My streaming fatigue got so bad I started collecting DVDs(theverge.com)
theverge.com
My streaming fatigue got so bad I started collecting DVDs
https://www.theverge.com/24044151/streaming-subscription-prices-dvd-collection
39 comments
All businesses wanting recurring revenue now is a shame, subscription fatigue is definitely setting in and slowly draining my wallet.
With my “adult” schedule, I find now that I often don’t even watch more than 2 or 3 movies in the month, for which I could easily just purchase a “forever” physical copy second hand.
My concern is now for the video games industry where if we go all digital, we will be locked into these services with no option to only buy that one game you player for a one off fee.
With my “adult” schedule, I find now that I often don’t even watch more than 2 or 3 movies in the month, for which I could easily just purchase a “forever” physical copy second hand.
My concern is now for the video games industry where if we go all digital, we will be locked into these services with no option to only buy that one game you player for a one off fee.
I recently started using radarr and sonarr.
I can just get any quality of any movie or show. It might take hours or days for obscure stuff to pop up, but mainstream media is usually downloaded in ten minutes. Then it lives in my jellyfin server where my husband and I can watch at any time anywhere.
It's been really nice. I was dismayed at first that there's no function to browse, only search for specific titles. But after a few weeks I think this is the right decision. I have to specifically seek out what I want, which has greatly reduced the amount of utter trash being consumed.
It's really nice. It's an actually pleasant experience when it works well. Netflix is more consistent than my multilayered stack of server containers, but Netflix is pure agony to use no matter how stable it is.
Piracy is now an order of magnitude easier than paying for something. Even if you do pay for something anymore, it's usually a license that can be revoked at any time with no notice or refund. Why would I even waste my time with that?
I can just get any quality of any movie or show. It might take hours or days for obscure stuff to pop up, but mainstream media is usually downloaded in ten minutes. Then it lives in my jellyfin server where my husband and I can watch at any time anywhere.
It's been really nice. I was dismayed at first that there's no function to browse, only search for specific titles. But after a few weeks I think this is the right decision. I have to specifically seek out what I want, which has greatly reduced the amount of utter trash being consumed.
It's really nice. It's an actually pleasant experience when it works well. Netflix is more consistent than my multilayered stack of server containers, but Netflix is pure agony to use no matter how stable it is.
Piracy is now an order of magnitude easier than paying for something. Even if you do pay for something anymore, it's usually a license that can be revoked at any time with no notice or refund. Why would I even waste my time with that?
I had a ton back in the day. Then I ripped everything. All neatly sorted on my NAS and can be watched via Infuse on the AppleTV. Last year on a whim I purchased an unlocked Sony UHD player to watch something that I could only find on DVD and was region locked to not my area. I also picked up a few UHD titles from https://www.criterion.com/
Since then the number of UHD disc has grown and I have slowly removed things from the NAS in favor of the glorious UHD versions. Have the shelf of disc has made family movie night more fun.
As an aside I did a little experiment. Same movie streamed (at max quality), the UHD disc on the Sony(UBP-X800M2) and same UHD on the PS5. Everyone could without fail pick out which was which.
Since then the number of UHD disc has grown and I have slowly removed things from the NAS in favor of the glorious UHD versions. Have the shelf of disc has made family movie night more fun.
As an aside I did a little experiment. Same movie streamed (at max quality), the UHD disc on the Sony(UBP-X800M2) and same UHD on the PS5. Everyone could without fail pick out which was which.
Blu-rays are much better quality than streaming in the majority of cases, and 4k blu-rays are ALWAYS better quality than any streaming, hands down. If you have a home theater setup, or even an nice TV, it is very very worth it to get the blu-ray for movies you like. It seriously makes a huge difference, not only for picture quality but for sound.
The bitrate of a 4k UHD stream on Netflix is optimistically 20 Mbps max. A standard blu-ray does about 40 Mbps. A 4k UHD blu-ray is often 100+ Mbps. And you can tell.
Streaming is for watching throwaway content on a laptop or phone. Blu-rays are for watching films with a theater-like experience.
The bitrate of a 4k UHD stream on Netflix is optimistically 20 Mbps max. A standard blu-ray does about 40 Mbps. A 4k UHD blu-ray is often 100+ Mbps. And you can tell.
Streaming is for watching throwaway content on a laptop or phone. Blu-rays are for watching films with a theater-like experience.
Same here! I canceled HBO/Max, Hulu, and Disney and now I just buy discs by the armload at the local used books and records stores. The prices range from 99¢ to $10. The trigger was I wanted to watch The Abyss, the longer edition, and it's just not available anywhere. The DVD version looks great and sounds amazing compared to the tragically bad downmixes I get from streaming. After a few months of doing this now I have dozens of great movies on disc.
Pretty cool. I'm hunting for alternatives to Netflix DVD. I've been checking out Café DVD as a possibility but haven't actually tried it - it might not have as large a catalog.
Another thing I've been meaning to try, but haven't yet, is hooking up VLC to https://github.com/k4yt3x/video2x/wiki or similar, since, yeah, while DVD quality is pretty decent, for certain genres sometimes I do want a bit more luscious detail.
DVD is pretty bad for animated films. My Blu-Ray money has been going to those. For regular photography, a well-mastered DVD looks fine, in my opinion.
I'm in that same boat. Disk is cheap, servers are cheap, DVDs are cheap, and Jellyfin is free. Yes, DVDs are lower-res, but IMO end up looking better than streaming much of the time. I'm not enough of a connoisseur/too old to care if it's a little fuzzy.
Second-hand stores are great sources for CDs and DVDs. A friend of mine buys tons of them at flea markets, as well.
Second-hand stores are great sources for CDs and DVDs. A friend of mine buys tons of them at flea markets, as well.
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$5 per disc
I think you could happily watch a different movie every night for a year on Netflix if you were happy with 'bargain bin' quality films. $5/night would be an expensive way of doing the same thing.
And that's before you start on TV series...
I think you could happily watch a different movie every night for a year on Netflix if you were happy with 'bargain bin' quality films. $5/night would be an expensive way of doing the same thing.
And that's before you start on TV series...
I just did a quick search on Walmart.com for DVDs <= $6 and found plenty of mediocrity but also:
- Shawshank Redemption - Despicable Me 1 & 2 (for $5 total) - Scream 1-3 (again $5 total) - Beverly Hills Cop 1-3 (same) - Tombstone - Unforgiven - ET - A Star is Born (2018) - Sleepless in Seattle - The Thing (1982) - Seabiscuit - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - Titanic
I would say any of these movies is better than 95% of the movies available for streaming on Netflix (conservatively).
- Shawshank Redemption - Despicable Me 1 & 2 (for $5 total) - Scream 1-3 (again $5 total) - Beverly Hills Cop 1-3 (same) - Tombstone - Unforgiven - ET - A Star is Born (2018) - Sleepless in Seattle - The Thing (1982) - Seabiscuit - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - Titanic
I would say any of these movies is better than 95% of the movies available for streaming on Netflix (conservatively).
I am on the side of the author for this one. Especially when it comes to series that are complete, you can often find them for extremely discounted prices. For example Amazon is selling the complete "The Office" DVD set for about $30, and I'm sure you could find it for cheaper at something like a thrift store. That's about the same as 2.5 months of Peacock "Premium Plus" at $11.99.
I know different people consume media at different speeds, but it would take us much longer than 2.5 months to watch all that content. Therefore we could pay for 3 months of Peacock or pay Amazon for the box set. In our case, the math checks out in favor of buying the physical media.
Obviously the math changes depending on the user. Monthly subscriptions will always win out for people who are able to devote a significant amount of time to using the product (e.g. a movie every night).
I know different people consume media at different speeds, but it would take us much longer than 2.5 months to watch all that content. Therefore we could pay for 3 months of Peacock or pay Amazon for the box set. In our case, the math checks out in favor of buying the physical media.
Obviously the math changes depending on the user. Monthly subscriptions will always win out for people who are able to devote a significant amount of time to using the product (e.g. a movie every night).
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That is why I buy the blu-rays
Haha such a first world problem
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I'm quite annoyed that netflix let their DVD service just rot. For quite awhile I was using it as a nice value add to the couple of streaming services I had, to watch new movies or catch a single show from some service I wasn't interested in subscribing too. But then they stopped even replacing broken discs so there were holes in series so it lost a lot its usefulness.
This. And in many cases, it was not just a supplement to their streaming catalogue. A family friend lives in Alaska and has a very low data cap and relied on Netflix's DVD service, and obviously can't be use Netflix anymore. I get cases like this are a very very low percentage of their userbase, but still unfortunate for so many to lose access to an easy media solution that never cost Netflix much to begin with
Agreed. I stuck with it until the bitter end since the catalog was far larger, and curiously, at least here in the USA, streaming in french (or spanish) is not available in many cases, while the DVDs usually had the french I suppose to cover Québec.
Another annoyance is once they killed off the service I was unable to get my DVD queue out to import into https://www.cafedvd.com/ despite going through their EU data request mechanism. They had the rest of the info on my account but they'd either deleted that data (unlikely for a large company to throw out a source of user preference info) or made it inaccessible to the team fulfilling the request. After repeated requests I gave up.
Another annoyance is once they killed off the service I was unable to get my DVD queue out to import into https://www.cafedvd.com/ despite going through their EU data request mechanism. They had the rest of the info on my account but they'd either deleted that data (unlikely for a large company to throw out a source of user preference info) or made it inaccessible to the team fulfilling the request. After repeated requests I gave up.
How does Redbox compare? I always see their kiosks, but I never think to look. I'm also surprised and amused to learn it's owned by Chicken Soup for the Soul. Yes, that Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Most I've used have a very small selection, maybe 30 total options, but a lot of those can be out of stock. If you have any sort of criteria (like I'm often looking for movies we could watch with our kids) there might only be one or two choices.
I'd compare it to showing up at a cinema and just hoping to find a show that looked interesting and happened to be starting soon.
I'd compare it to showing up at a cinema and just hoping to find a show that looked interesting and happened to be starting soon.
Yeah. I use them now and then for a current movie. But between the limited selection and the fact that I'll probably have to hop in the car for a dedicated trip the next day to return the movie, I use them pretty rarely.
The biggest weakness with redbox is that is just doesn't have much of a catalog as I understand it. I've never really used them.
My local library is the next best thing to netflix DVDs, but it isn't the same at all.
My local library is the next best thing to netflix DVDs, but it isn't the same at all.
> The variety in Walmart’s DVD bin is seemingly endless: and for a price of about $5 per disc that you can hang onto forever, you can’t really go wrong.
Am I the only one who thinks that this premise is flawed? DVDs, like any physical storage medium, have a limited lease on life. If I was serious enough about movies to go into a store and pick them by hand, the first thing in would do is to create a digital backup. And when you already have a social copy, why not just watch that one instead?
Am I the only one who thinks that this premise is flawed? DVDs, like any physical storage medium, have a limited lease on life. If I was serious enough about movies to go into a store and pick them by hand, the first thing in would do is to create a digital backup. And when you already have a social copy, why not just watch that one instead?
What's going to live longer - a piece of plastic stored properly, or you? I have vinyl records from owners who are now deceased, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Unless you have an illness, it's most likely you.
I'm not worries about the plastic part of a DVD at all but the metallic layer will last you 10-20 years if stored away from any UV
I'm not worries about the plastic part of a DVD at all but the metallic layer will last you 10-20 years if stored away from any UV
Even LaserDiscs, which are probably the format most prone to "laser rot" are mostly fine.
Laser rot is kind of a non-issue: it's generally down to manufacturing defects.
Laser rot is kind of a non-issue: it's generally down to manufacturing defects.
How does the metallic layer degrade? I was under the impression that disc rot was solved rather long ago.
People forgot about scratched dvds, it’s been too long ;)
DVDs and Blu-Rays can be easily backed up.
I can vouch for MakeMKV and Plex as a good solution. Now I have a streaming service that's only full of my media, and my interests.
Well. With DVDs you CAN rip them and store the backups. Not sure though about blueray disks.
You can with blueray too, but the legality is dubious.
I'm doing the same with music. But streaming of music is not so bad. I just think I want to have access to my favourite music for the whole my life
Same here, I'm buying my favorite albums in Bandcamp and uploading them to my jellyfin, from there I give access to my music interested friends, so we always know what bands to listen or talk about when we meet for lunch/beers
The thing I find most annoying is that no single streaming platform has all the things I want to watch (which admittedly is not a lot, mostly old films that are considered "classics").
So streaming is exactly the same as cable and satellite packages of old.
At least with DVDs, you can buy the ones you want, and keep them on the same shelf.
So streaming is exactly the same as cable and satellite packages of old.
At least with DVDs, you can buy the ones you want, and keep them on the same shelf.
If I have a dozen music CDs and that's all the music I get to listen to, I am going to start hearing the music on a deeper level, picking out the individual instruments and following them through the song, taking notice of the quality of the vocal swing in a singer's voice, relating the narratives presented in the music to my own life in different ways, etc...
The paradox of choice is not just a problem in the artistic media we are exposed to, but also our information diet in general.
How many people seem to know a little bit about everything currently happening in the world? How many of those people have deep knowledge of any of those things?