How much physical media do you have left?

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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?

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MYOB said:

I have fully embraced the digital era and do not have a single disc. Even got rid of my mini book library a few years ago as the books were never going to be read again and I felt it was a bit pompous keeping them on display.

I understand it's can be a good example to children to be surrounded by books but we all have Kindles lying around. Serves the same purpose in that we embrace the art of reading and educating ourselves.

Though 95% of my reading is digital I'll never get rid of my books. No ereader can handle photos satisfactorily and there are a few that are now worth several hundred quid. You can't say the same for a .mobi file.

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bakerstreet said:

I'd be interested to know what you use to rip them these days. I thought DVDs had advanced so much with the Digital protection that ripping them was now quite hard.

I ditched all my DVD boxes and put them in a big soft case. Just don't have the space for them anymore. Long term plan was to rip every single one of them, but that depends on me finding a bit of software that would do that. Last time I used Handbrake it just didnt work.

Makemkv is the one. I've never had anything mention DRM with that.

A DVD uncompressed will come out about 2-4 gb with that.

I used Xmedia recode to compress if needed, and sometimes DVDs need the frame trimming as they can have artefacts on the borders. Xmedia can do that too.

If find it faster and more user friendly than Handbrake.

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captain_cynic said:

Yes, if I could download a car, I would... I mean who fking wouldn't?

One day this will be possible. It probably is now if you have some original bits to stick on it.

Not sure I'd trust the average pirate to get everything just right though as I hurtled through the rain at high speed.

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stemll said:

What I don't like about the movie streaming services is that stuff disappears. Music streamers don't seem to do that.

Interesting that the music services have deterred piracy through straightforward convenience and availability yet the film/tv services are going the other way.

With the increasing fragmentation and geolocking and expiry of rights going on piracy is going to get stronger again.

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Bullett said:

I would have thought that buying bootleg videos and music was dead. It's all available online and for free if you look.

You can only make home copies if you don't break any copy protection.

A mate of mine still buys bootleg DVDs. A bunch of mongolians or something go round the pubs in Coventry selling them from carrier bags.

Unfortunately every time he triumphantly gets one out I have literally never heard of a single one of any of the films. Maybe the mongolians make them themselves.

Derek Smith said:

I would have thought that Netflix, Prime et al would have put an end to bootlegged DVDs.

Not when they disappear or are reclaimed by the original rights holders. With Netflix I watch what turns up. If I actually want to see something specific the chances are very high it's not on there.

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kingston12 said:

I've always been a bit confused about the law in this situation:

If I have an album on CD, rip it to my NAS, dispose of the CD I ripped it from, BUT I still own the same album on vinyl.

Where would I stand?

I do appreciate it when a vinyl album comes with the CD version included or a link to a lossless download, but relatively few do so.

I would assume when you paid for the CD and the vinyl you bought the right to listen to that music using them as the vehicle to do it for the eternity of the universe.

Anything beyond that is private copying and that's illegal, not that anyone cares in the slightest. It looks like exempting private copying was considered for a while but was overturned by a few bodies like musician's unions.

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kingston12 said:

That wasn't my understanding. I thought that if I bought a CD and copied it to my Mac for listening on my own devices, then I was within the law as long as I kept the CD?

This may be out of date but that's what this has to say https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripping#United_Kingd...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/33566933/rip...