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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

#201

Post by Pet_Ant »

23B1 wrote: post #31

Not to mention streaming/digital media is going to kill off actually good movies and content. This isn't the technology's fault mind you, but the streamers' business model, but you could rely upon residuals via DVD sales for movies back in the day and that money is gone, which eliminates the safety margin required to take risks. It's why I can't stand the 'information wants to be free' argument. Where the hell do you…

> 'information wants to be free'

This wasn't meant to be a moral argument. It's not the information yearns for liberation and we ought to provide it. It's a physics analogy. Like a ball 'wants' to roll downhill. Free is the lowest entropy state of information.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#202

Post by rascul »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #157
blitzar wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I pay for the content and get unskipable ads before, durring and after the movie. Oh how I long for the You wouldn't download a car days

When will we be able to download 3D-printable and drivable cars?

Local Motors already did this a decade ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strati_(automobile)

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#203

Post by delecti »

_fat_santa wrote: post #91
vouaobrasil wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah...I just want to pay for a DRM-free copy so I can play it and own it forever. That's it. No streaming accoounts, no tracking, no plastic packaging, just the file in exchange for money. I paid for Sublime text that way and it's a great model.

I'm currently setting up a Plex in my home to play our families "most popular" movies and I genuinely want to buy these movies, pay for them, and just have them but I can't do that so I have to pirate them. I wonder how many others are in the same camp as me, I used to be a pirate back when I was a teenager but now I can genuinely afford this stuff and always prefer to pay versus pirate, but in the case of home movie…

Are there truly that many movies which aren't released on physical media? I've also recently set up Plex, and just rip blu-ray copies to my NAS for it. Haven't failed to find any movies I've looked for.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#204

Post by latexr »

> Designers came up with nifty animated menus

Those user-hostile abominations were a great reason to have DVDs. They were slow, made starting to watch a movie more complicated than it need be, and frequently committed the cardinal sin of showing spoilers.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#205

Post by stronglikedan »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #199
justinator wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider the books to be canonical, honestly.

+ 1 Here. I can hardly sit through The Two Towers , extended or otherwise, without cringing constantly at nonsensical plot changes. No, Faramir was not a moody nihilistic relativist who changes his entire outlook without any character development. No, there was no alliance, and getting from Lothlorien to Helm's Deep in the span of a few weeks, with a full army, is physically impossible even if the army were already a…

A movie adaptation of a book is a retelling of a story for a completely different type of audience, so it's an apples to oranges comparison always.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#206

Post by gosub100 »

BeetleB wrote: post #167
theandrewbailey wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have to go all the way back to VHS to be free of that particular corporate "innovation." Try watching a European VHS cassette in North America (or vice versa).

> Try watching a European VHS cassette in North America (or vice versa). That's not a georestriction, but a difference in media protocols. You could easily buy a compatible VCR. Heck, in some countries, Japan marketed VCRs that supported both PAL and NTSC (I had one of those) because those countries would have a significant influx of VHSs from both Europe and America. It's like saying the choice of 110 vs 220V (or 12…

This would actually be a plausible excuse for region locking. If the MPEG stream were somehow optimized for NTSC/PAL.

If course the most likely reason is corporate greed, but it's also fun to consider other possibilities. Another hypothetical reason would be for sales in Islamic nations where certain content is prohibited. They could show the government censors that there is some level enforcement to prevent "illegal media" from being easily watched. Whereas without it, the government could have potentially made DVDs illegal in their entire nation. I'm trying to see this through the lens of the design committee back in the early 90s.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#207

Post by latexr »

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…

> stupid geographical restrictions

DVDs had those too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code

> they tend to limit quality, both for copyright and traffic saving purposes

As long as the quality is above 480p, it’s still better than DVD.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#208

Post by dghlsakjg »

jasode wrote: post #131
jhbadger wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or rent a movie for a couple of bucks. Or check out a DVD for free from a public library.

>Or check out a DVD for free from a public library. Major downsides to that alternative. My 80-year old friend started borrowing DVDs from the local library 6 months ago as a personal protest against Amazon Prime adding ads to their streaming. So far, made 3 trips to borrow DVDs and all had various issues: 1) checked out White Collar tv seasons but library only had seasons 1 to 3. Library didn't have last 3 seasons a…

Most libraries want to know if the media is damaged so they can replace it. Your friend can also put holds on things. Some library services also have streaming services, and there are free streaming services as well. PBS has a free streaming service, although I think parts of it are ad supported

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#210

Post by mrguyorama »

robohoe wrote: post #113
alt227 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yes, and a lot of movies on DVDs cost $10-15

Nearly every single individual DVD movie is less than $5 on ebay right now.

Streaming will never have a secondhand market.

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