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What is everyone doing for film collections these days? 10+ years ago, I traded in all my old CDs and DVDs and threw away the VHS tapes, safe in the knowledge that physical media was definitely dead. Having piles of discs is annoying, and everything I will ever need was online anyway. This strategy has worked out fine for music, since MP3s are fairly easily available and Apple Music/Spotify/Youtube etc have literally everything I could ever want to listen to.
But for films (and TV), despite having access to Netflix, Prime, Disney etc, I've come to realise that the few titles I actually want to watch are rarely available on streaming services.
We have a couple of Blu-Ray discs, but at some point will probably get rid of the only device we have that's capable of playing them (a last-gen Xbox). I know the (expensive version of the) current-gen consoles have disc drives, but the next ones almost certainly won't.
So streaming doesn't seem like the best option, nor does Blu-Ray. But you can buy films online, right? Except that digital formats can also become obsolete, or at least, irrelevant. For example, I've bought a couple of films via Apple, but they don't play on the Xbox. Similarly, things I've bought via the Microsoft store could easily have the same fate when I get rid of the Xbox. In the longer term, what if Microsoft disappears off the face of the planet (unthinkable, until you remember MySpace)? Annoyingly, in the world of multiple app stores, it's still easier to find and insert a disc than digitally navigate to whatever store you think you might have purchased a film on.
TLDR; what's the best option for film ownership in 2021? Blu-Ray? If digital, which platform? Or do I just accept that ownership is intentionally transitory these days, and I should not expect to be able to rewatch a film 10 years from now? WWSTWD?
I think the ability to play Blu-Rays will be around for a while. DVD came out in 1996 and DVD players are still widely available. Blu Ray is 10 years newer.
There are still plenty of people who like having stuff on a physical disk
The safest is probably buying a physical disc and then rip it to provide a more convenient way to watch it (stupid legalities aside).
Personally I'm happy to buy from Apple. I can't see them becoming obsolete in a time frame that I am going to care about - in fact their feature of upgrading historic purchases at no extra cost (eg HD to UHD) suggests a policy of future proofing. The shear number of different (non-Apple) devices that now have AppleTV apps available also bodes well.
I think the ability to play Blu-Rays will be around for a while
Perhaps, but a blu-ray player already won't play the latest 4k Blu-rays as it's a different format again. And they'll need another format if they want to release 8k versions so the writing is already on the wall for those too.
I'm surprised MGM/Universal/Paramount/Columbia/Warner/Sony haven't got together to make a one stop shop for classic films (i.e. anything old enough that Netflix isn't interested anymore). Sure someone somewhere is still buying remastered 4k copies of Goodfellas, but a lot more people would probably join a subscription platform that had all the "100 films to see before you die" lists in one place.
I suspect that you'll have to keep subscribing for film content, but that the current hotch-potch of overlapping and competing services will get tidied up somehow.
Personally, I'll keep my DVDs and a player but not buy more.
I have no moral compunctions over torrenting something I've already bought. My VHS / Laserdisc / DVD / Blu-Ray collections built up over several decades and costing hundreds if not thousands of pounds are now mostly in Plex.
Similarly with CDs, I created a Spotify playlist called CDs and spent an afternoon - well, my partner did, bless her - going through my collection and adding them all to a "CDs" playlist. All the discs bar a select few I couldn't replace or otherwise have sentimental value (eg, signed) are in a mate's loft.
I have a bunch of 'rare' (not really rare at all but stuff thats not easily available via legitimate means), so I simply pirate them from torrent sites.
No I don't care, before you ask 🙂
I have no moral compunctions over torrenting something I’ve already bought.
I think I am coming to that conclusion. 'Owning' all these things on a standardised video format on a media server somewhere is seeming like the easy option here, despite all the issues with Torrenting stuff (I assume it's still a PIA, I haven't tried for a decade).
I’m surprised MGM/Universal/Paramount/Columbia/Warner/Sony haven’t got together to make a one stop shop for classic films
I think this is the solution to my conundrum. But I've been hoping for it for years, and it's still a pipe-dream.
I buy the odd DVD or Blu-Ray if there's something I want to watch and it's not on streaming services. Rip to MKV and store on home server. Watch on various devices via Plex. Store the disc for a while just in case but ultimately end up in a charity shop or one of the media buying places.
I'd rather cut out the physical bit of plastic but I'm not paying more for a more limited / locked-in version.
Wanted to show the kids Santa Claus: The Movie (the 80s one with Dudley Moore) and didn't want to wait for Boxing Day when it was on TV - was a fiver to buy on the various digital platforms, or £1.99 for the DVD delivered from musicmagpie.
Digital obsolescence concerns me but I'd rather have stuff on physical media than 'trapped' in the walled gardens of Amazon (i.e., kindle), for example.