While the physical media business has been in freefall over the last decade, THR is reporting that DVDs and Blu-rays might be making a comeback similar to those experienced by CDs and Vinyl Records. According to the report, while Best Buy and Netflix have both exited the physical media sphere, Amazon and other online giants aren’t planning on giving up on the technology. Many see the resurgence of physical media for music as an early precursor of better times ahead for DVD/Blu-ray.
While unlikely to ever again reach its 2012 peak of $1.1 billion in revenue (in 2022, the figure was a mere $146 million), many see physical media as having a comeback as a more niche media. It helps that with constant content purges, serious fans will want backup copies of their movies because who knows what could get pulled next? There’s a slew of films made for HBO Max and Disney Plus that are essentially lost media now, as well as the mega-budget streaming series Willow. If these shows got physical releases, they would exist in some fashion, with the current unavailability driving fans to pirate sites.
One thing that the music business has done to promote Vinyl and CDs is releasing exclusive tracks that aren’t available to stream, making them collector’s items. We got terrific extras like exclusive commentary tracks in the old days of DVDs and Blu-rays. While fans have cooled on those a bit (and you can also get them digitally), one surefire way to get people to buy Blu-rays is to release alternate cuts of the movie that are ONLY available on disc. In the 2000s, unrated versions of raunchy comedies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Wedding Crashers sold like hotcakes. With so many watered-down movies coming out, why not shoot some spicy footage and ONLY bundle them with the physical copies rather than making them available on sites like iTunes? One thing to note is that when you buy a digital movie copy, you never really own it. I’ve had a few films vanish from my digital library over the years, which never happens with my DVDs or Blu-rays (unless I lend them to the wrong person). Perhaps it’s time we all start buying Blu-rays again, with smaller labels like The Criterion Collection, Arrow, and Shout Factory deserving our support more than ever.
puts away my pirate hat
Yup, that’s how I’ve been consuming my media. VHS, DVD, hell yeah. Totally.
Ironically, piracy got me to buy DVDs. Only for very few movies I really like though. It’s just cool to have something physical, professionally made, and dedicated to the movie, as opposed to something generic like HDD, SSD, flash drive, etc.
Of course, for convenience I ripped them into ISO files. That way I still get everything as-is. Menus, extras, subtitles, languages,…
I feel like an old man sometimes for this one but if I really like a show or movie, I buy it on bluray. I never liked the fact that with streaming/digital ownership tied to a service that someone could just arbitrarily decide to take away content you “own”. Screw that.
Plus it’s nice feeling like I have a growing collection of my favorite stuff.
I’m ripping Blu-Rays as I’m typing this.
It’s also a matter of convenience. Some franchises with multiple seasons, movies, and spin-offs are have pieces strewn across multiple platforms, which makes it a real pain to try to watch things in the order they were meant to be watched.
I don’t see a massive resurgence, but I think there’s enough people fond of physical media that DVD’s and/or Blu-Rays will stick around similar to vinyl as a sort of niche subculture.
You can also look at quality. HBO just decided to take away 4k streaming from my subscription and limit it to 1080p unless I pay extra. Good thing I’ve already started buying Blu-Rays of my favorite things on that platform.
I started an all Blu-Ray collection in 2018 and now I’m up to something like 150. It’s so much better when someone comes over to just have them pick from the collection rather than checking multiple streaming services to try and find something good. Plus, just so many movies that either got dropped from streaming or just never will that I would have missed out on otherwise.
I’d assume it’s for the die hard collectors but if you search online, you can find people that have pirated a steaming show and burned it to Blu-ray with a lovely printed case.
There were many people online selling copies of Prey over the last year or two. People just would like a physical copy and with studios deleting content, I’m not surprised. Disney+ removed that kids space film that was only online for about 1½ months!
Only for the most important things to me. I have Star Trek TNG, and some movies, but that’s it.
there’s something eminently cozy and … infinite about DVDs? like perfect sort of 00s we-still-have-some-hope-for-tech-and-the-future vibes. VHSs can get tangled or fade, but discs can be ripped and reripped forever
Not all of them. I’ve had DVDs fail and upon inspection, they look flawless but they just refused to work. But I get where your coming from.
