Still Laughing at Me About Physical Media?

[Anderton]

Amid price increases and dropping titles, streaming services look more like bait and switch than the future of entertainment. Want to see the X-Files movie, "Fight the Future?" It's nowhere to be streamed. Ditto Fellini's "Satryicon." 

 

But Netflix has everything, right? Well, here are movies that are going away in December:

 

The Social Network

Love Actually

Mission Impossible

Mission Impossible III

Saving Private Ryan

Taylor Swift Reputation Staidum Tour

Anchorman

Catch Me if You Can

Jaws

Runaway Bride

Kung Fu Panda

Friends with Benefits

2012

8 Mile

A Beautiful Mind

American Beauty

Backdraft

Captain Phillips

Donnie Brasco

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Field of Dreams

Gladiator

Get Him to the Greek

Lost in Translation

 

...among others. Now, maybe they'll show up somewhere else, so you can play whack-a-mole streaming services subscription roulette. Or maybe they'll come back to Netflix someday. Or maybe they'll just disappear, like Fellini or the X-Files.

 

The "unlimited movies from the comfort of your own home for one low subscription price" looks like Hollywood's version of "perfect sound forever."

 

Don't toss your DVDs and Blu-Rays just yet...

[RABid]

No question that Bluray 4k Ultra disk looks and sounds better than the best streaming service. The problem for me is that I am not usually willing to pay the premium for the 4K HD versions of movies when they are priced so much higher than regular blueray. Then again, I dropped Netflix last month. Still have Max.

[David Emm]

I never laughed, because I've had to surf the format wars, too. Here's the thing... I've followed all the threads about media in general. A short while back, I realized that not being willing to spring for Apple+ meant I'd be missing "Monarch"... and I didn't give a tangible rat's. I've become all but immune. I find some new things appealing, but after years of reboot-itis, I don't get all FOMO. I got to see "2001" in Cinerama, a fully remastered "Lawrence of Arabia" in a similar theater and Allan Holdsworth live. What have I really missed? Actually, I'd like to sweep a few movies out of my memory, like Troma films' "Poultrygeist." Its hilarious, but it makes you feel all sticky for laughing at it. 😬

[NewImprov]

25 minutes ago, David Emm said:

 A short while back, I realized that not being willing to spring for Apple+ meant I'd be missing "Monarch"... and I didn't give a tangible rat's. I've become all but immune. I find some new things appealing, but after years of reboot-itis, I don't get all FOMO.

We recently jettisoned a number of streaming services, including Netflix, but kept Apple+ because of Slow Horses, currently in its 3rd season, and, imho, the best thing currently on TV. I'm a fan of both the series and the original Mick Herron books.

 

But, yeah, physical media rules! I've been snapping up any Criterion Collection used DVD's or Blu-Rays I can find, they are getting hard to find.

[Anderton]

1 hour ago, NewImprov said:

But, yeah, physical media rules! I've been snapping up any Criterion Collection used DVD's or Blu-Rays I can find, they are getting hard to find.

 

The time-tested technique to destroy a society's culture used to be barbarians. But we're advanced now! We can do it to ourselves   Then again, there's the reality that humanity is generating yottabytes of data, having zoomed past exabytes and zettabytes. Not everything can be preserved...although the next question is who decides what gets preserved, and what doesn't? I can see it now...Netflix "death panels" for movies.☠️ 

[jazzpiano88]

Exactly.  Keep your hard copies and associated backups.   Don't trust anything online as it comes and goes with other people's contracts.

 

As an aside, when YouTube turns off the spigot, 50% of the content of online forums like this for the last however many years will be gone.    I wonder if there are video harvesters who are scooping up all of their content in anticipation of this.  

[Anderton]

1 hour ago, jazzpiano88 said:

As an aside, when YouTube turns off the spigot, 50% of the content of online forums like this for the last however many years will be gone.    I wonder if there are video harvesters who are scooping up all of their content in anticipation of this.  

 

I've often thought of that. At what point will they turn off the spigot? I have enough subscribers to qualify for monetization, but I don't post regularly enough to meet their other criteria. The reality is if someone is subscribing to my channel, I'm not going to waste their time. I'm only going to upload material that I feel has merit of some kind. So if they turn off based frequency of uploading videos, I'm hosed. But if they turn off based on subscriber numbers, I'm probably okay.

 

Of course, I have backups of all my videos. But re-loading them into various random places would be a PITA.

[Notes_Norton]

Many years ago, I tried to get out of music, and was a Field Engineer for a Cable TV Manufacturing company while playing music on the weekends. Getting out of music failed, as being normal was not for me.

 

Home Box Office was new and you could get all the movies there. Then came Showtime and Cinemax which also showed all the movies. I was getting free Cable TV at the time.

 

Pretty soon some movies were shown exclusively on HBO, others SHO and others Max. So the average person had to subscribe to 3 services just to see all the movies. It eventually got even worse.

 

I eventually quit the Cable TV job and went back to gigging full-time. Checking the price in the 1980s, it was easy to have a $300 per month cable bill.

 

A few years ago, everyone was cutting the cable and going to streaming services to get all the movies and save money. But that was temporary, because pretty soon the same thing started happening on streaming services. Netflix has this movie, Disney has another, and so on.

 

Mrs. Notes and I don't watch TV at all, with one exception, we watch one movie per week. That's the only time the TV gets turned on. The last TV show we watched was Jay Leno's first “Tonight” show.

 

We had the one-disk-a-at-a-time plan from Netflix until they dropped it. Checked the on-line options and saw that streaming was the same trap as the old Cable TV situation was. Too much money for one movie per week.

 

As card-carrying public library members, we have free streaming movies via Kanopy and Hoopla. We don't get the latest, we'll have to wait, but there are thousands we haven't seen yet, and we want to see a few hundred of those. I guess if we want a stale blockbuster, we could go to the Redbox kiosk.

 

We've purchased a couple of used DVD/Blu-Ray discs on-line for about the price of a rental, and donated them to our library when done. We've also checked out movies there, they have a big selection of discs.

 

As for music, I have a collection of CDs, LPs, and purchased downloads burned to disc. I can listen to what I want, when I want, and they can't take it away from me. Movies? I don't know of any that I'd like to watch again and again and again, so I only own a few music performance videos.

 

I suppose others are completely happy with subscriptions, but I avoid them when they are not necessary. There is more than one right way to do almost anything.

 

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

 

[KuruPrionz]

I find that I don't spend much time watching movies but if you want to take the time to poke around - go to the thrift stores!!!!

Around here there are literally thousands of DVDs, CDs and probably Blu-ray Disc at thrift stores (I glance from afar and keep on moving).

 

Prices range from 75 cents to 3 dollars depending. Condition varies. The cover and disc usually match but not always. So it's buyer beware but I got the complete set of the early Benny Hill shows for a couple of bucks a while ago. No commercials, just the video. 

 

Get on out there and poke around!!!!!

[ProfD]

1 hour ago, KuruPrionz said:

...if you want to take the time to poke around - go to the thrift stores!!!!

Around here there are literally thousands of DVDs, CDs and probably Blu-ray Disc at thrift stores...

Agreed.  Between estate purges and folks downsizing for one reason or another, a ton of physical media gets dumped in thrift stores.  Definitely worth the treasure hunt.

 

Once I've digitized my collection of physical media, it might be show up in a thrift store somewhere USA.😁😎

[The Real MC]

Besides the entertainment industry, the ISP industry is doing their share of tier pricing.  Streaming video requires high speed internet with high monthly data cap, which is extra $$$ for that tier from most ISP providers.  The expense is not worth it.

[The Real MC]

I have 700+ DVD movies, concerts, etc in my entertainment library.  I ceased watching cable and broadcast TV since 2000.  I saw streaming as a poor substitute for reasons already mentioned.  With my DVDs I don't have to flip through channels looking for something to watch, there is never any danger of my movies/concerts being yanked with no advance notice, and the DVDs don't have an added hour or more of my precious time stuffed with commercials.  Better value for my $$$.

[Anderton]

 Not to mention some of the extra material that comes with DVDs, some of which is fascinating. 

[RABid]

3 hours ago, The Real MC said:

With my DVDs I don't have to flip through channels looking for something to watch

But I find that I do have to dig through boxes to find a specific DVD that I just thought about and have not watched for years. I need to spend a few days organizing and sorting my DVD's, then label the boxes.

[The Real MC]

4 hours ago, RABid said:

But I find that I do have to dig through boxes to find a specific DVD that I just thought about and have not watched for years. I need to spend a few days organizing and sorting my DVD's, then label the boxes.

 

Mine were never organized until I relocated to my new job in my new house.  Top three shelves plus the additional one I built on top of both shelving units.  All shelves are by category - comedy, drama, family, action, sci-fi, etc.

[Dave Bryce]

                                                                    

 

 

dB

[Anderton]

Here we have two fine examples of shelf filters.

[Notes_Norton]

21 hours ago, Anderton said:

 Not to mention some of the extra material that comes with DVDs, some of which is fascinating. 

Now that I'm streaming, I miss the extras. Since they are shorts, I called them BVDs.

 

Sometimes a good commentary, or interview with the composer, or film historian take, and others are as interesting as the movie.

 

I even miss some of the liner notes and cover art that came with LPs (but I'd rather listen on CD).

 

Notes ♫

[Sundown]

This is tangential, but it would seem that one of the greatest mixes one could hear, is only available on CD.

 

Madonna’s “Lucky Star” from the Immaculate Collection is available on TIDAL and other streaming services, but I can tell you the mix is off … When you listen to the original CD version, the panning and stereo image is completely different. The CD version is an auditory roller coaster and one of the best pre-listens you can do before a mix session (to awaken your stereo sensitivity). The versions on TIDAL, etc. omit most of the panning.

 

If Craig’s list of movies is true, that’s disappointing. I should be able to login to Netflix and see old movies without issue. It’s not like storage isn’t pennies on the dollar.

 

Todd

 

 

 

[dmitch57]

9 hours ago, Sundown said:

I should be able to login to Netflix and see old movies without issue. It’s not like storage isn’t pennies on the dollar.

I don't think it's storage issues that make movies disappear from streaming platforms. It's licensing. 

[Notes_Norton]

15 hours ago, Sundown said:

Madonna’s “Lucky Star” from the Immaculate Collection is available on TIDAL and other streaming services, but I can tell you the mix is off

Also, I believe there is more compression in a stream than there is on the original DVD or Blu-Ray.

 

At least that's how it looks to me, from the few that I've streamed.

 

Please correct me if that's wrong.

 

Notes ♫

[Nowarezman]

How does the discussion go, when a streaming service decides to drop a zillion worthy titles?? It is any of these? 

  

"We can't afford the cloud storage."

 

"We're hoping we can get the number of available titles down to one, to best serve our customer base."

 

"Old people just watch TV reruns and Yellowstone.  Young people just watch new stuff.  That just leaves the academics and snobs and other societal deadwood."

 

"The problem with the world today is too many choices.  We're working toward a subscription model where the more you pay, the fewer choices you get."

 

One movie from each decade is plenty!  Have you ever counted just how many decades there are???

 

Cutting the available titles by 50% will make each new title more desirable by 50% 

 

Any I'm leaving out?

 

nat

 

 

 

[Notes_Norton]

I have a lot of LPs and CDs. There are some I haven't listened to in years. But knowing I can if I want to is comforting. And there are enough times when I think, “I'd like to hear _____ again” that it makes it all worth it.

 

Notes ♫