skippable anti piracy noise that ironically made the legit product worse than the pirated one poisoned the well for interactive features later on Blu Ray. Who cares about getting extras if they are hidden behind obnoxious menus and abusive junk when the Internet will tell you anyway?

That said I remember that era fondly because of things like the Tartan output. In the UK if you had a multi region player (and many did) you could get stuff from all over the place, on top of the local but now forgotten play dot com.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#109

Post by Miraste »

codedokode wrote: post #94

The problems with streaming services: - they do not allow anonymous usage (you need to provide a visa application worth amount of personal information) - stupid geographical restrictions - they tend to limit quality, both for copyright and traffic saving purposes As an intermediate result, a generation of people is growing who got used to watching digitally compressed audio and video (social media, especially for mob…

DVDs and Blu-rays also have stupid geographical restrictions. They come marked with region codes, and DVD players will only play discs from their home region. You have to go all the way back to VHS to be free of that particular corporate "innovation."

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#110

Post by tom_vidal »

How in the world can you have a discussion about DVD packaging and special features without mentioning the Lord of the Rings trilogy extended edition box sets? Not only did the movies come in beautiful collector’s cases with two DVDs per movie, they were also completely packed with special features, the run time of which exceeded that of the movies themselves. Hours and hours of in-depth making-of documentaries. I used to watch the special features for all the movies in a row when I was home from college during the holidays. Probably because before the advent of streaming, this was the longest, highest-quality content I had access to.

But the special features themselves… man. Getting to see the craft of filmmaking and propmaking was one of the biggest inspirations for me in pursuing a career as a maker. That was the first time in my life anyone had pulled back the curtain to that extent on what it took to create something as complex and powerful as Peter Jackson’s LOTR. You could tell the profound love and dedication that went into every inch of that film. To anyone who was involved in creating those special features and deciding to include them in the extended edition box sets, thank you.

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