DVDs: Are they Obsolete?

Every time my extended family gets together, there is a fun, absorbing conversation: Are DVDs on the way out, and if so, how long before our local DVD store closes? (Certain family members are certain that it will close within a year!)

They grasp their IPhones to demonstrate how easy it is to locate and watch a movie, getting their thumbs moving as they navigate multiple streaming services until it is found. They have even passed the “Find the Towering Inferno” challenge, finding it after 3.28 minutes.

My family has a large cabinet in our lounge room, which contains over 500 titles, ranging in genre from Star Wars to war movies such as the Memphis Belle and The Great Escape to my wife’s favourite series such as Pride and Prejudice, As Time Goes By and Keeping Up Appearances. She loves watching these series annually, to go over their iconic scenes and beautiful English scenery.

We have often thought about what our relatives have said about how easy it is to watch movies online, but have concluded that, while this is true, it is so easy to just go to our cabinet, find a movie and watch it, rather than having to do investigative work across multiple streaming sites to watch movies, especially if they are older (such as the Poseidon Adventure).

Also, having a great movie experience requires a great internet connection, with a great download speed. This applies to our said relatives, who live in urban Sydney, which has one of the best connections and speed in Australia. It did not apply to my family, when we moved to a small town in the Adelaide Hills early last year. Before our National Broadband Network (NBN) access was set up, after we moved in, we not only had extremely slow internet speed (via mobile data), but limited phone coverage, as we were in a “black spot’ with our phone provider.

This was solved when our internet was connected, via a dish on our roof, aimed at a far away mobile phone tower. This improved our coverage, but it was not as fast as a suburban optic fibre connection. Also, when the phone tower was switched off due to maintenance (several times last year), gone was our internet access. In addition, our quality online streaming access was limited to within 10 metres of our modem and NBN router, both of which were in our lounge room.

We have since moved to a townhouse in a large town in the Adelaide Hills, and now have an optic fibre connection, but unfortunately, when our NBN router was set up this year, it was installed in our garage, meaning that our signal needs to go through walls, affecting its speed and quality. We solved this by buying Internet Extenders, which duplicate our modem’s signal in each room they are put in.

Our conclusion from this is that great quality movies from streaming = an excellent internet signal, which we eventually achieved vs just locating a DVD in our cabinet and watching it.

It is true that DVDs have been on the decline for many years, as movie streaming has increased in popularity, but there are still advantages to having DVDs:

• Once you have a DVD, provided that you look after it, you have it forever.

• There are no monthly membership fees associated with keeping them, or viewing them
• Streaming platforms can remove movies when they are no longer popular
• If you enjoy re-watching movies or series, they are very accessible

I would like to note that my family does have memberships on 3 online streaming services to complement our DVD collection, and we use this to access iconic, popular movies (I am currently introducing her to James Bond…). Our two children are not into movies, so we may review this.

As to the supposedly imminent closure of our local DVD store (a dinosaur, perhaps…?), this is still thriving, and has now branched out into family games. DVD players are still sold by our local KMart and electrical goods retailer.

Source:

Business Insider Australia: Streaming may be everywhere, but DVDs are far from dead. Here’s why collectors stock up on thousands of physical discs even as film goes digital - https://www.businessinsider.com.au/dvd-collectors-physical-discs-not-dead-streaming-netflix-digital-2021-6