Best Buy plans to phase out sales of DVDs and Blu-ray discs both in-store and online by early 2024, the company said.
Best Buy to end DVD & Blu-ray disc sales::Best Buy plans to phase out sales of DVDs and Blu-ray discs both in-store and online by early 2024, the company said.
I don't think most people have a device that can play disks anymore it's kind of crazy to think about but I haven't owned something with a disk drive in several years apart from a old cd player I found in the ewaste I keep at work because I don't want to throw it away
Xbox and PlayStation can both play Bluray, so a lot of people still have the option. But who cares if most people don’t want them? Most people don’t want a Chromebook, but they carry those.
If you look at the sale numbers, the overwhelming majority of people aren’t buying disks for movies and games, and when people buy consoles with optional drives, they usually end up buying the cheaper digital only version.
I still buy DVD and Blu-rays. Because you have a physical backup, you can watch it without Internet, and they can't change the media. Like removing scenes or episodes.
This is my biggest gripe. I have all of Mr. Show on DVD because it cant be taken away from me. Netflix deleted an episode of w/ Bob and David, so to watch the whole thing you have to pirate it. And the rub is they deleted it because David does blackface in one of the sketches where he's trying to provoke cops at a traffic stop.
Scenes of him in the now deleted episode are in the final one because its a documentary of sorts, but that one is still up. So you see them talking about sketches that you have no reference for because Netflix deleted them.
Same thing happened to Community - they removed one of the best episodes because it has blackface, but the context of it is that an actual insane person is doing it and literally Every other character condemns it in no small way (not to mention that it's not really blackface, because he's supposed to be a dark troll) - but it still had to go apparently
I would assume they would have to keep selling them. It's kinda hard to push the latest and greatest TV tech (and therefore TV sales) if you don't have high bitrate media to show it off with. Streaming services aren't giving you full UHD Bluray quality in order to save on bandwidth, so outside of piracy, physical media is your only option.
Seriously? Given how all the streaming services are getting more expensive, I was starting to wonder if buying some good series on Blu-ray would be the better option.
Buying series on a disc is crazy expensive. You're better off subscribing to a streaming service and cancel when you're done watching, even with the price increases.
The 17 year old technology of blu ray is apparently too new fangled for my library. Almost all of their collection, including new acquisitions, is the 27 year old format of DVD.
Physical media is still the best quality for those of us that care. I rip it to watch digitally, but I like having the physical backup and option to watch with minimal compression.
Just a reminder that anything digitally bought you don't own. The company you bought it from. Can do whatever they want with it. But you do sure as hell ownon a Blu-ray
Same. I love my Plex server - I rip all of my physical media audio and video to it and can watch/listen on all of my devices. Music is especially fun on Plex, as it pulls in great bio info for most of the artists, which makes organizing my decent sized music library a fun bit of zen..
Blu Ray is still the best quality you can get. Streaming services will compress the shit out of everything (even when they pretend you give you "4k") and pirate rips are all over the place. Buying a Blu Ray (and ripping out yourself if you do please) is a great investment because you own it, the quality is great, the discs have been designed to last 100 years or more, and they have capacity that will be able to deal with 8k and probably what comes after that too.
100% this. People jizz themselves over resolution and dynamic range all while having no idea that their image quality is shit due to compression destroying the bitrate of the video they are viewing.
I am young, tech-savvy and I started to use discs recently because I finally have money to buy movies and not pirate.
Honestly I don't want to pirate movies I really like, but if they don't want to give options, then...
CDs are still being produced despite most retailers dropping them or massively reducing stock. I’m hoping the same applies for blu-ray.
I want to own the media I pay for. If physical discs go away and there isn’t a DRM-free way to purchase it digitally (not a chance in hell of that happening), I will just pirate what I want to watch.
I buy music because DRM-free digital downloads are the norm.
I buy games because Steam is actually good and DRM-free options are available from Itch and GOG for those with no tolerance for DRM.
The TV and movie industry on the other hand feels like it’s actively trying to get rid of the only remaining way to own the media.
Also, I want to own the proper high quality version of my movies. There's such a noticeable difference between 4K streaming quality and 4K disc quality... if they stop making discs, there isn't any website where movies are sold at that uncompressed quality level digitally.
If you're willing to pirate, Stremio + Torrentio can do exactly this. Stream and download anything you want. Keep it forever. Works on smart TVs. This is the way.
Back when we saw the death of the floppy disk, I knew optical media's days were numbered. Twenty years ago we had no idea that everything was going to be "something as a service." Enshitification hadn't been invented yet.
Exactly. A lot of people in the thread seem to miss that point. Best Buy is a physical space with limited real estate. They carry things that people want to buy and taking things off their shelves is a clear indicator of something that isn't selling anymore. Streaming is not going away. The quality of streaming is good enough for the vast majority of the public.
Yeah, I haven't met a single person that that has owned nor have never seen anyone buy bluerays in all the years that it has been available.
It really got a weird timeframe, when internet started to become fast and readily available everywhere, streaming services starting to exist, computers getting smaller and without optical drives... In the last 15 years or more I haven't owned a computer with a reading optical drive.
People I know with playstations only use it to play mostly and the games are usually digital buys.
They slowly have been. My local target only has a small physical media section now, and the few Blu-rays and DVDs they have are only recent releases. They don't even carry 4k.
Online might be different but in store they're going away.
They have a good business selling appliances, electronics, and computers. I think where they really make their money is on the extended warranties and services. It makes me sad they don't have media anymore, but most everyone streams these days.
Wait, you think they are going out of business by not selling cds and dvds? That is not an important business for anyone anymore and they will now have more space for things that generate money.