DVDs are dying right as streaming has made them appealing again

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 pain. Now I can pop in a disk, or tell my child to do the same, and hit play and everything just works.

Streaming services are pretty, but you can't rely on them for keeping content available, and it's risky to get sucked into a new show that might get cancelled after one, or two, series. Much better, for me, to watch all those other shows that are complete, or nostalgic.

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.

Streaming has been the producer dream all along so we need a ‘video recorder’ to tape what we watch to watch it again and again. I am not in favour of piracy and I pay for some streaming, however, when I get ads even though I pay, I get geo restrictions even though I pay or they remove things I like an make them paid, even though I pay, I will download illegally. We really need to move to a legal way of paying the people who actually made the stuff directly and making that a valid and legal option. We need global legal options as internet and binaries are global, and I am not waiting for season 3 of blah to become available ‘in my region’ when you got me hooked on 1 & 2.

Edit; I don’t think I mean ‘producer’ here but I do not know what the word is; for books I guess publisher?

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 are right now.

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.

I like buying DVD and BR because I can choose to use the physical medium or create a digital version and use that; when no player is available.

It's not always about piracy, especially when buying used discs has become so cheap.

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.

DVDs are fine. You can find many things at pawn shops for 1€, you can buy most new movies for 7 to 20€ at most, and you can resell those you don't want to watch anymore. I'm only subscribed to Amazon Prime but actually don't use their streaming service at all.

I don't know if not everyone knows about this, but Amazon and YouTube offer $3 movie rentals and seem to have a really extensive catalogue, as in I've never failed to find a movie there that would have been available in the old DVD Netflix with its huge selection. I guess they managed to get the rights from all the big IP companies, much as Spotify and Apple before them did for music.

It's honestly the best way to watch things today, and probably the best way to watch things in all history (although Netflix DVD was cheaper if you watched more than 3 movies a month). It's cheaper than video rental stores used to be and no more expensive than RedBox, but you don't have to go anywhere.

That's why RedBox is dead. Of course RedBox wasn't killed by Netflix -- Netflix doesn't compete with them at all. It's Amazon/YT Payperview that killed them, I assume.

Yeah, streaming sucks, but a la carte pay per view is amazing and underrated. And I emphasize again, it's cheap -- it only seems expensive compared to streaming, but it's cheaper than rentals used to be in video stores, which IIRC also cost $3, but that was 25 years of inflation ago.

DVDs have never been appealing to me - having to manage a physical collection of fragile storage media, each of which comes with a bunch of unwanted fluff in one form or another - I never understood the appeal of that kind of thing, when you could just have a nice neat directory full of video files on your hard drive (and, of course, a backup.)

No need to fiddle with buying additional devices to hook up to your tv - anything with an hdmi cable will play an mp4 directly on your display of choice. You already have a desktop, or a laptop, or a tablet, or something. No worrying about scratched discs. No worrying about regions or whatever.

DVDs were a stopgap and they deserve to die, in my book. “DVDs vs streaming” is a false dichotomy when “local file playback versus streaming” already exists.

We finally need this Postdigital revolution now. Where are ya Gen Z 90‘s revival kids?

Using physical media is so heavily alternative, that you can almost feel being superior to poor streaming people. Especially with 4k blurays.

I've been giving CafeDVD a try since I loved the variety available on NetflixDVD. Their catalog is definitely smaller, but it does work. We'll see how it goes.

When I have a new place, I'm building a nice blu ray collection. Can't go wrong with physical media.

You couldn’t pay me to watch movies in 480p.

yar the 7 seas be thar