Is physical (film) media on the way out?
- Thread starter Messiah
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- Jan 13, 2008
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Yeah, I thought about posting the full link so peeps could see what they were clicking on 😊:
www.whathifi.com
www.dailymail.co.uk
4K Blu-ray is on the verge of dying out and no one seems to care
Why doesn't anyone make 4K Blu-ray players anymore?
Disney to stop selling DVDs and Blu-ray discs in Australia
Disney has made a huge change in Australia as it announced it will stop selling DVDs and Blu-ray discs Down Under in August.
Al ears
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- Nov 23, 2008
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In that case I am a strong believer that, like SACD discs, bluray if very far from done.Yeah, I thought about posting the full link so peeps could see what they were clicking on 😊:
4K Blu-ray is on the verge of dying out and no one seems to care
Why doesn't anyone make 4K Blu-ray players anymore?
Disney to stop selling DVDs and Blu-ray discs in Australia
Disney has made a huge change in Australia as it announced it will stop selling DVDs and Blu-ray discs Down Under in August.
Many believe the quality you're getting from said physical media is far better than they can currently get from downloading or streaming and still are not ready to junk their players.
My Oppo will stay in my system until it physically dies.....
The whole point of AV systems is you can decide which format you playback from.
I don't believe streaming gives you options of this nature.
- Jan 13, 2008
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I'm with you on this and I'm sure many enthusiasts are.
But, are the studios? Do they care enough for hobbyist's like us?
I hope so. 😊
davidf
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- May 9, 2017
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Manufacturers have been their own worst any for some time now. Just as DVD discs should’ve been discontinued around 2010, so should DVD players. Bluray players play DVDs, so why not just discontinue DVD players and sell Bluray players as universal players, which they are? If you continue offering DVDs and DVD only players, people will still buy them.
Same with UHD. You can now get a UHD player for around £100, so Bluray only players should’ve been discontinued. With discs, we used to get Blurays with the DVD included - so why offer the DVD only? Especially as prices weren’t much different? As I say, DVD discs should be discontinued, and if you remove the inflated price of UHD discs, a UHD/Bluray combo should be the only option available, so if someone who has a Bluray player buys a film, they may be tempted to buy a UHD player, given they own both the Bluray and UHD copy. Just as pre-UHD, Blu-ray Discs with the DVD should’ve been the only option available, so people would have been buying the DVD, but they also would’ve had the Blu-ray Disc as well, an incentive to upgrade their player. The used DVD market is plentiful.
This would also have helped sales figures of HD formats, which DVD still dominates.
Same with UHD. You can now get a UHD player for around £100, so Bluray only players should’ve been discontinued. With discs, we used to get Blurays with the DVD included - so why offer the DVD only? Especially as prices weren’t much different? As I say, DVD discs should be discontinued, and if you remove the inflated price of UHD discs, a UHD/Bluray combo should be the only option available, so if someone who has a Bluray player buys a film, they may be tempted to buy a UHD player, given they own both the Bluray and UHD copy. Just as pre-UHD, Blu-ray Discs with the DVD should’ve been the only option available, so people would have been buying the DVD, but they also would’ve had the Blu-ray Disc as well, an incentive to upgrade their player. The used DVD market is plentiful.
This would also have helped sales figures of HD formats, which DVD still dominates.
Al ears
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I think I understand what you are saying but if someone only has a DVD collection then the fact manufacturers are still producing cheap DVD players must surely be of value to them. However cheap they are not going to be able to produce a decent Universal Disc player, and most of them are not that Universal, that will better a cheap DVD only device.
If you need a Universal Disc player then you buy one, if you only have DVDs as media then economics say you don't....
davidf
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I think you miss my point. I only mention “universal” to mean a player that wasn’t just a single format, not in the sense that people like us think of universal players. The individual with a DVD collection will already have a DVD player, but things move on. If ever they find themselves needing to buy another player, if the only option is to buy a Bluray/DVD player, that’s what they’ll buy. If the physical media they were buying consisted of a DVD and a Bluray disc, then the new DVD/Bluray player they just purchased has also upgraded those films in their collection, as they can now play the Bluray disc of the films they’ve purchased.
A quick Google and I see DVD only players can be had for £35, but for £49 you can have a DVD Bluray player. There’s no need for both to exist. New formats won’t be fully accepted and supercede an old format until they’re discontinued. If manufacturers were still producing VHS recorders and Laserdisc players, along with tales and discs, people would still be buying them. They have to be made obsolete for them to become dead and buried. We didn’t see the end of CRT TV’s until manufacturers ceased making them. And DVD naturally belongs to the CRT era due to its resolution (and early pre-HD flatscreens).
DVD is still the biggest selling physical format, and will be while they are making them. And it is the failure of HD discs to far outsell non HD discs that is going to fuel the death of physical media. It’s like the industry is manufacturing the demise of the disc in favour of streaming. In fact, more is done to move people onto streaming services than has ever been done to move people onto better quality physical media.
The writing is on the wall
www.whathifi.com
Disney discontinues DVD and Blu-ray production in Australia effective immediately
Its last release will be Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3
davidf
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One studio, one country.The writing is on the wall
Disney discontinues DVD and Blu-ray production in Australia effective immediately
Its last release will be Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3
Even if big studios followed, there’s plenty of boutique studios out there getting licences to remaster and release Popular (and niche) titles - 88 Films, Vinegar Syndrome, Criterion, Second Sight, Indicator, Arrow, Shout etc etc. Criterion have released Wall.E in 4K on their own label, so more may follow. Not that the Disney/Pixar ones they’ve released are proper 4K…
Dave_
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- Jul 31, 2008
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Maybe in 'Merica where you have little competition and your ISPs regularly top the polls of most hated companies in the country...
I mean't the video content. I didn't word that properly. As someone else mentioned. The 4k content gets scaled down for streaming. My isp doesn't throttle anything but that may go on over here, lol. I actually work for an isp and we are very hated around these parts, but the competition is here now. For basically forever we did have a monopoly in our territories but due to widespread government grants and general "need" for high speed internet the competition has arrived... even in the most remote and desolate areas of "Merica"
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