6 ms·

In addition to some reason cited for the increase around DVD format, i would posit some of the following too: * Parents buy cheaper DVDs for their very young c

In addition to some reason cited for the increase around DVD format, i would posit some of the following too: * Parents buy cheaper DVDs for their very young children...Children who care less about display quality. * While travel plummeted during middle of pandemic, there were still people who took road trips (e.g. maybe for staying with family, etc.)...and during those roadtrips, i'm sure some families opted for DVDs and DVD players instead of trying to stream stuff while on the road, etc. * Many folks buy cheap DVDs, because their favorite movies stop being available on their current subscriptionsof streaming servicews. I hate this myself. So, my partner bought 3 or 4 of their favorite movies, so we can watch them whenever we want - even if we lack internet (though we would need power for the dvd player of course) * Vinyl records have their followers who revitaliuzed the format...so maybe there are collectors of DVDS...? I'm sure there are other reasons for why this is happening.

yamtaddle 4y ago
* The bins of shit-tier movies near checkout lanes at Menards and Wal-Mart are mostly or all DVDs—if disc sales in general decline, that particular segment might remain steady.
kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
Blu-Ray players can be blacklisted at any time. If you can't get it updated it's useless for playing new releases.
- itisit 4y ago
  This was a concern in the mid-to-late aughts very early into the format's debut, but not so much anymore, if at all. I have Pioneer Elite Blu-ray players running pre-2010 firmware that have never had any playback issues with new releases for 13 some years now.
  - account42 4y ago
    AFAIU ripping software providers have switched to distributing the per-release AACS processing keys instead of the per-device keys so there is nothing to revoke unless they somehow find out which devices or device keys are being used to decrypt those processing keys - and even that would only delay new leaks until another device/player is cracked.
mikepurvis 4y ago
"Vinyl records have their followers who revitalized the format...so maybe there are collectors of DVDS...?" I think it's possible this is happening or will happen, perhaps in a similar vein to how vintage gamers/collectors now venerate the GameCube and PS2 as the last bastion of consoles that weren't designed to be online all the time, and will therefore be playable "forever" in a way that everything which has come after them will not. At the same time, I feel like vinyl records are a little different from a DVD— from the analog tactility of them, the size of the packaging leading to beautiful artwork, the fact that they were the dominant format for decades, while DVDs got barely fifteen years (the aughts and a bit beyond). It's easy to love a record when you put it on and you can immediately tell "yes, this is a high quality stereo audio experience that I am having with this piece of media and the equipment I have invested in for consuming it", and I'd argue there just isn't really an equivalent experience for DVDs: they're always going to be blurry, with janky menus and unskippable ad reels, blocky subtitles, cheap plastic cases. Some of that changes with collectors editions in special boxes or whatever, but I don't know if it's widespread enough across the format as a whole to really enable the kind of culture that exists around vinyl.
- pdntspa 4y ago
  It is happening, my parents are proof. They have more DVDs than the local library
  - mikepurvis 4y ago
    Are they doing collectory things like alphabetizing them and putting them in special preservation cases, going online to seek out mint copies of special editions, etc? Not to discount your observations, but I'm curious to differentiate between an active, intentional, curated collection effort, vs hoarding or just not having gotten around to tossing them all out yet despite that none have been touched in 10 years. Most people I know who still have a shelf or two of physical discs in their media/living rooms look a lot more like the second case than the first one.
    - pdntspa 4y ago
unfocused 4y ago
I have Vinyl records, but my goal is to digitize them. They're my Dads from 1940s, 50s, and many are 78s, so I had so search Kijiji ads to get a player that plays that speed. Dual 1009 was what I settled on. As for DVDs/Blu Ray, I only buy things like Planet Earth or other docs. Sure enough, just yesterday I tried playing Planet Earth II on UHD 4K Blu Ray on an Xbox Series X, albeit I still have a 1080p TV (bought used) and 1080p Receiver (bought used, Sony STR-DN1000 that I paid $50 for) and it was glitching. sigh Time to hit up Bit Torrent and download a ripped version of the Documentary that I already paid for. Argh. Both Blu Ray and Vinyl are susceptible to one day not being playable. By ripping them into digital, we can hopefully keep the content playable well into the future.
- ncpa-cpl 4y ago
  I’ve been wanting to play my grand mother’s vynil collection for some time. Are modern turntables reliable? Or is a vintage one preferred?
  - ace2358 4y ago
    Why would modern ones not be reliable? They’re fantastic! Having said that, for your old vinyl collection, you will find the quality of the player mostly irrelevant. The age of those vinyls will make them sound like a 32kbits/s mp3 file! Have fun and good luck!
    - unfocused 4y ago
      Agreed. I've now realized some of these old records are just not salvageable. So many scratches :(
  - unfocused 4y ago
    Modern ones are reliable. However, I only went with an older "vintage" one as it came up on Kjiji for a good price, and I could resell it once I was done. I don't plan on listening to Vinyl forever. We are now so used to digital music and asking Alexa to play playlists and songs and radio stations is soooo convenient. Btw, the Dual 1009, which is from 1964-66, maintains the speed REALLY well. I also have an Onkyo CP-1200A (got for free, someone put in the garbage), and the Dual was actually better at maintaining the speed! You can download an app on your phone to measure the accuracy of your record player.
skuzye 4y ago
The lack of good content from Hollywood lately has been pushing me towards cancelling streaming services and buying used old favorites from a local store (going as low as £0.50 a pop) and buying blu-rays of the new ones I'm interested in. I know they will always available for a rewatch and I don't have to finance the whole bunch of canned crap they have been putting out.
- mxuribe 4y ago
  While i can find all manner of esoteric, oddball things to watch on the streaming services - which admittedly are not major studio movies - my partner feels the same as you. They lament that many of the services lack "big budget films" (as they put it)! :-)
MrFoof 4y ago
>Many folks buy cheap DVDs, because their favorite movies stop being available on their current subscriptions of streaming services. This is it for me, except I’ve never bothered with the subscription services because they never seem to have what I want to watch at that moment. I can “rent” a digital viewing for $4, or go on eBay and buy a new or gingerly used copy for at most $6.50 - even 4K Blu-Rays. eBay every time. RIP it, add it to media library, and the disc lives in a binder as the ultimate backup. Watch it whenever, on whatever, forever.
- everybodyknows 4y ago
  Is there a reliable ripper of Blu-Ray now?
  - Lammy 4y ago
    https://makemkv.com/ https://makemkv.com/
maxsilver 4y ago
Oh yeah, those are all good reasons, and there's a bunch more too. It's legacy tech that is cheap, reliable, and independent, it works well anywhere that has limited scale and cares more about cost than video quality. For example : * Some hospitals, for instance, still have entire wards using DVDs. Downtime in a room is many tens-of-thousands-of-dollars lost per hour. Outpatient medical settings often use them as well (pediatricians offices, dialysis clinics, etc) * Some schools are still tied to the format, for multimedia installations / video carts / pre-purchased equipment / etc. * Tens-of-thousands of minivans are sold with infotainment that's always 10 years behind modern tech. (For almost 10 years, you had to have a binder-full-of-DVDs to use any Chrysler Minivan's video player system, the only other option was the analog RCA ports next to a kids seat). My 2016 Minivan, for example, only supports DVDs and nothing else (even though both BluRay and HDMI had been common standards for 10+ years by that point) * And of course, there's millions of homes that aren't bothering to upgrade. (Netflix still has something like 2+ million unique DVD-only subscribers each month)
- tim-- 4y ago
  The number of DVD subscribers that netflix has is definitely less than 2 million. That number is three years old, and in 2019, they lost 500,000 subscribers. This service will not exist in less than six years.
  - mxuribe 4y ago
    Maybe, but the point still stands about legacy formats living a long life. I forgot about that side of Netflix's business but it's still alive and kicking!
- mxuribe 4y ago
  Oh wow, you're so right; those are all still valid scenarios!
JohnFen 4y ago
DVDs are the main way I watch movies these days. Not because I'm a techophobe or backward, as some comments here speculate, but because I've soured on streaming, and the quality increase of Blu-ray isn't important to me. DVDs are just the best solution for my use case.
- mxuribe 4y ago
  I'm sure you are not alone in such a use case.

yamtaddle 4y ago

* The bins of shit-tier movies near checkout lanes at Menards and Wal-Mart are mostly or all DVDs—if disc sales in general decline, that particular segment might remain steady.

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago

Blu-Ray players can be blacklisted at any time. If you can't get it updated it's useless for playing new releases.

itisit 4y ago
This was a concern in the mid-to-late aughts very early into the format's debut, but not so much anymore, if at all. I have Pioneer Elite Blu-ray players running pre-2010 firmware that have never had any playback issues with new releases for 13 some years now.
- account42 4y ago
  AFAIU ripping software providers have switched to distributing the per-release AACS processing keys instead of the per-device keys so there is nothing to revoke unless they somehow find out which devices or device keys are being used to decrypt those processing keys - and even that would only delay new leaks until another device/player is cracked.

mikepurvis 4y ago

"Vinyl records have their followers who revitalized the format...so maybe there are collectors of DVDS...?" I think it's possible this is happening or will happen, perhaps in a similar vein to how vintage gamers/collectors now venerate the GameCube and PS2 as the last bastion of consoles that weren't designed to be online all the time, and will therefore be playable "forever" in a way that everything which has come after them will not. At the same time, I feel like vinyl records are a little different from a DVD— from the analog tactility of them, the size of the packaging leading to beautiful artwork, the fact that they were the dominant format for decades, while DVDs got barely fifteen years (the aughts and a bit beyond). It's easy to love a record when you put it on and you can immediately tell "yes, this is a high quality stereo audio experience that I am having with this piece of media and the equipment I have invested in for consuming it", and I'd argue there just isn't really an equivalent experience for DVDs: they're always going to be blurry, with janky menus and unskippable ad reels, blocky subtitles, cheap plastic cases. Some of that changes with collectors editions in special boxes or whatever, but I don't know if it's widespread enough across the format as a whole to really enable the kind of culture that exists around vinyl.

pdntspa 4y ago
It is happening, my parents are proof. They have more DVDs than the local library
- mikepurvis 4y ago
  Are they doing collectory things like alphabetizing them and putting them in special preservation cases, going online to seek out mint copies of special editions, etc? Not to discount your observations, but I'm curious to differentiate between an active, intentional, curated collection effort, vs hoarding or just not having gotten around to tossing them all out yet despite that none have been touched in 10 years. Most people I know who still have a shelf or two of physical discs in their media/living rooms look a lot more like the second case than the first one.
  - pdntspa 4y ago

unfocused 4y ago

I have Vinyl records, but my goal is to digitize them. They're my Dads from 1940s, 50s, and many are 78s, so I had so search Kijiji ads to get a player that plays that speed. Dual 1009 was what I settled on. As for DVDs/Blu Ray, I only buy things like Planet Earth or other docs. Sure enough, just yesterday I tried playing Planet Earth II on UHD 4K Blu Ray on an Xbox Series X, albeit I still have a 1080p TV (bought used) and 1080p Receiver (bought used, Sony STR-DN1000 that I paid $50 for) and it was glitching. sigh Time to hit up Bit Torrent and download a ripped version of the Documentary that I already paid for. Argh. Both Blu Ray and Vinyl are susceptible to one day not being playable. By ripping them into digital, we can hopefully keep the content playable well into the future.

ncpa-cpl 4y ago
I’ve been wanting to play my grand mother’s vynil collection for some time. Are modern turntables reliable? Or is a vintage one preferred?
- ace2358 4y ago
  Why would modern ones not be reliable? They’re fantastic! Having said that, for your old vinyl collection, you will find the quality of the player mostly irrelevant. The age of those vinyls will make them sound like a 32kbits/s mp3 file! Have fun and good luck!
  - unfocused 4y ago
    Agreed. I've now realized some of these old records are just not salvageable. So many scratches :(
- unfocused 4y ago
  Modern ones are reliable. However, I only went with an older "vintage" one as it came up on Kjiji for a good price, and I could resell it once I was done. I don't plan on listening to Vinyl forever. We are now so used to digital music and asking Alexa to play playlists and songs and radio stations is soooo convenient. Btw, the Dual 1009, which is from 1964-66, maintains the speed REALLY well. I also have an Onkyo CP-1200A (got for free, someone put in the garbage), and the Dual was actually better at maintaining the speed! You can download an app on your phone to measure the accuracy of your record player.

skuzye 4y ago

The lack of good content from Hollywood lately has been pushing me towards cancelling streaming services and buying used old favorites from a local store (going as low as £0.50 a pop) and buying blu-rays of the new ones I'm interested in. I know they will always available for a rewatch and I don't have to finance the whole bunch of canned crap they have been putting out.

mxuribe 4y ago
While i can find all manner of esoteric, oddball things to watch on the streaming services - which admittedly are not major studio movies - my partner feels the same as you. They lament that many of the services lack "big budget films" (as they put it)! :-)

MrFoof 4y ago

>Many folks buy cheap DVDs, because their favorite movies stop being available on their current subscriptions of streaming services. This is it for me, except I’ve never bothered with the subscription services because they never seem to have what I want to watch at that moment. I can “rent” a digital viewing for $4, or go on eBay and buy a new or gingerly used copy for at most $6.50 - even 4K Blu-Rays. eBay every time. RIP it, add it to media library, and the disc lives in a binder as the ultimate backup. Watch it whenever, on whatever, forever.

everybodyknows 4y ago
Is there a reliable ripper of Blu-Ray now?
- Lammy 4y ago
  https://makemkv.com/ https://makemkv.com/

maxsilver 4y ago

Oh yeah, those are all good reasons, and there's a bunch more too. It's legacy tech that is cheap, reliable, and independent, it works well anywhere that has limited scale and cares more about cost than video quality. For example : * Some hospitals, for instance, still have entire wards using DVDs. Downtime in a room is many tens-of-thousands-of-dollars lost per hour. Outpatient medical settings often use them as well (pediatricians offices, dialysis clinics, etc) * Some schools are still tied to the format, for multimedia installations / video carts / pre-purchased equipment / etc. * Tens-of-thousands of minivans are sold with infotainment that's always 10 years behind modern tech. (For almost 10 years, you had to have a binder-full-of-DVDs to use any Chrysler Minivan's video player system, the only other option was the analog RCA ports next to a kids seat). My 2016 Minivan, for example, only supports DVDs and nothing else (even though both BluRay and HDMI had been common standards for 10+ years by that point) * And of course, there's millions of homes that aren't bothering to upgrade. (Netflix still has something like 2+ million unique DVD-only subscribers each month)

tim-- 4y ago
The number of DVD subscribers that netflix has is definitely less than 2 million. That number is three years old, and in 2019, they lost 500,000 subscribers. This service will not exist in less than six years.
- mxuribe 4y ago
  Maybe, but the point still stands about legacy formats living a long life. I forgot about that side of Netflix's business but it's still alive and kicking!
mxuribe 4y ago
Oh wow, you're so right; those are all still valid scenarios!

JohnFen 4y ago

DVDs are the main way I watch movies these days. Not because I'm a techophobe or backward, as some comments here speculate, but because I've soured on streaming, and the quality increase of Blu-ray isn't important to me. DVDs are just the best solution for my use case.

mxuribe 4y ago
I'm sure you are not alone in such a use case.