this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2024

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DVDs are dying right as streaming has made them appealing again (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

231 comments fedilink hide all child comments

It's sensible for businesses to shift from physical media sales. Per CNBC's calculations, DVD sales fell over 86 percent between 2008 and 2019. Research from the Motion Picture Association in 2021 found that physical media represented 8 percent of the home/mobile entertainment market in the US, falling behind digital (80 percent) and theatrical (12 percent).

But as physical media gets less lucrative and the shuttering of businesses makes optical discs harder to find, the streaming services that largely replaced them are getting aggravating and unreliable. And with the streaming industry becoming more competitive and profit-hungry than ever, you never know if the movie/show that most attracted you to a streaming service will still be available when you finally get a chance to sit down and watch. Even paid-for online libraries that were marketed as available "forever" have been ripped away from customers.

When someone buys or rents a DVD, they know exactly what content they're paying for and for how long they'll have it (assuming they take care of the physical media). They can also watch the content if the Internet goes out and be certain that they're getting uncompressed 4K resolution. DVD viewers are also less likely to be bombarded with ads whenever they pause and can get around an ad-riddled smart TV home screen (nothing's perfect; some DVDs have unskippable commercials).

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The enshittification of streaming is enshittifitentional.

Major B&M retailers of physical media are either dead, dieing, or have phased out physical media.

What a perfect time to issue a deathknell to the whole concept physical ownership.

Streaming originals that disappear will come back in limited release. It'll basically be the Disney Vault of streaming. A company like Netflix would subtly drop references and nods to "removed" popular shows in their new shows to make you nostalgic for the old show. Then bring it back for a couple months.

You'll especially see them all fighting for the best Christmas specials, but they'll pull this shit with Stranger Things by the end of the decade. They expect people to plan-hop and will use limited releases and seasonal specials as their carrot.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Several tech YouTubers have talked about moving entirely to Jellyfin or similar, self-hosting their own movies and TV series from legally owned, ripped copies from their own DVD or Bluray collection.

It takes some work and time to rip, encode, and organize the files. But if you want to go this route, there has probably never been a better time. You can routinely purchase used DVDs and Bluray from thrift stores for a few bucks per disc... sometimes less. If I had a server and hard disk space I'd probably be going this route for media consumption.

Eventually the DVDs will go away entirely and then it will be impossible to create your own legal archival copies.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

"Self hosting their own movies and TV series from legally owned, ripped copies from their own DVD and BluRay collection"

Ngl, whenever they say that they be doing that in said videos I smirk a lil. Yeah sure, that's what you say when you're in front of the camera&recording a video pointing out what others could be doing as well. All while they likely got stuff obtained from the seven seas on there as well, just like folk that are going to replicate that setup are going to have as well. Let's not kid ourselves, a whole lot of content is only legally accessible via streaming services with no other options (shortly before it gets removed from the streaming services, leaving no legal way to access it), and that amount is becoming more each and every single day 😅

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I've been doing this since 2008 - although I only recently setup Plex in 2017, before that I just ran a web server and played movies in a browser on various smart TVs, but around 2017 was when my main TV got an update that rendered its browser mostly useless... Fuck Sony by the way. And before smart TVs I just had a video card with TV out and long cables... Or burning VCDs, I still have my 5-disc DVD changer that could play VCDs as long as they were burned to CD-RW discs, though it's just gathering dust now.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Honestly, I'd rip my collection, but at the time it takes to download that quality rip I'd be quicker just typing them all into Radarr and coming back later...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Ok someone explain Jellyfin. I tried to figure it out and it just wasn't clicking.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

It's basically a gallery for all your downloaded movies/shows, that you can just click play on whatever you have downloaded.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

It's your personal netflix with your stuff on it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If you know plex it's the same thing just open source.

But they are just video player front ends for your media libray

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I mean I have VLC. I have no issues with most media. I was under the impression it was a source for the media. Thanks.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Plex and Jellyfin organize your media using metadata and it's pretty much your own Netflix, Hulu type thing.

However, if you get a Plex pass you can stream your media outside of your network to friends and family. Or just yourself when you're out of the house. But your PC would need to stay on, unless you have a NAS bay with the hard drives in it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I didn't see any channels. Is it like Kodi? Maybe I'm just using it wrong.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Not like kodi. There are channels to watch stuff for free, kinda like Pluto TV. However, I do think you can stream your own content from your PC using kodi, not sure though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I've had enough movies and shows unavailable to me that I'm doing exactly this. I bought a PC just to use as a media server, set up Plex, and started ripping all my DVDs to the computer and I can stream them to my Chromecast. No ads, available permanently. I can buy movies from thrift shops and garage sales, and at least for now DVDs are super cheap. It's not high quality video but I don't really care too much.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Be careful I started down that road with a 500gb external hdd and now I've got a 40tb raid array and a homelab consuming my walk in closet.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

and now I’ve got a 40tb raid array

Um, I would like one of those.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Say this now. And you start self hosting everything and have 2 40tb raids

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Shout out to [email protected]

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

Gotta cut off any avenue of escape for streamers sick of not owning what they pay for.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Unskippable commercials on DVD? What did I miss?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

If you had unskippable commercials on dvds, you probably missed pirated dvd stores like this one:

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Oh yeah 100%. Old DVDs had ads that were unskippable, which played before you got to the DVD’s home menu. Usually just ads for other movies that were coming up around the same time the DVD landed. You could usually get around them by hitting Stop twice and then Play to get to the main DVD menu, but not always.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Wow, I don't even remember that. I've been playing DVDs on a computer basically forever, which rarely obeyed such restrictions...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

UNLESS you buy the dvd or Blu-ray from the UK. I found that out when I bought the UK version of a movie and when I put the disc in... The movie just fucking started. No earnings, no ads, no features, no menu. Just... Movie.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

I remember this as a kid, where (usually a Disney DVD) would have 2x 3 minute trailers, before you even got to the main menu, for other movies and if you tried to hit Next Chapter it would just spit back "Unable to do this at this time".

Sometimes you might bypass it by hitting Root Menu if your DVD player remote had it, but yes very frustrating.

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