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DVD shop owner vows to be ‘last man standing’
- Kraftwurm 2y agoWe're the Last Man Standing in Zurich, Switzerland. We have DVDs and Blu-rays but do not rent them, we only sell. Many many regular customers, all Fulm Freaks / Nerds. Our name is LASERZONE because we startet in the early 90's with Laserdiscs. Come to visit us, when you're in Zurich an mention that you read this comment. We will love you for that! Just search for DVD, Zürich and you will find us.
- jwsteigerwalt 2y agoThere are still plenty of vintage vinyl, cassette, and VHS stores. Lots of runway left for even younger niche markets.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bombcar 2y agoWe had one that finally shut down a few years ago. The key seems to be if they own the shop they’re operating out of; then they can last quite a while if the owner wants them to.
- a2tech 2y agoThis is an important thing for any brick and mortar business--if you don't own your building, you're always at more risk for rent changing and putting you in bad straits.
- daveoc64 2y agoWhenever this sort of topic comes up, I always have to give a shout out to 20th Century Flicks in Bristol: https://20thcenturyflicks.co.uk/ https://20thcenturyflicks.co.uk/ They have a huge library of DVD and VHS for rental!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- stewx 2y agoThere is going to be an interesting breaking point when DVDs and Blu-rays stop being sold mass-market. I think a lot of people will realize the downside of going all-in on streaming.
- extraduder_ire 2y agoNew ones, sure. But there's a thriving retail market of "recycled" optical media being repackaged and sold for cheap in discount stores last I checked. That should stick around for another few years after.
- tuna74 2y agoThat has already happened in a lot of parts of the world.
- tjpnz 2y agoCan't be far off given manufacturing of blu-ray players is winding down.
- cooperadymas 2y agoMany things already don't make it to DVD, unfortunately.
- noisy_boy 2y agoAs long as they also sell DVD players, I think they stand a chance. The longer they hold out, the more unique they get.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoIt's sad we can't buy people media anymore. Most don't have a way to play CDs or DVDs!
- danielbln 2y agoThere are some real hard truths about not being able to own physical media, but purely in terms of UX, on-demand streaming blows anything else out of the water. I can stream any children's audiobook under the son to my daughter's Bluetooth speaker in a whim, instead of shuffling through a bunch of optical media that break easily, and for my own purposes I don't have to have a physical player, space to store the media, etc. Maybe the best of both worlds would be to rip everything to a Plex server and have the originals in the basement.
- onecommentman 2y agoUsing the phrase “real hard truth” and “optical media that break easily” in the same post made my eyes cross. Are you referring to glass plate negatives from early 19th C. photography? And storing 400 DVDs in a binder takes about 1 cu ft of storage, and DVD players are $30 and the size of a hardback book. Your best of both worlds proposal sounds right, though.
- t-3 2y agoMost? I find that very hard to believe. Only the latest generation of consoles and a few late models of the last generation have no disc drives. Plenty of people will still have PS* and Xbox-n with disc drives, not to mention a lot of people will have 30-year-old Walkman CD players and 20-year-old set-top DVD players in their garages that still work. I have several working computers that have working DVD drives. My car still has a CD player. If all else fails, new USB-connected drives are still purchasable for very cheap prices.
- infecto 2y agoI don't have anything that can play a DVD or a Blu-ray. It is a lot more common than you think. A lot of people don't game or they don't game on console.
- eadmund 2y agoI’ve switched to buying everything on DVD or Blu-ray. It’s the only way to be sure I can watch, for example, Community Season 2 Episode 14 (one of the funniest episodes ever). If you don’t own the physical medium, you’re just renting a stream. No thanks.
- loloquwowndueo 2y agoDVDs rot after a while. Can’t be sure you’ll be able to watch them indefinitely. Def recommend ripping it and backing up the copy periodically for archival purposes.
- cooperadymas 2y agoWhile this is undoubtedly true, the lifetime is almost certainly a multiple of whatever it is on a streaming service. I have working DVDs older than Netflix's streaming service.
- loloquwowndueo 2y agoOh I agree streaming is not an alternative if you want to stay in control of your library. Just DVD are probably not great for foolproof long-term archival.
- throwaway89201 2y agoBurned DVDs rot after a while (and quite inconsistently between brands), but pressed CDs and DVDs – such as retail movie DVDs – barely rot at all.
- xeeeeeeeeeeenu 2y agoIt's true unless there was a manufacturing issue. A notorious example, well-known in the collectors' community, is Warner Bros. HD-DVDs: https://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=840 https://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=840
- okasaki 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjH9cEoEup8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjH9cEoEup8
- nashashmi 2y agoPSA: Your local library has a good collection of DVDs. Go in there and see how they are still relevant. Sometimes the DVDs are free to borrow.
- tacotastic 2y agoeven really poorly funded library networks I've seen in the states tend to have pretty great Blu-ray selections, not just DVDs
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- infecto 2y agoI hope he does well. On the flip side I cannot help but feel this is one of the greatest times to be a media consumer. I definitely look back and have nostalgia for going to Blockbuster on a Friday to pick out some tapes to watch but it may just be mostly the nostalgia of it all. We have easy access to almost any movie/show you want to watch, this includes lots of media that is outside of the country you live in. It is far from perfect and while there is a minority that prefers to own the disc, I suspect the vast majority of consumers prefer renting or buying digital.
- dackle 2y agoBay Street Video near Bay and Bloor in Toronto is still alive and well: https://www.baystreetvideo.com/ https://www.baystreetvideo.com/ and has a very deep catalogue and active new release schedule: https://www.baystreetvideo.com/recentbydate.php?sortbytitle=0 https://www.baystreetvideo.com/recentbydate.php?sortbytitle=...
- ortusdux 2y agoShoutout to Scarecrow Video in Seattle as well. Over 150k titles in stock along with device rentals for region locked movies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarecrow_Video https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarecrow_Video
- Klonoar 2y agoThey recently had to go through a donation drive to keep the lights on, so it’s worth supporting them.
- gandalfian 2y agoI think it's the resolution that will kill dvd's. 55" TV's are now entry level. A cinefile in ten years may well have an affordable laser projector filling and suddenly see the merits of 4k.
- LeoPanthera 2y ago"DVD" is usually used as an umbrella term that includes blu-ray and 4K blu-ray. No streaming service matches the quality of 4K blu-ray, and often they look worse even than regular blu-ray.
- gandalfian 2y agoPerhaps, thought blu ray is looking a little laserdisc like. Never quite got the mass adoption to stay around and now fading away. It's now hard to buy a cdrom drive without dvd support. But ones without blue ray remains common. Notmto mention second hand dvds are available for pennies on bulk for hoarders ...