How much physical media do you have left?
Discussion
I've disposed of all my DVDs without a squeak of regret. They look just too appalling on my screen these days.
I was about to get rid of all my Blu Rays but the amount of money you get from places is so piddling, and streaming bitrates so much lower, that they're staying for good.
Now I'm looking at a few hundred CDs piled up around me. I haven't touched them for ages but I'm wondering whether letting them go is the right thing to do. Despite all the advances I do naturally pay more attention to a physically handled and inserted disc. I'm leaning towards keeping them.
Have you gone full digital and regretted it? Have you done it and not looked back? Have you not made the leap at all?
I was about to get rid of all my Blu Rays but the amount of money you get from places is so piddling, and streaming bitrates so much lower, that they're staying for good.
Now I'm looking at a few hundred CDs piled up around me. I haven't touched them for ages but I'm wondering whether letting them go is the right thing to do. Despite all the advances I do naturally pay more attention to a physically handled and inserted disc. I'm leaning towards keeping them.
Have you gone full digital and regretted it? Have you done it and not looked back? Have you not made the leap at all?
I still buy Blu-ray, and CDs - although I rip them to my NAS and stream from there.
Having said that - the CD purchases do seem to have stalled - I think it's at least 6 months since I bought one, maybe more. Amazon Music (full subscription) just makes it too easy to listen to anything I want most of the time. The only catch is that none of my cars allow me to stream from my phone - which means that if I want to listen to stuff in the car, I have to buy a CD and rip it to the ipod. But I seem to care less about doing that these days.
Having said that - the CD purchases do seem to have stalled - I think it's at least 6 months since I bought one, maybe more. Amazon Music (full subscription) just makes it too easy to listen to anything I want most of the time. The only catch is that none of my cars allow me to stream from my phone - which means that if I want to listen to stuff in the car, I have to buy a CD and rip it to the ipod. But I seem to care less about doing that these days.
Many years ago I ripped all my CDs to 128kps MP3 as that was the highest quality at the time. Of course when I realised that was rubbish I did it all again as ALAC so I always kept them just in case. I still buy CDs but immediately rip them and put them away in storage.
Still have all my DVDs and Blu ray for the same reason, albeit ripped to MKV. One regret I do have is I threw all my hundreds of cassettes away, mostly Metal and Chrome TDKs from the 80s. Whenever I see a tape player I feel nostalgic that I have nothing to play in it.
My son has always had a Spotify subscription but recently bought his first CD as he wanted to “own” the music. There’s something nice in that, just in the same way as vinyl has made a return.
So I’d put them in a box and stick them in your loft to give to your grand kids.
Still have all my DVDs and Blu ray for the same reason, albeit ripped to MKV. One regret I do have is I threw all my hundreds of cassettes away, mostly Metal and Chrome TDKs from the 80s. Whenever I see a tape player I feel nostalgic that I have nothing to play in it.
My son has always had a Spotify subscription but recently bought his first CD as he wanted to “own” the music. There’s something nice in that, just in the same way as vinyl has made a return.
So I’d put them in a box and stick them in your loft to give to your grand kids.
A few DVD's, about 60 CD's and over a hundred Vinyl LPs. The DVD's can go as I probably won't ever re-watch them (except for Casablanca), Will keep the CD's as they do get played occasionally and the LPs will never be disposed of. Funny thing is that I checked through my LPs recently and a few "prized" ones have gone AWOL notably "Wheels of Fire" by Cream that I bought when it was released and I hope whoever pinched them are enjoying them and not sold them for profit.
I still buy more paper books than eBooks. All bookcases at home are currently overflowing.
Haven't added anything to my music collection in the last 10 years. I have an Ikea bag full of CDs in the loft. I don't really listen to music except in the gym (and then probably just the same few albums over and over again). Only listen to the radio for the cricket. I do listen to a lot of podcasts though.
I don't really buy movies anymore, so any time I do feel like watching something it will come via an old DVD or Netflix/Amazon. I don't have a digital movie library as such, though we have a fairly extensive Plex server at work.
I no longer buy newspapers or magazines - Twitter and online forums have replaced those.
Haven't added anything to my music collection in the last 10 years. I have an Ikea bag full of CDs in the loft. I don't really listen to music except in the gym (and then probably just the same few albums over and over again). Only listen to the radio for the cricket. I do listen to a lot of podcasts though.
I don't really buy movies anymore, so any time I do feel like watching something it will come via an old DVD or Netflix/Amazon. I don't have a digital movie library as such, though we have a fairly extensive Plex server at work.
I no longer buy newspapers or magazines - Twitter and online forums have replaced those.
It's a good question.
Like many over a certain age, I am pathetically resisting the dumping of physical media - most notably vinyl albums and CD's. I have maybe 500 albums and perhaps 800 (or more) CD's - none of which have been touched for about 15 years or so. Possibly even longer.
My hearing is not what it used to be and I am content listening to MP3's streamed via Spotify etc to my hi-fi set up - I know it's pretty rubbish and compressed, but I've got used to it.
I should throw them away - 800 CD's at £10 a pop when new? Feels a lot to chuck.
Like many over a certain age, I am pathetically resisting the dumping of physical media - most notably vinyl albums and CD's. I have maybe 500 albums and perhaps 800 (or more) CD's - none of which have been touched for about 15 years or so. Possibly even longer.
My hearing is not what it used to be and I am content listening to MP3's streamed via Spotify etc to my hi-fi set up - I know it's pretty rubbish and compressed, but I've got used to it.
I should throw them away - 800 CD's at £10 a pop when new? Feels a lot to chuck.
I converted all my CDs to MP3 over ten years ago and don't think I've touched one since (although they are in the loft). I still have a load of old rave stuff that isn't on streaming services so they have some value to me, but otherwise Spotify serves me well enough for music.
I started converting the films a few years ago but with modern streaming services I decided there wasn't any point. It's available, the quality is probably better and there are very few films that can't be found online somewhere.
That said, I've never had a massive collection so that would sting a bit. However, if you don't throw it away, you're just deferring the job to your next of kin one day...
I started converting the films a few years ago but with modern streaming services I decided there wasn't any point. It's available, the quality is probably better and there are very few films that can't be found online somewhere.
That said, I've never had a massive collection so that would sting a bit. However, if you don't throw it away, you're just deferring the job to your next of kin one day...
Occasionally buy CD's. I still like to own music, although it gets ripped to flac immediately and then the CD stored.
I also stream via Amazon Unlimited and have my flac's available locally and via the cloud.
Video, I've not bought a disc for years BR or DVD. All streaming. I did start ripping stuff to my NAS and fiddling with a RasPi based Kodi or Plex system but it was never that wife friendly and could be quirky, I spent more time playing with it that watching movies. With most stuff streamable now it's not been used for ages.
I'd realised buying movies was a daft movie ages ago. Most only got watched once or twice before gathering dust. Having it taking up space in case you wanted to watch (and then not being able to find it) is daft with instant access. When the cinema room gets a refurb the media is gone. Some is still in the wrapper.
I also stream via Amazon Unlimited and have my flac's available locally and via the cloud.
Video, I've not bought a disc for years BR or DVD. All streaming. I did start ripping stuff to my NAS and fiddling with a RasPi based Kodi or Plex system but it was never that wife friendly and could be quirky, I spent more time playing with it that watching movies. With most stuff streamable now it's not been used for ages.
I'd realised buying movies was a daft movie ages ago. Most only got watched once or twice before gathering dust. Having it taking up space in case you wanted to watch (and then not being able to find it) is daft with instant access. When the cinema room gets a refurb the media is gone. Some is still in the wrapper.
Derek Smith said:
I buy CDs and DVDs from charity shops. My wife loves to browse and I wander in and go through the books and discs. I normally take them to a local charity shop once I've seen them but keep the occasional DVD. CDs I tend to keep.
We've started using charity shops as a kind of long term Blockbusters for DVDs. 
I have 4, all 4K blu rays and they’ll be going all.
I took approx:
400 DVD
200 Blu Ray
200 CDs
To a local charity shop, they sold the lot over the space of about 6mths and sent me a letter (donations are licked to gift aid etc...) asking if I wanted the cash for them - it was in the region of £800 after them taking a paltry £140ish for their efforts. Naturally I declined as it was for charity originally - I wasn’t even aware charity’s did such!
I took approx:
400 DVD
200 Blu Ray
200 CDs
To a local charity shop, they sold the lot over the space of about 6mths and sent me a letter (donations are licked to gift aid etc...) asking if I wanted the cash for them - it was in the region of £800 after them taking a paltry £140ish for their efforts. Naturally I declined as it was for charity originally - I wasn’t even aware charity’s did such!
I used to buy a cd every couple of weeks.
Then HMV went bust and the branch in my local mall closed.
They still have a branch in central Bristol but wild horses will not drag me to the centre.
I am in the process of ripping them and they will be stored without the jewel cases, I won’t bin them on the basis that they are mine and my collection cannot be held to ransom by a streaming company.
Then HMV went bust and the branch in my local mall closed.
They still have a branch in central Bristol but wild horses will not drag me to the centre.
I am in the process of ripping them and they will be stored without the jewel cases, I won’t bin them on the basis that they are mine and my collection cannot be held to ransom by a streaming company.
Half a suitcase full of games (probably about 10-12 TB on it's own there), 2 60L boxes of DVD's on a shelf back in OZ and a hard drive full of content.
Much of it cant be had on streaming services, given it was produced 20+ years ago, it's going to be the same quality anyway. Some of the old video games I have are hard to find, even to pirate. I'd be certifiably daft to chuck them out, especially as old stuff regularly disappears from Netflix/Amazon Prime.
BTW, if your device can't upscale very well, it's your TV/display device that's the problem.
I've never bought a Blurry, erm, Bluray because I recognised that going forward, physical media didn't have a future and it seemed like a solution looking for a problem. In the fight between Bluray and HD-DVD, it was MP3 that won.
Much of it cant be had on streaming services, given it was produced 20+ years ago, it's going to be the same quality anyway. Some of the old video games I have are hard to find, even to pirate. I'd be certifiably daft to chuck them out, especially as old stuff regularly disappears from Netflix/Amazon Prime.
BTW, if your device can't upscale very well, it's your TV/display device that's the problem.
I've never bought a Blurry, erm, Bluray because I recognised that going forward, physical media didn't have a future and it seemed like a solution looking for a problem. In the fight between Bluray and HD-DVD, it was MP3 that won.
I ripped all my CD's to MP3 in 2004, then sold give away all those I wouldn't miss. Still have a box of 'keepies' stored without the jewel cases. Slowly ripping those to FLAC.
Downsides are that some car head units don't play FLAC, but that's not an issue now we've all got smartphones.
DVDS, not so much. I don't tend to watch a film more than twice over ten years, and the streaming services tend to have a lot more new/rare stuff. I did re-watch 'Taxi Driver' the other night.
Keep all the MP3s and FLACs' on a NAS unit, currently has about 24,000 tracks on it. More than I'll ever listen to again.
PC media player WinAmp still works, and has the advantage that it will auto-fill a USB stick with random choons for the car, just by plugging it in. Like 2004, all over again.
Occasionally I'll hear a track on internet radio I like, rather than faff with downloads, I'll pick up the CD on Amazon for a couple of quid and rip it for the car.
Also on trips to France, the supermarkets keep compilations of new 'French Hits' euro-trash pop on triple CD's for a fiver, so I buy a couple of those for the drive home. The street markets often have a lot of rare French euro-nu-jazz/Mahgrebi CD's by local artists, so I still have a CD player in the car to play them, which is great.
Downsides are that some car head units don't play FLAC, but that's not an issue now we've all got smartphones.
DVDS, not so much. I don't tend to watch a film more than twice over ten years, and the streaming services tend to have a lot more new/rare stuff. I did re-watch 'Taxi Driver' the other night.
Keep all the MP3s and FLACs' on a NAS unit, currently has about 24,000 tracks on it. More than I'll ever listen to again.
PC media player WinAmp still works, and has the advantage that it will auto-fill a USB stick with random choons for the car, just by plugging it in. Like 2004, all over again.
Occasionally I'll hear a track on internet radio I like, rather than faff with downloads, I'll pick up the CD on Amazon for a couple of quid and rip it for the car.
Also on trips to France, the supermarkets keep compilations of new 'French Hits' euro-trash pop on triple CD's for a fiver, so I buy a couple of those for the drive home. The street markets often have a lot of rare French euro-nu-jazz/Mahgrebi CD's by local artists, so I still have a CD player in the car to play them, which is great.
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