9 ms·

>I still don’t actually use our DVDs and Blu-rays all that often. But every time I see them lining the shelves, I feel a bit of comfort. Because when I do need

by jasode 4y ago

>I still don’t actually use our DVDs and Blu-rays all that often. But every time I see them lining the shelves, I feel a bit of comfort. Because when I do need them, they’ll be there. The importance of that type of redundancy depends on the viewing habits of a particular person. In the case of my friend, the "don’t actually use our DVDs all that often" really was "never re-watched the DVDs she owned". She had a DVD collection with all the X-Files seasons, James Bond movies, etc. But she inadvertently learned her true viewing habits when Amazon Prime included video streaming for free. She realized she always preferred watching something new on Amazon rather than play an old X-Files DVD. But what if Netflix and Amazon Prime Video lets their streaming licenses expire for "X-Files" and it's no longer available? Wouldn't that make the X-Files DVDs a great backup?!? It would, if she actually re-watched the X-Files -- but she never did. Owning DVDs was a waste of money for her particular viewing preferences (new stuff instead of reruns) and she was happy to get rid of the clutter.

edu 4y ago
This is my same conclusion. With books, movies, series and music I like to own physically only my personal favorites that I know will use many times. But that’s less than 10% of my media consumption.
- JuettnerDistrib 4y ago
  > With books, movies, series and music I like to own physically only my personal favorites that I know will use many times. I don't own many DVDs, but when I see them in my bookshelf they remind of the story the tell, the context when I watched them, and my theories about society, sci-fi, and utopias that those movies inspired. With books it's even more extreme. I get the physical copy sometimes more to have a physical representation of an idea than to read the book.
  - vidarh 4y ago
    I have books I've never opened since I read them that is just a marker like that. I have one copy I've never opened: I read it as an e-book but got the physical copy just to complete my set and have it on my shelf. I also have books I've suddenly taken down to reference 20+ years after I read it, and where the text was not online, so I also like to have physical copies of books where the idea mattered because I know that some day I'll want to pass that idea on and will need a refresher.
  - angelbar 4y ago
    Like a... Antilibrary
stanleydrew 4y ago
> But what if Netflix and Amazon Prime Video lets their streaming licenses expire for "X-Files" and it's no longer available? Wouldn't that make the X-Files DVDs a great backup?!? It would, if she actually re-watched the X-Files -- but she never did. The problem is that the future is uncertain. It's always possible that she might want to rewatch the X-Files at some point, even if she never actually does.
- travisjungroth 4y ago
  There is absolutely no way to have so much that you will never want something you don’t have.
- irrational 4y ago
  Or, she might recommend that someone else watch them. If they are no longer on streaming services, she could loan them her DVDs. It is either that or pirate them.
- Terretta 4y ago
  > … the future is uncertain. It's always possible that she might want to … even if she never actually does. True, although … "Difficulty discarding possessions is characterized by a perceived need to save items and distress associated with discarding them. Accumulation of possessions can result in living spaces becoming cluttered to the point that their use or safety is compromised. Compulsive hoarding is recognized by the eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5)."
  - mattkrause 4y ago
    Don’t read too much into the DSM definitions. There’s an (often explicit) caveat that they apply iff the condition distresses the patient or seriously affects their life. It’s healthy to hang onto a few ratty t-shirts because you might need them to mow the lawn or because they remind you of good times; you can even be a bit bummed when you eventually do throw them out. It’s compulsive hoarding when you do it even though it seriously bothers you or turns your place into a death trap.
danaris 4y ago
And there's even a third option: Rip the DVDs, keep the digital copies somewhere safe, and discard the physical discs. If you want to ensure that this remains safe, you'll need to both back up and periodically transfer the digital copies to new physical storage devices (in my case, I just upgraded from the ~4-yr-old 4TB HDD that was holding all my media to a new 16TB HDD). This is, however, kind of a necessity in any case; especially for burned DVDs, for instance of home movies, ripping them and storing the media fully digitally with a plan for long-term archival will have much better longevity. Even pressed DVDs don't last forever (especially if they are used sometimes—scratches happen!), and burned DVDs can have a lifetime of less than 5 years in some cases. Data, however, if properly treated, can be perfectly saved forever. (Well, barring cosmic ray bit-flips, I guess.)
- bluGill 4y ago
  I keep the originals in a box. That way if someone finds put I can prove i'm morally right even though the law doesn't allow it.
  - Johnny555 4y ago
    Me too, I have a few big cd wallets (like 12 by 12 by 6 inches thick) where I put my dvds as I rip them and discard the cases. They don’t take up much room and prove that I own all of the movies I ripped. I converted them to mid quality mp4s so can keep a copy on a 512gb usb flash drive so I can take my movie collection anywhere I travel.
- layer8 4y ago
  That’s much more work though than just keeping the DVDs in the basement.
  - danaris 4y ago
    It is. It happens to fit my use case better, though—my viewing habits are very impulse-oriented, and the place I keep the media is my Plex library, so I can just fire up a web browser and watch anything I keep in there any time I want, from anywhere in the house. (I could probably set it up to be able to watch it from other places, too, but I'm working from home, so I'm usually there anyway.) So if I just kept the DVDs, any time I wanted to watch something on one, I would have to: 1) Physically go to where the DVDs are 2) Locate the specific DVD I'm looking for (can be tricky if I'm looking for a specific episode of a show—I might not always remember what season it's from, and the Plex interface makes it pretty easy to scan through) 3) Get the DVD out 4) Go to the living room, where the DVD player is 5) Take exclusive control of the living room, and also bind myself to being there, for the duration of watching it 6) Put it all back when I'm done So yes: for simple storage, as long as the DVDs you have will last the length of time you want to keep them, and you have enough physical space to keep them in comfortably, just keeping the DVDs is easier. But for actually using them on a regular basis, for places with less available space, for people who expect to be moving frequently (or just soon), and for collections where the longevity of the physical media is in doubt, digitizing is a better way to go.
13415 4y ago
I thought the layers separate and they are not a good long-term storage medium. Aren't DVDs supposed to decompose after some time? Or is that only true for CDs? I'd rip them and put them on new hard disks from time to time. AFAIK, that's the best long-term storage strategy for most people.
zirgs 4y ago
This is why I don't have a DVD/BD player and only use streaming services. I almost never watch the same movie more than once.
- Fnoord 4y ago
  Me neither, but there are some exceptions. The original Star Wars trilogy, LOTR, Dune, ... My wife loves Harry Potter. So we got these ripped. We ditched her DVD collection after ripping everything. Legal copies, saving space. Don't even think we brought them to some second hand store.
  - scintill76 4y ago
    IANAL but I don’t think your rips would be legal if you gave the discs to a second hand store or any other person. Circumvention clause of the DMCA probably makes DVD rips illegal in the US, even if you keep your original copy and don’t otherwise violate copyright law.
    - Fnoord 4y ago
      In The Netherlands, yes I am quite sure they are legal copies. They'd been even legal copies if you rented them and made a copy. You don't need to own the original, all you need is that the source was both legal and legally in your possession. You're then allowed to make a copy of it for private use. You're not allowed to distribute it further, you don't have a license for that. My US ex did the same. She'd rent Netflix DVDs, rip them, and bring them back. Tho that was a long time ago as Netflix DVDs suggests (2005). Furthermore, I do not feel morally bad about the practice, and the chance of getting into legal trouble with such (if it were illegal) is so small that I simply wouldn't care. You'd have to face a civil court, and how would any party know about your collection if you keep it private?
      - scintill76 4y ago
        Fair, I should have said my comments were US-specific.
vidarh 4y ago
I rarely get DVDs any more, for much that reason, but I'm just finishing up stripping the liners and archiving the last of ~1000 DVD's I bought over the years. They now take up one and a half shelf in a book case. In terms of cost, it wasn't a waste of money to me: I spent the money to watch them that once. With a few exceptions I never bought with the expectation of rewatching in mind. That was a nice bonus. And now I have an archival copy, and while there are many I haven't rewatched, there are are plenty I have, and some I've rewatched many times, and it wasn't always predictable ahead of time. There are series I loved a lot I never rewatched, and movies I didn't know I'd like that I've rewatched half a dozen times. These days, I don't buy if it's something really mainstream, but I still buy if it's a bit more niche and something I consider might not always remain available. Quite a lot of the DVD's I have are of things that are not available on the streaming services I have. But separate to all of this, even for a lot of the movies people might never watch again, don't underestimate the value of that feeling of comfort to a lot of people, and the value of the physical artefact as a memento.
sebzim4500 4y ago
Pirate bay is that backup option, at least for me. To use your example of the X-Files, you can currently download a 75 GB torrent with every season + extras and it will only take a few hours. I think people continue seeding torrents for longer than DVDs reliably last.
- pointlessone 4y ago
  Someone has to have it on DVD/BD first for it to get on the Pirate Bay.
  - malermeister 4y ago
    That's not true, as the entire categories of releases titled WEB-DL and WEBRip demonstrate.
- andrewstuart 4y ago
  I've never understood the appeal of downloading pirate movies. Feels dodgy, always a hassle trying to fight your way through all the scams and malware and porn and when you get the movie it's of questionable quality. If I buy a DVD then I get perfect quality in a nice case in a day or two without having to visit the seedy red light district of the Internet only to get dud contraband.
  - rakoo 4y ago
    The only reason you see scams, malware and porn is because you don't have an adblocker. Install uBlock Origin. It's mandatory not just for pirating, but even for normal browsing. It does take a but of time to spot fakes, and you need to give the community time to aggregate good content and weed out the fakes, but it's definitely not the experience you describe. It sounds like you last tried a decade or two ago.
  - moralestapia 4y ago
    >I've never understood the appeal of downloading pirate movies. Oh, that's easy! You want to see <movie>, so you search for "<movie> 1080p" (or better) and after a few minutes you have it on your PC and can watch it 1,000 of times if you want; even when offline (!). It's also free. This is why people like pirate movies. >in a day or two ... LOL
agumonkey 4y ago
I'd be curious in a few years. I don't watch old things anymore and keep consuming youtube stuff, but honestly I don't like it anymore. It's not the same somehow. ps: I just bought a dvd from CL
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  Like others, I don't rely on the streamed content being available in the future, so I hoard content. I wrote a Python app that runs on a Raspberry Pi that continually plays the content that I have accrued. Some of the content I schedule, other content is random. It just runs on a downstairs TV. I enjoy accidentally catching some old film, or a musical or something I pulled down from YouTube of a guy making furniture....
  - A6gYPfxNas 4y ago
    brilliant

by jasode 4y ago

edu 4y ago

This is my same conclusion. With books, movies, series and music I like to own physically only my personal favorites that I know will use many times. But that’s less than 10% of my media consumption.

JuettnerDistrib 4y ago
> With books, movies, series and music I like to own physically only my personal favorites that I know will use many times. I don't own many DVDs, but when I see them in my bookshelf they remind of the story the tell, the context when I watched them, and my theories about society, sci-fi, and utopias that those movies inspired. With books it's even more extreme. I get the physical copy sometimes more to have a physical representation of an idea than to read the book.
- vidarh 4y ago
  I have books I've never opened since I read them that is just a marker like that. I have one copy I've never opened: I read it as an e-book but got the physical copy just to complete my set and have it on my shelf. I also have books I've suddenly taken down to reference 20+ years after I read it, and where the text was not online, so I also like to have physical copies of books where the idea mattered because I know that some day I'll want to pass that idea on and will need a refresher.
- angelbar 4y ago
  Like a... Antilibrary

stanleydrew 4y ago

> But what if Netflix and Amazon Prime Video lets their streaming licenses expire for "X-Files" and it's no longer available? Wouldn't that make the X-Files DVDs a great backup?!? It would, if she actually re-watched the X-Files -- but she never did. The problem is that the future is uncertain. It's always possible that she might want to rewatch the X-Files at some point, even if she never actually does.

travisjungroth 4y ago
There is absolutely no way to have so much that you will never want something you don’t have.
irrational 4y ago
Or, she might recommend that someone else watch them. If they are no longer on streaming services, she could loan them her DVDs. It is either that or pirate them.
Terretta 4y ago
> … the future is uncertain. It's always possible that she might want to … even if she never actually does. True, although … "Difficulty discarding possessions is characterized by a perceived need to save items and distress associated with discarding them. Accumulation of possessions can result in living spaces becoming cluttered to the point that their use or safety is compromised. Compulsive hoarding is recognized by the eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5)."
- mattkrause 4y ago
  Don’t read too much into the DSM definitions. There’s an (often explicit) caveat that they apply iff the condition distresses the patient or seriously affects their life. It’s healthy to hang onto a few ratty t-shirts because you might need them to mow the lawn or because they remind you of good times; you can even be a bit bummed when you eventually do throw them out. It’s compulsive hoarding when you do it even though it seriously bothers you or turns your place into a death trap.

danaris 4y ago

And there's even a third option: Rip the DVDs, keep the digital copies somewhere safe, and discard the physical discs. If you want to ensure that this remains safe, you'll need to both back up and periodically transfer the digital copies to new physical storage devices (in my case, I just upgraded from the ~4-yr-old 4TB HDD that was holding all my media to a new 16TB HDD). This is, however, kind of a necessity in any case; especially for burned DVDs, for instance of home movies, ripping them and storing the media fully digitally with a plan for long-term archival will have much better longevity. Even pressed DVDs don't last forever (especially if they are used sometimes—scratches happen!), and burned DVDs can have a lifetime of less than 5 years in some cases. Data, however, if properly treated, can be perfectly saved forever. (Well, barring cosmic ray bit-flips, I guess.)

bluGill 4y ago
I keep the originals in a box. That way if someone finds put I can prove i'm morally right even though the law doesn't allow it.
- Johnny555 4y ago
  Me too, I have a few big cd wallets (like 12 by 12 by 6 inches thick) where I put my dvds as I rip them and discard the cases. They don’t take up much room and prove that I own all of the movies I ripped. I converted them to mid quality mp4s so can keep a copy on a 512gb usb flash drive so I can take my movie collection anywhere I travel.
layer8 4y ago
That’s much more work though than just keeping the DVDs in the basement.
- danaris 4y ago
  It is. It happens to fit my use case better, though—my viewing habits are very impulse-oriented, and the place I keep the media is my Plex library, so I can just fire up a web browser and watch anything I keep in there any time I want, from anywhere in the house. (I could probably set it up to be able to watch it from other places, too, but I'm working from home, so I'm usually there anyway.) So if I just kept the DVDs, any time I wanted to watch something on one, I would have to: 1) Physically go to where the DVDs are 2) Locate the specific DVD I'm looking for (can be tricky if I'm looking for a specific episode of a show—I might not always remember what season it's from, and the Plex interface makes it pretty easy to scan through) 3) Get the DVD out 4) Go to the living room, where the DVD player is 5) Take exclusive control of the living room, and also bind myself to being there, for the duration of watching it 6) Put it all back when I'm done So yes: for simple storage, as long as the DVDs you have will last the length of time you want to keep them, and you have enough physical space to keep them in comfortably, just keeping the DVDs is easier. But for actually using them on a regular basis, for places with less available space, for people who expect to be moving frequently (or just soon), and for collections where the longevity of the physical media is in doubt, digitizing is a better way to go.

13415 4y ago

I thought the layers separate and they are not a good long-term storage medium. Aren't DVDs supposed to decompose after some time? Or is that only true for CDs? I'd rip them and put them on new hard disks from time to time. AFAIK, that's the best long-term storage strategy for most people.

zirgs 4y ago

This is why I don't have a DVD/BD player and only use streaming services. I almost never watch the same movie more than once.

Fnoord 4y ago
Me neither, but there are some exceptions. The original Star Wars trilogy, LOTR, Dune, ... My wife loves Harry Potter. So we got these ripped. We ditched her DVD collection after ripping everything. Legal copies, saving space. Don't even think we brought them to some second hand store.
- scintill76 4y ago
  IANAL but I don’t think your rips would be legal if you gave the discs to a second hand store or any other person. Circumvention clause of the DMCA probably makes DVD rips illegal in the US, even if you keep your original copy and don’t otherwise violate copyright law.
  - Fnoord 4y ago
    In The Netherlands, yes I am quite sure they are legal copies. They'd been even legal copies if you rented them and made a copy. You don't need to own the original, all you need is that the source was both legal and legally in your possession. You're then allowed to make a copy of it for private use. You're not allowed to distribute it further, you don't have a license for that. My US ex did the same. She'd rent Netflix DVDs, rip them, and bring them back. Tho that was a long time ago as Netflix DVDs suggests (2005). Furthermore, I do not feel morally bad about the practice, and the chance of getting into legal trouble with such (if it were illegal) is so small that I simply wouldn't care. You'd have to face a civil court, and how would any party know about your collection if you keep it private?
    - scintill76 4y ago
      Fair, I should have said my comments were US-specific.

vidarh 4y ago

I rarely get DVDs any more, for much that reason, but I'm just finishing up stripping the liners and archiving the last of ~1000 DVD's I bought over the years. They now take up one and a half shelf in a book case. In terms of cost, it wasn't a waste of money to me: I spent the money to watch them that once. With a few exceptions I never bought with the expectation of rewatching in mind. That was a nice bonus. And now I have an archival copy, and while there are many I haven't rewatched, there are are plenty I have, and some I've rewatched many times, and it wasn't always predictable ahead of time. There are series I loved a lot I never rewatched, and movies I didn't know I'd like that I've rewatched half a dozen times. These days, I don't buy if it's something really mainstream, but I still buy if it's a bit more niche and something I consider might not always remain available. Quite a lot of the DVD's I have are of things that are not available on the streaming services I have. But separate to all of this, even for a lot of the movies people might never watch again, don't underestimate the value of that feeling of comfort to a lot of people, and the value of the physical artefact as a memento.

sebzim4500 4y ago

Pirate bay is that backup option, at least for me. To use your example of the X-Files, you can currently download a 75 GB torrent with every season + extras and it will only take a few hours. I think people continue seeding torrents for longer than DVDs reliably last.

pointlessone 4y ago
Someone has to have it on DVD/BD first for it to get on the Pirate Bay.
- malermeister 4y ago
  That's not true, as the entire categories of releases titled WEB-DL and WEBRip demonstrate.
andrewstuart 4y ago
I've never understood the appeal of downloading pirate movies. Feels dodgy, always a hassle trying to fight your way through all the scams and malware and porn and when you get the movie it's of questionable quality. If I buy a DVD then I get perfect quality in a nice case in a day or two without having to visit the seedy red light district of the Internet only to get dud contraband.
- rakoo 4y ago
  The only reason you see scams, malware and porn is because you don't have an adblocker. Install uBlock Origin. It's mandatory not just for pirating, but even for normal browsing. It does take a but of time to spot fakes, and you need to give the community time to aggregate good content and weed out the fakes, but it's definitely not the experience you describe. It sounds like you last tried a decade or two ago.
- moralestapia 4y ago
  >I've never understood the appeal of downloading pirate movies. Oh, that's easy! You want to see <movie>, so you search for "<movie> 1080p" (or better) and after a few minutes you have it on your PC and can watch it 1,000 of times if you want; even when offline (!). It's also free. This is why people like pirate movies. >in a day or two ... LOL

agumonkey 4y ago

I'd be curious in a few years. I don't watch old things anymore and keep consuming youtube stuff, but honestly I don't like it anymore. It's not the same somehow. ps: I just bought a dvd from CL

JKCalhoun 4y ago
Like others, I don't rely on the streamed content being available in the future, so I hoard content. I wrote a Python app that runs on a Raspberry Pi that continually plays the content that I have accrued. Some of the content I schedule, other content is random. It just runs on a downstairs TV. I enjoy accidentally catching some old film, or a musical or something I pulled down from YouTube of a guy making furniture....
- A6gYPfxNas 4y ago
  brilliant