Netflix Discs is going away, where will you rent/buy disc based media?
Netflix Discs is going away, where will you rent/buy disc based media?
DVD.com is ending operations and will no longer be available in late 2023.
"On September 29th, 2023, we will ship out our final red envelope. It has been an honor to share movie nights with you. ...We sincerely thank you for joining us on this amazing journey of 25 years." -The Netflix DVD Team
With Netflix discs closing its doors on the 29th, where will you get your DVD's, Blu Rays and UHDs?
This raises a few questions for discussion:
- What services do you use?
- Whats your experience with any of these services?
- What do you do with your physical media?
--
I know, I know, yes, its 2023 and people still get physical media. A physical disc can have many advantages over a streaming service, such as:
- Control Over Content
- Quality
- Sound Profiles
- Extras
- Back Ups
Here is a list of popular Rental and Buy services:
Rent:
Buy (New):
- https://www.amazon.com
- https://www.hamiltonbook.com
- https://shoutfactory.com
- https://grindhousevideo.com
Buy (Used):
Just a friendly reminder, your local library likely has a movie and video game section, it's worth having a look
My local library has Monte Python and the quest for the Holy Grail, and the first season of the Simpsons.
Sounds like you're set for life, mate.
My local library has an awesome collection of VHS, they even started adding some DVDs the last few years. I suspect in a few more they may even have HD-DVD!
What's more, DVD-RW drives for a desktop PC can be had for under $10 and USB-powered ones aren't much more. If anyone out there in TV land still relies on DVDs, you should get yourself a drive and rip your local library's DVDs to your computer. Handbrake is your friend and you can get a DVD down to a video stream with a much smaller file size than the disc image, but you can also still get blank DVDs at any major retailer and make your own copies with all the menus and special features. DVD still works, but it's 30-year-old technology and paying other people to watch the movies on that format is getting ridiculous, you owe it to yourself to keep DVD expenses to the drive and blank discs from here on out.
Disclaimer for the people who will whine about it: Yes, this copyright infringement. Don't snitch on yourself and you'll be fine. I personally recommend and fully endorse violation of copyright law in this way. I advocate that you commit this criminal activity in full knowledge that this makes me an accessory to crime, and I advocate that you commit this crime and others. I do so with the full approval of the MPA and RIAA, whom I unequivocally represent and speak for in absolutely all matters, and they assume all civil and criminal liability for everything I just said.
This is a great suggestion!
Supporting your local library is always a pro move
Libraries have so many useful things. Many give out free tickets to local venues. Art museums, botanical gardens, etc
On the high seas with my disc burner 🏴☠️
My bluray drive flashed with LibreDrive can't burn BD-Rs, at all. Maybe a coincidence with LibreDrive, but it sucks :(
What services do you use?
- Best Buy
- Redbox
- Amazon
- eBay
- My local library
Whats your experience with any of these services?
From least expensive to most expensive:
- My local library is free to use, and they even have Blu-rays alongside DVDs, which is rare in my experience. However, their selection when it comes to Blu-rays pales in comparison to their entire shelves of DVDs, and they seem to favor DVDs. I sometimes donate a few Blu-rays to my library in order to get people to check them out.
- Redbox is the cheapest way to legally own movies. Like my library, the Redbox kiosk I go to (and most Redboxes in general) seems to prioritize DVD over Blu-ray, which can be a bit disheartenig. You can rent a Blu-ray at Redbox for $2.99/night, or you can buy it for $4.99.
- On eBay you can get some pretty good deals, though the condition of the disc may vary.
- Amazon is great if you want to pre-order a DVD/Blu-ray and want it delivered on the same day it releases. But then you have to buy it from Amazon. I don't usually pre-order movies to be delivered to me anymore.
- And finally there's Best Buy. If I want a newly-released disc, I'd rather go out of my way to drive all the way to the mall and buy the disc in-person at Best Buy than pre-order it from Amazon. The Best Buy near me is one of the few stores to still have a dedicated space for physical media, so I should feel grateful for that.
What do you do with your physical media?
Before I even put the discs in my player, I put them in my Blu-ray drive and make a backup with MakeMKV. If the keys to remove the DRM aren't available, I'll just torrent the BDMV. After the discs have been backed up, I watch them on my player.
If the keys to remove the DRM aren't available, I'll just torrent the BDMV.
If you have the right model of blu ray drive you could patch the firmware with libredrive so you could decrypt the keys yourself. I set up my LG drive with it in like 10 min.
I've never heard of this. Interesting!
And finally there's Best Buy.
My local Best Buy actually got rid of the DVD and CD section. That made me realize I needed to get serious about converting my physical media to digital. I'm still building my Plex library.
Yes, I know about Jellyfin and Emby. If I'd heard about them first, I'd probably be using one of them. Plex was the first one I tried, and it works great for me.
Permanently Deleted
What services do you use?
As a rental service I have used gamefly and redbox. When buying media, I have used Amazon, Hamilton Books, HPB and Decluttr.
Whats your experience with any of these services?
Gamefly
Its, okay....
Long mailing times due to lack of shipping centers.
Library of movies is pretty good, but lacks many classics.
Low stock.
Good place for contemporary media.
Redbox
Harder to find in my area.
limited library.
Decluttr
This is hit or miss. I have only bought and never sold items here.
Large library of changing titles.
Since pricing is set by an end user, so prices can be amazing or down right insane. (no one is paying $100+ dollars for a used blu ray)
I hate having physical media personally. I just want files of everything.
Amazon. They have used DVDs as well, and sometimes they get really cheap.
TIL nexflix still did disk mailing. I figured it would have been deprecated years ago. I get most of my Blu-rays from Amazon, largely because it's convienient, and I end up with Amazon gift cards from various people pretty often. Beyond that, Anime Blu-rays are pretty scare elsewhere without insane markup and/or shipping. I also sometimes get them at generic stores like best buy or target, when I just want a major release sold basically everywhere. I don't rent them because that would be stupid.
If you're in the UK Cinema Paridiso is a good service, similar to how lovefilm was back in the day.
For me, I sail the seven seas. If I didn't, and I was in the position where I could afford to self host, I would buy a bunch of DVDs/CDs/Blu-Rays (or just download films by sailing the seven seas, looking at you, *arr suite), rip the files from the drives and self host a Jellyfin server.
Mostly buy at Sanity or JB. I own several cubic metres of DVD and Bueray. But libraries have great stock, and don't cost to join.
you don't, cuz why tf would you do that
it's objectively obsolete lol
Because tons of media that was never properly digitized for the streaming era and only ever ended up on discs.
Doing it now will prevent a loss of history, much like early BBC recordings are lost because they would just tape over old broadcasts to save money.
For example, there was recently unearthed a single episode of a sketch comedy show made by Graham Chapman and Douglas Adams.
Problem was, the tape it was on was from the formats before VHS and Betamax. While the tape existed, no players to play back the tape existed anymore. It took a several year effort to build a new player from scratch. Finally, after all that, they were able to record the show to digital media and now it lives on YouTube for people to see. It's not the funniest material ever produced by either man, but it's definitely a piece of history worth looking at if you've ever enjoyed Monty Python or The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Attempts to digitize things that are currently available on disc but not available in digital file formats/streaming is absolutely a process of maintaining historical documents that would otherwise be lost to time. Building a new DVD or Bluray player from scratch when none exist anymore is a much bigger effort than making a tape video player, because it involves proprietary codecs, compression, and DRM.
So, I let others archive those and have digital versions of content I want. I get the appeal of discs, but I also get appeal of no discs (I'm in the latter camp)
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
a single episode of a sketch comedy show made by Graham Chapman and Douglas Adams.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Cuz I'm sick of not really owning my media. I have to hope the streaming company stays around, doesn't magically lose records or my purchase, etc.
Agree! I've made a sea shift to optical media whenever easily possible. It's such a breath of fresh air. Easy, reliable, high quality, not dependent on 15 servers between me and some hard drive in utah. Love grabbing a disc and knowing I'm gonna watch this and not have any dumb issues now or in 10years if I want to watch it again. If you haven't touched disc in awhile, I urge you to give it a shot; I doubt you will be disappointed.
In Japan, a large part of the digital manga/anime/videogames are still being released only on CDs/DVDs, no online access.
no, they put it online on a website called hanime
I sadly see a lot of doom and gloom on the horizon when it comes to streaming services as a whole. Prices will increase, Ads will become common place and limitations on how and when you view your content (Hardware exclusivity for example).
Additionally, as others mentioned some media will just be lost to the ages. Many movies and shows will likely never come to a streaming service and are lost to time. Kevin Smiths Dogma for example will likely never come to a streaming service.
Archiving and backing up a DVD, Blu Ray or UHD can be very valuable to a user even today. I run a personal JellyFin with over 1000 movie titles. Having instant access to a library like this can not compare to any streaming service in size or quality and it has zero subscription fees.
But each to their own.
Crazy, once you do back it up, then the CD becomes irrelevant. That's what I said. CD's being obsolete doesn't mean streaming is the only other option, despite if the circlejerk reads it as that way. Reality and the market is what's proving these as obsolete/
You’re not necessarily wrong, but you are unbearable.
Just because a technology has been eclipsed, it doesn’t mean it no longer has value.
Optical media is really the best choice for data archival. Magnetic media is far more subject to big rot. High quality CDs, DVDs and to a lesser extent Blu-ray Discs can last an order of magnitude longer.
Because not everyone has gigabit fiber run to their door. Streaming is not always the answer. I have read through all the back and forth here, but this is the point that was lost in the conversation. While it may be obsolete to you, it's still the easiest way to transfer large amounts of data to someone that might not have any internet other than their cell phone service.