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The era of cheap streaming is officially over
(www.cnn.com)
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this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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To be completely fair, it's been over for a while. Even if you completely forget about infrastructure, between the endless wars for licenses, endless removals of content from platforms, shitty inconvenient apps, and regional locks, it's already a dying market.
On top of all of that, they're implementing the "don't you have 5 extra dollars" strategy, with skyrocketing monthly prices for each of these. If it was 15$ a month to watch anything, i would still pay. but it's 15$ for each of them, and they still serve you ads, and sell your data
The funny thing is we're rapidly approaching the point where there's more digital content than any single human could consume in a lifetime. Including content from before copyright. So the main thing streaming services offer you is convenience and up-to-date media. But if you're just trying to entertain yourself 30-year-old 40-year-old 50-year-old 60-year-old 70-year-old content can be just as engrossing. You just get emotionally invested in it.
I've found a DVD rental place close to me with quite a collection. Honestly thinking about just unsubscribing from all streaming and going all in on DVD rental. I watched one recently for the first time ... you forget how consistently good the qualilty is compared to streaming (YMMV). But, in true hipster fashion, being more deliberate about what I watch, more openly exploratory, making more of an event of it, all seems attractive. If streaming were actually convenient, fine, but with the way things are now ... they can go to hell.
I'd need Blu-ray at least tbh.
But yeah lately I've been buying 4k Blu-rays for movie night
Why? You're giving the people who ruined streaming more money.
Plus you get commentary and behind the scenes and such, not sure why most of the streaming services don't offer that.
Yep ... I forgot to mention that. Overall, when I watched a DVD for the first time in ages, it was somewhat eye opening ... like we've truly gone backwards on what the home viewing experience can be apart from the somewhat minor convenience of being not needing to store the DVDs at home.
this is a rose tinted glass tbh. maybe if you’re watching a dvd on an iphone screen, but DVDs were limited to 720p, and a bad one too. You need modern bluerays to really get up to par with HD streaming services.
DVDs are 480p, 720p wasn't introduced until the Blu-ray/HD DVD wars
There was also the forgotten format, D-VHS which was a specialized VHS tape tape which the recordings could be at 720p or 1080i resolutions. Or the same resolution as DVD but at a higher bitrate so there are less noticeable digital compression artifacts than DVD. The introduction of HD-DVD and Blu-ray disc formats kept the D-VHS format from ever becoming widely adopted.
Don't get me started with the unskippable intro screens.
One of the many things that drove me away from physical media to streaming. Big companies were always pulling the "you will watch what I want you to see" approach. It's also what killed cable and satellite.
That being said, I've found myself checking out more and more DVDs from the library simply because it's reliable, and I find it enjoyable in a way. I don't really care about HD quality or whatever -- DVD quality is fine.
I have a good DVD collection I've amassed by buying them second hand in thrift stores, and for titles I really want to own.
Yep, Get those for like 2 bucks at goodwill. Hell, even entire box sets.
Almost got the entire collectors edition band of brothers box set for 2 bucks at goodwill once.. only reason I didnt is cause it was missing like 3 of the disks, and I didnt want to spend the rest of my life trying to hunt those 3 down.
480p. If you have a component, dvi or hdmi connection from the dvd player.
The place has plenty of Blu-Rays too ... I'm grouping them in with DVD for convenience ... also you shouldn't presume the quality of my internet and streaming subscriptions or even my TV.
If you can go to a source of older content it often comes pre-filtered for the better stuff too, so you don't have to wade through a ton of rubbish to find the occasional gem like you do with the new stuff.
Can you point out some resources for that?
Criterion Collection
Or
Janus Films
Both offer the best films of all time.
Very cool! Thank you!
Reviews from sites like IMDb and rotten tomatoes. As a movie or series is older, or finished, the general audience has had plenty of time to review it and if it’s fondly remembered, then it might get mentioned on here or other social platforms.
The issue with new content is that it can be amazing at first and then they release the last two episodes and ruin pretty much the entire series, eg. Game of thrones, and more recently, secret invasion.
Secret invasion really shocked me in its brutality in unceremoniously taking out loved characters.
But thanks for elaborating. :)
It's worth checking whether your local library subscribes to Kanopy.
Will do, thanks.
And the writer's strike shows that the artists don't get paid anyway if you pay for content, so they can't even play that card either.
We all knew that even before the strike too. Musicians get paid pennies on a dollar, and it's the same with writers. Actors are probably treated the same way, if you're not one of the hall of fame elites who get insane cash for garbage roles, after they've been in a Marvel movie once
They get paid, they just don’t get residuals for life from every job they were paid to do.
Just read an article stating that the writers of a show were only paid a combined $3000 after the show was streamed over 16 million hours on Netflix. These companies try to crack down on piracy by claiming artists/writers/actors don't get paid if we pirate but they're clearly not getting paid anything outside their normal wages when we don't pirate either.
Peacock HBO Max Showtime Disney. Fucking DC Universe was trying to be a thing.
Every media company wanted a streaming service but failed to deliver because of their hubris.
Hulu and Netflix have been my constant subscription services.
Disney is an absolute must if you have a kid, and a great value besides.
Otherwise it makes 0 sense except for maybe star wars sometimes.
We got Disney + for our kids and they couldn't care less. The only thing they were interested in was The Mandolorian (bored after the first season) and the latest live action Spiderman (which was not available in Disney+ !!!). We'll be canceling once our special deal is over. Maybe we're lucky that our kids don't care for it because that will save us some money.
Nah, my kids prefer Netflix. Even then, they prefer to play games instead. So I'll be steering them toward video games instead of TV, and only for a limited time each day.
Disney is an absolute must if you have a kid and aren’t capable of raising them without parking them in front of the TV.
Downvoted for telling the truth. I know people raising kids who don't plant their kids in front of a tablet or TV to watch Disney+ or YT ever. It's possible if you spend some goddamn time with your child and have a creative mind.