Press Release Wired Press Release: Blu-rays are back; Streaming Isn’t Everything (1 Viewer)

[PMF]

I remain in the dedicated corner of physical media; and what I buy, I watch.
Nonetheless, no matter the formats, one thing is for certain...movies will never go away.

 

[Brent Reid]

A few things invariably get overlooked in these ongoing discussions. HTF is US-based and very US-centric, which is fair enough. However, the world is much bigger than the states and even from my privileged location, many options simply do not exist. I watch a significant proportion of older (pre-Star Wars!) films and TV, but there’s no TCM, Filmstruck or Warner Archive online viewing for me. The same goes for many other region-locked streams and purchases. If I want to see most of the material offered by just those outlets, physical media is my only choice. And that’s mainly US-originated content; let’s not get into non-US content from around the world, from all eras. I have a good, reliable broadband connection; most of the world doesn’t and won’t for a long time, if ever. Especially one that’s suitable for streaming and downloading high quality film files.

My overall point is that the most vocal proponents here of “buying and streaming in HD and UHD works fine for me, so that must be the future”, are only looking at things from their own, specific and particularly privileged perspective. And many are missing out on a lot of good stuff, as are those who refuse to aquire multi-region set-ups.

 

[Bryan^H]

I prefer Physical, but still do streaming a lot(Amazon Prime). What I don't like is when studios nerf a 4K UHD disc. Dolby Vision on streaming only. We are talking 4 to 1 ratio for DV content in favor of streaming. That is bullshit.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

To Brent’s excellent points, I think the US market for physical media will dry up before the international one does. I’ve been saying this for ages, but anyone who’s passionate about collecting movies on physical media in 2018 needs to seriously consider going region free. The disparity between what gets released on disc internationally vs in the US is going to continue to grow.

 

[jcroy]

I prefer Physical, but still do streaming a lot(Amazon Prime). What I don't like is when studios nerf a 4K UHD disc. Dolby Vision on streaming only. We are talking 4 to 1 ratio for DV content in favor of streaming. That is bullshit.

(More generally).

Wonder if this nerfing is the bluray's "spiritual" equivalent of the music cd's "loudness wars", where a physical format is deliberately debased and turned into complete mediocrity. Basically like a junking of a once great format.

 

[Craig Beam]

To Brent’s excellent points, I think the US market for physical media will dry up before the international one does. I’ve been saying this for ages, but anyone who’s passionate about collecting movies on physical media in 2018 needs to seriously consider going region free. The disparity between what gets released on disc internationally vs in the US is going to continue to grow.

More and more of my purchases are multi-region. What originated as a "once in a while" thing has grown considerably.

 

[mark27b]

If it's a TV series or TV movie I buy a physical copy. If it's a cinema movie I don't buy a physical copy unless it's a TV based cinema movie eg M:I or The Equalizer or Serenity/Firefly or a 'must-have' eg MCU.

A 2-hour film will I feel switch streaming services whereas a complete TV show if hundred or so hours may not or may be tied to certain streaming services eg Marvel TV on Netflix such as Daredevil will never appear on the new Disney streaming service.

Even then as in the U.K. if it's a USA tv show or movie I tend to buy the USA discs as they don't have ratings on the cover, better extras and aren't usually cut eg The Walking Dead.

I think it was telling for the last The Walking Deac blu-Ray there wasn't a Mcfarlane limited edition statue boxset released.

Also Germany gets more USA tv on Blu-Ray than the USA does eg Hawaii 5-0, Ray Donovan, NCIS and The Librarians/The Quest etc...

 

[Bryan^H]

(More generally).

Wonder if this nerfing is the bluray's "spiritual" equivalent of the music cd's "loudness wars", where a physical format is deliberately debased and turned into complete mediocrity. Basically like a junking of a once great format.

That is what I don't understand. If the studio is going all in charging $30 for a Ultra High Definition disc -- the best possible viewing experience, but deliberately leaving out a feature that makes that format certainly less than perfect...to be available to stream instead. Also the earlier release of movies to stream over physical street dates. It doesn't seem like a conspiracy.
It seems the studios are slowly changing the minds of collectors from physical to streaming.​

 

[Jeff Flugel]

A few things invariably get overlooked in these ongoing discussions. HTF is US-based and very US-centric, which is fair enough. However, the world is much bigger than the states and even from my privileged location, many options simply do not exist. I watch a significant proportion of older (pre-Star Wars!) films and TV, but there’s no TCM, Filmstruck or Warner Archive online viewing for me. The same goes for many other region-locked streams and purchases. If I want to see most of the material offered by just those outlets, physical media is my only choice. And that’s mainly US-originated content; let’s not get into non-US content from around the world, from all eras. I have a good, reliable broadband connection; most of the world doesn’t and won’t for a long time, if ever. Especially one that’s suitable for streaming and downloading high quality film files.

My overall point is that the most vocal proponents here of “buying and streaming in HD and UHD works fine for me, so that must be the future”, are only looking at things from their own, specific and particularly privileged perspective. And many are missing out on a lot of good stuff, as are those who refuse to aquire multi-region set-ups.

Living in Japan, I agree with the above. I enjoy streaming, have both Netflix and Amazon Prime, and my family watches a fair amount of content on those services. One good thing about living in Japan is that home internet speeds are very fast so streaming in HD works great 99% of the time. But the selections here on streaming services are VERY short on anything pre-2000, other than massively popular classics like Gone with the Wind, Roman Holiday, and a handful of others. NHK (Japan's equivalent to PBS) on regular TV shows far, FAR more more classics than any current streaming option. So for older or more esoteric titles, disc buying is it.

Personally, I'm happy to have as many options for movie and TV watching as possible, and welcome them all. But I'll also ride this physical media train till it really does wind down.

 

[Kyrsten Brad]

To Brent’s excellent points, I think the US market for physical media will dry up before the international one does. I’ve been saying this for ages, but anyone who’s passionate about collecting movies on physical media in 2018 needs to seriously consider going region free. The disparity between what gets released on disc internationally vs in the US is going to continue to grow.

I went Region free back in 2016 with my Sony BDP-7200 and continued that with a Region free Sony UBP-X700. Paid extra for the mods but they’re worth it.

 

[Bobofbone]

There's another reason not to stream everything. It's called DSL lines. I live outside a city that supposedly has the highest transfere rate and goobs of fiberoptic cable running everywhere. However, it doesn't run to me. It stops across the river, and none of the companies have any plans to run it my way. On some nights, and if more than one person is using the system, you get to watch the screen freeze and watch this circle thing spin in the screen for awhile-repeatedly.

Blu-rays don't do that.

 

[Richard V]

Aren’t we just rehashing the same argument we’ve had in prior threads? It seems like we’re just repeating our past comments on this subject matter.

Amen

 

[Josh Steinberg]

It doesn't seem like a conspiracy.
It seems the studios are slowly changing the minds of collectors from physical to streaming.

I think that's it, in a nutshell.

I also think that the vast majority of movie watchers have little desire to be movie collectors, and we're seeing that reflected in both sales numbers for physical media, and the relative speed at which streaming had been adopted by the larger industry and culture.

At the risk of repeating myself, I've said before that ownership of films was never the norm for the vast majority of movie history. For as long as film has been around, there have been private collectors, and then there have been secondary markets for 16mm and 8mm versions meant for home use, but only a small fraction of filmgoers were interested in owning those. When VHS came around, the rental market far exceeded the market for purchases. DVD was the perfect storm of easy availability, low prices and convenience that temporarily made purchasing a movie the best and easiest way to watch one. But with the advent of streaming services (both subscription services like Netflix and digital retailers like iTunes), buying a physical object was no longer the cheapest or most convenient way to watch a film for the average movie fan. And most casual movie fans are less interested in rewatching a specific version of a specific movie at a specific time; they're content to merely "watch a movie" when they feel like being entertained.

That's not to say that there isn't value in physical releases; clearly there is, or we wouldn't be here on this forum talking about discs. But I think we're returning to the state of things as they've been for most of the history of the movies: most movie fans do not want or need to own a physical copy of each title they see or enjoy. For a brief period, when buying the DVD was the cheapest and most convenient way to watch many titles, it seemed like there were a lot more people who wanted to be collectors than it turned out.

I don't see a conspiracy in any of this; I just see studios doing their best to follow the general audience to where they already are. The studios are also well aware that their greatest competition and threat isn't physical media; it's piracy. Studios are well aware that if they don't have the digital copies legitimately available online, for a large portion of their audience, the next step isn't go order a disc version; it's to find a copy to download illegally. They're trying to hold on to a piece of an ever-shrinking pie where the choice for audience members isn't "Buy this version or buy that version" but rather "Stream it now if it's readily available on a service or download it illegally if its not."

 

[AcesHighStudios]

For the person who said their 4K stream already looks and sounds as good as their physical discs, they absolutely do not. At least the 4K stream does not look or sound as good as a physical 4K Blu-ray. It's really not even close.

 

[Tino]

For the person who said their 4K stream already looks and sounds as good as their physical discs, they absolutely do not. At least the 4K stream does not look or sound as good as a physical 4K Blu-ray. It's really not even close.

In your opinion.

In my opinion they absolutely do.

 

[Robert Crawford]

In your opinion.

In my opinion they absolutely do.

The same here!

 

[jcroy]

I wouldn't be surprsied at all when holodecks are commonplace (in the future), that there will still be individuals who will insist that their dvds/blurays look better than holodecks.

 

[jcroy]

I don't see a conspiracy in any of this;

I see this debasement of bluray, dvd, cd, etc .... has more to do with laziness and apathy, than anything to do with a conspiracy overseen by the moustache twirling evil executives. Why bother with putting a lot of effort and resources into something that hardly anybody is buying anymore?

 

[Robert Crawford]

I see this debasement of bluray, dvd, cd, etc .... has more to do with laziness and apathy, than anything to do with a conspiracy overseen by the moustache twirling evil executives. Why bother with putting a lot of effort and resources into something that hardly anybody is buying anymore?

It's not laziness nor apathy, it's profit margins that are driving disc releases down. IMO, people have no idea how low some sales figures are for many titles, particularly, catalog titles. The studio executives make their marketing decisions based on those sales figures. I just listened to a Warner Archive Podcast in which George Feltenstein is pleading for people to buy "The Sea Hawk" on Blu-ray so he can justify the release of other Errol Flynn titles onto Blu-ray.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Every time that a studio or small label announces a new title and people go “Yes! I want that! But I’ll wait for a sale” is basically another nail in the coffin. It’s not fair, but I think that’s the reality of it. I think we’ve been seeing more sales this year than in years prior because things aren’t selling anywhere near expected, and they’re just trying to cut their losses and at least break even. A lot of things that were once profitable no longer are.