The big Bullets debate : "The Death of Hardcopy"

[Markgway]

It's healthy enough as far as boutique labels go, but the major studios have lost interest in anything but new product.

And when companies like Warner won't licence (or are very restrictive in licensing) that's a big problem.

I don't know anything about the digital download market and don't care. It's not for me. I'm too old school and too set in my ways now.

[Shingster]

At the end of the day though it's the new mainstream releases that decides the fate of the format and so far I can't remember any major new releases that came out on DVD or streaming only (aside from Netflix/amazon productions of course, but even these seem to eventually make their way to the format). The only real problem Blu-ray has at the oment is as Mark says, major distributors sitting on a mountain of titles that they seemingly don't want to release and don't want to license out because they probably want to hold on to them for exclusives on future in-house streaming services.

[saltysam]

All the big films come out on Blu but i think some of the lesser titles don't. I read somewhere the last couple of Woody Allen movies only got a dvd release in the uk and apparently Headshot is getting a dvd only release in the States.Which seems wacky when they release the latest Seagal dirge to the format. Germany seems to be a thriving physical media country at the moment.

[saltysam]

I don't know about the death of physical media but i do know it's fucking impossible to get rid of stuff these days even for pennies. If it's not limited or oop then it's relist after relist on ebay. I've raised round £800 selling off part of my collection so far, it probably cost me 5 times that. Even CEX are giving next to nothing these days.