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TheScott2K
Oct 26, 2003

I'm just saying, there's a nonzero chance Trump has a really toad penis.

Iron Crowned posted:

I think that because of the economic climate at the moment, sales of anything that's not a necessity isn't really growing right now

The "moment" has been momenting for 10+ years now. It's not a moment, it's just how things are now. A whole lot fewer people are going to burn $20 or more to "own" a movie when there's at least one thing on Netflix that's good enough for tonight.

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Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



TheScott2K posted:

A picture that doesn't degrade, 5.1 for virtually everything, and widescreen for everything was so huge. DVD was a dream come true for me. Everything since has been extra.

I see someone doesn’t remember the good old days of having to make sure you weren’t buying the “full frame” or “pan and scan” versions of a DVD.

Spatulater bro!
Aug 19, 2003

Punch! Punch! Punch!

But at least (just about) everything was available in its correct aspect ratio.

Megaman's Jockstrap
Jul 16, 2000

What a horrible thread to have a post.

TheScott2K posted:

The "moment" has been momenting for 10+ years now. It's not a moment, it's just how things are now. A whole lot fewer people are going to burn $20 or more to "own" a movie when there's at least one thing on Netflix that's good enough for tonight.

This is absolutely true. Having said that, physical media was growing for 7/10 of the last years.

Streaming is absolutely a replacement for movie rentals. But people are still going to have a....let's call it a "relationship" with a certain movie and want to own it.

Likewise if streaming gets too fragmented it is no longer able to act as a replacement for your traditional defunct Blockbuster then RedBox may gain prominence.

There's almost no entertainment market that's buttoned up in a particular way for more than a decade, I'm sure things are going to change. Physical media absolutely has a floor of market share and will never be completely gone. You'll always be able to order Blu-Rays - or 4k or HD ULTRA HOLOCUBES or whatever it ends up being - online, for any movie released in the next 20 years. Count on it.

TheScott2K
Oct 26, 2003

I'm just saying, there's a nonzero chance Trump has a really toad penis.

Xenomrph posted:

I see someone doesn’t remember the good old days of having to make sure you weren’t buying the “full frame” or “pan and scan” versions of a DVD.

I remember it, and it wasn't hard to avoid, especially if you weren't shopping at Walmart. When you got them as gifts, though, ugh...

Big Mean Jerk
Jan 27, 2009

Well, of course I know him.
He's me.

Xenomrph posted:

I see someone doesn’t remember the good old days of having to make sure you weren’t buying the “full frame” or “pan and scan” versions of a DVD.

I still have a pan and scan copy of Lost Highway that I keep around to remind myself every now and then how terrible pan and scan was.

Iron Crowned
May 6, 2003

by Hand Knit

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

This is absolutely true. Having said that, physical media was growing for 7/10 of the last years.

Streaming is absolutely a replacement for movie rentals. But people are still going to have a....let's call it a "relationship" with a certain movie and want to own it.

Likewise if streaming gets too fragmented it is no longer able to act as a replacement for your traditional defunct Blockbuster then RedBox may gain prominence.

This seems to be the way things are going right now. Everyone is splitting off to start their own streaming service, which just means no one will want to subscribe to them. There's also the looming threat of deregulation and the end of net neutrality which would kill streaming as we currently know it.

Iron Crowned
May 6, 2003

by Hand Knit

TheScott2K posted:

I remember it, and it wasn't hard to avoid, especially if you weren't shopping at Walmart. When you got them as gifts, though, ugh...

Yeah, my mom meant well, but never seemed to understand that despite having an old 4:3 TV at the time that I really did want the widescreen versions

TheScott2K
Oct 26, 2003

I'm just saying, there's a nonzero chance Trump has a really toad penis.

Iron Crowned posted:

Yeah, my mom meant well, but never seemed to understand that despite having an old 4:3 TV at the time that I really did want the widescreen versions

I appreciated the flipper discs that just kept it to one SKU.

Sir Lemming
Jan 27, 2009

It's a piece of JUNK!
I definitely don't think buying stuff will go away, especially with the impending Netflixocalypse, but physical media just might.

Megaman's Jockstrap
Jul 16, 2000

What a horrible thread to have a post.

Sir Lemming posted:

I definitely don't think buying stuff will go away, especially with the impending Netflixocalypse, but physical media just might.

If this actually happens we will exist in such a monopoly-dominated economic hellscape that it will be the least of our concerns.

I, Butthole
Jun 30, 2007

Begin the operations of the gas chambers, gas schools, gas universities, gas libraries, gas museums, gas dance halls, and gas threads, etcetera.
I DEMAND IT

Spatulater bro! posted:

The Indicator LE of Night of the Demon is truly incredible. The packaging and presentation is of the highest quality and the amount of features is mind blowing. And on top of that we get not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 different cuts of the film. I'm pretty sure this is the best single-film physical release I've ever bought.

I was umming and ahhing about this one, but finally pulled the trigger (along with the Indicator LE of Happy Birthday To Me). I was going to wait on the BN Criterion sale until the Bergman set was out so hopefully my wallet is OK with this.

TheScott2K
Oct 26, 2003

I'm just saying, there's a nonzero chance Trump has a really toad penis.
Physical media won't "go away" by the extremely literal definition a lot of people here are using, but it's definitely on its way out as a mass consumer product. Its destiny seems to be living in that laserdisc place where it makes money by catering to diehards while a large number of people just assume it doesn't exist anymore.

Megaman's Jockstrap
Jul 16, 2000

What a horrible thread to have a post.

TheScott2K posted:

Physical media won't "go away" by the extremely literal definition a lot of people here are using, but it's definitely on its way out as a mass consumer product. Its destiny seems to be living in that laserdisc place where it makes money by catering to diehards while a large number of people just assume it doesn't exist anymore.

It's probably closer to CDs, where they hold a significant and relatively stable market share and lots of people buy them and every release comes out on the format but it doesn't register for whatever reason.

I Before E
Jul 2, 2012

Also, floor space for physical media decreasing in physical retailers may say less about physical media purchases as a whole and more about the declining status of physical retailers as opposed to online shopping as a point of purchase for physical media.

Sir Lemming
Jan 27, 2009

It's a piece of JUNK!

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

If this actually happens we will exist in such a monopoly-dominated economic hellscape that it will be the least of our concerns.

We're already 90% there with music and games, and although DRM has been a pretty big deal, there are definitely still a few competitive forces at work keeping things reasonable. In fact "DRM-free" eventually became a selling point that companies took advantage of, to varying degrees.

On the other hand, the used market is probably gone forever. I guess people just pirate now instead.

Megaman's Jockstrap
Jul 16, 2000

What a horrible thread to have a post.

Sir Lemming posted:

On the other hand, the used market is probably gone forever.

Not on consoles, which still does a plurality of their sales in - you guessed it - physical media.

TheScott2K
Oct 26, 2003

I'm just saying, there's a nonzero chance Trump has a really toad penis.

Sir Lemming posted:

We're already 90% there with music and games, and although DRM has been a pretty big deal, there are definitely still a few competitive forces at work keeping things reasonable. In fact "DRM-free" eventually became a selling point that companies took advantage of, to varying degrees.

On the other hand, the used market is probably gone forever. I guess people just pirate now instead.

The PC used market is dead but the price floor for older games also loving collapsed once Steam took hold.

Iron Crowned
May 6, 2003

by Hand Knit

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

Not on consoles, which still does a plurality of their sales in - you guessed it - physical media.

Yeah, I still don't really trust digital sales. Even before that itunes incident that made the rounds a few months back, it's just too easy for your item to just up and vanish. With a physical object it runs the risk of degrading, but at least it's not subject to contracts changing because someone wants to start a streaming service.

Sir Lemming
Jan 27, 2009

It's a piece of JUNK!
Continuing the music example, it was dominated by the iTunes DRM hellscape for a while and that was definitely no fun. I like where things are at now though. There are lots of independent online storefronts you can buy from, and as long as you don't lose your files and whatever backups you make, you have just as much freedom as you do with a CD. I realize this would probably be a little harder with movies, but it could happen some day.

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



TheScott2K posted:

I remember it, and it wasn't hard to avoid, especially if you weren't shopping at Walmart. When you got them as gifts, though, ugh...

My parents bought me fullscreen movies all the time, even when I’d tell them to double-check before buying.

Even more fun was working at Blockbuster and having to field customer complaints about how the movie they rented was defective because it had these black bars on the top and bottom of the screen.
:smithicide:

zer0spunk
Nov 6, 2000

devil never even lived

Xenomrph posted:

My parents bought me fullscreen movies all the time, even when I’d tell them to double-check before buying.

Even more fun was working at Blockbuster and having to field customer complaints about how the movie they rented was defective because it had these black bars on the top and bottom of the screen.
:smithicide:

Those people are the reason we rarely get 4:3 shows on BD. Seeing a cropped upscaled seinfeld/curb/simpsons episode hurts my soul.

Boywhiz88
Sep 11, 2005

floating 26" off da ground. BURR!
Physical media is not making a comeback. Most TV shows don’t come out on BluRay, even ones that should (looking at you Fargo season 3). Hell, some don’t even come out on DVD. Any number of titles on BluRay are actually just pressed to order, not wide release or available through a retailer.

The PS4 Pro doesn’t have a UHD player. Lots of people have some kind of streaming device and are aware of easy to view pirate stream websites. The fragmentation of streaming will result in more digital piracy, not people buying discs. RedBox’s moment was 8-9 years ago. They’re mostly pushing their digital streaming platform these days.

Also those streaming subs for iTunes/Spotify? That’s any number of CDs not being purchased by the average consumer.

Short of vinyl, there’s no upswing in physical media.

EDIT: that being said, October was a great month for watching blu-Ray discs. So many good horror movies.

Boywhiz88 fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Nov 1, 2018

zer0spunk
Nov 6, 2000

devil never even lived

Boywhiz88 posted:

Physical media is not making a comeback. Most TV shows don’t come out on BluRay, even ones that should (looking at you Fargo season 3). Hell, some don’t even come out on DVD. Any number of titles on BluRay are actually just pressed to order, not wide release or available through a retailer.

The PS4 Pro doesn’t have a UHD player. Lots of people have some kind of streaming device and are aware of easy to view pirate stream websites. The fragmentation of streaming will result in more digital piracy, not people buying discs. RedBox’s moment was 8-9 years ago. They’re mostly pushing their digital streaming platform these days.

Also those streaming subs for iTunes/Spotify? That’s any number of CDs not being purchased by the average consumer.

Short of vinyl, there’s no upswing in physical media.

I could see UHD becoming more popular in the next five years if broadband averages don't rise across america. You're already seeing cheap popular 4k sets, 1080p displays are actively harder to find, and most people still don't have the network connection to support streaming 4k bitrates even with all the compression. It could position itself to fill a large hole in the market left by people that can't rely on streaming, but then again the money is behind streaming services so most likely not.

RevKrule
Jul 9, 2001

Thrilling the forums since 2001

zer0spunk posted:

I could see UHD becoming more popular in the next five years if broadband averages don't rise across america. You're already seeing cheap popular 4k sets, 1080p displays are actively harder to find, and most people still don't have the network connection to support streaming 4k bitrates even with all the compression. It could position itself to fill a large hole in the market left by people that can't rely on streaming, but then again the money is behind streaming services so most likely not.

Averages will be part of it, broadband providers putting caps will be the other part. I'd go so far as to say that broadband caps are a bigger limiting factor to the mass deployment of 4k content than much of anything else. I'm sure there's more than a few people w/4k sets and comcast who squeaked by barely for the month or even had to use a cheat month to get through October's new Netflix offerings and it's only gonna get worse.

King Vidiot
Feb 17, 2007

You think you can take me at Satan's Hollow? Go 'head on!
Or it may get better when we finally vote to gut the telecoms and nationalize broadband. But it'll probably be like 2050 by the time that happens and we'll all literally be living in a Mad Max post-resource-wars world by then.

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



King Vidiot posted:

vote to gut the telecoms and nationalize broadband.
Ungh don’t stop, I’m almost there :jackbud:

Boinks
Nov 24, 2003



BOOSness Hammocks posted:

I don’t know...Mill Creek. Do these releases look ok? They’re not actually vhs transfers like they do for those 100-movie sets, right?

The only one I bought was Krull. It's barebones, but it was only $7.50. I haven't had time to watch it yet but blu-ray.com praised it and said it was one of Mill Creek's best efforts.

Liar Lyre
Jun 3, 2011

Here to deliver
~Bad Opinions~

I do wonder how much of our perspective on physical media is skewed by being collectors. How many movies did people own back in the VHS or DVD days? I know I’m an outlier. I probably owned over 1,500 movies since Pinocchio in 93. I bet the average was only about 80.

Big Mean Jerk
Jan 27, 2009

Well, of course I know him.
He's me.

Liar Lyre posted:

I do wonder how much of our perspective on physical media is skewed by being collectors. How many movies did people own back in the VHS or DVD days? I know I’m an outlier. I probably owned over 1,500 movies since Pinocchio in 93. I bet the average was only about 80.

My folks have always been big media collectors, even back in the VHS/Beta/Laserdisc days. I grew up in a house that had a huge movie library in various formats, so I was pretty much doomed from birth to do the same :v:

roffels
Jul 27, 2004

Yo Taxi!

Liar Lyre posted:

I do wonder how much of our perspective on physical media is skewed by being collectors. How many movies did people own back in the VHS or DVD days? I know I’m an outlier. I probably owned over 1,500 movies since Pinocchio in 93. I bet the average was only about 80.

I'd guess, in VHS days, 12-20 tapes that were purchased, the rest bootlegged or taped off TV.

I had a great uncle who had like 2,000 VHS tapes though.

CPL593H
Oct 28, 2009

I know what you did last summer, and frankly I am displeased.

zer0spunk posted:

Those people are the reason we rarely get 4:3 shows on BD. Seeing a cropped upscaled seinfeld/curb/simpsons episode hurts my soul.

I'm not sure about the others but Seinfeld isn't cropped, it's open matte. It's still unfortunate though because the show was shot with 4:3 in mind and often you see things that weren't meant to be visible on the HD versions.

Boywhiz88 posted:

Physical media is not making a comeback. Most TV shows don’t come out on BluRay, even ones that should (looking at you Fargo season 3). Hell, some don’t even come out on DVD. Any number of titles on BluRay are actually just pressed to order, not wide release or available through a retailer.

The PS4 Pro doesn’t have a UHD player. Lots of people have some kind of streaming device and are aware of easy to view pirate stream websites. The fragmentation of streaming will result in more digital piracy, not people buying discs. RedBox’s moment was 8-9 years ago. They’re mostly pushing their digital streaming platform these days.

Also those streaming subs for iTunes/Spotify? That’s any number of CDs not being purchased by the average consumer.

Short of vinyl, there’s no upswing in physical media.

EDIT: that being said, October was a great month for watching blu-Ray discs. So many good horror movies.

A lot of the stuff not on blu-ray are Fox properties. They just said "gently caress it" and stopped putting tv shows on blu-ray. This is why we don't have extremely popular shows like Bob's Burgers or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I'm still surprised we got X-Files blu-rays. Blu-ray just never sold as much as DVD did and there are still plenty of people who don;t even own a blu-ray player.

zer0spunk posted:

I could see UHD becoming more popular in the next five years if broadband averages don't rise across america. You're already seeing cheap popular 4k sets, 1080p displays are actively harder to find, and most people still don't have the network connection to support streaming 4k bitrates even with all the compression. It could position itself to fill a large hole in the market left by people that can't rely on streaming, but then again the money is behind streaming services so most likely not.

You're assuming that the average consumer gives a poo poo how their movies look. Like I was saying blu-ray never took off the way DVDs did and some people still don't feel the need to bother with the format. People also screamed bloody murder about widescreen DVDs for years.

Liar Lyre posted:

I do wonder how much of our perspective on physical media is skewed by being collectors. How many movies did people own back in the VHS or DVD days? I know I’m an outlier. I probably owned over 1,500 movies since Pinocchio in 93. I bet the average was only about 80.

Most people here were kids when VHS was still the standard video format so I think that skews the number of movies people will have owned on the format. Also video stores were king back then so I feel like fewer people would buy video tapes instead of just renting them, especially since much of the time they were loving expensive.

CPL593H fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Nov 2, 2018

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?
Here's my thought - physical media will likely be there for collectors and serious movie fans. You just want to kill two hours - stream it. It will be acceptable.

But if you're really into movies and like rare and obscure things, then discs are for you.

4K is doing alright. It's a premium product, but every month, there's new product coming out and the fact that catalog titles like Predator and 2001 and the Jack Ryan films get released means it does well enough.

Look at it like laserdisc. When I was growing up, I only remember seeing one Laserdisc at the wiz - and that was for Young Frankenstein. You had to go to specialty shops to get your lasers. Best Buy isn't going to stock the deep catalog. Instead, they'll have the big new releases and that's it.

Things are fine.

Modus Pwnens
Dec 29, 2004
Target having a sale in November like they do every year doesn't mean that physical is dying.

It's never going to be huge like before but studios and streaming sites got greedy and hosed everything up.

BeanpolePeckerwood
May 4, 2004

I MAY LOOK LIKE SHIT BUT IM ALSO DUMB AS FUCK



zer0spunk posted:

The people with the massive blu collections- Are you going to rebuy for uhd?

gently caress no.

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

Physical disc sales still make up 33% of household movie spending. It's not "dead".

BTW CD sales beat digital download sales last year.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/22/17152120/digital-downloads-cd-vinyl-riaa-2017-report

It's dead in the way Latin is dead. Discs will never again see huge gains unless the internet literally stops existing.



Also, that link throws CDs and vinyl into the same category. CDs actually aren't selling for poo poo, it's vinyl that's outpacing DD. DD has been supplanted by streaming. Nobody is buying CDs tho

TheScott2K posted:

A picture that doesn't degrade, 5.1 for virtually everything, and widescreen for everything was so huge. DVD was a dream come true for me. Everything since has been extra.

That's funny. I liked DVD just fine but Blu Ray, to me, is like physical media perfected.

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:


I have 3 fuckin' copies of The Thing Blu-Ray.

Give me one!

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

If this actually happens we will exist in such a monopoly-dominated economic hellscape that it will be the least of our concerns.

We're already there, chief

I Before E posted:

Also, floor space for physical media decreasing in physical retailers may say less about physical media purchases as a whole and more about the declining status of physical retailers as opposed to online shopping as a point of purchase for physical media.

Maybe, but Amazon is just replacing those B&M stores it killed with it's own B&M stores

Sir Lemming posted:


On the other hand, the used market is probably gone forever. I guess people just pirate now instead.

Depends on where you live. We have great used stores in PDX

RevKrule
Jul 9, 2001

Thrilling the forums since 2001

Liar Lyre posted:

I do wonder how much of our perspective on physical media is skewed by being collectors. How many movies did people own back in the VHS or DVD days? I know I’m an outlier. I probably owned over 1,500 movies since Pinocchio in 93. I bet the average was only about 80.

The vhs days? Very few. Tapes cost a lot more than people think ($100ish a movie) or you had the wait an insanely long time for a movie to become cheap (a year plus after theatrical) because they were keeping the rental people happy ( I believe there we're pricing deals in place).

The DVD days? Quite a lot. One thing people forget about DVD is it exploded in popularity because it was inexpensive to buy your fave movie right after theatrical release. For under $30, you got a movie that was released in theaters around 6 months ago. It was an insanely paradigm shift and the start of the end of rentals because why rent a movie and deal with late fees when you can own the movie for a little more. Netflix and streaming was the end of rentals stores, but DVD pricing was a killing blow.

Steen71
Apr 10, 2017

Fun Shoe

CPL593H posted:

You're assuming that the average consumer gives a poo poo how their movies look.

Also remember that while most people these days probably have 50" screens, they will happily sit all the way across the room from those screens; and at, say, 15 feet from a 50", it really doesn't matter if you watch a DVD or a Blu-ray.

I'm often baffled by the distance people sit from their screens. Like, check out the sweet set-up this guy has: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfmtSNyt6V4
Yet he sits - what? At least 12 feet from that 65". I realise that sitting close to a TV isn't as nice as sitting close to a projector screen, but he could at the very least move the couch a few feet forward.

Iron Crowned
May 6, 2003

by Hand Knit
I think there's a lot that goes into the DVD becoming popular than just price. Most people really don't care about quality, they have a "big enough" TV, and that's good enough. From the 70's to 90's, most TVs were going to be in the 12" - 27" range with the high end topping out around 36".

Then 2000's hit and the future was now! Higher quality screens were becoming cheaper, and people began to come around. Netflix was probably a huge gamble at the time as people were only just moving out of the old ways, and I doubt it could have worked if they sent anything more than the red paper sleeves. Imagine sending a VHS rental through the mail.

VHS still trucked along, and I think the real final nail in that coffin was the 2009 digital change over which forced people out of the analog era either by digital converter box or to buy a brand new TV. I think that the updated infrastructure that cable companies put down on that paved the way for streaming to penetrate everywhere. I really don't recall streaming becoming a thing until around 2013 when Netflix really started running with original programming like Season 4 of Arrested Development.

Sir Lemming
Jan 27, 2009

It's a piece of JUNK!
I love Blu-ray but it was clearly not the same paradigm shift that DVD was. It's DVD but better. Combine that with streaming and it's easy to see why it's not as popular. But it's sort of like comparing TV ratings today with ratings from the '90s. "Not as popular" doesn't amount to failing.

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ringu0
Feb 24, 2013


B&N is having a Criterion sale, which includes preorders:
https://twitter.com/Criterion/status/1058371033848336384

"50% Off The Criterion Collection
Save on classic and contemporay films from The Criterion Collection of Blu-rays and DVDs in stores and online, through 12/3."

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