51–60 of 75 posts
It’s crazy that we saw the birth and demise of a technology in our lifetime.
Is it? I mean, I remember when VCR recorders first came out. Though they still exist, I don’t know anyone that owns one and I can’t go to the local store and buy one. What about zip drives? Floppy disks? 8 track players in the car?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Netflix DVDs could be ripped and shared via P2P with ease. Netflix DRM playback is harder to deal with.
Is this true? A friend tells me that torrents for new episodes of ongoing stream-only shows are typically up within minutes to hours of being released.
I maintained my disc sub to the bitter end. Although I rarely used it, it was frequently the only way to view many older or more obscure films without an outright full-retail-price purchase, and even then, good luck on availability. I lament its passing and worry very much that it's function as a pseudo-film library for the average person is no longer available anywhere. I hear the high seas calling...
> I hear the high seas calling... I found that the high seas are only good for popular films, and that obscure films are very hard to find. I've had better luck at the library.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Netflix DVDs could be ripped and shared via P2P with ease. Netflix DRM playback is harder to deal with.
Is this true? A friend tells me that torrents for new episodes of ongoing stream-only shows are typically up within minutes to hours of being released.
Back in the day, when being a cable cutter was a badge of a pioneer - I have to admit that in all the excitement I never realized that switching to streaming digital content means never having access* to “your collection” - available catalog always changes. Doesn’t matter how old the content is - someone is always busy thinking of a ways to monetize it, which usually translates to it not being available when you want…
I still buy things I may want to see again. And since I'm still using DVDs I bought 20 years ago, I know that that can happen. Many of them are simply not available on streaming. Others are, but would involving chasing subscriptions hither and yon, and more than once I've done that, only for the content to not actually be there when I finally got to wanting it.
Also, I will say, music I am still buying. Purchasing MP3s is acceptable, if anyone will sell them to me, but I want to own anything I really care about. For any given CD I have no real confidence that anything but my physical possession (converted to MP3 and backed up) will still be there in 20 years.
It’s crazy that we saw the birth and demise of a technology in our lifetime.
Is it? I mean, I remember when VCR recorders first came out. Though they still exist, I don’t know anyone that owns one and I can’t go to the local store and buy one. What about zip drives? Floppy disks? 8 track players in the car?
"DVDs still conquer the market within those sales, and at their peak, DVD sales were over $18 billion, while Blu-Rays made just over $2 billion in a year."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Netflix DVDs could be ripped and shared via P2P with ease. Netflix DRM playback is harder to deal with.
Is this true? A friend tells me that torrents for new episodes of ongoing stream-only shows are typically up within minutes to hours of being released.
The real question is: What was the last DVD shipped?
I maintained my disc sub to the bitter end. Although I rarely used it, it was frequently the only way to view many older or more obscure films without an outright full-retail-price purchase, and even then, good luck on availability. I lament its passing and worry very much that it's function as a pseudo-film library for the average person is no longer available anywhere. I hear the high seas calling...
Genuinely curious whether there were films you found on the DVD service that were inaccessible via your local library loan system (if you are in the US that is, did Netflix ever do the DVD service outside the US though?) Good library systems have a good percentage of DVD released films readily available for free.
There are of course many movies on DVD that have not been released on streaming or Blu-Ray, I suppose the size of your local library system could make a big difference on what is available. Especially if you live in a more rural or remote area.