DVD’s making a comeback?
Discussion
I know there was a thread recently asking how to dispose of DVDs but I have seen a few stories now that suggests that DVDs and BluRays might be making a comeback. It kind of makes sense if you have purchased a film and the platform get sold or merged and you lose access to it. Also there are so many streaming services now it is becoming expensive to subscribe to too many.
The other night I wanted to watch Hidalgo https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317648/?ref_=nv_sr_s... Its on Amazon but they want £3.49 to Rent or £9.99 to buy. But you can pick up a second hand version for £1.99 https://www.musicmagpie.co.uk/store/category/film-... . I just dug my DVD out and put that on.
Personally I don't think I will be getting rid of my DVD collection. I will always have access to it and be able to watch them wenever I like. Might be giving my Miami Vice box set a dust off
The other night I wanted to watch Hidalgo https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317648/?ref_=nv_sr_s... Its on Amazon but they want £3.49 to Rent or £9.99 to buy. But you can pick up a second hand version for £1.99 https://www.musicmagpie.co.uk/store/category/film-... . I just dug my DVD out and put that on.
Personally I don't think I will be getting rid of my DVD collection. I will always have access to it and be able to watch them wenever I like. Might be giving my Miami Vice box set a dust off
I don't think they'll make a comeback to the masses, but I hope they don't die off altogether. I suspect they'll become more niche, like a collectors hobby product.
Netflix was the answer to everything when it became everyone's entire movie collection for £6 a month, on demand, and took up no space in the house.
But then all the studios decided they wanted to do the same, so we now have 6 or 7 streaming services costing maybe £50 a month that don't actually have everything you might want, and its a pain to even find what you do want!
Suddenly, those cheap eBay or CEX DVDs are looking mighty attractive and more cost effective again occasionally at a couple of pounds each. Whilst I have started buying them again sometimes, but its not (yet) at the expense of the streaming services, but thats purely because wife and daughter are currently watching series on a few of these and they aren't easily found on DVD. As soon as those series are done with though, they'll all be cancelled aside from Netflix.
Maybe we'll return start using HMV, CEX or even the local charity shops as our 'video shop' for movie night, where we'll have a browse and pick something as a family to watch that weekend. I don't know. For that to happen with any consistency, and en masse for millions of people, the streaming services would need to become more inconvenient than they are convenient. They aren't at that point yet, but they certainly seem to be trying really hard to get there!
Netflix was the answer to everything when it became everyone's entire movie collection for £6 a month, on demand, and took up no space in the house.
But then all the studios decided they wanted to do the same, so we now have 6 or 7 streaming services costing maybe £50 a month that don't actually have everything you might want, and its a pain to even find what you do want!
Suddenly, those cheap eBay or CEX DVDs are looking mighty attractive and more cost effective again occasionally at a couple of pounds each. Whilst I have started buying them again sometimes, but its not (yet) at the expense of the streaming services, but thats purely because wife and daughter are currently watching series on a few of these and they aren't easily found on DVD. As soon as those series are done with though, they'll all be cancelled aside from Netflix.
Maybe we'll return start using HMV, CEX or even the local charity shops as our 'video shop' for movie night, where we'll have a browse and pick something as a family to watch that weekend. I don't know. For that to happen with any consistency, and en masse for millions of people, the streaming services would need to become more inconvenient than they are convenient. They aren't at that point yet, but they certainly seem to be trying really hard to get there!
Can't see DVDs making a return (too low a resolution for huge modern flat panels and interlaced video too) but I could see Blu Rays gaining in popularity if the people who actually buy 'content' start to take on board the real implications of streaming/DRM on the things they might buy, down the line.
The picture quality is high enough to be very watchable even with modern displays and BDs are cheaper to produce than UHD discs (which are primarily what I now buy if there is a choice, but I wouldn't be disappointed with a Blu Ray if its done well).
BDs never really achieved the success and widespread adoption of DVD, which was a bit of a phenomenon in its day - but this could be their chance to shine. Take care in mastering and price them well and enlightened buyers will go for them IMO.
Streaming is a great solution for one-off rentals of course - I'll happily pay 3-4 quid to stream something just out of the cinema.
The picture quality is high enough to be very watchable even with modern displays and BDs are cheaper to produce than UHD discs (which are primarily what I now buy if there is a choice, but I wouldn't be disappointed with a Blu Ray if its done well).
BDs never really achieved the success and widespread adoption of DVD, which was a bit of a phenomenon in its day - but this could be their chance to shine. Take care in mastering and price them well and enlightened buyers will go for them IMO.
Streaming is a great solution for one-off rentals of course - I'll happily pay 3-4 quid to stream something just out of the cinema.
nuyorican said:
Edit: I've just remembered; a mate, who is a fan of the original Star Wars films actually keeps VHS copies of the films and a video player, because he says George Lucas keeps messing with the original films. So If true, I feel kind of vindicated, though admittedly slightly tin-foil-hatty 
Tell him to look up the Harmys Special Edition on the more privateer type sites, it's the original cut done in HD by very skilled nerds. nuyorican said:
Edit: I've just remembered; a mate, who is a fan of the original Star Wars films actually keeps VHS copies of the films and a video player, because he says George Lucas keeps messing with the original films. So If true, I feel kind of vindicated, though admittedly slightly tin-foil-hatty
Had hundreds of the things, sold them all to music magpie when they still had a value, most i would never watch again, got a few hundred quid, so if i want to watch the odd one and have to pay 50p to amazon or so, then im happy, and ive got loads of shelf space for other needless rubish, life moves on.
Same with vinal and cd
Same with vinal and cd
I sold a hell of a lot of mine, I have the keepers up in the loft, but 9 times out of 10 if I think oh I want to watch that.. its on a streaming service.
We have however just picked up a load of free DVD's from local CEX (they had a basket of free ones) for the 17 month old to watch in the car as our XC90 has a DVD player system built in.
We have however just picked up a load of free DVD's from local CEX (they had a basket of free ones) for the 17 month old to watch in the car as our XC90 has a DVD player system built in.
dudleybloke said:
nuyorican said:
Edit: I've just remembered; a mate, who is a fan of the original Star Wars films actually keeps VHS copies of the films and a video player, because he says George Lucas keeps messing with the original films. So If true, I feel kind of vindicated, though admittedly slightly tin-foil-hatty
Tell him to look up the Harmys Special Edition on the more privateer type sites, it's the original cut done in HD by very skilled nerds. Lucas Ayde said:
Can't see DVDs making a return (too low a resolution for huge modern flat panels and interlaced video too) but I could see Blu Rays gaining in popularity if the people who actually buy 'content' start to take on board the real implications of streaming/DRM on the things they might buy, down the line.
The picture quality is high enough to be very watchable even with modern displays and BDs are cheaper to produce than UHD discs (which are primarily what I now buy if there is a choice, but I wouldn't be disappointed with a Blu Ray if its done well).
BDs never really achieved the success and widespread adoption of DVD, which was a bit of a phenomenon in its day - but this could be their chance to shine. Take care in mastering and price them well and enlightened buyers will go for them IMO.
Streaming is a great solution for one-off rentals of course - I'll happily pay 3-4 quid to stream something just out of the cinema.
ThisThe picture quality is high enough to be very watchable even with modern displays and BDs are cheaper to produce than UHD discs (which are primarily what I now buy if there is a choice, but I wouldn't be disappointed with a Blu Ray if its done well).
BDs never really achieved the success and widespread adoption of DVD, which was a bit of a phenomenon in its day - but this could be their chance to shine. Take care in mastering and price them well and enlightened buyers will go for them IMO.
Streaming is a great solution for one-off rentals of course - I'll happily pay 3-4 quid to stream something just out of the cinema.
There are some who don't really care about picture quality but if I am watching something on a 4K screen I don't really want a DVD. I am slowly upgrading my DVD collection as I go along. Sometimes only to a cheap HD streaming option mind, which often aren't proper Blu-Ray quality.
Blu Rays and UHDs will continue to have a place for a long time to come in my view and this will partly be due to the often indifferent quality of streaming options.
I think with streaming, we've embraced convenience and cost at the expense of quality. This applies equally to music.
I spent many a year and not a little money honing my home cinema set up. I rarely use it these days but to demonstrate it to a couple of mates who'd never seen or heard it, I recently stuck on Gravity. They were utterly blown away by the sound and image. But because so few people are exposed to true high quality sound and images, appreciation for it means that it will unlikely ever become mainstream. Streaming isn't bad by any means but physical media is just soooo much better.
I spent many a year and not a little money honing my home cinema set up. I rarely use it these days but to demonstrate it to a couple of mates who'd never seen or heard it, I recently stuck on Gravity. They were utterly blown away by the sound and image. But because so few people are exposed to true high quality sound and images, appreciation for it means that it will unlikely ever become mainstream. Streaming isn't bad by any means but physical media is just soooo much better.
StevieBee said:
I think with streaming, we've embraced convenience and cost at the expense of quality. This applies equally to music.
I spent many a year and not a little money honing my home cinema set up. I rarely use it these days but to demonstrate it to a couple of mates who'd never seen or heard it, I recently stuck on Gravity. They were utterly blown away by the sound and image. But because so few people are exposed to true high quality sound and images, appreciation for it means that it will unlikely ever become mainstream. Streaming isn't bad by any means but physical media is just soooo much better.
I can remember very well the fight to be the successor to CD in the early 2000s ... would it be SACD or DVD-Audio?I spent many a year and not a little money honing my home cinema set up. I rarely use it these days but to demonstrate it to a couple of mates who'd never seen or heard it, I recently stuck on Gravity. They were utterly blown away by the sound and image. But because so few people are exposed to true high quality sound and images, appreciation for it means that it will unlikely ever become mainstream. Streaming isn't bad by any means but physical media is just soooo much better.
Both of which were incredibly high quality, lossless compression, multichannel-capable 5" disc formats.
The winner of course was obvious in retrospect ... Stereo MP3 downloads (and later, streams). Lossy and often low bitrate, now they are the primary way to listen to music for most people.
We have Netflix+Prime but I do still come across things that can only get on DVD. Wanted to show my lad things like A-Team, Knight Rider and Dukes of Hazard. Few quid on eBay, bit of time spent ripping and they're all on the NAS ready to go. Would rather watch in HD, but the kids don't care so DVD does fine.
Edited by wombleh on Tuesday 12th December 14:36
Lucas Ayde said:
The winner of course was obvious in retrospect ... Stereo MP3 downloads (and later, streams). Lossy and often low bitrate, now they are the primary way to listen to music for most people.
And most people seem to listen on a mono portable speaker or their actual phone where the stereo effect is totally lost.Weird how backwards we've come from the 80s and 90s when the males in the family competed have the biggest hi-fi separates system!
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