Streaming and Physical Media

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I tried to post this elsewhere on this site (https://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=411013), but it didn't get anywhere. But then, I didn't notice until now that there was a more appropriate place to put it, which is here.

Anyway, I've heard many things about the virtues of physical media (such as DVDs or Blu-Rays) vs. streaming. For example, I know that content on streaming will often be pulled, usually because of licensing issues. But don't they also pull physical media from the store shelves, too, after a certain amount of time? And isn't it possible that after you buy and thereby own the physical media, that can be taken away from your collection as well?

One reason I ask is because I remember one time years ago (long before streaming was even a thing and we were still using VHS tapes), when we were living in San Jose, we went out for a while, and when we came back, our house was broken into, and many things were taken away! Among the items taken was my Super Nintendo (which actually didn't belong to me, but to my grandmother who was letting me borrow it for a while) and all the games that came with it! Those were all physical copies, but they still got pulled!

No, unless they are stolen from one. Videos aren't repo'ed typically.



As there wasn't downloadable content for the Super Nintendo, where else would they have gotten the games from without taking the physical cartridges? It doesn't make sense to leave part of what makes the thing useable behind.

Was that supposed to be sarcasm? That wasn't very funny at all. I was robbed. That was actually a pretty mean thing to say.

No, it was an attempt to explain why they took the physical games since you seemed a bit surprised that they were taken. I had a friend who had his whole apartment robbed multiple times. The game system and physical games were mainly what was stolen (along with the TV).

I still don't see how explaining is mean.

Because the wording came across as unkind, as if it was my fault they were taken. I was using my being robbed as an example of them being able to take away physical media against your will, just as they can with streaming.

I'm having a hard time understanding why you're trying to equate being robbed to content being removed from streaming services due to licensing issues.

Obviously it sucks that all those years ago someone broke in your family's home and stole your grandma's SNES and all those games (and it also sucks for anyone who may have had their house broken into and had their DVD collection or whatever stolen), but that's not really equivalent to what happens with streaming services and expired licenses.

Getting your stuff stolen is being the victim of a crime, it's not you being forced to destroy or otherwise dispose of your physical media just because it's gone out-of-print or it was a licensed title and the company that released it lost the license. I have plenty of DVDs and BDs that are no longer available new (or if they are still available new, it's new old stock and not presently being manufactured and sold) because of expired licenses or they've just gone OOP and I'm not at all worried that something is going to happen to them.

Relatedly, I can't recall of any instances where physical media has been pulled from shelves after it's been on the shelves for x amount of time (excepting for actual product recalls). This is video game related and not talking about movies and TV shows, but I still saw plenty of copies of Super Mario 3D All-Stars for sale at Target even after Nintendo stopped selling the game digitally and manufacturing new copies March 2021, they didn't have to return their unsold copies back to Nintendo.

Of course, if a product does stay on shelves for too long, the stores will eventually mark it down for discount, put it on clearance, and likely eventually it'll get sent to a place like TJ Maxx, Ross, or other off-price discount retailers if it still doesn't sell.

A dvd movie (game, etc) has two parts: the physical DVD & the license to watch/use/play the movie. The license portion is revocable. The difference is that streaming just immediately removes access, but the DVD would still work in a player. Warner Bros tho isn't going to send repo men to get the DVD back.

Large items, such as cars & boats, get physically take when repoed if left out in the open & accessible. In the street or on one's front yard, it'd be towed away. If it were in a closed garage overnight, they can't take it.

A person is unlikely to leave a DVD in the driveway. Breaking & entering is illegal. And the cost of a DVD is too low to spend the money on sending someone to remove it. Digital rights are interesting.

Because both involve taking something away from you, usually without notice.

Another thing about physical media vs. streaming is cost. Streaming costs around $7-$10 a month, whereas a physical Blu-Ray, DVD, etc., will usually costs upwards of $15-$20. For example, I recently bought a Blu-Ray of "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" for about $20. It's not streaming anymore, which was one reason I bought it, but for the sake of argument, it used to be streaming on Netflix. Isn't it more expensive to pay for physical media than for streaming? Many people have argued the opposite, but it doesn't seem to be the case.

Well, you mustn't forget that the cost of a BD or DVD is a one-time cost. You pay for it and that's it. You own it, you don't have to keep paying every month to keep on watching it.

And considering how there's like eleventy-billion paid streaming services out there (although I know many of them are targeted towards more niche audiences), I'd argue that the average monthly cost for streaming higher than $7-10 nowadays considering I think most people are at least subbed to the few 'big' ones (Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, etc.)

And really it just depends on someone's POV. Plenty of people find the fact that they can pay however much money per month and have tons of TV shows and movies available for streaming a much better bargain than buying physical media, that's why streaming is taking over. (Add in on the fact that, unlike what you had to deal with with cable or satellite, you're not locked into contracts with streaming. Your fave Netflix show is on break and there's nothing else there you feel like watching on the service? Cancel it until your fave show comes back for its next season Assuming Netflix didn't cancel it after 0.2 femtoseconds because it didn't get all 8 billion people on Earth streaming it as soon as it went up) Sure, the cost obviously adds up over time, but the convenience outweighs the costs for many.

But, there is one benefit of physical media over streaming that I think needs to be brought up: the video and audio quality.

You are always going to get better video and audio quality with physical BDs over any streaming service because streaming services have to compress both the video and audio to account for bandwidth and internet speeds. IIRC even Apple TV+ (which apparently has the best 4K streaming quality) still doesn't match the bitrate you'd get with a physical 4K BD. And audio quality? Yeah audio quality on basically every streaming service is basically DVD level audio (meanwhile many BDs feature entirely uncompressed audio, which you're pretty much never going to get on streaming)

Again for most people? They don't care about any of this - the audiovisual quality they get from streaming is Good Enough® for them. But there's always going to be that niche that wants the best possible quality they get out of their TV shows and movies and physically media remains the best option for that.

I thought that physical media was compressed.

There is certainly a level of compression done for video on BD (and obviously so on DVDs considering the much smaller space available on a DVD compared to even a standard BD, not even a 4K one) but it is still less compression than what you'd get on streaming.

Like Netflix's data bitrate for just 1080p streaming is about 7 Mbps, a standard BD (so not even a 4K UHD one) has a maximum bitrate of 40 Mbps. Now this doesn't mean that every single BD release uses the maximum bitrate or whatever (a movie I watched last night on BD had a bitrate of about 27 Mbps, for example), but chances are unless you end up buying a super-cheap low-budget BD release (which do unfortunately exist), you're still gonna get a higher quality bitrate than you'd get on streaming.

What if it needs to be taken away?



It's not that low. Like I said, I had to pay $20 for a Blu-ray of "Pee-wee's Big Adventure". That's a bit pricey to me.

$20 may seem pricey to you but there is one thing that needs pointing out:
They don't know you own the movie. The companies that release TV/movies onto physical media have literally no way of knowing that you or literally anyone else personally owns a copy of it.

Obviously the sales get reported to the company in one way or another, so at some point the fact that you bought a copy of Pee-wee's Big Adventure on BD will get reported to Warner Bros, but it'll just be with however other many copies of the movie that were sold during that month, quarter, however often they get sales data for their BD releases from retailers (or however it works).

But Warner Bros (or again any company) has no idea that you (or again anyone) own Pee-wee's Big Adventure or any movie or TV show on physical media. How would they know this? It's not like when you buy some physical media they send your name and address to the company that released it so they'll know exactly who bought it and where they live.

And really: when have you ever heard of a DVD or BD going out of print and then the company going around trying to take back the copies that have already been sold because they no longer have the rights to it?

Exactly: you've never heard of that happening, because that isn't a thing that has ever happened nor will it ever happen.

Doesn't Warner Bros. (or any company) get at least a percentage of the revenue from the copy you buy, as they do when you buy a ticket in a theater?

The HBO Discovery merger has made me lament that when content is streaming only like original shows and they remove them for whatever reason, they're gone. I buy the DVD collections wherever I can find them. What's not on DVD pisses me off. I just found Supermansion on Amazon Prime. That used to be a Crackle original. When Crackle removed it, I thought it was gone for good. Now I'm hoping almost everything HBO max removed that wasn't a tax write off will find their way to other streaming services I have. I have almost all the major ones. It'd be just my luck if they came to Apple TV or Disney. The streaming service dart board has never been kind.