if we lose physical media, we'll lose ownership of movies!!!

I see most people buying DVD because of price, and of course, because the option is still there. Bluray has been around for almost 15 years now, and DVD is still here - DVD should’ve been discontinued a decade ago. If Bluray was the only option on the shelf, they’d buy that instead. Old formats need to go in order for new formats to make any impression on the sales stats, and to make it relevant.

If when Bluray was released, a DVD copy was included in all Bluray releases, the discontinuation of the stand alone DVD release would have made way for a genuine Bluray take over - we’d now be seeing Bluray at the top of the format sales figures, and things would look very different, no matter how you view the stats.

People still buy DVD because they can.
The reason DVD is such a massive success is because it isn't 'videotape'. Being able to buy a film on a CD sized disc encouraged millions of people who rented VHS films to buy them instead. If DVDs were removed from the market 15 years ago, the result would have been the vast bulk of people who bought DVDs stopping buying discs altogether.
 
I think there is "physical media being replaced by streaming" and also the similar subject of "aerial/cable/satellite being replaced by the internet".

What is frightening me at the moment is that I have a horrible feeling we currently have broadcast programmes mostly in 1080 and some in DD5.1. Are we looking in the next few years to a change to broadcast TV being from the internet and being at the same quality the on demand players are now? I.e. 720 with max 2 channels?

At the moment, we have "recorders", but I have a feeling that (for example) whenever a Sky box comes out that will work through the internet, if you click to "reserve the whole series of Emmerdale" when you go to watch one from yesterday it will directly link to the poor quality on demand version. Instead of now, where we can record it and have our own better version on a hard disc that doesn't need any connection to watch.
 
I think there is "physical media being replaced by streaming" and also the similar subject of "aerial/cable/satellite being replaced by the internet".

What is frightening me at the moment is that I have a horrible feeling we currently have broadcast programmes mostly in 1080 and some in DD5.1. Are we looking in the next few years to a change to broadcast TV being from the internet and being at the same quality the on demand players are now? I.e. 720 with max 2 channels?

At the moment, we have "recorders", but I have a feeling that (for example) whenever a Sky box comes out that will work through the internet, if you click to "reserve the whole series of Emmerdale" when you go to watch one from yesterday it will directly link to the poor quality on demand version. Instead of now, where we can record it and have our own better version on a hard disc that doesn't need any connection to watch.
I think the real tragedy here is that Emmerdale isn't yet available on UHD Blu Ray in glorious native 4k with HDR.
 
I think the real tragedy here is that Emmerdale isn't yet available on UHD Blu Ray in glorious native 4k with HDR.

Yes, with minimum 9.x.6 DTS:X soundtrack too.

(Emmerdale was just an example!).
 
ATSC 3.0 allows broadcasts in UHD & HDR, but our local broadcasters are not planning on upgrading.
They did upgrade their transmitters last year & at that time I asked about ATSC 3.0, because I thought it would be a nice reason for buying a UHD OLED, but all the local affiliates told me that same thing, NO plans for ATSC 3.0.

ABC-TV (owned by Disney) are still only broadcasting 720p & only more audio channels than Stereo at prime-time.

It's next to impossible to sell blu-rays in my area. It took me 5 months to sell some at $1 each, then I discovered I could sell them for the same price to the local pawnshops.
I can also buy them for only $2 each at the pawnshops.

Streaming UHD/HDR video uses about 30 to 40 Mbps, but a UHD blu-ray transfers at least 80 Mbps.
Watching a UHD stream gives us picture quality on par with watching a HD blu-ray.
 
I also don't like being tied to a service. If I pay £10 for a 4K disc it doesn't cost me anything to watch it again, no monthly subscription required. The fact that some try to charge a lot more for UHD streaming is annoying too. Netflix for example, £12/month £144 per year, add a few more services to that and it's going run into £100's per year, every year.

I suspect they all know 4K is more or less the endgame for home entertainment. No more chances to sell you the same film over and over, hence the "rental" system. You "buy" it but then pay rent to watch it year after year. If I buy a UHD disc and the quality never gets any better I never have to pay them again. This must have been raised in many boardrooms?
Except no , that is not going to happen , there will be no optical disc niche market.
Once optical media dies its gone forever.

Optical disc players require specialist semiconductors to work.

Specialist semiconductors require an up and running semiconductor fabrication line , and these cost billions to set up and are very expensive to keep running.
When declining media sales hit a certain level , these lines will shut down and they wont be back.

The Situation is like the Spitfire vs the Vulcan bomber.

The Spitfire is still flying , mainly because its simpler tech and you could build one in a shed , much like a record player.

The Vulcan is not flying anymore , because it is much more complex technology and the means to maintain it safely is gone , obsolete and passed into history.
This is the fate of CD and optical disc media , once its gone , its gone forever , most of the major manufacturers are out of the player market , only one or two left , and when they go , then the semiconductor lines shut down and its simply a matter of how long existing players live and then that's it.
That owning a 1080p (non curved) OLED TV is not an option is likewise why I detest media giants making it progressively harder to avoid paying monthly fees for a streaming service-at least for content which never was issued on 1080p BD, or which boutique BD brands haven’t
acquired the rights to do so. I don’t doubt that at least some of the streaming service libraries offers huge variety, though I’m just as sure they contain countless titles of the same warrior and
dystopian sci-fi genre crud which continually fill the shelves of my local public library-AND which are purchased with my taxes. And as I’ve been collecting DVDs and then BDs for years, and which still watch repeatedly, another monthly utility bill I don’t need. Except perhaps for a short while. For example, exactly only two movie titles, both over 5 years old, which were never released on BD. While I feel the price of RedFox’s AnyStreaming software is a bit steep, it lets you unlock the 1080p quality download so you can save it to your storage drive and opt to burn it to BD-RE.

I too lament what seems like the eventual demise of standalone BD players, now that Samsung, Oppo, Marantz, Arcam and others have closed down their lines. However, Oppo continues to offer factory service on all of their models and according Voxx International’s 11 Trading Company their will be a successor to my Pioneer Elite LX500 player around July. Perhaps more importantly as HTPC and external BD drives are way cheaper to produce than BD players-and as JRiver is probably the best app to play any kind media format-there seems little fear of physical collections being inaccessible to owners. Pioneer, Plextor, LG. ASUS and others continue to release new BD drives (perhaps further compelled by the resurgence in music CD sales) and JRiver’s functionality can be hand held remote controlled, can perfectly decode DTS MA soundtracks, a/v syncing issues can be easily nullified and offers several playback effects available from most BD players, like fully functional zoom, accessing slow motion is still very clunky. And you do need to have a decrypter like AnyDVD HD running in the background to play BDs.
 

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