In a 2019 article for the British Broadcasting Corporation, Sharon George and Dierdre McKay wrote, “If you only listen to a track a couple of times, then streaming is the best option. If you listen repeatedly, a physical copy is best . . . ” They were referring to the comparative environmental costs of listening to music either over the internet or reproduced on an electronic device. They could just as well have been giving excellent advice on the best strategy for enjoying all types of entertainment media in the digital age.
Owning physical copies only of favorite movies, television shows, books, and music, while streaming more transitory entertainments, is not only better for the environment, but better in all sorts of other ways. Buying an entertainment you may enjoy only once or twice is expensive and takes up shelf space in the home. Streaming choices are often limited to the most popular or the newest entertainments, leaving outright purchase from a vendor or borrowing from a library as the only options for enjoying more obscure, less widely popular works.
Cinerama historians John Harvey and Willem Bouwmeester photographed in 1987 examining the back covers of vinyl record albums devoted to music used in Cinerama productions. After many years years researching all things Cinerama, they eventually collaborated on the Cinerama installation in Bradford, England, in 1993. Photo by LarryNitrate2Cinerama.
There are indeed thousands of movies and television shows available on the streaming services, but a close examination reveals that the majority of those on the advertisement supported services are public domain properties that will be familiar to anyone who has rooted through the bargain DVD and Blu-ray bins at big box stores. The subscription streaming services are meanwhile moving toward a vertical integration model reminiscent of the Hollywood studios in the days when they owned production and distribution from top to bottom.
If you want to watch the latest Star Wars franchise release and you missed it during it’s brief theatrical release, then you must subscribe to Disney’s streaming service or go without. Some films these days don’t get a theatrical release at all. Another option is to buy the physical media if and when it becomes available. But in that case you would still want to watch the movie first to be sure it’s worth buying. It’s likely there will be always be a hardware means of playing back most electronic media, the trick is in guessing correctly which ones will stand the test of time.
30 years ago, many people thought vinyl record albums were all but dead. Only a tiny niche market of record collectors and audiophiles would continue to have need of record players and record player parts. Few people in 1991 would have guessed that by 2021 sales and production of vinyl records would have reemerged from the dustbin, while compact discs and players, for a brief period the predominant music delivery system on the market, would be overtaken first by digital downloads, and then by streaming music services.
A similar dynamic appears to be at play in the visual media market of movies and television shows. Despite the close resemblance of DVDs and Blu-ray discs to music compact discs, they are more comparable to vinyl records in quality of reproduction and in the way consumers use them. Blu-ray discs in particular are attractive items for ownership by collectors and cinephiles due to the outstanding quality of their video and audio reproduction, which can often outstrip what’s available for the same title on a streaming service.
Despite big manufacturers like Samsung discontinuing Blu-ray player production a few years ago because they noted the decline in the market to niche status, and similarly Warner Brothers recently moving toward ceasing production of discs, there will always be a demand for new Blu-ray players and new Blu-ray discs, however much the market shrinks for now. Just ask the manufacturers of vinyl records and the turntables needed to play them.
Video subscription service Netflix is increasing prices across the board early this year as the company finances its ever increasing production of original content. For about 4 million customers who still receive discs by mail, down from a peak of about 20 million in 2010, being asked to pay more to subsidize internet streaming content they may not want or, in many cases, be able to access, is a bit dispiriting, as if Netflix has forgotten the wisdom of the old saying “Dance with them what brung you.”
For most of this decade, Netflix has continued its disc-by-mail service as a legacy option while it focused on its streaming service and on offering shows produced in house. Customer service remained excellent even as the catalog of older movies and television shows available on disc steadily diminished. The large catalog of content from the mid-twentieth century and earlier is where Netflix really shined ten or more years ago. Blockbuster never offered as much, even in its belated transformation to Blockbuster Online. Redbox has also never had much to offer customers interested in anything other than the latest releases. Filmstruck had an extensive catalog of older, less widely popular content, but it closed shop last year.
Clipping of a news story from the May 4, 1928 edition of The Boston Post, announcing the start of television broadcasts by station WLEX in Lexington, Massachusetts.
For people in rural areas, streaming is often not an option because they have no broadband service or service that is limited either in speed or data usage. There are probably some Netflix customers who simply prefer a disc over streaming, but the majority of the remaining disc-by-mail customers are likely people for whom streaming is not a viable option. It has become a niche market, to be sure, and one that Netflix will sustain only as long as it generates enough profits to supply cash for the rest of its business. That window is closing.
Next generation television, which will increase the opportunity for local broadcasters to open more sub-channels offering niche content such as old movies and television shows, is at least another year away, and probably two or three before widespread adoption. Next generation television is a voluntary standard for broadcasters to send a 4K signal accompanied by internet data over updated and more expensive transmitters. Home viewers will need a 4K television as well as a next generation tuner, known as ATSC 3.0, and an internet router in order to take full advantage of the new broadcast technology. Viewers can still watch programs broadcast in 4K without setting up to receive the internet portion of the signal, though it’s not clear now if broadcasters will encrypt some of their signals to make them available on subscription or only for those who have enabled the internet signal.
Since the FCC has made the switch voluntary, broadcasters have much wider latitude in how they implement the new technology than they did during the transition from analog to digital, and the power of the new technology itself makes more options possible. The question is whether home viewers will tolerate the targeted advertising enabled by the internet portion of the signal, looking on it as no different than any other internet service.
Fahrenheit 451, the 1966 film adaptation by François Truffaut of Ray Bradbury’s novel, here with Julie Christie and Oskar Werner, is the kind of movie that all but disappeared from broadcast television lineups in the past 30 years. With the possibility of more sub-channels becoming available after the 4K broadcast rollout, perhaps broadcasters will once again air movies like this.
For people who already have SmartTVs and use them for internet streaming there will probably be no difficulty in adjusting; for those people in the niche market of getting their video entertainment by way of a disc in the mail and then being left to enjoy it in peace, having to cope with only minor nosiness about them on the Netflix website, the adjustment may be a step too far into creepiness. It will be interesting to see if next generation 4K broadcast television and its improved reception in rural areas, combined with a wider range of content, fills the gap being left by the general move toward internet streaming and, if it keeps broadcast television free, whether it will be an improvement over most of those services, though it is hard to imagine a local television station going as far as devoting a sub-channel to obscure art house films.
— Techly
