Unless we rewind to the early 2000s, no one pays $20 for a DVD, of all things. Maybe a Blu-ray disc.
I was going off of Amazon listings for DVDs of new movies. I’m still seeing them for $20.
Disc rot is not a threat to home video media. CDs, particularly CD-Rs, are subject to so-called disc rot, and I’ve experienced this personally; DVDs, highly unlikely and I’ve never seen a verified case of it; Blu-ray discs, not at all.
It seems to depend significantly on how you store them. There’s all kind of cases of Blu-Rays bronzing and developing defects with time.
Are you sure you’re not projecting your opinion on piracy onto the article? I didn’t get that read at all. Pirates are dramatically overrepresented in Reddit and Lemmy. I’m not talking about your comment, but frankly it’s kind of tedious seeing people brag in nearly every single home media or streaming related thread about how they’re very smart for pirating their media instead of paying for it. Particularly in the home video sub (primarily centered around Blu-ray discussion), they’re always making low-effort comments that add nothing to the discussion.
I might be but I feel like it’s relevant. The article talks about the limitations of streaming like content being unavailable, removed, and how you don’t technically own the content you buy online. Piracy is a common answer to that and the article seems to depict physical media as the answer despite it having it’s own set of disadvantages.
Does Blu-Ray offer some kind of advantage over a digital file in the way vinyl does?
xyzzy@lemm.ee 5 months ago
A brief look shows most DVDs are $5.99 to $14.99. New releases like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny are $14.99. You can buy the entire Saw 1-8 collection for $12.82. I don’t buy DVDs, but I guess the person in the linked story does, and if you’re on a budget buying DVDs is probably cheaper than renting digitally.
Here’s the final paragraph of the very first post in the link you sent:
“Disc rot” is only an issue with CDs. The manufacturing process changed for DVDs and then again for Blu-ray. Unless it’s stored in a garage in Florida, a Blu-ray disc will likely outlive us all.
If you’re asking if anything can compare to stealing movies for free, no, there aren’t many things that can compare to free.
Buying Blu-rays is legal. The actors and writers receive residuals for their work, which allows them to eat. It votes for content with your wallet, encouraging studios to produce more like that (whatever your thoughts on the movie, Oppenheimer sold very well on physical 4K UHD and Blu-ray, and it wasn’t a superhero movie).
Many people also rip the digital files to their Plex server or whatever after buying them to have the convenience of local streaming.
Look, if you want to pirate movies that’s your personal decision; you don’t need to justify it to me or anyone else.
CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 5 months ago
You’re probably right. All I know is I did see some posts about Blu-Ray discs having issues over time across Reddit and in that forum. I imagine it’s likely a similar situation to storing things on portable drives where faults occasionally happen and their frequency depends a lot on how you store them.
I’m not trying to justify piracy to you. I am not trying to be an internet elitist who tries to flex his jailbroken Firestick that’s full of 240p streams of movies. I don’t care about your stance on it and it doesn’t effect me. We were talking about Blu-Ray and I genuinely don’t know if it would have an advantage. Like if there is typically a noticeable reduction in quality when people rip their Blu-Rays. I’ve bought movies in the past that came with download codes and I don’t know if the two would be on par when it comes to quality. Maybe they would tone things down to work smoother without a Blu-Ray player or to reduce the file size.
That’s what I am getting at.