Physical Media

[starbreaker]

Digital media has always been a bad deal because it precludes secondhand sales. If I want to downsize my library of physical books, I can donate some to a thrift store or try selling them at a garage sale. Or I could erect a Little Free Library in front of my house. Likewise games, albums, movies, etc. If it's on disc I can sell my copy. But you can't do any of that with digital versions. Even worse, if you bought an ebook you don't even own you; you merely have a license to read it on a particular device/platform that can be revoked at the seller's discretion; you're basically renting digital media for an indefinite term.

[grubbyfox]

I love have DVDs/Blurays! I've gotten my hands on the complete set of Columbo, Keeping up appearances and on my wishlist is Murder, she wrote. I also have some Midsomer Murders, but not complete, - and of course a lottttt of movies, lol hehe.

A lot of the time, the stuff I love gets removed from streaming sites, so I usually want to buy it and/or download (hehe yarrr...)

I also buy games on disc for PS4 if I can, because I really dont like "digital copy" and such.

[Cobra!]

I found out that there is a small community of people who make HD-DVD bootlegs onto DVD-DLs! Turns out the HD-DVD spec allowed the format to come on regular DVDs for the purpose of debugging and testing. People have figured it out and burn new movies HD-DVD players can recognise as HD.

There's a tutorial for doing it yourself!

It's kind of cool seeing people try to keep the spirit of HD-DVD alive, even if the format itself is dead!

[CableCat]

So again, back to the point - Y'all like physical media? What's you thoughts on it being redundant and less convenient? And why might you want to buy a CD or DVD instead of torrenting the content and burning it yourself? Just curious since I'm torn between my strong roots in piracy, but also like having physical media and supporting the creators behind the works I love so much. It's a constant ethical battle in my little brain lmao

(Also, apologies if a thread like this already exists ;v:wink:

What if the media you wish to own physically is not sold physically?

I recently went to a TX2 concert and got to meet the band after at their merch table. I asked to buy a CD, and they said they only stream on Spotify! That was super disappointing.

I'm thinking about burning my own CD if a band I see live ever tells me that again.

[Cobra!]

What if the media you wish to own physically is not sold physically?

I recently went to a TX2 concert and got to meet the band after at their merch table. I asked to buy a CD, and they said they only stream on Spotify! That was super disappointing.

I'm thinking about burning my own CD if a band I see live ever tells me that again.

I do something very similar, except instead of a CD, I record the song onto cassette. That way I'm not technically pirating it, I'm simply using my rights as a consumer to record onto media I own.

Also I just love making mixtapes!

[tertiaryapocalypse]

i absolutely adore physical media!!! there's something very different about listening to a vinyl versus listening to music on-demand. i don't exactly know how to put it into words. i think it's more fulfilling? since it feels like you put in some work to enjoy it?

i know maybe a year or two ago some folks over on mainstream socials got really into vinyl, but that could also just have been the stuff i personally was seeing. either way, a lot of the artists i like have vinyls of their work & its always very exciting to find artists i recognise at record stores!

i really want to start collecting music CDs as well, but i need to get a CD player before. i think we used to have one, but we may have gotten rid of it? in terms of film, though, my dad has a huge collection of CDs and blu-rays he's collected over the years.

streaming services are definitely efficient but it's a hell of a pain in the ass to deal with just how many of them there are, since you need to have practically all of them to access the breadth of music + film out there. there's also the previously stated problem of things being removed from streaming platforms. [insert piracy propaganda here.]

What if the media you wish to own physically is not sold physically?

depending on the type of media & (if it's music) the artist, they may sell digital copies of their work! i know a lot of artists don't use bandcamp, but when they do it's a good way to support them & get digital media which can be sort of turned physical! otherwise i'm not super sure, but that's the one thing i can think of.

[PurpleHello98]

Personally, I either buy digital DRM-free or physical, whatever's more affordable. If I only want one song off an album or it's hard to find and/or expensive physically (the latter tends to be the case with a lot of the k-pop I like) I'll but it on iTunes, which is now DRM-free, and sync it to my iPods. Otherwise, I'll try and find it at my favourite CD store and then rip it into iTunes. I do have quite the significant CD collection! I very seldom have problems, but right now I'm on the hunt for a super rare early 00s k-pop album that's not on any digital platform whatsoever and was by an obscure group at the time---it's proving rather difficult, to say the least.

Digital media has always been a bad deal because it precludes secondhand sales. If I want to downsize my library of physical books, I can donate some to a thrift store or try selling them at a garage sale. Or I could erect a Little Free Library in front of my house. Likewise games, albums, movies, etc. If it's on disc I can sell my copy. But you can't do any of that with digital versions. Even worse, if you bought an ebook you don't even own you; you merely have a license to read it on a particular device/platform that can be revoked at the seller's discretion; you're basically renting digital media for an indefinite term.

This is one advantage to buying physical---on the iTunes store or wherever, prices don't go down, so an album from 2005 can still be the same $11.99 or whatever it was initially, whereby a used CD is $4.

I love have DVDs/Blurays! I've gotten my hands on the complete set of Columbo, Keeping up appearances and on my wishlist is Murder, she wrote. I also have some Midsomer Murders, but not complete, - and of course a lottttt of movies, lol hehe. :transport:

+1 on the Murder, She Wrote! That's such a good show. :)

[grubbyfox]

+1 on the Murder, She Wrote! That's such a good show. :)

Yes!! My grandma also loved this show so much. We used to watch it together sometimes, and it always makes me think of my grandma <3 and of course the show is so good, haha.

Also, the old point and click mystery game for Murder, she wrote is just so cute and fun, I was obsessed with it. 

[DiffydaDude]

Whenever i see discussions about physical media and how it's better than digital, I always think about this one quote from Technology Connections: "Most people will happily make sacrifices to quality for convenience". A lot of the reasons that people think physical is better are often for anti-capitalist reasons, or for subjective reasons like "it's fun to hold the movie/music in your hand", but i can tell that alot of people like my mom and my uncle mourn the lack of a VCR or DVD player in peoples. So what are some reasons that most people should prefer a dvd player over digital?

Theres a couple reasons I can think of. Say a person buys 12 DVDs, 1 a month @ $10 per DVD. Thats about $120 in a year. Now a streaming service will be abt $10 per month, for access to a catalog of 120 movies. Seems obvious, right? Well, you might want to watch only 12 movies on there, so you will be paying $10 per month not just to watch those movies, but to have access to a bunch of movies you might not ever watch. And say you decide to watch one of those unwatched movies, and you dont like it. Well you'll still be paying access to even watch that one, which means that its like your paying $120 a year to watch the same 12 movies, along with any you might actually like and start watching. "Well whats the problem? You pay 10 dollars to have free access to the full catalog of a company's movies, and if you dont like one, you still have all these other movies to try out!" Well yes, but also, not everybody is paying the same prices for those DVDs, some people are paying more, some are paying less, some are gotten secondhand, and some are put on clearance. And the amount of movies a person buys differs wildly too. With a streaming service though, everybody is paying the same price to have access to the same amount of movies, and thats not even considering having to subscribe to more than one service too! So instead of paying a generally standard price to buy a movie on a format supported by multiple companies, you have to pay so much more just to have access to a range of movies, a whole catalog which you might not even watch a third or quarter of! And also, I just feel like it's nicer having a limited library of movies instead of a limitless catalog. It'd be all the movies I want, on a nice shelf, instead of something that you have to subscribe to a million services for, and is entirely reliant on the internet for. Thats another thing! You dont have to worry about how good your internet is! People in places with no internet can freely watch movies without having to worry about ads and bandwidth and all that. So maybe have a second thought and see which is more economical, because I think the DVD is pretty damn economical, a lot more than streaming at times.

[Cobra!]

Whenever i see discussions about physical media and how it's better than digital, I always think about this one quote from Technology Connections: "Most people will happily make sacrifices to quality for convenience". A lot of the reasons that people think physical is better are often for anti-capitalist reasons, or for subjective reasons like "it's fun to hold the movie/music in your hand", but i can tell that alot of people like my mom and my uncle mourn the lack of a VCR or DVD player in peoples. So what are some reasons that most people should prefer a dvd player over digital?

Theres a couple reasons I can think of. Say a person buys 12 DVDs, 1 a month @ $10 per DVD. Thats about $120 in a year. Now a streaming service will be abt $10 per month, for access to a catalog of 120 movies. Seems obvious, right? Well, you might want to watch only 12 movies on there, so you will be paying $10 per month not just to watch those movies, but to have access to a bunch of movies you might not ever watch. And say you decide to watch one of those unwatched movies, and you dont like it. Well you'll still be paying access to even watch that one, which means that its like your paying $120 a year to watch the same 12 movies, along with any you might actually like and start watching. "Well whats the problem? You pay 10 dollars to have free access to the full catalog of a company's movies, and if you dont like one, you still have all these other movies to try out!" Well yes, but also, not everybody is paying the same prices for those DVDs, some people are paying more, some are paying less, some are gotten secondhand, and some are put on clearance. And the amount of movies a person buys differs wildly too. With a streaming service though, everybody is paying the same price to have access to the same amount of movies, and thats not even considering having to subscribe to more than one service too! So instead of paying a generally standard price to buy a movie on a format supported by multiple companies, you have to pay so much more just to have access to a range of movies, a whole catalog which you might not even watch a third or quarter of! And also, I just feel like it's nicer having a limited library of movies instead of a limitless catalog. It'd be all the movies I want, on a nice shelf, instead of something that you have to subscribe to a million services for, and is entirely reliant on the internet for. Thats another thing! You dont have to worry about how good your internet is! People in places with no internet can freely watch movies without having to worry about ads and bandwidth and all that. So maybe have a second thought and see which is more economical, because I think the DVD is pretty damn economical, a lot more than streaming at times.

This gets even cheaper for obsolete formats!

VHS/Laserdisc - VHS tapes are super cheap still, and sometimes you see people just giving them away for free! Only issue is most use Pan & Scan (I actively seek out open matte or letterboxed tapes for this reason) and the quality is pretty bad if viewed on an LCD TVs. This also applies to Laserdiscs to a degree, but there are quite a few films that will cost you a chunk of change, especially discs released from 1999-2001.

UMD video - Films are like 1-5 bucks a pop, but you need a PSP to watch those.

HD-DVD - You can get bundles of like 10-20 films bundles for very little, but that format is pretty susceptible to laser rot, especially if it’s a Warner Bros. film.

Still, they’re great value if you’re fine with these drawbacks!

[Wildcat]

I want to start collecting physical media more. I have a small collection so far, but it includes some CDs for my favorite artists such as Glenn Miller and King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard. I also have a 1917 Blu-Ray disc as well. But when it comes to collecting physical media, I usually lean towards games  and consoles when it comes to that sort of thing. I wouldn't give up my 2DS for any kind of emulator.

I recently found a really cool site that sells Japanese CDs for reasonable prices, which is neat since they're stuff I can't get on Spotify easily, so it's easier to listen in the car.

Can you drop the name of the website? I've been wanting to get my hands on some city pop CDs for a while now, and my local CD store doesn't sell anything like that.

[wygolvillage]

As far as physical media goes I absolutely love vinyl records...

I just went to the local record shop and got some really cool records! Bauhaus, The Cure, Cocteau Twins, etc, but the coolest one I found was a promotional single of Kate Bush's song Experiment IV. It was sent out to radio stations and it's even marked with "not for resale" and the specific station it was sent to! What a cool little oddity to add to my collection!

Something about putting on a record, flipping it over, etc. feels so deliberate, like sitting down to have a cup of tea. It's kind of cozy.

[bingus_baby]

Can you drop the name of the website? I've been wanting to get my hands on some city pop CDs for a while now, and my local CD store doesn't sell anything like that.

Here it is!

One of my fav sites. I also buy a lot of manga off there. Turns out Japanese manga can be cheaper than English manga, including the high shipping. So I've started to learn Japanese so I can read physical copies of long discontinued manga ;w;

If you want to buy off there, the shipping does go up with the weight of the package! But even so, it's best to wait until you want at least a handful of CDs/books/etc. and then order. Also, if you sign up for the site you get a first timer discount, and they hold sales for email subscribers every couple months. It's a very well-made website with no frills and a TON of stock. (Straight from the publisher usually.) 10/10 recommend! And they also provide the first-press bonuses when available.

[Wildcat]

Here it is!

One of my fav sites. I also buy a lot of manga off there. Turns out Japanese manga can be cheaper than English manga, including the high shipping. So I've started to learn Japanese so I can read physical copies of long discontinued manga ;w;

If you want to buy off there, the shipping does go up with the weight of the package! But even so, it's best to wait until you want at least a handful of CDs/books/etc. and then order. Also, if you sign up for the site you get a first timer discount, and they hold sales for email subscribers every couple months. It's a very well-made website with no frills and a TON of stock. (Straight from the publisher usually.) 10/10 recommend! And they also provide the first-press bonuses when available.

Huge thanks! I am so excited to buy every single Tatsuro Yamashita album - if that's a thing, not sure - on the website and own it legally and in a physical media format.