The big Bullets debate : "The Death of Hardcopy"

luckystars · Post by **luckystars** » 21 Jan 2013, 10:55

What does it mean to you, and how do you feel about a time where everything will be streamed or 'in the cloud'. How will this effect your buying habits? Have you already stopped buying DVD. Did the pirates and bootleggers win? How long does physical distribution and the conventions such as extras, bonus material, soundtrack and subtitle options have left before everything becomes a generic stream on your smartphone tv or iPad? Is impending closure of HMV and play.com decision to retire from the game the beginning of the end?

Discuss

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 21 Jan 2013, 13:05

I don't think hard copies will die out because there are too many people that collect these things, there's no satisfaction in having a digital library.

saltysam · Post by **saltysam** » 21 Jan 2013, 13:10

Can never imagine a point where'd not want a physical copy of a movie/t.v. series. non-physical media has it's uses for certain things though, for example i bought a dvd-r of the entire run of Batman from the first issue for £2.99 off ebay to read on my tablet....to buy the entire run you'd be talking a couple of million at least.

luckystars · Post by **luckystars** » 21 Jan 2013, 15:15

saltysam wrote:Can never imagine a point where'd not want a physical copy of a movie/t.v. series. non-physical media has it's uses for certain things though, for example i bought a dvd-r of the entire run of Batman from the first issue for £2.99 off ebay to read on my tablet....to buy the entire run you'd be talking a couple of million at least.

I agree with the second point. Since YouTube came along there's a lot of stuff I wouldn't be bothered to buy, like a DVD just for some extras like a deleted scene/alternate cut etc

But Blu-Ray and Cd standards for example keep the product high quality. Literally no one is checking for the AV quality on a streamed rental. HD streams are usually very low bitrate in comparison too

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 21 Jan 2013, 17:46

luckystars wrote:But Blu-Ray and Cd standards for example keep the product high quality.

If only that were the case lol, the loudness war has ruined most CDs nowadays.

luckystars · Post by **luckystars** » 21 Jan 2013, 19:46

gasteropod wrote:
luckystars wrote:But Blu-Ray and Cd standards for example keep the product high quality.
If only that were the case lol, the loudness war has ruined most CDs nowadays.

Yeah I always go for original issue CDs where possible for older albums. For new albums, CD is still sounds better than any download

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 21 Jan 2013, 19:54

luckystars wrote:Yeah I always go for original issue CDs where possible for older albums.

Ditto

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 22 Jan 2013, 02:22

I will NEVER pay for a download.

Streaming and shit has its place for watching stuff... but if I want to own a title I will buy an original hard copy. If one isn't available (or of suitable quality) then a custom job may have to do... but I won't be paying for it. You don't own downloaded media content. All you're buying is the 'right' to watch/listen to it. With a CD or DVD you own the disc in your hand. That makes a huge difference to many.

luckystars · Post by **luckystars** » 22 Jan 2013, 11:51

Markgway wrote:I will NEVER pay for a download.

Streaming and shit has its place for watching stuff... but if I want to own a title I will buy an original hard copy. If one isn't available (or of suitable quality) then a custom job may have to do... but I won't be paying for it. You don't own downloaded media content. All you're buying is the 'right' to watch/listen to it. With a CD or DVD you own the disc in your hand. That makes a huge difference to many.

I buy the odd download, I'm talking about a single when it comes out (rarely but I do it) ahead of an album. If I like it that much and want to support the artist

I also more often will buy an EP. Stuff that never comes out anywhere else. Again to support the artist.

If they don't know people are listening to their stuff, or what stuff in particular...I see it as positively feeding something back to the artists

I've never payed for a video download and can't see that changing

Shingster · Post by **Shingster** » 22 Jan 2013, 17:59

Markgway wrote:You don't own downloaded media content. All you're buying is the 'right' to watch/listen to it. With a CD or DVD you own the disc in your hand. That makes a huge difference to many.

That's not always the case, the only downloadable content I've ever paid for have been a couple of Bluegrass albums off Amazon in MP3 form (that were much more expensive in physical form), which are fully downloaded and now "owned" by me. I can burn them to disc as an Audio CD if I wanted to then have something physical in my hand (not much point though).

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 23 Jan 2013, 06:42

Shingster wrote:
Markgway wrote:You don't own downloaded media content. All you're buying is the 'right' to watch/listen to it. With a CD or DVD you own the disc in your hand. That makes a huge difference to many.
That's not always the case, the only downloadable content I've ever paid for have been a couple of Bluegrass albums off Amazon in MP3 form (that were much more expensive in physical form), which are fully downloaded and now "owned" by me. I can burn them to disc as an Audio CD if I wanted to then have something physical in my hand (not much point though).

If you burn a CD-R you own that, but you don't 'own' the MP3 files, you only paid for the right to listen to them.

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 23 Jan 2013, 11:01

Markgway wrote:you don't 'own' the MP3 files, you only paid for the right to listen to them.

That's only if it has DRM, and a lot don't.

Shingster · Post by **Shingster** » 23 Jan 2013, 19:04

It's no different to buying a Blu-ray/DVD/VHS/CD Mark, you still don't "own" the film on it!

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 23 Jan 2013, 19:22

Shingster wrote:It's no different to buying a Blu-ray/DVD/VHS/CD Mark, you still don't "own" the film on it!

I know, but at least you own the plastic it comes on.

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 23 Jan 2013, 19:27

Markgway wrote:I know, but at least you own the plastic it comes on.

You own the hard disc you store digital downloads on.

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 23 Jan 2013, 20:22

gasteropod wrote:You own the hard disc you store digital downloads on.

Touche.

chenlung · Post by **chenlung** » 19 Jul 2014, 02:27

I don't mind digital rentals, but I don't think I would buy one.

Here's my opinion on the issue (hopefully I haven't mistaken, or missed anything):

Digital

Pros

Re-claimable from account (e.g. if lost)
Updates for improvements
Instant

Cons
(Some points perhaps limited to major retailers such as iTunes, rather than altogether.)

Proprietary set-up
May not be re-claimable if agreements (e.g. copyright) expire, or the retailer goes out-of-business
No support for retaining the temporal properties of interlaced content
No alternate versions support (i.e. stories/seamless branching)
No multi-angle support
Non-transferrable ownership

Hard copy

Pros

Transferable ownership
Physical copy

Cons

Subject to physical deterioration
Non-updatable specification
Potentially limited physical capacity
Requires physical storage
Environmentally unfriendly

luckystars · Post by **luckystars** » 19 Jul 2014, 11:40

Woooo!! Welcome back ChenLung!!

Good points thanks

saltysam · Post by **saltysam** » 18 Jan 2015, 22:03

I'll never give up buying physical media but i've got to admit since i picked up one of those Android tv boxes i watch a lot of movies on there rather than blind buy.it's a good way of "trying before you buy". i was going to take a punt on The Guest last week for example,i didn't,now i've seen it i know it's not a keeper for me.

saltysam · Post by **saltysam** » 10 Feb 2015, 12:26

massively downsizing my collection now.can no longer see the point of having stuff i could go over a decade without watching sitting on the shelf. And if i did get the urge to see something it's so easy to find it from other "sources" within minutes. Going to be strict now and only keep/buy stuff i know i'll keep and rewatch at a reasonable interval.

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 10 Feb 2015, 17:46

saltysam wrote:massively downsizing my collection now.can no longer see the point of having stuff i could go over a decade without watching sitting on the shelf. And if i did get the urge to see something it's so easy to find it from other "sources" within minutes. Going to be strict now and only keep/buy stuff i know i'll keep and rewatch at a reasonable interval.

Wow. I hope it wasn't something I said...

Are you putting your titles up for sale here or on e-bay?

saltysam · Post by **saltysam** » 10 Feb 2015, 17:57

i've been ebaying them and using AVForums classifieds. so far there's been nothing that'd interest people here tbh,mainly hollywood fodder like the Child's Play series, Uni Soldier series etc...As i said i'm using the funds to buy stuff i know i'll rewatch....so far it's paid for the 36th Chamber Trilogy and the last couple of german Shaw Mediabooks i needed . Some movies i watched the other week i hadn't seen since the 70's

pointless leaving stuff on shelves declining in value imo.

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 10 Feb 2015, 23:23

Got a link to your AV Forums post?

I have the original Child's Play. Lost interest in the sequels after Part 3 when they turned honest horrors into post-Scream pisstakes (the last one was the worst yet, despite a return to a more serious take).

saltysam · Post by **saltysam** » 17 Jun 2017, 21:29

Bumping an old thread how do peeps think physical media is heading in 2017? It's great to see so many boutique labels here and in the USA releasing stuff but i do think the general decline is well under way. The bottom has completely fell out of the resale market (listed the Shout! Premiere BL collection at £17,and due to no sale had to gradually reduce it till i got a tenner for it ) and the flood of £1 blu-rays is a sign to me (yes a lot of crap there but there's also been a few far stronger titles as well). Hopefully it'll be around for a long time to come but i can see it becoming very much a niche market in the coming years.

Shingster · Post by **Shingster** » 20 Jun 2017, 03:56

It looks healthy to me, more and more classics come out every month and there doesn't seem to be any slowing down of that, obviously new releases all hit BD as well so I'm not really seeing how the format will be dead any time soon. Obviously as time goes on codecs are gonna get better and better and maybe then we'll see a saturation point where people are leaving disc formats behind, but I think that's a good few years away.

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