Returning to physical media.
Discussion
Physical media is enjoying a bit of a resurgence in our household at the minute.
We still have streaming services but I’m finding that in many cases older films just aren’t available as part of the subscription. The alternate is you purchase them or rent them online. Rental is usually £3.50, purchase is about a tenner depending on the film.
But a DVD from eBay is £1.99 delivered, and in the case of the one I ordered today, buy one get one free!
New films are similar. A tenner to stream or a tenner to buy the disc, which has extras. And i can sell it on for half the price afterwards - or keep it if I like it.
Streaming tv and movies is still great of course, but it’s not making the same sense in the way it used to as an all consuming principal. Therefore, hard copies are making a casual return for us and it’s cheap too.
In the audio space, we have Apple Music which is in regular use. But our daughter is now a teenager and discovering her own tastes in music, typically through Apple Music. She loves to support the artists she then discovers and enjoys buying their stuff. All sorts of merch, but notably for this thread has started collecting CDs. We are at hmv most weeks. She displays her CDs on the wall and we have now set up an old, but attractive, cd player from her grans house). She listens to them every night.
Bonus that all the cars I buy are old and have cd players, so she now likes to go for drives out with me to enjoy using her music collection further, and we get to spend a bit of time together chatting away.
I’m loving it! Long live physical media!
Anyone else?
We still have streaming services but I’m finding that in many cases older films just aren’t available as part of the subscription. The alternate is you purchase them or rent them online. Rental is usually £3.50, purchase is about a tenner depending on the film.
But a DVD from eBay is £1.99 delivered, and in the case of the one I ordered today, buy one get one free!
New films are similar. A tenner to stream or a tenner to buy the disc, which has extras. And i can sell it on for half the price afterwards - or keep it if I like it.
Streaming tv and movies is still great of course, but it’s not making the same sense in the way it used to as an all consuming principal. Therefore, hard copies are making a casual return for us and it’s cheap too.
In the audio space, we have Apple Music which is in regular use. But our daughter is now a teenager and discovering her own tastes in music, typically through Apple Music. She loves to support the artists she then discovers and enjoys buying their stuff. All sorts of merch, but notably for this thread has started collecting CDs. We are at hmv most weeks. She displays her CDs on the wall and we have now set up an old, but attractive, cd player from her grans house). She listens to them every night.
Bonus that all the cars I buy are old and have cd players, so she now likes to go for drives out with me to enjoy using her music collection further, and we get to spend a bit of time together chatting away.
I’m loving it! Long live physical media!
Anyone else?
Same here, never got into any streaming or online tele and music.
Still buy loads of dvds and cds. Dvds are very inexpensive and I like looking through the charity shops and Cex where they can be had for a quid. Cds though, seem to be creeping up in price - Ive started collecting some cds of old metal bands that I used to have in the late 80s and early 90s but stupidly got rid of them when I went to college - now they are worth a small fortune.
Still buy loads of dvds and cds. Dvds are very inexpensive and I like looking through the charity shops and Cex where they can be had for a quid. Cds though, seem to be creeping up in price - Ive started collecting some cds of old metal bands that I used to have in the late 80s and early 90s but stupidly got rid of them when I went to college - now they are worth a small fortune.
I've always kept my dvd, blu-ray and 4k disc collection although I'm buying less these days. Doesn't tie me to a particular platform that I need to maintain with a subscription and is available whenever I like with the version that was released at the time rather than an edited or tweaked version.
Never got rid of my old heavy metal vinyl and cd collection. Have hundreds of them. 'Worth' £25k + now according to discogs 
Got rid of my dvds though when I transferred them all to my Nas. I've been picking up a lot more recently from charity shops for £1 each.
I'm glad it's all making a comeback, although I do refuse to pay £30+ for a vinyl album nowadays!
Got rid of my dvds though when I transferred them all to my Nas. I've been picking up a lot more recently from charity shops for £1 each.
I'm glad it's all making a comeback, although I do refuse to pay £30+ for a vinyl album nowadays!
I've thought about starting a similar thread a number of times so I'm very glad to see this one 
As above, I've been a strong advocate of physical media (specifically Film and TV) all my life. Music I don't really care too much about, I'm happy to stream whatever but I've only ever paid for a film to own/rent digitally once. That was Godzilla V Kong which came out when the cinemas were still shut so no choice and I wasn't missing out!
I've got over 500 films (I've not counted for a long time), a mix of DVDs, Blue Rays and 4K. A few years ago I started replacing some of the older films with 4K versions as and when they were released but only after checking how the restoration/transfer has been done as I don't want something that's a cash in. I also look out for limited editions and have picked up a few for my favourite films but I've drawn a line under anymore LOTR versions
As I mentioned I'm not a massive music fan but I did very recently start getting into Vinyl soundtracks from film and TV shows which obviously links with my love of cinema. Often the packaging is beautiful along with the vinyl design itself. I've got the X-Men 97 and Shogun soundtrack on pre-order at the moment from Mutant, I'll quite often stick something on whilst working although I do find having to get up and flip it over quite often something I hadn't thought about before getting into it
As above, I've been a strong advocate of physical media (specifically Film and TV) all my life. Music I don't really care too much about, I'm happy to stream whatever but I've only ever paid for a film to own/rent digitally once. That was Godzilla V Kong which came out when the cinemas were still shut so no choice and I wasn't missing out!
I've got over 500 films (I've not counted for a long time), a mix of DVDs, Blue Rays and 4K. A few years ago I started replacing some of the older films with 4K versions as and when they were released but only after checking how the restoration/transfer has been done as I don't want something that's a cash in. I also look out for limited editions and have picked up a few for my favourite films but I've drawn a line under anymore LOTR versions
As I mentioned I'm not a massive music fan but I did very recently start getting into Vinyl soundtracks from film and TV shows which obviously links with my love of cinema. Often the packaging is beautiful along with the vinyl design itself. I've got the X-Men 97 and Shogun soundtrack on pre-order at the moment from Mutant, I'll quite often stick something on whilst working although I do find having to get up and flip it over quite often something I hadn't thought about before getting into it
I've settled on Blu Ray moving ahead.
I did actually buy a PS5 largely to get the UHD playback when I upgraded my TV to OLED as I had been buying stuff on 4K UHD for a couple of years in advance with the intention of eventually getting a decent 4K screen. However, the advantage of 4K UHD over 1080p BD on a 42" screen (even OLED) is quite minor, to my eyes. The most notable improvement is HDR and even then it's only a handful of movies that really take advantage of that. Maybe if I went for a really large screen it would be worth it for the resolution boost but given that digital cinema predominantly uses 2K, which is effectively just a slightly wider 1080p, I don't think so.
DVD looks just about OK on a good DVD source but the print/mastering must be 'clean' otherwise any picture noise really wrecks the image quality on the upscale. This is true using either a PS3 outputting at 576i and letting the telly upscale that or playing the DVD on the PS5 which itself scales up to 4K before outputting to TV.
So, with a very good picture quality and reasonable pricing, BD is the way forward for me. I'll probably buy a few select 'cherished' films in 4K just like I went for special editions of my favourite movies on DVD or upgraded them to BD when that came out - but most of my new purchases will be Blu Ray. I'll also continue to enjoy my DVD collection (which is by far bigger than my BD collection to date) but will probably take the time to rip those to my home server to cut down on number of discs I have to keep around.
I did actually buy a PS5 largely to get the UHD playback when I upgraded my TV to OLED as I had been buying stuff on 4K UHD for a couple of years in advance with the intention of eventually getting a decent 4K screen. However, the advantage of 4K UHD over 1080p BD on a 42" screen (even OLED) is quite minor, to my eyes. The most notable improvement is HDR and even then it's only a handful of movies that really take advantage of that. Maybe if I went for a really large screen it would be worth it for the resolution boost but given that digital cinema predominantly uses 2K, which is effectively just a slightly wider 1080p, I don't think so.
DVD looks just about OK on a good DVD source but the print/mastering must be 'clean' otherwise any picture noise really wrecks the image quality on the upscale. This is true using either a PS3 outputting at 576i and letting the telly upscale that or playing the DVD on the PS5 which itself scales up to 4K before outputting to TV.
So, with a very good picture quality and reasonable pricing, BD is the way forward for me. I'll probably buy a few select 'cherished' films in 4K just like I went for special editions of my favourite movies on DVD or upgraded them to BD when that came out - but most of my new purchases will be Blu Ray. I'll also continue to enjoy my DVD collection (which is by far bigger than my BD collection to date) but will probably take the time to rip those to my home server to cut down on number of discs I have to keep around.
C5_Steve said:
I've thought about starting a similar thread a number of times so I'm very glad to see this one
I also look out for limited editions and have picked up a few for my favourite films but I've drawn a line under anymore LOTR versions
Ironically I bought the LOTR UHD collection ... it looks decent but it's actually an upscale of the 1080p master that they made for Blu Ray with the dodgy colour balance corrected and HDR support. Hmmm, given the money they have milked out of pumping out different versions of those movies a poor effort IMO.I also look out for limited editions and have picked up a few for my favourite films but I've drawn a line under anymore LOTR versions
I already owned the theatrical trilogy individual discs and box set on DVD from 'back in the day'. Luckily did not bite on the Blu Rays.
I thought I’d be the only one
I also like rummaging through CeX and charity shops to see what movies they’ve got available and it’s satisfying to know that with every purchase, I’ve helped the high street too.
At one point I thought our daughter might have also got into vinyl, but she went the cd route. I think that’s because vinyl is quite fiddly when compared to CDs - plus it’s big and expensive. She really likes looking at the books you get in CDs as well as the posters in some of them, and I suspect the deciding factor was the way she can display them on the wall that she saw on TikTok. It started with Taylor swift, like this:
Her uncle has a 3D printer and he’s replicated the model and so she gets a new holder on the wall for every CD and she loves it. Have to admit, it does look quite good and gives the physical media an additional purpose!
I also like rummaging through CeX and charity shops to see what movies they’ve got available and it’s satisfying to know that with every purchase, I’ve helped the high street too.
At one point I thought our daughter might have also got into vinyl, but she went the cd route. I think that’s because vinyl is quite fiddly when compared to CDs - plus it’s big and expensive. She really likes looking at the books you get in CDs as well as the posters in some of them, and I suspect the deciding factor was the way she can display them on the wall that she saw on TikTok. It started with Taylor swift, like this:
Her uncle has a 3D printer and he’s replicated the model and so she gets a new holder on the wall for every CD and she loves it. Have to admit, it does look quite good and gives the physical media an additional purpose!
C5_Steve said:
…..although I do find having to get up and flip it over quite often something I hadn't thought about before getting into it
I think that might be a phycological part of the joy of physical media, in that you have to interact with it. There's plenty of people on local Facebook recycling groups giving away boxes of DVDs, I tend to grab them if it looks like there might be anything decent in them. Once I have them, I sort through and extract the stuff I don't want, then put it back on the group for someone else. Same for CDs. I'm not sure I'd go as far as to buy any, but I am trying to replace my Bond DVD collection with Blu-ray versions for some reason.
Lucas Ayde said:
Ironically I bought the LOTR UHD collection ... it looks decent but it's actually an upscale of the 1080p master that they made for Blu Ray with the dodgy colour balance corrected and HDR support. Hmmm, given the money they have milked out of pumping out different versions of those movies a poor effort IMO.
I already owned the theatrical trilogy individual discs and box set on DVD from 'back in the day'. Luckily did not bite on the Blu Rays.
Not strictly true about LOTR UHD (this is where it gets geeky)...I already owned the theatrical trilogy individual discs and box set on DVD from 'back in the day'. Luckily did not bite on the Blu Rays.
It's not an upscale of the BR release at all, it was a new scan of the original 35mm print. Anything taken directly from film (as in, the physical negative) is already above 2k native (it's something like 3.4k technically). So whilst there is remastering done (HDR, noise reduction etc) as with any 4k transfer it's not really "upscaled" so to speak, or rather not the same as you'd upscale a 2k digital like they're having to do with Tron Legacy (fingers crossed they nail that one). The CGI however, was most definitely upscaled as that was only rendered in 1080p. Any 4k taken from something that was shot on (decent) film stock will look amazing for this reason as all the detail is already captured. I recently watched them all over two days and they looked incredible. There's only one or two CGI shots that jar, stuff like the Balroc scene is insane with the added HDR and remastered soundtrack.
Luckily I also skipped the Blu-Ray LOTR editions and went straight from the OG Special Edition Extended Edition ones (Red/Blue/Green book-looking ones) to the 4k set. I see now they're releasing separate steel book versions as well.
I'm kind of in a half way house. I don't use physical media any more, but I've ripped it all and use Plex to watch it wherever I am.
I've also ripped my huge CD collection, and use Plexamp/Sonos to listen to music in the car/house/on the move.
We no longer have devices that can play CDs or DVDs/Blurays except for one laptop (used for ripping) and games consoles. We don't have any streaming/music services except Prime, which we pay for to get the deliver, not the TV/Music offerings.
I've also ripped my huge CD collection, and use Plexamp/Sonos to listen to music in the car/house/on the move.
We no longer have devices that can play CDs or DVDs/Blurays except for one laptop (used for ripping) and games consoles. We don't have any streaming/music services except Prime, which we pay for to get the deliver, not the TV/Music offerings.
I never gave up on CDs. Gave up on HMV about 15yrs ago though. I was '£50 man' for a while. Last time I went in there it was horrendous with just loads of horrible merch everywhere. My 8yr old daughter loves it for the Pokemon gear. Amazon all the way nowadays.
I must admit I stream BBC 6 music alot these days. Plus my daily driver doesn't have a CD player annoyingly.
I must admit I stream BBC 6 music alot these days. Plus my daily driver doesn't have a CD player annoyingly.
John D. said:
I never gave up on CDs. Gave up on HMV about 15yrs ago though. I was '£50 man' for a while. Last time I went in there it was horrendous with just loads of horrible merch everywhere. My 8yr old daughter loves it for the Pokemon gear. Amazon all the way nowadays.
I must admit I stream BBC 6 music alot these days. Plus my daily driver doesn't have a CD player annoyingly.
Yeah there's a reason they went into administration and closed the majority of their locations. What's baffling is as they now continue to go from strength to strength the stores are exactly the same as they used to be! I must admit I stream BBC 6 music alot these days. Plus my daily driver doesn't have a CD player annoyingly.
I do get most of my stuff off their website though, I'll usually compare between them, Zavvi and Amazon. Zavvi and HMV are good for the 3 for XX etc deals, Amazon is usually cheapest for individuals. I do love the HMV exclusive packaging though, both their Dune steel-books were beautiful and sold out immediately.
Long gone are the days of ordering from Play.com and taking advantage of their questionable tax arrangement!
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