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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

#251

Post by Lammy »

p0w3n3d wrote: post #17

I still prefer to own movies I like and I have many of them. (no, not SO many as YOU have, my adversary). I think that having them will allow me one day to stop paying constantly more and more expensive subscriptions. By the way, for me, the DVD standard was very strange. I think that the engineering industry works differently than IT/CS guys. They think of "a product" which consists of the medium AND the "protocol"…

> When new codecs were created, the DVD could have been enhanced in terms of better quality

Relevant dead ends:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Definition_Versatile_Disc

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versatile_Multilayer_Disc

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#252

Post by stego-tech »

Honestly not where I expected the article to go, but grateful for it. While I do kinda miss the old, glamorous packaging and pack-ins of yore, the modern media server-focused me appreciates modern releases that are thin on extras as they're easier to rip.

I kind of think that if media ownership remained a priority, and the focus was on an improved home experience instead of increasing consumption via streaming, things would've turned out broadly better. Then again, I look at series that never would've had a chance in the old media environment (Invincible, The Boys, Hasbin Hotel, The Amazing Digital Circus, etc), and I'm reminded that nostalgia for the past is a powerful reality warp.

All that being said, ultimately the strongest voice inside of me is that of the librarian: "Thank f*k all this media uses the same dimensions for a change. All those fancy-pants novelty boxes were a real pain to keep organized and pristine."

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#253

Post by entropicdrifter »

jebarker wrote: post #125
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…

> they tend to limit quality, both for copyright and traffic saving purposes This is the killer for me. I've worked on both video compression and graphics in my career and those projects involved a lot of pixel peeping. The compression artifacts in streaming video are sometimes really distracting now. I keep contemplating switching to bluray but apparently an increasing number of 4K HD releases there are being ruined…

If you're worried about Aliens, I can confirm that it's gorgeous in 4k UHD and the color accuracy is much better than the prior (manually frame-by-frame denoised) 1080p blu-ray release

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#254

Post by entropicdrifter »

KETHERCORTEX wrote: post #186
xhkkffbf wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've started to look for old Blu-Ray disks because the quality of the image is generally much better.

As far as I know, you should also look for older Blu-Ray drive if you want to get content off the disks.

PS3s are cheap and work for every non-UHD blu-ray ever released. Top quality player

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#255

Post by BryantD »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #249
BryantD wrote: post #224

This article is focused on mainstream cinema and I tend to agree with it; I miss the days when major studios were releasing DVDs packed with extras. Simultaneously, we're in the middle of a major boutique Blu-ray boom. I am not intimately familiar with the economics of this, but it's demonstrably true that it's possible to license and produce high quality Blu-rays with a lot of interesting extras in batches of 2-3K a…

Many major music artists release limited-run vinyl records, with unique coloring and packaging and often booklets as well. It's often to monetize their back catalogue by giving people a way to buy a gift for a fan. I think there's totally an opportunity to do the same with films.

Yeah, good call -- it's a very similar situation.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#256

Post by alexgaribay »

_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…

For me, I check my used bookstores for movies that aren't easy to find anymore. I've had good luck so far. Most used movies including Blu-Ray are around $6 USD.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#257

Post by DrNosferatu »

tmm wrote: post #158

I wish Kaleidescape[1] was more affordable. It's a download rather than streaming service, with a comprehensive movie library (12,000+ titles) and you buy movies individually rather than a monthly subscription. But then you can watch the movies as many times as you want and they don't disappear from your library if Kaleidescape stops carrying them. I don't know if they include the extra content typically available on…

Wow! Imagine the margin that makes for the seller...

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#258

Post by entropicdrifter »

butlike wrote: post #116
wolrah wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sounds great, how do you propose stopping people from sharing that mp4 with the world? You don't. Regardless of what DRM is applied to official releases, every single mainstream movie gets released through pirate channels the same day as and often even before the official release. There may be a couple of obscure titles that slip through the cracks because no one in the pirate community noticed they existed but the…

Not to mention if I physically own the media, I'm legally allowed to make as many backups as I want as long as I don't share them. Streaming conveniently removed this feature.

Well yes, but actually no (at least if you're in the USA). The DMCA prevents the circumvention of copy protection measures, which means that by ripping a blu-ray or DVD, you're committing a crime. This is doubly bullshit in that before the DMCA was passed, copying your physical media was always legal and if you were caught distributing unauthorized copies without being paid for them, you were not a criminal but only potentially vulnerable to a civil suit from the copyright holder(s).

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#259

Post by gjsman-1000 »

stronglikedan wrote: post #205
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+ 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 .

There's a difference between adaptation; and retelling the story in a way that damages the integrity of the original. Many of the above changes don't make sense even within the movie's own material. Even if the books didn't exist, Faramir's filmic story arc (as just one example) would be a badly executed example of character development.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#260

Post by entropicdrifter »

dylan604 wrote: post #141
nemomarx wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The vast majority of people can't make copies of books. Just because you could make a copy of something doesn't mean you had the right to. In fact, the small print stated that you could not for the purpose of redistributing it. If you bought a CD but only had a cassette player in your car, nobody cared that you made a tape for your own use. If you gave that cassette away, then that's in the no-go zone.

>In fact, the small print stated that you could not for the purpose of redistributing it.

Prior to the DMCA this was only a civil matter. A question of whether you were vulnerable to a lawsuit.

Now it is a federal crime to circumvent any digital copy protection measures, no matter how feeble they are. Metaphorically, if the MPAA leaves a locked door standing in nothing but a bare doorframe in the middle of an open field on their digital distribution methods, the US federal government considers it a crime to walk around that locked door.

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