“On September 29th, 2023, we will ship out our final red envelope. It has been an honor to share movie nights with you. …We sincerely thank you for joining us on this amazing journey of 25 years.” -The Netflix DVD Team
With Netflix discs closing its doors on the 29th, where will you get your DVD’s, Blu Rays and UHDs?
This raises a few questions for discussion:
- What services do you use?
- Whats your experience with any of these services?
- What do you do with your physical media?
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I know, I know, yes, its 2023 and people still get physical media. A physical disc can have many advantages over a streaming service, such as:
- Control Over Content
- Quality
- Sound Profiles
- Extras
- Back Ups
Here is a list of popular Rental and Buy services:
Rent:
Buy (New):
- https://www.amazon.com
- https://www.hamiltonbook.com
- https://shoutfactory.com
- https://grindhousevideo.com
Buy (Used):
The USB isn’t really a realistic option for a lot of people. As for downloading basically same problem as streaming, need a decent internet connection…
My dad,with where he lives, the internet is so slow if he wanted to download a movie, it would take so long that by the time it would download he would no longer care to watch the movie…
Which means he would have to find someone with decent internet, go to their house, download it. Then go home and play it. Again this isn’t an option for a lot of people. Including my dad.
For a lot of people renting or buying a disc is really the only option to watch a movie.
Some areas have even worse internet or none at all. To be able to reliably watch a movie means having the physical disc. Yeah they could get a data file and hold it like they do a physical disc just on a hard drive. But drives die a lot faster then a disc does. Plus they have to continously find someone to use their internet. Driving into town and going to best buy or Walmart it many times more efficient.
If you prefer digital files compared physical disc great go for it but for a lot of people it just isn’t real
Idk if you’ve heard in oppressive countries, but USBs filled with media is like a currency.
https://www.unilad.com/news/usb-bottles-north-korea-kim-jongun-158902-20221206
There’s similar stuff in India too. There was a campaign that sent a bunch of balloons over to north Korea with USB sticks and a ton of American movies on them.
So they are definitely realistically used in a lot of places and can be reused.
OK so in the US in the example I gave where would my dad to to legally aquire and download the movie?