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DVDs are dying right as streaming has made them appealing again

arstechnica.com

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Re: DVDs are dying right as streaming has made them appealing again

#21

Post by kolinko »

thinkingemote wrote: post #9
stevekemp wrote: post #4

Over the past few months I've actually gone back to buying DVDs. Sure their quality isn't amazing, but they're so practical and dependable. The local charity shops sell movies for €1 each, and boxed-sets of TV-series are typically no more than €5 each. I even managed to pick up a decent DVD player to sit under my TV for €25, used. Before this I used to stream to a chromecast, with VLC, but it was always a bit of a pa…

The other benefits of DVD are the extra features and directors commentary. I'm not sure I've ever seen these on streaming services or torrents. They extend the use of a movie to many hours. I'm still working through the extended versions of Lotr and I've just become aware that the commentary on the normal versions were different!

Yes, this. Apple TV has dvd-style extras for some films upon purchase (not rental)

Re: DVDs are dying right as streaming has made them appealing again

#22

Post by sanitycheck »

I always found the DVD experience to be pretty horrible, with all the region-locking, menu garbage and unskippable nonsense. I never felt like a DVD was something I completely owned.

At least I could (thanks to DeCSS etc) rip the content off and write it to a blank disc to improve the experience... There are probably ways to do the same with Netflix content these days though, I guess.

Re: DVDs are dying right as streaming has made them appealing again

#23

Post by sanitycheck »

asdff wrote: post #6
Spivak wrote: post #3

Whatever your thoughts about piracy ethically it's hard to argue it's going to soon be the only viewing experience where you actually own the media. Torrenting has for some media become the only way of acquiring it at all.

At the end of the day its the pirates who are maintaining the library of Alexandria of our times. The pirates we insist on vilifying and speaking little of in technical forums even. What does that make those people who stand against those who seek to spread information? No different than the book burners, in my eyes. A shame so many engineers spend their precious time and efforts fighting on what future generations w…

Alternatively, it's just entertainment and movie DRM is at worst annoying and counterproductive.

In X years time when humanity is struggling to rebuild civilisation in a radioactive wasteland I don't think the main problem will be the inability to find a copy of "Dumb And Dumber To". The real heroes will turn out to have been the contributors to Open Source and Open Access projects - Linux, Wikipedia, etc.

There are better things (often unpaid) developers could be doing than implementing DRM but also much much worse things.

Re: DVDs are dying right as streaming has made them appealing again

#24

Post by oliwarner »

Buttons840 wrote: post #12

DVD rentals via mail seem like an easy business to get into. Few customers, but little overhead. Anyone in the nation can be a customer, though few will be, and shipping is easier than ever these days. Is anybody doing this? But ultimately the publisher will stop selling new movies on DVD or Blu-ray, etc, so it wont save us.

> easy business to get into

Good luck getting rental rights.

The very reason modern streaming sucks so much is that every other production company wants to be a streaming distributor; pulling rights from other streaming services.

Just holding a DVD does not give you the rights to lease it out. At least, that's if you believe the legal spiel on the disc.

Re: DVDs are dying right as streaming has made them appealing again

#26

Post by account42 »

sanitycheck wrote: post #22

I always found the DVD experience to be pretty horrible, with all the region-locking, menu garbage and unskippable nonsense. I never felt like a DVD was something I completely owned. At least I could (thanks to DeCSS etc) rip the content off and write it to a blank disc to improve the experience... There are probably ways to do the same with Netflix content these days though, I guess.

> There are probably ways to do the same with Netflix content these days

There are but it's not something most end user will be able to do - because the DRM is something that can be realtively easily updated pirates tend to keep their hacks private. Ripping Blu-Rays on the other hand is quite available to anyone interested and gives you better quality than overcompressed streaming sites - but of course the discs are more expensive.

Re: DVDs are dying right as streaming has made them appealing again

#27

Post by account42 »

yourusername wrote: post #15
CafeRacer wrote: post #8

I dont mind paying for content, but the current state of streaming makes it easier to get movies from torrents. Like the Alien for example, some parts are on Netflix, some are not. Meaning i have to buy like 5 different subscriptions to be able to watch everything i want. Or even better one, Dr House. I don't think we had it streamed in our country, so the only way to watch it was to pirate. Its bad how the platforms…

I also don't mind paying for content but i want the content as it was originally broadcast. With streaming if you "buy" something they might eventually replace the background music or cut scenes that are deemed insensitive or clash with the director's new vision. Or they decide you need to view 4:3 content with the top and bottom cut off in 16:9. Or in some cases you might lose access to the content entirely because…

I also don't mind paying for content in theory but besides your concerns I also want to be able to play that content on whatever devices using whatever software I want, without needing a constant internet connection. The Music industry has survived the switch to DRM-free content, the Movie and TV industry can too.

Re: DVDs are dying right as streaming has made them appealing again

#29

Post by lifestyleguru »

stevekemp wrote: post #4

Over the past few months I've actually gone back to buying DVDs. Sure their quality isn't amazing, but they're so practical and dependable. The local charity shops sell movies for €1 each, and boxed-sets of TV-series are typically no more than €5 each. I even managed to pick up a decent DVD player to sit under my TV for €25, used. Before this I used to stream to a chromecast, with VLC, but it was always a bit of a pa…

I'm not going back to DVD because of unskippable fear inducing anti-piracy and "FBI" warnings. Every time you launch a movie they violate your brain with this nonsense. If I have to rip and tweak the DVD, it's easier to torrent it.

Re: DVDs are dying right as streaming has made them appealing again

#30

Post by CafeRacer »

account42 wrote: post #27
yourusername wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also don't mind paying for content but i want the content as it was originally broadcast. With streaming if you "buy" something they might eventually replace the background music or cut scenes that are deemed insensitive or clash with the director's new vision. Or they decide you need to view 4:3 content with the top and bottom cut off in 16:9. Or in some cases you might lose access to the content entirely because…

I also don't mind paying for content in theory but besides your concerns I also want to be able to play that content on whatever devices using whatever software I want, without needing a constant internet connection. The Music industry has survived the switch to DRM-free content, the Movie and TV industry can too.

Both your and @yourusername are valid arguments. Movie/TV streaming services generally bad.

It's like a loot of good content is missing, but instead they're trying to make their own content that is mostly average and sometimes just bluntly bad, not even laughably bad.

Music is way better, I recently switched from Spotify to Tidal, and there were only two tracks missing from my playlists.

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