The forgotten pleasures of analog media
yalereview.org
The forgotten pleasures of analog media
1–10 of 73 posts
Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media
#2This is an interesting read and I find the author's observations rather relatable. Some of my friends really, really prefer streaming and that's great! But it never quite agreed with me for some of the reasons I think are given here. I often find that there's a tendency to endlessly navigate a streaming service just to find something to watch. Maybe it's an overabundance of choice or maybe its just that algorithms and infinitely scrollable pages are a dark pattern. Blu-rays, CD's, and vinyl make me more particular and emphatic with my choices. I don't put something on just to watch or have background, I usually pick something specifically because I want to watch it.
Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media
#3I got back into analog media for a little while but stopped because the prices are just so ridiculous. A single Burzum tape costs more than £30.
Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media
#4This is an interesting read and I find the author's observations rather relatable. Some of my friends really, really prefer streaming and that's great! But it never quite agreed with me for some of the reasons I think are given here. I often find that there's a tendency to endlessly navigate a streaming service just to find something to watch. Maybe it's an overabundance of choice or maybe its just that algorithms an…
We (my partner and I) do enjoy streaming media to a degree, but I prefer physical like yourself. I also find a kind of (likely pretentious) comfort in having control over the media, as in knowing the version I am watching hasn't been edited or changed like airplane movies used to be.
In general though I recommend separating the acts of curating media (i.e finding it and cataloguing it) and watching or consuming it. I started doing this years back when RSS was a thing and I found myself doomscrolling through hundreds of articles, not able to remember what I had read (and sincerely enjoyed) a few hours earlier. I strongly recommend it to anyone who finds themself doing something similar.
Also unrelated, but Netflix's interface actively discourages searching for additional information on their content, as normally none of the titles, cast, etc, are text and highlightable/cut and pastable.
Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media
#5Going on a tangent, one advantage of the analog TV was that often one could watch a channel even in the presence of interference or a weak signal, whereas with the digital this is no longer possible.
Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media
#6I got back into analog media for a little while but stopped because the prices are just so ridiculous. A single Burzum tape costs more than £30.
Realize that in current dollars that's probably about what vinyl LPs cost when they were the primary way that people bought music.
Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media
#7Going on a tangent, one advantage of the analog TV was that often one could watch a channel even in the presence of interference or a weak signal, whereas with the digital this is no longer possible.
This is actually a misnomer for the most part. While it is true that analog TV degrades gracefully to static and digital cuts out, Digital actually requires a lot less signal to noise to display. When digital cuts out it's actually at much lower signal levels then when analog tv is basically static. I will concede that the analog audio inside the signal is more robust, humans are very good at picking out sound from static.
Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media
#8Going on a tangent, one advantage of the analog TV was that often one could watch a channel even in the presence of interference or a weak signal, whereas with the digital this is no longer possible.
There are codecs which support this. I don't know if it's used anywhere because it certainly only makes sense for terrestrial broadcasting.
Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media
#9I cannot suffer the binge era. It's mind boggling. The constant discussions about watching 100 things without never moving [0].. sometimes at 1.25x speed. It's just insane.
[0] I consider moving out of your house a massive indicator of value.
Re: The forgotten pleasures of analog media
#10This is an interesting read and I find the author's observations rather relatable. Some of my friends really, really prefer streaming and that's great! But it never quite agreed with me for some of the reasons I think are given here. I often find that there's a tendency to endlessly navigate a streaming service just to find something to watch. Maybe it's an overabundance of choice or maybe its just that algorithms an…
The "infinite browsing" still happened in physical stores though, of course, not quite to the same scale and it's a different sort of experience because you had to leave your house.
I more-or-less agree with the point in the article. Knowing you have less access to something can help make you more conscious about your decision.