The Future of Physical Media

[Doom House V]

I just sold off most of my physical media collection. I don't need heaps of plastic shit collecting dust on my shelves. Between streaming and my external HDD my needs are met.

 

[Product Placement]

I buy lot on physical media, but much of it has to do with the better quality and that I don't trust any digital movie place. Take Apple, they won't go anywhere for a long time, they released free 4k upgrades for all movies that ever get a 4k version. The issue is some movies like Aliens, or Lord of the Rings have worse 4ks, so the "remasters" of those will replace the older better versions, with me having no say.

I do dislike the room physical media takes up, but right now the best way to watch movies.

 

[libRT]

Make Artists Poor Again, they sold their shit to demons for a quick buck, Boohoo.

 

[Pierre D'Olnique]

Two pages and no one even mentioned books. I'm by no means one of those pretentious pseudointellectual twats who would immediately belittle you for not reading at least one a week (like Tay "Here in my garage" Lopez) since I've read maybe 5 or 6 in the last 3 years, but it's still sad to see.
I know I'm going to be really mad if books become digital only, because I am completely unable to digest long text on electronic displays, to the point where some article copypastes become incredibly difficult to read, especially with dogshit formatting. Projector slides, computer screens, tablets, mobile phones - doesn't matter. None of it gets in, I can't focus on the letters and my eyes start to hurt after 30 minutes tops. Audiobooks aren't much better, since I'd have to shut my vision off to concentrate on the speech in my ears. The book's content will only get in if I'm comfy in my bed/armchair, in complete silence, lit by a single lamp giving off an orange-golden light.

 

[DeadwastePrime]

im minimalistic. i dont need all that clutter around the house. ive seen what the vhs could do and the idea of that being the same with discs would be a lot. that being said, i'd only consider physical if it was something actually worth purchasing, like the film has to be something im willing to rewatch and not just essentially rent

 

[The Magnificence]

I've become a physical media collector, although not by conscious choice. All the way back when George Lucas started fucking around with edits to the original Star Wars trilogy I saw the writing on the wall: Corpos and their minions own this shit, and will do with it - change, censor or withhold it entirely - as they please. Therefore the only way to assure access to specific material is to own a copy of it. That, coupled with the fact that my tastes run very specific and decidedly non-mainstream (think 1960s Euro Horror/Thriller/Crime, and not just Christopher Lee Hammer flicks) has lead to my 2k+ physical media collection.

Yes, you read that right, and yes, it is a pain in the ass. But if I want to watch a specific scene from The Red Queen Kills Seven Times at 1:47 in the morning because I can't sleep and it's on my mind? I can do that.

And my tastes are relatively PG (some tits here and there, plenty of blood but more often than not patently fake in appearance) - what about those folks who love more specific and seedier brands of cinema? I guarantee Netflix is not hosting a Nunsploitation marathon any time soon. It is far too easy for the powers that be to simply memory hole entire genres not deemed fit for public consumption, whether because there's not enough money in it or because it has been deemed socially unacceptable by some moral authority. That films like Psycho, Homicidal, Dressed to Kill (one of the greatest films of all time, btw, and I am not just saying that because it provided me one of the greatest avatars of all time) and The Silence of the Lambs even remain available to the viewing public at all given the current social and political climate surrounding troons is some kind of miracle.

All that, and I have only touched on the topic of up front, conscience decision making - there's also the matter of incompetent handling of media, like the rights issues that have kept certain movies and television shows from getting official releases in any form in certain parts of the world, licensing issues that have caused entire movie soundtracks to be excised and replaced, or prevented them from being released at all, and finally, bad stewardship that has lead to the loss or destruction of source materials.

All that said, is there a future in it? I don't know. There is, at least, money to be made in the boutique physical media world, that so many imprints exist is testament to that. But money alone doesn't assure any kind of future, and I can easily picture my little collection going straight into the nearest dumpster when I am gone...

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Two pages and no one even mentioned books. I'm by no means one of those pretentious pseudointellectual twats who would immediately belittle you for not reading at least one a week (like Tay "Here in my garage" Lopez) since I've read maybe 5 or 6 in the last 3 years, but it's still sad to see.
I know I'm going to be really mad if books become digital only, because I am completely unable to digest long text on electronic displays, to the point where some article copypastes become incredibly difficult to read, especially with dogshit formatting. Projector slides, computer screens, tablets, mobile phones - doesn't matter. None of it gets in, I can't focus on the letters and my eyes start to hurt after 30 minutes tops. Audiobooks aren't much better, since I'd have to shut my vision off to concentrate on the speech in my ears. The book's content will only get in if I'm comfy in my bed/armchair, in complete silence, lit by a single lamp giving off an orange-golden light.

For books, it's not so much books that have gone digital (I'm struggling to think of any normal books that don't have a print version), it's the other printed materials.

- Video game strategy guides (made a whole thread on it a while back)
- Old phone books are really useful for finding old businesses and the ads of businesses.
- Magazines (many of my favorites from my youth have gone out of print)
- Newspapers (before they systematically destroyed the reasons for reading it in the first place)
- Directories of just about anything (I have some hotel stuff from the early 2010s)

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

buying?

But yeah I've gotten lazy last few years about backing stuff up locally. Had a stretch without any spare storage space and got out of the habit

 

[ENDTOPII]

Two pages and no one even mentioned books. I'm by no means one of those pretentious pseudointellectual twats who would immediately belittle you for not reading at least one a week (like Tay "Here in my garage" Lopez) since I've read maybe 5 or 6 in the last 3 years, but it's still sad to see.
I know I'm going to be really mad if books become digital only, because I am completely unable to digest long text on electronic displays, to the point where some article copypastes become incredibly difficult to read, especially with dogshit formatting. Projector slides, computer screens, tablets, mobile phones - doesn't matter. None of it gets in, I can't focus on the letters and my eyes start to hurt after 30 minutes tops. Audiobooks aren't much better, since I'd have to shut my vision off to concentrate on the speech in my ears. The book's content will only get in if I'm comfy in my bed/armchair, in complete silence, lit by a single lamp giving off an orange-golden light.

With digital books, at the bare minimum I hope that eink screens becomes more common. LED screens have fucked up anyone born post 1990 who had a computer, phone or a TV. I would also include the CRT generations, but they weren't as chronically infront of a screen as we did. Unfortunately "eink" is a patented tech and copyrighted, so these devices will be inflated for no reason. I firmly believe that the ability to read has declined mostly because of the LED screen itself, not the tiktok or instagram feed/"brainrot", it's the colored diodes themselves hypnotizing your brain somehow, I just know it, I don't have any proof but I firmly believe it.

Paper books seems like the future since some people (like me...) just can't fucking read anything on a computer. Like right now, I'm supposed to study, but no, I'm on KF...