Best Buy Will Reportedly Stop Selling DVDs and Blu-Ray Starting Next Year

According to The Digital Bits, Best Buy will exit the physical media business as soon as the end of the first quarter of 2024. From a report: Best Buy has been phasing out DVDs from its stores, but The Digital Bits reports that Best Buy would even stop offering it on its site as well, signaling a complete break from physical media. The report noted that some studios have shifted their inventory of Blu-Ray and 4K Steelbook titles toward Amazon.

The move is another hint at the possible end of physical media as consumers gravitate towards streaming services and their extensive libraries, or digital downloads. This comes as one of the largest distributors of DVDs and Blu-Rays, Ingram Entertainment, said it was exiting the business just as Walmart is looking to take over management of Studio Distribution Services (SDS), which handles the distribution of physical media. Disney ceased selling physical media in Australia.

This just in

[Opportunist]

Shops don't stock what people don't buy.

Re:This just in

[quintessencesluglord]

Not exactly.

Physical media may not command the revenue it once had (best numbers I see still put it in the billions), but I have yet to figure out how every streaming site seems to be losing money while many movies don't get released on physical media even though it costs pennies to produce. I guess even making a small amount is not enough when you have dreams of being The One Streaming Site to Rule Them All.

Just seems a case of do what everyone else is doing, and existing physical media becomes collectors items.

Re: This just in

[gl4ss]

Yes physical media costs so little that this is more like a stance than just keeping a bunch in a tub at the store.

Fwiw shops in thailand still sell physical media. It doesn't cost much anything. Up to a couple of years before there were still some vcd's even. Now theres a lot of of usb stick music collections, just stick into your car or speaker and there you go a bunch of music. And not just pirate too but official releases and sold at 7/11 etc.

Re:This just in

[excelsior_gr]

In my opinion, the studios are being absurdly stupid about this. Everyone is launching their own streaming service carrying their own IP, which led us to cable 2.0, while having to pay for the complete infrastructure. They had the chance of coming together to make a single streaming service, or they could buy Netflix or whatever, they could share the costs and put their IP on one platform. That would really be The One Streaming Site to Rule them All, but they got too greedy and stupid to realize the potential. I will not pay for 5 streaming services, screw that.

Re:This just in

[transwarp]

They've spent a century wishing to get back to the now-mythical time when they had complete control: their own movie theaters, exclusive actor contracts, no alternative ways to experience their product without going through their ticket counters. It just turns out that doesn't map to the modern world, and they've been salivating over a rotten steak.

They're all scrambling to make content

[rsilvergun]

that's exclusive to the streaming service, and that's crazy expensive. None of them have had a big hit (like a Game of Thrones or Sopranos) either. Just a few minor ones.

Basically they're all in heavy competition, coupled with Netflix desperately trying to make it's own content before they're cut off from the studio and network's contents. So they're blowing a ton of money right now. It's the build up for a new market, like a tiny .com boom.

Re:

[UnknownSoldier]

> None of them have had a big hit (like a Game of Thrones or Sopranos) either. Just a few minor ones.

Does The Expanse or Lost (*) count?

But yeah, there is nothing that I "need" to watch on all the streaming services aside The Orville but like you said, sadly, only a minor hit.

The cable companies all could have bought shares in Netflix and had one platform for customers but NOPE! They HAD to be greedy. So now customers churn in streaming services is standard and the streaming services get hardly anything.

Re:

[Darinbob]

Personally, I've never purchased a DVD for myself, only as gifts. And apparently I've completely bypassed the Blu-Ray revolution. I don't see the point really, except for one corner case where you have kids that insist on watching Lion King every day. Spending double the price of a theater ticket to get a DVD can help, according to friends with kids. I have some DVDs that were presents, but many I just have not bothered to watch.

Streaming a movie is ok, but even then I'd rather watch it on Netflix or su

Re:

[q_e_t]

Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't stock things people want if the profit margin isn't there. Sometimes shops are bad at stock control. I once bought an item from a shop that had been there, unsold, for six years. I suppose, in a sense, they were stocking something someone would buy. It was exactly what I was looking for and it being discounted to sell it was a bonus. But shops aren't necessarily omniscient.

Re:

[WaffleMonster]

Shops don't stock what people don't buy.

Shops stock things few buy, they stock things with lousy margins, they even stock things knowing they will lose money.

This is actually not good

[stikves]

I do use streaming, but I don't trust them for long term preservation.

For a one off movie that I won't touch again? Sure, I can pay that monthly fee. For Lord of the Rings that I want to access on demand? Thank you, but I will keep my Ultra HD BluRay discs. They have the added benefit of much better bitrates and fidelity, and I have my own drive that would rip them with MakeMKV for an even longer term backup (and Plex remoting).

Would I be really sad if physical media completely goes away?
Of course. Just a few years ago, when "negotiating" several TV shows I was watching were either completely or partially removed from services. ("Yes, you can still watch Stargate, but SG-1 seasons 1-3, and 7 are on Amazon, and 4-6 are on Netflix, season 5, 8-10 are currently not available". Making up the numbers as I don't exactly remember which one was where).

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Stargate, but SG-1 seasons 1-3, and 7 are on Amazon, and 4-6 are on Netflix, season 5, 8-10 are currently not available". Making up the numbers as I don't exactly remember which one was where).

This stupid junk right here is why I don't support streaming services. It's not uncommon for shows to be sold piecemeal to different networks so that you're forced to subscribe to multiple services if you want to watch something from end-to-end.

Re:

[Calydor]

Same. I feel I'm too old to jump through hoops like this just to be allowed to sit down and watch something I like. There's a one-stop shop for these things, and as long as you don't get seasick it's better than the alternatives.

Re:This is actually not good

[AmiMoJo]

For popular movies like LOTR, piracy will always provide a copy. It's only more rare stuff that is worth preserving yourself. And fortunately streaming copies can be ripped so there is no danger of the supply being cut off. If it can be played back at all, it can be copied.

It's also worth checking if there is a better fan made version available. You use Stargate SG-1 as an example. The fan AI upscale is far better than the official Bluray, which is just conventionally upscaled. The AI version has had the AI applied fairly lightly so you get very few artefacts, but a lot of nice detail on things like faces and clothing that elevates it above the original DVD. It was shot on film but they don't seem interested in re-scanning it.

Re:This is actually not good

[Viol8]

"For popular movies like LOTR, piracy will always provide a copy. It's only more rare stuff that is worth preserving yourself. And fortunately streaming copies can be ripped so there is no danger of the supply being cut off. If it can be played back at all, it can be copied."

Personally I value my time more highly than the £30 it would cost for a DVD or BR or LOTR. Ripping stuff is all good stick it to the man fun in your 20s but when you get older and have more disposable cash there are better ways to spend ones time and get something higher quality too.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Funnily enough I value my time too, which is I why I usually don't bother ripping discs myself. I just download a copy someone else already ripped and checked. For music I usually run it through Picard to straighten the tags out. Pirated editions come with all the artwork already scanned for you too.

I've got a box of CDs and DVDs that I've never played, because it's quicker and less effort to pirate than to rip.

Re:

[Viol8]

" I just download a copy someone else already ripped and checked."

If you consider that a worthwhile way to spend ones time then fine, I personally don't.

"For music I usually run it through Picard to straighten the tags out"

No idea wtf you're talking about. I listen to music on youtube and if I like it enough I'll buy the CD and play that instead.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

The fastest way to get a CD or DVD in digital format is to go to The Pirate Bay and download a copy someone else made. Takes almost no effort.

I do have optical drives, but no CD or DVD player. I use Kodi for all my media needs (or Foobar2000 if listening on the computer), so my discs never get used after being ripped once. It's much more convenient, no need to go dig them out and maintain yet another box to play them on.

Re:This is actually not good

[Viol8]

"The fastest way to get a CD or DVD in digital format is to go to The Pirate Bay and download a copy someone else made. Takes almost no effort."

These days I'm happy to pay money so musicians can get rewarded for their efforts. Even on youtube they get some ad revenue, albeit notalot.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Oh I buy the disc as well, I just don't waste my own time ripping it.

Re:

[pandaman9000]

There is nothing wrong with that method compared to physical media, with caveat(s) applied for folks like myself.

1. It can be a bit difficult to track to a lossless copy of most music
2. It can be very difficult to get 4k in high quality - we're talking about 15-50 GB of data or more

The reason I bring these up is that it takes some hunting (fishing, if you'd rather) to get better than "tolerable" quality in this fashion.

So getting a solid level of quality can take some effort. Then there is the bit of poten

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Funnily enough I value my time too, which is I why I usually don't bother ripping discs myself. I just download a copy someone else already ripped and checked. For music I usually run it through Picard to straighten the tags out. Pirated editions come with all the artwork already scanned for you too.

I've got a box of CDs and DVDs that I've never played, because it's quicker and less effort to pirate than to rip.

That sounds totally safe with no risk of malware...

Re:

[Viol8]

You think AV players don't have security holes that could be exploited by certain audio or video streams?

Aww bless....

Re:

[skam240]

What world do you live in where pirating a movie is time intensive? On the contrary, I can pirate a movie in less time than it takes me to get that stupid plastic wrap off a new Blu-ray.

Not pirating media certainly has its virtues but saving time is most definitely not one of them.

Re:

[Viol8]

Really? Hows does that work then?

"Alexa, pirate LOTR for me!"

Re:

[skam240]

Really? Hows does that work then?

You go to a torrent search engine website (piratebay, 1337, etc), you type the name of the movie you want, a list of results comes up, you choose from said list, your download starts, done. In terms of search results a good torrent search engine will find you almost anything that's been released to streaming or disc although smaller, less popular or older productions might only be found in 720p.

It takes just as long to order a blu-ray off Amazon as it does to torrent something but instead of a delivery time

Re:

[EvilSS]

You go to a torrent search engine website (piratebay, 1337, etc),

What year is it for you? For us in the 2020's we spend 15 minutes installing Radarr and Sonarr once and then just tell it what movie or TV show we want and it goes and finds it, unpacks it, renames it, pulls metadata, puts it in the right folder on a media server, and notifies Plex or whatever we are using to index it.

Re:

[skam240]

Eh, never felt the need to explore anything more complex. What you describe there certainly doesnt seem any simpler than what I do.

I also dont run a plex server as I rarely have any need to watch my media outside my home so there's not much point in taking the effort to set one up.

Re:

[EvilSS]

Once it's setup (again, easy to do) it is much simpler. No weeding through search results to find what you are looking for in the format you want it in or going out each week looking for new TV episodes for series you watch. Just add the film or series by name and it does the rest. And if a download fails, it will automatically start looking for a new one. It's especially nice for TV as episodes just show up as they become available. As for Plex I don't use it externally. I use it to organize my media and b

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

Personally I value my time more highly than the ã30 it would cost for a DVD or BR or LOTR.

Doesn't that mean you are paying money in order to waste your valuable time on the bullshit unskippable crap and inability to play your media how you want due to the copy protection?

Re:

[WaffleMonster]

Doesn't that mean you are paying money in order to waste your valuable time on the bullshit unskippable crap and inability to play your media how you want due to the copy protection?

I suspect most of us put the disc into a drive, push a button and copy the file off to a media folder. It's been so long since we've actually played a title from disc we've forgotten that things like region locks, copy protection, previews and FBI warnings even exist.

Re:

[skam240]

There are very few movies and shows available through pirating that are of the same quality as Blu-ray though. It's pretty rare that you find resolutions above 1080 and the bit rates are usually going to be quite a bit lower as well.

Dont get me wrong, 1080 is perfectly fine for most things but if you've got that special movie that's big on visuals (like the above poster's LOTR) I think a lot of folks would miss what a Blu-ray brings to the table.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

I grab 4k copies with HDR and Atmos sound. Bitrate seems good enough to me. Some rips are not re-encoded from the Bluray, they are the raw stream, but I usually go for a file about half the size of that unless it's something really special, as it's very rare that I can tell any difference.

For music I go for FLAC, i.e. lossless. That said, I've never been able to hear the difference with 320kpbs MP3 encoded with LAME.

Re:

[JackieBrown]

Some rips are not re-encoded from the Bluray, they are the raw stream, but I usually go for a file about half the size of that unless it's something really special, as it's very rare that I can tell any difference.

I try not to get the raw streams and prefer the the smaller 1080p x265 rips. I don't want to get spoiled with the higher quality. I made the "mistake" of moving off 720p and now when I try to watch those, they look like trash. Even worse for the dvd stuff.

Re:

[skam240]

Speaking only from my own experience 4k copies of movies that arent fairly new arent so reliably found as you seem to be making them.

Do you really find 4k releases to be so plentiful via pirating?

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Maybe it's the kind of movies I watch. I don't bother with 4k upscales of stuff that was shot on film not capable of 4k, I don't think that's worthwhile. I suppose it is mostly more recent stuff, the last decade where movies were mastered in 4k. Going back much further and very little stuff is worth it - even when the film is good enough e.g. IMAX, the lenses and the manual focus and the sets/costumes/effects rarely are.

There are some exceptions where they have made an effort to fix issues with the 1080p re

Re:

[jd]

Streaming is lower resolution, poorer sound quality. Why would I rip something that's second-rate? If I'm going to spend my preciousssssss time (PRECIOUS!) then it had better be on a version that's worth it.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

It's the same 4k resolution and Dolby Atmos. Bitrate is lower but it's not really noticeable. A lot of Blu-ray stuff is encoded at a bitrate that fills the disc, not based on what is needed for the content.

Re:

[WaffleMonster]

You use Stargate SG-1 as an example. The fan AI upscale is far better than the official Bluray, which is just conventionally upscaled. The AI version has had the AI applied fairly lightly so you get very few artefacts, but a lot of nice detail on things like faces and clothing that elevates it above the original DVD. It was shot on film but they don't seem interested in re-scanning it.

Generally buying upscaled DVDs in BD form is a scam/bad idea because you will receive inferior quality at a premium price.

Upscalers are always improving. TVs have had AI upscalers baked in for years and there are a ton of GPU based upscalers available. Much better off not wasting disk space or committing yourself to yesterdays upscaler.

Re:This is actually not good

[e3m4n]

I suspect they are not talking about monthly services but rather the stores like Amazon, iTunes, and Vudu for the digital copy. I simply dont trust them with my digital library. After Amazon removed a book I paid for from my kindle library, following a tiff with the writer, for which I was not reimbursed, I dont trust my content to stay immortalized. I have ripped all my digital discs to my Plex server in my home, for the convenience of streaming when away or just simpler than pulling out the disc. There are plenty that will use the public library to check out some movie titles. Those living on SS with its paltry income is one demographic. If this death of physical media becomes pervasive these storage services will be able to delete anything you paid for even if its over a comment you made online.

Re:

[Registered Coward v2]

I do use streaming, but I don't trust them for long term preservation.

For a one off movie that I won't touch again? Sure, I can pay that monthly fee. For Lord of the Rings that I want to access on demand? Thank you, but I will keep my Ultra HD BluRay discs. They have the added benefit of much better bitrates and fidelity, and I have my own drive that would rip them with MakeMKV for an even longer term backup (and Plex remoting).

Would I be really sad if physical media completely goes away? Of course. Just a few years ago, when "negotiating" several TV shows I was watching were either completely or partially removed from services. ("Yes, you can still watch Stargate, but SG-1 seasons 1-3, and 7 are on Amazon, and 4-6 are on Netflix, season 5, 8-10 are currently not available". Making up the numbers as I don't exactly remember which one was where).

Not only that, but a studio can decide to remake a video, for whatever reason, and with streaming only the original is now gone. Physical media ensures you have, assuming it wan't modified prior to release, the version original released.

Re:

[cayenne8]

Not only that, but a studio can decide to remake a video, for whatever reason, and with streaming only the original is now gone.

We've already seen Disney doing this....

Re:

[havana9]

Another thing that happens with streaming service is that they have only available one edition that is different from the ones previously available.
Think for instance the digitally remastered CD that basically were overcompressed due the loudness wars. Another case is Neon Genesis Evangelion, Italian edition. The first edition broadcasted on TV and available on VHS was made by Yamato Video and they have the right on the dubbing. When the cartoon was acquired by Netflix they didn't acquire the dubbing right

Re: This is actually not good

[reanjr]

Vudu. So far so good. Been using it for over a decade.

They do sometimes lose the right to sell a movie, but I've never seen anything disappear from my library after purchase.

Sometimes you'll hear people say they've lost movies, but it always boils down to them not looking in their own library. They look for a previous purchase in the store and think because it's missing on the store that it's gone.

Re:

[rogoshen1]

Look at it like this, if you buy a physical copy of a great series like SG1, or firefly or whatever, you can watch it whenever you want, you could even loan it to a friend so they could watch it. How are the studios supposed to perpetually make money off of that initial purchase?

It is irritating though; on a whim or failed contract negotiation a series can be yanked forever. Or worse, someone like george lucas could decide to "revisit it". Or hell, if the subject matter runs counter to what's currently pol

Re:

[whitroth]

Whereas a few years back, I bought the *entire* 10-year run of SG-1 on DVD, a boxed set.

Go ahead, those hot on streaming. I'll be able to binge if I want 10 years from now - are you sure you could get any of it then?

More moeny for amazon then

[dlarge6510]

In the UK we still have HMV. Usually packed it is, especially around xmas time. The Vinyl, dvd and bluray/4k section is hard to move around, during covid social distancing was a laugh in there!

The CD section at the back is where you go to get a breather lol, plenty of floor space there. That's also where they have the gadgets, headphones etc.

I go there once in a while, only a few supermarkets stock the "chart DVD/bluray/CD's", some even have vinyl. Amazon, HMV and direct from suppliers is where I go for

Re:

[q_e_t]

Vinyl? Do any have wax cylinders for that authentic, warm sound?

remember folks

[ClueHammer]

You don't own anything when its on a streaming service. It can be taken from you at any time. Buy physical media if you care about it.

Re:

[Can'tNot]

There's that. I also really dislike that these services are tracking not just what I watch but how I watch it - how often, which scenes I repeat, how many times I fall asleep and just let it play. These are not things that anyone should know.

Re:remember folks

[e3m4n]

I first hand lost a ebook from the kindle store after amazon and an author had a pissing match. Another real problem was the guy who posted a YouTube comment and had his google account shut down. Imagine losing your entire digitsl library worth thousands because they didnt like something you said.

Re:remember folks

[ledow]

I don't care what media people use.

My question is: Where's your backup?

When DVD players aren't available any more, when the service goes offline, when the rights-holder removes that movie... where is YOUR backup of it?

Because that's all it ever comes down to. You being able to access the content you wanted.

For example, I use iPlayer a ton. I use it to download programmes into a standard readable MP4 format that I put elsewhere. Then when iPlayer remove a programme, I still have it.

Same for anything interesting on YouTube - yt-dlp.

I rip my DVDs, in the utter expectation that I may not be able to play them again (I don't have a DVD player, my laptop doesn't have a DVD drive on it, I bought a cheap USB one, but how long will that last and still be supported?).

It's nothing to do with the media you use (although of course, some media are far better than others)... where's your backup?

Same with software. It's great that you have a lifetime subscription to a software portal where you can download the installer. What if the company folds, what if the successors takes that site offline, what if you can't get that same version elsewhere (and does your activation code rely on a particular version, or a particular activation server still being active).

There's a point at which you make concessions, of course there is. But that's a decision you made.

But as with everything IT, my first question is: Okay, so what if that's not working?

Re:remember folks (all digital data has a problem)

[shoor]

It's just digital data, ultimately a bunch of ones and zeros, and all digital data that you want to keep, if you live long enough (like I have), you will find yourself eventually having to move from one media that is becoming obsolete to another.
I've moved data from floppies to CDs, then DVDs, now it's mostly on hard drives since they've become so huge and cheap in terms of storage capacity. My brother had old 16 mm home movies digitized, and I've digitized VHS tapes of home movies and my old LP record c

Re:

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

I don't care what media people use.

My question is: Where's your backup?

When DVD players aren't available any more, when the service goes offline, when the rights-holder removes that movie... where is YOUR backup of it?

I understand the concern, but you will die before DVD players go away. CD discs and players are still with us, approximately 40 years after CDs became hugely available to the public. VHS was a dead format and nobody wanted to make the media or the players. There are still manufacturers of blank CD, DVD and BD media and burners/readers for PCs and players for the home. That isn't going to change. DVD and BD players may get harder to find and more expensive, but they will never disappear, just like

People are still buying them

[Viol8]

But the media corps prefer streaming because you can make people pay for each time they watch something or revoke their license to watch if its an encrypted download.

I'm sure all the kool kids think this is all wonderful and who needs prehistoric spinning discs anyway in 2023. Well just wait until you no longer have any form of ownership of your film and TV collection and it can be revoked at a whim.

Re:

[havana9]

Media corps tried this and failed. Younger kool kids don't remember DIVX and self-destructing DVDs and the giant flop that these technologies were.
The big advantage of physical media is that it's standardized. I could play a CD or a DVD in any player conforming to the standard. With streaming media I have to subscribe to different services and not all of them are working correctly on all platforms, and anyway they have different user interfaces and so on.
For downloaded media the problem it's the sam

From what I can tell they don't

[rsilvergun]

They seem to have been making a lot more money off of rentals and home video sales. Streaming killed the rental market and did a number on the rental. Streaming is a lot less profitable. I will say that I wouldn't mind buying more physical media but frankly my raises don't keep up with inflation particularly the cost of rent so I end up spending very little long entertainment and about $50 worth of streaming services between my family ends up being my limit.

I have a theory...

[Voyager529]

So, I'm assuming that most of us here are Gen-X and Millennials; props to the handful of Boomers and Gen-Z in the crowd...but I'm guessing that most of us are either late-GenX or Millennial. We grew up on VHS collections. If your parents had money, you had a shelf of Disney movies in those puffy cases, if they didn't, you had a stack of Maxell blanks you labeled yourself with things you recorded off TV...and you watched those videos incessantly.

There's probably a handful of VHS movies you remember watching until you wore out the tape. This paradigm continued through the late-millennial generation and early Gen-Z generation, replacing VHS with DVD, but functionally the same experience. If you dusted off some of those VHS tapes today, you'd probably perceive them differently. Some have held up fairly well and can still entertain the adult-you (Disney Renaissance movies being go-to examples), others, probably less-so, nostalgia notwithstanding (GI-Joe, Transformers, Beast Wars)...but you got hours and hours of entertainment as a child from those VHS tapes and DVDs.

That's not the case with Gen Alpha. They grew up with Netflix and Youtube being available. Parents don't need to buy physical media for their kids, because kids today perceive video content in a much more transient manner. A show leaves Netflix? They pick another one. A Youtube star goes dark? they watch another one. their Apple+ subscription lapses? They see what's on Hulu. Disney+ getting stale? They check out Paramount+.

Yes, we did that with TV channels, but the point is that younger kids today, at least in my anecdotal experience, don't have that same sort of attachment to any one particular show or content creator in the same way that we had with our limited VHS/DVD collections. Consequently, the purchase of physical media is more a thing for the parents than the kids, so movie studios have to sell adults on the purchase of physical media.

The problem is that there have been relatively few new releases worth investing in. Some are, of course, and that varies from person to person, but with media creation seeming to move to a 'quantity' paradigm, rather than a 'quality' paradigm, the value of a physical copy goes down, and gets replaced with something like 'meh, I'll watch it on CNN+ if I want; if they take it off, no big deal". On the flip side, lots of series that would likely sell moderately well on physical media are kept as streaming exclusives. The Mandalorian and For All Mankind would likely sell fairly well on physical media, but they're kept as streaming-only to bolster those numbers instead of widening their audience to non-subscribers.

With kids content to follow the Youtube Algorithm wherever it takes them, and adults being more selective in their media purchases (box office revenue being what it is), I'd submit that the decline in physical media sales reflect an overall passivity on both the supply side and the demand side.

Re:

[dddux]

Good and truthful theory. I would only like to add that what also contributed to this behaviour is the oversaturated film+music media and other media market, as well as their quality going down, and the consequent partial abandonment of the same in favour of quick and short media like TitKok and YT videos that provide you with more than enough entertainment.

I'm gen-x and it took me a while to understand this new concept, but it's true, it's here, and it's not going away. I'm actually starting my own YT chan

Bad idea

[davidwr]

It's stupid to stop offering them online. At the very least, they can "pull an Amazon/Wal-Mart" and allow/encourage 3rd-party vendors to sell the discs through the Best Buy online store.

Also, "impulse buy" movies-on-DVD with popcorn and candy right next to the checkout counter should be profitable for years to come.

Oh well.

[NotAMarshallow]

Good by my stops to Best Buy to see what is new. I for one do still buy DVDs. I like to have the hardcopy as I can pick it up and take it to a family's house or a party. I don't want to have to deal with streaming it from some service provider, or hoping that I can use Internet to access my videos remotely and pray that everything is just peachy keen in the world.

memory hole

[groobly]

Now it will be impossible to know what has been censored out of the latest DEI cut of a classic movie. Haha, no more references to "fat."

Physical media is the only way to go

[WaffleMonster]

Oh well, their loss. Fragmentation, annoyance and costs are only increasing on the streaming services. Disc sales are obviously low because there is nothing new to buy.

Years ago was able to pick up a new DVD most of the time I happened to waltz into a Costco. Now if I'm lucky I can expect 3-4 new titles per year. The number of new movies I would consider watching has fallen off a cliff.

Unfortunately it is going there.

[GeorgeY]

Many shows and movies are getting harder to find on physical media. That is an unfortunate and not a smart move by the studios. That will increase piracy again. The physical media is not needed only in one case - if DRM-free high quality download is available. For PC games there is an alternative - gog.com - if they go under all downloaded games will remain. For music as well: you can find services with high quality FLACs. For movies there is no alternative except piracy yet.

Soon you can only rent culture

[rapjr]

not own it. It owns you.