if you live another 15 years it will be fun hearing all those parents gamers complaining that they have to buy the new release on a new console to play a game of their childhood. It will be fun to read
@ElectroChill Hex I have most of my games digital on Wii U, it's convenient to browse through games faster, why I don't care about physical is because I once got a moldy place and most of my physical things got affected or destroyed by that. Second reason I don't care too much about physical is because there are emulators, so should the games on the Wii U at one time be totally unrecoverable, I can somehow find them on the net.
Most of these are not Blu ray’s fault, just the fault of studios wanting to cut a few corners and save money because streaming means physical media sales are lower than they used to be.
Or even just in the age of streaming. With more things being online, having a physical storage unit is becoming obsolete since why buy something you may see once or twice where you can be connected to a library of stuff you can pick at your choosing and convenience.
He complained that DVDs for TV series generally didn't feature lists of episodes, but lists of chapters per episode, which was pointless and made episode selection inconvenient. That's it.
He wished that it would just start the movie immediately, but his point here is that if you have to have a menu for stuff like the bonus content or chapter select, why not try and make it creative instead of just that simple stock menu they use on everything.
I love my "Buffy the Vampireslayer" DVD boxset. But the menus are too 'well done,' so everytime I wanna watch an episode, I have to go through precious seconds of animation I have seen countless times before. It would be great if you had the option to skip those.
I buy Blu-rays for for uncompressed video and audio and the ability to watch even without an internet connection. Blows my mind that people are buying 4k TVs and decent sound systems, then streaming compressed via Netflix.
Blu-rays and 4K Blu-rays video are also compressed but streaming is of course more compressed. I noticed some are much more compressed than others as well and then the quality of course suffers
One of my former friends did this. He got a huge tv, and a sound system. Then he just ends up getting a Netflix basic plan. So he's watching things in 480p or worse. It drove me nuts...
That's just Netflix. Disney+ and HBOmax have 4K UHD. That's how I watched Dune and hopefully Matrix 4 this Wednesday. Saw Shang Chi in 4K and rewatched Endgame like that even though I saw it in 3D when it came out in theaters.
"Welcome to gaming. We've been complaining about it for years." And yet you keep buying online only games, so they keep getting made. Personally I don't so it doesn't affect me.
@@SillyOmega That’s because back in the day, dvd was how people experienced media. If a movie came out and you never seen it theaters, you watched it on dvd. No Netflix. Maybe you had hbo or starz. But if not, it was dvd
Right? You hit the next button to skip and it tells you the command is forbidden. I can't think of any reason why s disc I've bought should forbid me from skipling or fast forwarding.
There’s more cons with streaming... Theres no extras at all. No menu at all You don’t own anything. No commentary. You have to have a good internet connection. Streaming sites can just remove movies at will.
I see what you’re saying, I do streaming now because I don’t have the space for physical copies anymore sadly; but there are streaming service that do offer that. Like Disney + has extras on then that you can watch. Also, you can buy a movie on iTunes, for a majority of the time they have menus, extras, if you downloaded you don’t need WiFi, it won’t be removed cause you bought it (at least to my knowledge), and mainly; you for sure own it. That’s why I mainly use iTunes for movies now, I’ll go to Disney +, Netflix, amazon prime, Hulu, etc. on occasion to watch a show mainly or because it’s not on iTunes; or I really just don’t wanna pay for it.
The extras are often on youtube. Prime movies lets you buy to own and they can’t get lost like disks. Rural areas do usually have shitty internet so that does suck, but overall streaming has been better than physical media imo
Not completely true. When you buy a movie on Vudu you get access to bonus features. And even Disney+ has a section of bonus features for each movie that has them. When you go on a movie, go over to the extras menu. You own the license to stream or download that movie if you buy it from any vod store. Only time this stuff isn't true is if you're talking about subscription based streaming.
Coming from working in the 'Behind the Scenes' section in the film industry, seeing how its changed from making special features for the home release to just making stuff for youtube hurts a lot. I'm glad I left it.
@Dylan Helton it feels like the content nowadays caters to a crowd that doesn't care about it. The special features of old used to be pretty deep dives into what made the movie possible, but most of what I was making prior to me leaving felt gimmicky in an attempt to go 'viral'.
Even though I understand what you mean and I agree with you, you ironically assume a physical media will always be available when in reality it eventually fail. It takes only a couple of decades to degrade or for its technology to be harder to get by.
Just buy the DVD or blurays of the shows you like get over it. Companies aren't always in control of how long a show or movies stay on the platform. If you want to be able to watch your favorite shows or movies anytime actually buy them.
Yep and sometimes specific episodes get banned. They may get unbanned eventually like the Simpson's episode The City of New York vs., Homer Simpson or the ban might be effectively permanent. But, either way, it would be extremely difficult for them to do that if you own a physical copy.
I am against streaming because you dont own it, its more a license of a movie or TV series that will go away, and you can never get it back once it does. But if you own it on a physical disc, and use VLC to record it and keep it on external harddrive, then you own it forever! Which is great!
There are ways around recording stream-content, especially when its DRM protected. On android, just root it systemlessly using magisk and record content from netflix using root video recorders.
11:45 "Streaming is so convenient." Shows 5 services with generous amounts of exclusive titles each. 😞 Nothing against you, it's just the major downside right now.
And that's only getting worse.... all the services are competing to make stuff exclusive and spending billions to do it. The fragmentation will only increase.
One of the worst things about streaming media, is that you never really have your movies or whatever in your possession. You always have to rely on the service's library and it's availability. They never let you download the movie to your local drive. If I pay for something, I'd like to own it, but they're taking that option away from me. If you're "buying a movie" on a streaming service, you're actually just getting a ticket for a viewing, much like going to a movie theater, except you're at home and you only have to pay once for as many times as you want to see it. I'd be perfectly fine with not having physical releases, if there was a way to have the data in my possession, as in being able to download an .mp4 file or something.
I like physical media because sometimes the streaming devices stop streaming a show or movie. After that you have to either buy it anyway or subscribe to something else.
Well you buy it on digital which is what he's talking about. Most people don't buy discs or digital though, they just subscribe to Netflix and call it a day.
@@jimduggan8962 You can buy it on digital and it can still get removed. iTunes neglected to renew a contract with a certain movie company a few years ago, and a few movies that people "bought" got taken down.
With DVD, you are guaranteed to have the movie forever as long as the disk doesn't get destroyed. With streaming, it could go away at any time, even if you "bought" it.
@@curtthegamer934 You need to download them after you purchase them on iTunes and then you're ok. But even then they don't really get taken away you just have to scroll your library to find them.
To be fair, those horrendous sleeves exist for DVDs too. As a fellow collector of DVDs, I have tons of box sets that use those sleeves, it's not an issue that exist solely for Blu-Rays.
I used to buy DVD’s a long time ago, and it was good, but it lasted for years due to some scratches and skip which cause the DVD problem. Same thing happened with 16mm film, 8mm film, and Super 8 film where it sometimes break, broken sprockets, or disintegrated, you have to cut the broken one and spliced it together. And so does VHS tapes when the tape got eaten up and got caught in the VCR where the tape got stuck, you have to take it apart, cut the bad tape out, and spliced it with Scotch tape, and finally put it back in the VCR, and never let go.
In fact, the sleeve problem is arguably worse with DVDs, because they don't have the protective scratch-resistant coating that Blu-rays do, leading them to damaging way more Blu-rays than DVDs
Number 9 I think is both because of and in spite of the Criterion Collection. The interest in Criterion releases for those special features in the pre-DVD era I think made a lot of companies realize that special features would be something people wanted. In the DVD era, however, they found out the average customer didn’t really care about the special features so when everything moved to Blu-rays the companies didn’t see the point in putting special features that most people wouldn’t watch. I’m sure it’s more complicated than that but that’s my theory at least. EDIT: 3:42 Speak of the devil, the Criterion Showa-era box set! I don’t even care how big that one is I want it SO BAD
I could watch my two favourite anime in a month for maybe $10 or however much it takes, *or* buy the complete sets for $150 each. Streaming sounds like a bargain, but I'd still invest in buying them.
For the most part, I try to keep physical media in the loop. Streaming is nice, but I've already started seeing problems with it. For starters, it makes you implicitly dependent on your internet connection. No internet, no movies or TV. Secondly, and probably most important, as some have already said, you don't really own the digital content you buy, and it can be taken away very easily. Just as well, a third thing I've noticed is that the services/networks that stream these movies and TV shows can edit what they put out to you.
I agree on the internet part because what if your WIFI goes down that's why I've been getting physical media as a back up if anything happens. So it's kind of like an emergency thing to me at least.🐻
@@thefreakmachine basic dvds are read through a red laser while blue rays are read with a blue laser. As strange as this sounds, the different color of laser greatly effects the storage space on the disk due to light particle frequencies or something.
TLDR Red is wider in the frequency of light thus takes up more space on a disk Blue is thinner thus content can be packed further now lets get into Dual layered disks and logistical nightmare about Error correction that DVD has but blueray somehow doesn't.
@@34marmarmar Light is part of the Electromagnetic Spectrum. Different colours of lights have different frequencies and wavelengths. The wavelength of blue light is small that red, so it's probably just able to read and write physically smaller, as lasers etch tiny groves into discs to store data and lasers to read what state a groove is in. Blu-ray's are fundamentally still using the underlying principles of vinyl disc groves, just a lot smaller.
As I have a home cinema, I always buy a DVD. Streaming is bad due to the compression and quality and selection of movies. I rarely can find the movie in looking for
My biggest beef with digital content is that in a lot of cases, video games especially, you pay the same amount despite getting less. Even deluxe editions for instance you get that awesome metal case, a map, or little figure or something. If I buy the digital version I spend the same amount, but don't get my cool case and collectors items.
My biggest concern with streaming is the fact that it can be edited after the fact. With a physical copy it will never change, but we have already seen companies edit content from its original form (Netflix/Disney) to appease people and the censorship aspect makes me very weary of a streaming only future
@Christopher Vento Well, since you spelled both variations wrong, I don't really know how to answer you. But supposing you had spelled it correctly, my answer would be Berenstein.
This video is so nitpicky its kind of hilarious lol, “the special godzilla case is too big, I have to press pause to pause movies now, the name is dumb”
One of the main issue of streaming services is that the contract can end and the movie can just disappear. James even made a video about that, when he randomly check movies on Netflix and he complains about movies disappearing. That's the main reason I still like to own a physical copy, or at least a mp4 somewhere. Same reason I like to keep all my musics in mp3 still, instead of only using spotify. Edit : I know flac is superior but I have almost 9000 tracks on my disc, I don't even want to imagine how many space I'd need to stock all those in flac...
I agree almost completely, the exception being this: MP3? Pah, get your favorite music in FLAC or ALAC or something! And good headphones, you`ll thank me later ;)
The original 1999 dvd of The Matrix is awesome. The music in the menu and chapters showed the actual scenes. It’s still the version I watch just for the menu.
The name actually makes sense, while the disc is not blue, the laser that reads it is blue, as opposed to DVD's that was red. So it's exactly a disc for blue rays
@@LUCKO2022 ultra violet aka invisible, so saying it is purple is technically not correct. Anyway name of a product is always chosen based more on marketing rather than technicalities, but the justification is the "blue shift" of the laser
magicspells oh my god. I’d forgotten about dvd Easter eggs!!! Like when you typed in the numbers for the date of judgement day on the Terminator 2 dvd and it would play a different cut of the film
The special edition of Memento had a TON of them. There was even a puzzle Easter egg that would let you watch the movie with all the scenes in chronological order. A lot of care went in to the making of that physical edition.
"I'm getting tired of physical media." *It's official, ScreenWave killed the real James and replaced him* Although I will say that I agree with alot of these points; especially the menus! I remember the Nosferatu DVD menu had a still picture of Count Orlok, but in reality, he would blink occasionally! Scared the shit out of me.
The one thing that physical media will *always* have over streaming is that with physical media, when you buy it, it's yours forever, provided you use & take care of it properly of course. it's yours, & it won't randomly disappear like media on streaming services. Within the law, you control what happens to your copy & how you use it, instead of it being at the mercy of the corporation who owns &/or distributes it.
This is why you need friends who know how to download your movies and have them on your computer so they don't go away. This is similar to RU-vid. Instead of favoriting a video, better to just download it. I lost tons of videos because they either been deleted or went private when I wanted to watch them again.
On UHD: no streaming service can match the fidelity of a physical UHD...That in and of itself is reason enough, but also the advanced audio formats of the physical discs are more than enough, imo to warrant purchasing a UHD player.
There aren't enough people buying physical media anymore so the distribution companies can't justify spending extra money on better physical releases. It's sad but we still have the criterion collection I guess.
DVDs are still the most practical way to watch movies with subtitles. I order classic Hollywood film dvds with Korean subtitles (for my parents) and most of them are not on RU-vid or streaming sites.
But blu-rays are scratch resistant, that has to count for something especially considering most used DVD's look like they've been used as coasters in a bar with a sandpaper bar top.
@@crossface5710 you seem to be confusing resistant and proof. Resistant would mean that it's harder to scratch, not impossible to scratch. Which is actually true. In all my years as a gamer, I've almost never seen a scratched up PS3 or PS4 game. Both use blueray for their games. I don't even have to check the disc on a blueray when I buy a used one. DVDs and CDs scratch like they're made of butter.
Future generations' landfills thank you for your support. Keep in mind, the experience of a film matters more than collecting them. The people making movies don't hoard the way consumers do, and you should never care about a product more than the person who made it.
While James has a great many valid points, i would point out the one glaring flaw of streaming is that you don't own it. At any time your favorite film can be altered and you have no control over it whatsoever. If you wanted say ET with FBI agents that still had Guns, or Star wars without added content.
That stuff rarely ever happens. It could happen more but its very uncommon. I'm pretty sure I can see the E.T with guns, though that small thing makes absolutely zero difference to me. Star Wars also zero difference. Disney is more risky with changing that stuff, though something like the original Dumbo they only changed that for their D+ streaming service.
It's the same with manga, a pet peeve I've had for years since Viz in particular harps on "illegal" scanlations, as if their digital vault structure is such that there's no way they won't remove something from it in the future or just never seemingly add something that shouldn't be difficult to negotiate a simple contract for. It's not terrible, but again, I like having digital files to reference rather than either flipping through a physical book or go through the digital angle which requires internet (unless you use a tablet often, which I don't and even then that's a separate purchase from physical volumes if you also want those)
Jim Duggan it happens all the time. Even recently, with the cropped Simpsons and missing South Park episodes on Netflix. People watch altered versions of everything and don’t even notice.
The one thing about streaming that I'm not comfortable with, at all, is that you don't own anything, and you have to be connected to the internet. What happens, when in 10-20 years the conracts expire, maybe a company goes bankrupt, and it's all gone? With physical media if you bought it, it's yours, you can watch it any time. Not to mention, with physical media, companies can't hide old versions and old movies such as Song of the South or the original, non-special-edition Star Wars.
This is the same issue video games are going to be facing very soon. Also, there is the fact that UHD Blu-rays have superior image quality compared to 4K streaming.
Cutter Elf They’re making all of the video game sections at stores much, much smaller. Before you know it, there won’t be any video game discs in stores. I’m predicting that will happen when or a little after the new consoles release.
You can download all your digital purchases and thus you own it forever. You can back up that download to multiple drives as well and use it for offline play. Problem solved. Digital is better.
@Parody Poops That happened to me with the game Marvel Heroes. Created by the team who made Diablo 2, the game was probably the best Marvel game ever made, but you had to be online to play it since it technically was an MMO. Disney shut it down because the game's co-director was an asshole (not sure specifics, but iirc, it was warranted) and never made an offline version of the game.
@Parody Poops DRM sucks, fortunately for me most of the single player games I have are playable offline and like numptyur said I create a backup of them and if a wanna play them in another pc without and internet connection I install them and problem solved. The only game a like with always online is NFS 2015, and I think EA with origin is the main douche with the always online thing
I can't agree with streaming being better. More convenient, yes, but the video is always overcompressed. For brightly-lit scenes without motion streaming is usually okay, but watch a movie with lots of action scenes with lots of dynamic range in the lighting ("Aliens" for instance) and you'll quickly see all sorts of visual artifacts. ESPECIALLY banding -- god I hate banding so much. Not to mention dark areas where the screen turns into lots of grey macroblocks like you're watching a bunch of square gravel.
@@youknowwho9247 It's not my connection, it's their decision to save on bandwidth costs (and reduce complaints from users who go over their bandwidth caps). They intentionally use more compressed encodes. They make a business decision to use a "good enough" bitrate.
Time is the most crucial factor in backing up physical media, honestly... your best bet is to save and old computer when you upgrade and just use it to back up stuff here and there as you have time, but just leave it to do the automated steps while you're working on something else. Also, you're gonna need a buttload of hard drive space if you want it to look halfway decent.
He wears so much makeup for these it's distracting. I understand you need some because the lighting will make you look like a ghoul, but do really need a full face of foundation?
The steaming version of a movie is not always the original version. Streaming services are renowned for editing versions to please the "woke" generations.
Daniel Lado I think streaming is starting to slowly faze out DVDs and Blu-Rays too, because a lot of people don’t like to bother with buying a physical movie when they can just look it up on their stream service
my thought exactly... blurays suck.... BUT NOT TO RELEASE MY SHOW AVGN.... THOSE ARE GOLD.... THOSE ARE REALLY A TREASURE.... OK so why don't you release them on DVD or VHS... could it be that on DVD it would be more discs... and the discs are easily damaged with scratches? VHS of course because few people have VHS working on their houses.
The magnetic tape would have to be about a foot wide. The cassettes would be hilariously massive and the VCR would be the size of a refrigerator. That's awesome and I approve.
For real. Some DVDs even had GAMES in the menus. Straight up games you'd play with the remote. I seem to recall a whole choose your own adventure type game in a DVD I saw at my aunt's during Christmas in the 2000's.
I'm reminded of the hidden video clips in _The Lord of the Rings: Extended Edition_ discs, such as Dominic's "mock interview" of Elijah. _"Have you worn wigs?" "No…" "Will you wear wigs?" "Maybe?" "When will you wear wigs?"_
I remember there were these hidden messages in the menus of the national treasure dvd and it was a combination to a secret menu with dvd-rom options and it was great lol
“You don’t truly know what you have till it’s gone” Why do I get the feelings that’s how most people who say physical media is stupid are gonna feel when everything becomes digital?
as long as I can continue to download files and rip my movies, I don't care what happens. digital media isn't mine unless it's on own hard drive and it can't be removed at the will of some corporate exec
I love how people keep saying “old man yells at new technology” in the comments, but then in the video James defends streaming lol. Isn’t that the most modern way to watch things?
