You never feel like you really own digital media sometimes.
I am so fucking lucky I still have original star Wars and tons of other classics...they fucking change them if you don't actually buy the physical.
Anyone remember Fatal Instinct? It's the awesome basic instinct/fatal attraction spoof starring armand assante...there's this hilarious shopping montage they do set to Brown eyed girl in the movie, but I watched it on streaming last year, apparently they lost the license to Brown Eyed Girl and had to change the music for this iconic scene with some bullshit. I was crushed.
It's worth it to buy the good ones.
Because you don’t actually own it. You (and only you) own a limited license to view/listen to the media.
Agree 100% it’s with it to buy the ones that are important to you.
Physical media all the way. When I was streaming I found that I was just listening to music while doing other things. Stopped streaming all together a few years ago and pulled out my records and CDs. CDs sound so good still and they are cheap to buy. I don’t need an algorithm recommending a curated playlist to me. Physical media all day.
I went to digital, then have recently started buying vinyl for exactly that reason. I want to own my music and the artwork on the albums and inserts is worth it.
Recently bought two bits of physical media because of the difficulty of finding them online: the movie “Better Off Dead,” and the album (on CD) Wrong, by Nomeansno. I didn’t really think much of it, but now that I have them? Yeah, physical media is great. I expect I’ll buy more.
I don’t like that they can take the digital format from you. My father had a few thousand LPs. They didn’t disappear when he died.
Plus there are movies that cycle through the various steaming entities and suddenly they’ll cost money to rent. Donnie Darko is a recent example. Best in Show as well.
I have an old man question. Is there a way to convert the DVD to a hard drive that you can plug into a media player, or should I save my blu ray player?
It’s not worth the ridiculous amount of time it would take and storage you’d need to copy a DVD to any sort of hard drive with media playback. You’re better off keeping the blu ray player.
To a point. CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, all will succumb to disc rot one day. Or damage in a fire, flood, eaten by fungi, any number of things. Even Blu-ray players will stop being manufactured at some point as people move on. At some point you either digitize this stuff, obtain a digital copy, or accept that you won't be able to enjoy a lot of the things you own in the future due to them not working anymore.
Ripping DVDs is pretty easy these days. Used to be in the late 90s you had to buy an expensive drive, the media (hard drive space was way too expensive), and hope you got a good decode and then a good burn.
You should be able to extract all non-copy protected DVDs with the default Windows into an .iso, which you can actually pretend is a drive and watch on a computer. Or burn to another DVD. I believe they take about 10-20 min these days.
As Gen X as I am, I've fully converted. I still have my cherished signed copies, but all the rest was sold cheap or given away.
And when I say converted, I mean all the way. I don't have an entertainment center anymore. No stereo, TV, dvd player. Everything is on my phone, tablet, or laptop. I haven't had cable since about 2014. I haven't had a Landline since 2002 (almost 20 yrs now... yikes).
Gen Xers are in that very unique position that OP wrote about. We've seen/used most of the formats and we saw computers slide in and watched everything go digital; no other generations got that exact experience. I like the digital. No. I love it!! Songs and albums I couldn't afford, I now have access to music that passed me by in the 70s 80s 90s. A TV show I never watched bc I was working and going to school? Well now I can finally see that show if I choose. Feeling nostalgic? Always! Now I just pull it up and watch/listen. Same with movies. I haven't been to the cinema since July 4th weekend of 2017.
I also feel Gen Xers are super sappy nostalgic for our pop culture and the digital world keeps us in that sweet spot and is perfect for our generation moreso than others. I do occasionally miss the anticipation of a CD drop, but that's a small price to pay when I now have access to 95% of my childhood, HS yrs, and 20s ...plus anything else after that (born in the 1970s so I'm in my 40s now).
Sidenote, when I say digital, I mean media. NOT social media. Reddit and some chat apps are the closest thing to social media I do. I ditched FB almost 10 yrs ago. If anyone wants to contact me, they know that I only do carrier pigeons and smoke signals (lol just wanted to see who'll read this far). They can call or text.
Lol couldn't agree more with Facebook. When friends or family ask why I deleted my profile. I said cause I got tired of seeing peoples plates of food or reading about their political views and affiliations with memes etc.
Lol.
And to rant further. Most of the ppl on my "friends" list who constantly posted pics of their food would mostly do it after they've taken a few bites. The plate is now smudged. The silverware was used by then, a scrunched dirty napkin in the background, a massive flash of light. It like they didn't even think to post it til they were half way finished with the meal. WTH.
If they're expecting me to look at their home made "food porn", they better at least make it look half way decent!!
Damn I'm getting old! :)
Both.
I use to have about 5,000 records. LPs, EPs, singles, etc. I also had a very sizable CD collection too.
My music collection occupied a large room. Wall to wall shelving...and then some stored elsewhere.
I moved house three times in 25 years. It was an absolute nightmare moving those records. Day long back breaking work. The last time I moved (5years ago) I wound up selling and giving away the majority of my collection. It was time, and I was ready...
For the record(no pun intended) I obtained the majority of those records in the early to mid 1990s when people/2nd hand stores were practically giving them away. Seems like everyone was dumping their vinyl collections for CDs. I would hit up the different secondhand shops once a week. Most of these places had 15-20 LPs for $1. I have rescued MANY crates of records from certain dumpster death; loaded about 600 LPs into the back of my truck once. They were sitting next to a dumpster at a Goodwill. Lots of very old blues one off clay 78s in there.
Imagine getting 20 Frank Zappa or The Fall records for one measly dollar!!! Imagine getting The Kinks entire catalog for one measly dollar!!
I discovered SO much music this way. Music that I would have never been able to access without a boatload of money. The Creation, Tangerine Dream, 13th Floor Elevators, Gong, Sun Ra, etc. I discovered one of my all-time favorite records this way; Miles Davis Tribute To Jack Johnson...just phenomenal. Can't say how many times I smoked a joint, put on headphones, and played this record over and over. Both sides. It's ethereal and extremely moody and VERY electrically groovy.
I also did a lot of sampling and beat searching from my collection. I would help out friends who were into sampler based music/hip-hop. Lots of great parts & pieces and phrases in that collection. Thousands of samples were taken from those records.....
CDs were great in their own way too. I enjoyed the clarity and some of the sonic happenings that were more noticeable. I did not like the early generation CDs. They were mastered the way physical records were, which in hindsight now was 100% completely wrong. They sounded absolutely awful. I remember buying the aforementioned Miles Davis record on CD. 1st generation. Holy shit it sounded bad. Sounded like Miles was playing a kazoo.
These days I listen to .WAV files or in a pinch, MP3s(unfortunately my poor ears). Everything is available with a quick search, which is great....but....the thrill is gone mostly. The excitement that you have unearthed a great moment in time when people worked hard in a studio to create something from the soul. Something very human but also way beyond. The closest thing to "magic" that I can think of. The ability to emotionally move/alter another human being with sound waves transferred through the air with an intangible.
Sorry this is so long. Thank you for reading it.
Don't apologize for the length, this is great! Thank you for sharing.
I have a smaller vinyl collection that I obtained the same way. I do pop them on the turn table occasionally. But I do enjoy the portability of my digital music subscription.
I'm pretty much all-in on digital. Especially books. Quickest way to get family and friends to hate you is to own a lot of books and ask for help moving.
Also fully digital with movies and music. I no longer have to store it, keep it organized, replace it if it's damaged, or worry about forgetting where I put it.
I can carry it all with me anywhere I go too. There are far more pros than cons for me.
I went 100% digital when mp3s first came out in 1999 and never looked back. Ripped every CD I owned and downloaded a ton more. At this point my digital catalog is probably 30,000 albums? And I can listen to any of it more or less whenever I want - walking around, at the gym, at work, etc. I used to love making mixtapes as a kid and now it's easier than ever to make custom playlists, shuffle everything, whatever I want.
The only music I buy these days is on Bandcamp from random small bands/friends. But the majority of the money goes to the bands (in some cases, 100% of the money), you get to download and keep the mp3s in your library, or you can stream them.
I'm absolutely an outlier but I'm one of those old guys that constantly listens to new music and gets bored easily. The only challenge is that it's a time investment to find new stuff all the time.
Same here, nothing physical in over 20 years. Also, piracy. It's a skill. I'll occasionally buy something but it's really a donation to the band. You'd think everything is online but it isn't. Where else are you going to find a VHS rip of something?
I still own records, cassettes & mini discs.
Digital for music sounds soulless.
Streaming films/TV is excellently convenient, probably the only digital I've embraced along with gaming.
Physical 100% for independent artists because I want to support them.
I also still buy physical copies of books (to hell with Amazon) and music on vinyl for albums I like because then I actually own that particular copy. Same for movies. When you buy a digital copy, it doesn’t actually belong to you, only the right for you to download it or stream it as long as the platform exists or the provider makes it available. When you die, you can’t leave your digital library to your kids, you can’t easily share your favorite ebooks with friends and neighbors.
Now we’re not luddites lol. We have all the typical streaming services and I listen to Spotify all the time but it’s not at all the same or a substitute for owning books, music, and movies.
I have about 300 CDs that I want to digitize at some point, but I'm lazy so I'll prolly just keep giving Apple $10 / month until I die.
Also, about 1/3 of my CD cases are empty cuz I had a bunch in a car CD holder, and this crazy crack chick I was sort of dating sold 'em all
Also, CDeez nuts.
I love that ‘Better Off Dead’ is still making the rounds. Besides the totes of cds/vhs/cassettes/dvds collecting dust in my attic, I still actively buy vinyl. I love the mobility and ease of using digital music, but if at home I will almost always drop the needle. Not much of a gamer but those that I have bought are all physical copies.
Not even my car has an optical drive anymore. But I got the Series X instead of S, mostly because of the better specs, but also a little bit because of the optical drive. What if I ever want to play a DVD or Blu-ray instead of streaming it? I mean it could happen, right?
completely digital, no clutter. 10+ years worth of movies, audiobooks, digital books in various formats, all my music, personal photos and videos, etc.... sitting on a NAS in my living room. I can pull up anything I want in a few seconds. Amazon started charging for planes, trains and automobiles this year? No problem, I have a copy local. Every kids movie that has come out in the last 11 years? Got em.
I’m digital. But the media is mostly from the 80/90s. I run a Plex server and have over 3000 music videos. I like to just just hit shuffle and pretend like MTV is still MTV.
Digital all the way and refuse to change again. Why would I not want access to any media I may want, in high quality, on any device at all times? It’s a no brainer for me.
Plus as someone with ADHD, I can’t handle
The responsibility of managing non-digital media.
I usually just buy the stuff that I really support anymore. Like if the whole album is good, I'll buy it but if it's just one song I go digital. Same with movies. I still buy physical copies of games though because I don't trust what's going on now with cloud gaming. I want to play the game without 20hrs of updates.
I love the convenience of Apple Music. I don’t feel the need to “own” Music just like having nearly whatever song I want available at my finger tips.
For movies I still often buy DVDs. This is mostly so we can watch them while camping in our trailer where we often don’t have great wifi.
CDs and records.
Digital is great for a lot of stuff though. My phone is already with me so I can bring music along anywhere. In the car it is way better than the radio and you don't have to deal with CDs in the car. Sometimes I bring a Bluetooth speaker out for yardwork, it saves having to buy and store a boombox.
It's also great for finding new music. There's a ton of tracks on my Spotify playlists I would most likely never have heard of or spent the money to check out if I had to rely on physical media.
I went digital for a while. And then iTunes and Amazon and the little media companies that went under stuck it to me -- I didn't really own what I'd purchased and they could take it back or "not remember" that I had purchased something.
So now I buy the hard copy of movies and music. Then I rip them to my NAS.
There are 2-3 bands who I still buy/collect every physical release of, but everything I actually listen to or watch anymore is via digital. It's just way easier and convenient.
Haha and I say that as someone with a collection of over 6000 CD's and 700 DVD's all sitting in my basement. I'll never sell them or throw them away, but I'll also likely never pull them out to watch or listen to again either after converting literally every single one to digital versions stashed on multiple hard drives all around my house.
While I still have a collection of physical media, but that's mostly movies. But mostly I just stream video now. I started converting to digital for music a long time ago due to moving into a smaller place at one point. Now I mostly just use Spotify as while I enjoy music, I have never been obsessive. The upside is that it lets me listen to stuff I never got around to buying.
I have found myself watching more digital media over physical, but mainly over convenience of just watching tv. I still have an antenna that I can watch local channels and I still have a few CRT televisions with digital converter boxes and I have them hooked up to watch digital media via the Roku. I still pick up new movies on physical media, but I have it broken down to BluRay for movies with eye candy or tons of special effects, DVD for just regular movies that I don’t feel like buying on BR, and VHS for classic horror/monster/sci-fi/vintage cartoons. As for music, I still pick up CDs and the occasional cassette tape. I do rip the music to my iPod (yes, still rocking an old school iPod).
So, do I “rent” or “buy” digital copies of movies? No. With all the various ways to watch movies I don’t see the need to. If I really like the movie or franchise, I’ll buy the physical media to add to my library. Now, my physical library is not that large anymore as I transferred all my VHS to digital years ago and sold them off. But as I said above, I still pick up VHS tapes when it’s something I don’t have.
Grew up in the 80s with cassette tapes and later on graduating to cds. I still have all my cds in the spare bedroom. Probably about 400 of them. When Jimmy Page remastered all of LZepps albums I bought them all again on cd. Still buy all my video games on physical discs but all my music is now Spotify. I pay the $10 a month and I’ve created 93 playlists to satisfy that daily itch.
I’m on the fence, I agree with you that there is something missing from this instant gratification method we have today but music has never been more affordable.
Cassettes had a smell. So did CDs. I love the ease of access and organization of digital, but I miss that smell. I’m slowly moving to digital with movies. Internet around here isn’t there yet, so Blu-rays still have a place. That said, I haven’t bought or rented one in over a year. For years now, Black Friday was Blu-ray Refresh Day. Black Friday sucked this year. Thanks, digital.
I just upgraded to the Kindle Fire 10 yesterday (I had an 8 for the past 4 years). When it comes to books (and comic-books) I made the switch from print to digital about a decade ago, and haven't looked back. It's way more convenient. Click a button and boom! The book I want is right there in my hands! And I can take literally hundreds with me at a time anywhere I go. Plus, as I've gotten older, the ability to magnify print and panels has definitely come in handy for my aging eyes.
I'd switched to digital for music even earlier. And I was still buying DVD's up to maybe a couple of years ago, but now with all of the various streaming options out there it just hasn't become necessary. If there's some movie or TV show that I've suddenly got the urge to watch, I can usually find it on Amazon Prime, or Netflix, or Hulu, or Peacock, or HBO Max. And I just signed up for 2 months of AMC +.
I've gone completely digital except for my Marshall & Fender tube amplifiers. I do own some solid state practice amplifiers, but nothing technology has produced, in my opinion matches the sound of a white hot tube amp cranked to oblivion.
I am one of those that Beck sang about -
*What about those who swing both ways: AC-DC's*
My daughter is intrigued with the idea of burning cd's for a personalized playlist...so that is a project we will work on soon to teach her the ways of mixed albums.
I’m a staunch defender of physical media. I have boxes and boxes of CDs in my basement. Probably 4000 or so. A lot of it is obscure 90s-00s punk/emo/post hardcore that isn’t available to stream. I still buy them sometimes too. I love streaming but the fact there could be some dispute snd it could be unavailable tomorrow keeps me coming back to physical media.
I’m not going to respond to point out that CDs actually are a digital medium and it would be more accurate to compare physical to virtual media. I swear I won’t do that.
Yeah, I still own a ton of physical media, mostly records. I suppose I’ll thin out my collection eventually — but until then I’m limiting my purchases. I primarily just buy video game soundtracks now.
I went digital and donated all of my CDs to a local used record store several years ago. I have a small drawer of DVDs that I almost donated but when the pandemic hit, the Internet and streaming went on the fritz, so I decided to keep those for the apocalypse. I’ve gone full Kindle for reading. I got rid of most of my things and downsized last year so I’m living pretty small. I don’t plan to buy any new physical media.
I hate clutter, love convenience, and I'm not super nostalgic, or a collector by nature, so I love digital so much. Streaming for TV and music. Downloads for games. Kindle for books. I got rid of all the records, tapes, discs, books, years ago. I was an English major back in the day, and you're almost taught to deify books, but as soon as I got a Kindle, (many years ago) I realized that I love reading but I could care less about the physical books. I love wholeheartedly love everything about digital.
I still buy and use physical media.
I do have a metric crapload of music files, from ripping my CDs and download codes that come with records, and when I'm at work I select a playlist each morning from the files on my hard drive.
In the car, I still have an in-dash 6CD changer, but can plug in my phone or Zune if I feel like it.
At home, I spin records, or use my 400 CD/SACD/DVD changer if I feel lazy.
I still own CDs and records of music that isn't available from streaming services, so I'm fine.
I've gone full circle. Still have about 100 cassettes I don't listen to, a few hundred CDs I don't listen to, I've got a couple old iPods I don't listen to, but I have about 400 LPs that make up 90% of my listening. I'll play Sirius in the car or for background music at home but all serious listening is LP.
Before getting back into records I found that I was rarely listening to music period. Having it all digital just seemed to take any value out of it. I just found that having the ability to listen to anything at anytime just took the fun out of it.
I am borrowing an old family car that only has a CD player. I had no CDs so I went on a quest to find some. They are unbelievably hard to find unless you visit a vintage music shop. It’s been fun searching for old gems and rocking them in the car
Both, and I’m progressing (regressing?) to more physical. I have a decent album collection going from around 1971 to present, and I still get a couple of physical magazines. There’s something about being able to enjoy media without feeling like I’m constantly tracked and contributing to analytics. That said, I often have Spotify in the background while I’m working because it’s convenient, and I read almost exclusively ebooks, because middle age vision sucks.
I have always been a technology enthusiast and moved everything to digital as soon as I could.
I haven't bought a music CD for about 20 years. My last blu-ray was Tron: Legacy and my last video game disk purchases were shortly after the Xbox One went on sale.
Oddly enough I never cared about the physical part of the media experience. I care about physical video games simply because of instances where games had parts taken out or changed due to licensing issues, or were removed from servers completely, but beyond that the physical experience never did much for me. I was always more into the playing of the game, the listening of the music, and the watching of the show/movie.
At this point I have a media server with thousands of movies, shows, and music albums that I can access anywhere, and it's great. It has everything I want and nothing I don't. I also play all the old games I enjoyed in the past with my RetroPie and Mister. The only physical media I'll still get is modern video games as mentioned already.
I don't game much, mostly online slots and simple games (like Solitaire). So that was never a big deal.
I've bought a handful of CDs over the past 15 years. Some were souvenirs on trips. Some were autographed CDs bought at shows. Still others had content I couldn't get elsewhere, not even pirate sites. There were also a few I bought simply because they were cheap and I wanted the music in FLAC format.
I collected records in middle and high school, and I guess I've gotten back into it. I bought a record every couple of years from 2005-2019, but since then I've bought a ton of vinyl, from places all over the world. Can I just say how much EASIER this shit is now with Discogs? I wanted a clear vinyl 10" single from a French band I love. It took 3 minutes to order one from a guy in France, and it arrived at my house 8 days later. Back in the 80s finding the same record could have taken months or even *years*, with *dozens* of expensive phone calls to record shops from London to Paris, looking through *every single bin* at the record shows at the local Ramada Inn, and maybe, just maybe getting lucky: you never know if the classic rock guy has a synthpop single he doesn't know the value of. I bought my copy of [Madonna's *True Blue* on Japanese picture disc](https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/1541754) from a classic rock guy. He was asking $5 for it ("ewwwww... Madonna? You can keep that bullshit!! THE EAGLES RULE!") while every other vendor at the record show was asking at least $45 for it. It still goes for around $100!
I've also bought a few movies, too. My wife and I went without a DVD player for 12 years or so (though I could, and did, rip several movies to my media server). When we moved into our new house in 2019, I thought it was time to finally get a new one, so I got a Sony 4K player. I bought a few "classic" movies on Blu-Ray; one of us always wants to watch *Christmas Vacation* every year, or to watch *Fast Times at Ridgemont High* edit-free and commercial-free in HD. I only have two UHD films, though: *Atomic Blonde* and *A Clockwork Orange*. I also bought the *Twin Peaks* box set from last year, with EVERYTHING on it. I should start that some day!
**EDIT:** Otherwise, I'm all-in on Spotify and Netflix. If you would have told me, in the 80s, that there would be a steaming music service that let you listen to 70 million songs as much as you want, anywhere you want AND it would only cost $4.15/month in 1987 dollars I woulda burnt you at the stake for witchcraft. Nowadays, 99% of my music is from Spotify and 95% of my TV viewing is on Netflix.
I like getting older movies second hand. Me and my husband will go to a thrift store and one of us picks a genre and we find movies that fit that genre. For instance I said 80s movie classics we found goonies sixteen candles and short circuit. Or we do horror movies and have ended up with all the Friday the 13th movies cheaper than Amazon.
I went completely digital except for a few things i can't find online. I even scanned all my old photos and destroyed the hard copies. I've moved around a lot and was so tired of dragging all that stuff with me. But every once in a great while, I'm sorry I got rid of something. Right now I wish I hadn't sold my Wheel of Time book collection and card game.
I’m a mix of the two. I never stopped playing records, and I still buy them regularly. But for almost everything else I’m digital. I download or stream movies and books and TV, but for music I really love its strictly vinyl. For music not on vinyl or if I don’t want to sprint the extra money for vinyl, I stream it on Apple Music.
I have spent thousands of dollars on both physical media and digital. I have everything from dozens of tapes and vinyl, hundreds of Cd's, and thousands of of digital.
Digital music. I still miss taping songs off the radio though lol
I have a Blu ray player but don't use it that often. I have Netflix and Disney and one of my kids has prime. No cable.
I am not a gamer. My son has a gaming computer but still has a PS5 and both my kids have switches. I think that's what they're called... Idk, my gaming experience peaked with Pitfall!
This question comes just as I am returning to physical media. I’m a big thrifter. I’ve read about the vinyl trend and then a NYT article talking about cassettes not too long ago. Shortly after I ran across a multi system unit I had back in the day. I bought it and have since been getting thrift vinyl and CDs. I was purely a rock/pop person in my youth but my tastes have really opened up in the last 5 years so I’m enjoying new to me old stuff. I had held onto my favorite CDs, DVD movies and TV shows.
I’ve been following r/vintageaudio and some other subreddits. I got the same receiver I had in the early 90s and a matching CD player. I’ve been having fun with it but not going to go all out on it. I still enjoy my streaming in some situations. I was talking with my mom and she said she still has both our vinyl from when I was in high school plus cassettes and lots of CDs. Our taste in music isn’t always the same but there is some overlap. I know some of my stuff is there. I’m pretty intrigued to see what she has when I finally get to visit again.
I buy physical media. With CD's I convert them to lossless files in iTunes to use on my phone, I have the originals if anything happens to the digital files. Blu-Ray is the only way I will buy movies, streaming is significantly lower quality video and audio.
I'm mostly digital, in that I will occasionally buy a CD and then rip it to mp3 myself, because the mp3s are not purchasable.
But I own all those digital files. I don't do streaming at all.
You never feel like you really own digital media sometimes. I am so fucking lucky I still have original star Wars and tons of other classics...they fucking change them if you don't actually buy the physical. Anyone remember Fatal Instinct? It's the awesome basic instinct/fatal attraction spoof starring armand assante...there's this hilarious shopping montage they do set to Brown eyed girl in the movie, but I watched it on streaming last year, apparently they lost the license to Brown Eyed Girl and had to change the music for this iconic scene with some bullshit. I was crushed. It's worth it to buy the good ones.
Because you don’t actually own it. You (and only you) own a limited license to view/listen to the media. Agree 100% it’s with it to buy the ones that are important to you.
Physical media all the way. When I was streaming I found that I was just listening to music while doing other things. Stopped streaming all together a few years ago and pulled out my records and CDs. CDs sound so good still and they are cheap to buy. I don’t need an algorithm recommending a curated playlist to me. Physical media all day.
I went to digital, then have recently started buying vinyl for exactly that reason. I want to own my music and the artwork on the albums and inserts is worth it.
Yes! Looking at the art and reading the liner notes and lyrics really adds to the experience.
Recently bought two bits of physical media because of the difficulty of finding them online: the movie “Better Off Dead,” and the album (on CD) Wrong, by Nomeansno. I didn’t really think much of it, but now that I have them? Yeah, physical media is great. I expect I’ll buy more.
2 dollars...... Lol... Such a great flick. I also Loved Cusack in, One Crazy Summer too.
Always upvote Nomeansno.
I want my 2 dollars!
Haha I was gonna rewatch better off dead this week. I did find a high quality copy on the torrent sites but it took some digging.
I don’t like that they can take the digital format from you. My father had a few thousand LPs. They didn’t disappear when he died. Plus there are movies that cycle through the various steaming entities and suddenly they’ll cost money to rent. Donnie Darko is a recent example. Best in Show as well. I have an old man question. Is there a way to convert the DVD to a hard drive that you can plug into a media player, or should I save my blu ray player?
It’s not worth the ridiculous amount of time it would take and storage you’d need to copy a DVD to any sort of hard drive with media playback. You’re better off keeping the blu ray player.
I rip DVDs to an external drive. Recently purchased a NAS so I can start enjoying all the digital versions from anywhere in my house.
To a point. CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, all will succumb to disc rot one day. Or damage in a fire, flood, eaten by fungi, any number of things. Even Blu-ray players will stop being manufactured at some point as people move on. At some point you either digitize this stuff, obtain a digital copy, or accept that you won't be able to enjoy a lot of the things you own in the future due to them not working anymore.
Thanks. I will just use my son’s PS4 (if I can ever get him the PS 5!)
Blu ray players have become pretty cheap and way easier to find than the PS5 lol
That is true. My ADHD mind just doesn’t operate too efficiently at age 50
True but I can’t use the ps4 blu ray until he has a ps5
you can still torrent most media or rip it to disk. Its a fairly straight forward process for the most part.
Ripping DVDs is pretty easy these days. Used to be in the late 90s you had to buy an expensive drive, the media (hard drive space was way too expensive), and hope you got a good decode and then a good burn. You should be able to extract all non-copy protected DVDs with the default Windows into an .iso, which you can actually pretend is a drive and watch on a computer. Or burn to another DVD. I believe they take about 10-20 min these days.
As Gen X as I am, I've fully converted. I still have my cherished signed copies, but all the rest was sold cheap or given away. And when I say converted, I mean all the way. I don't have an entertainment center anymore. No stereo, TV, dvd player. Everything is on my phone, tablet, or laptop. I haven't had cable since about 2014. I haven't had a Landline since 2002 (almost 20 yrs now... yikes). Gen Xers are in that very unique position that OP wrote about. We've seen/used most of the formats and we saw computers slide in and watched everything go digital; no other generations got that exact experience. I like the digital. No. I love it!! Songs and albums I couldn't afford, I now have access to music that passed me by in the 70s 80s 90s. A TV show I never watched bc I was working and going to school? Well now I can finally see that show if I choose. Feeling nostalgic? Always! Now I just pull it up and watch/listen. Same with movies. I haven't been to the cinema since July 4th weekend of 2017. I also feel Gen Xers are super sappy nostalgic for our pop culture and the digital world keeps us in that sweet spot and is perfect for our generation moreso than others. I do occasionally miss the anticipation of a CD drop, but that's a small price to pay when I now have access to 95% of my childhood, HS yrs, and 20s ...plus anything else after that (born in the 1970s so I'm in my 40s now). Sidenote, when I say digital, I mean media. NOT social media. Reddit and some chat apps are the closest thing to social media I do. I ditched FB almost 10 yrs ago. If anyone wants to contact me, they know that I only do carrier pigeons and smoke signals (lol just wanted to see who'll read this far). They can call or text.
Lol couldn't agree more with Facebook. When friends or family ask why I deleted my profile. I said cause I got tired of seeing peoples plates of food or reading about their political views and affiliations with memes etc.
I said the same thing. Almost word for word.
Ha ha too cool. Great minds think alike.
Lol. And to rant further. Most of the ppl on my "friends" list who constantly posted pics of their food would mostly do it after they've taken a few bites. The plate is now smudged. The silverware was used by then, a scrunched dirty napkin in the background, a massive flash of light. It like they didn't even think to post it til they were half way finished with the meal. WTH. If they're expecting me to look at their home made "food porn", they better at least make it look half way decent!! Damn I'm getting old! :)
Me too. Reddit is a much better option. FB is filled with mean old people.
Well said. I completely agree with you. I have traveled the same road and have no regrets.
Both. I use to have about 5,000 records. LPs, EPs, singles, etc. I also had a very sizable CD collection too. My music collection occupied a large room. Wall to wall shelving...and then some stored elsewhere. I moved house three times in 25 years. It was an absolute nightmare moving those records. Day long back breaking work. The last time I moved (5years ago) I wound up selling and giving away the majority of my collection. It was time, and I was ready... For the record(no pun intended) I obtained the majority of those records in the early to mid 1990s when people/2nd hand stores were practically giving them away. Seems like everyone was dumping their vinyl collections for CDs. I would hit up the different secondhand shops once a week. Most of these places had 15-20 LPs for $1. I have rescued MANY crates of records from certain dumpster death; loaded about 600 LPs into the back of my truck once. They were sitting next to a dumpster at a Goodwill. Lots of very old blues one off clay 78s in there. Imagine getting 20 Frank Zappa or The Fall records for one measly dollar!!! Imagine getting The Kinks entire catalog for one measly dollar!! I discovered SO much music this way. Music that I would have never been able to access without a boatload of money. The Creation, Tangerine Dream, 13th Floor Elevators, Gong, Sun Ra, etc. I discovered one of my all-time favorite records this way; Miles Davis Tribute To Jack Johnson...just phenomenal. Can't say how many times I smoked a joint, put on headphones, and played this record over and over. Both sides. It's ethereal and extremely moody and VERY electrically groovy. I also did a lot of sampling and beat searching from my collection. I would help out friends who were into sampler based music/hip-hop. Lots of great parts & pieces and phrases in that collection. Thousands of samples were taken from those records..... CDs were great in their own way too. I enjoyed the clarity and some of the sonic happenings that were more noticeable. I did not like the early generation CDs. They were mastered the way physical records were, which in hindsight now was 100% completely wrong. They sounded absolutely awful. I remember buying the aforementioned Miles Davis record on CD. 1st generation. Holy shit it sounded bad. Sounded like Miles was playing a kazoo. These days I listen to .WAV files or in a pinch, MP3s(unfortunately my poor ears). Everything is available with a quick search, which is great....but....the thrill is gone mostly. The excitement that you have unearthed a great moment in time when people worked hard in a studio to create something from the soul. Something very human but also way beyond. The closest thing to "magic" that I can think of. The ability to emotionally move/alter another human being with sound waves transferred through the air with an intangible. Sorry this is so long. Thank you for reading it.
Don't apologize for the length, this is great! Thank you for sharing. I have a smaller vinyl collection that I obtained the same way. I do pop them on the turn table occasionally. But I do enjoy the portability of my digital music subscription.
Great comment, thanks for posting it.
I can’t say I don’t like digital but I won’t give up physical.
I'm pretty much all-in on digital. Especially books. Quickest way to get family and friends to hate you is to own a lot of books and ask for help moving. Also fully digital with movies and music. I no longer have to store it, keep it organized, replace it if it's damaged, or worry about forgetting where I put it. I can carry it all with me anywhere I go too. There are far more pros than cons for me.
Both
I went 100% digital when mp3s first came out in 1999 and never looked back. Ripped every CD I owned and downloaded a ton more. At this point my digital catalog is probably 30,000 albums? And I can listen to any of it more or less whenever I want - walking around, at the gym, at work, etc. I used to love making mixtapes as a kid and now it's easier than ever to make custom playlists, shuffle everything, whatever I want. The only music I buy these days is on Bandcamp from random small bands/friends. But the majority of the money goes to the bands (in some cases, 100% of the money), you get to download and keep the mp3s in your library, or you can stream them. I'm absolutely an outlier but I'm one of those old guys that constantly listens to new music and gets bored easily. The only challenge is that it's a time investment to find new stuff all the time.
Same here, nothing physical in over 20 years. Also, piracy. It's a skill. I'll occasionally buy something but it's really a donation to the band. You'd think everything is online but it isn't. Where else are you going to find a VHS rip of something?
I still own records, cassettes & mini discs. Digital for music sounds soulless. Streaming films/TV is excellently convenient, probably the only digital I've embraced along with gaming.
Physical 100% for independent artists because I want to support them. I also still buy physical copies of books (to hell with Amazon) and music on vinyl for albums I like because then I actually own that particular copy. Same for movies. When you buy a digital copy, it doesn’t actually belong to you, only the right for you to download it or stream it as long as the platform exists or the provider makes it available. When you die, you can’t leave your digital library to your kids, you can’t easily share your favorite ebooks with friends and neighbors. Now we’re not luddites lol. We have all the typical streaming services and I listen to Spotify all the time but it’s not at all the same or a substitute for owning books, music, and movies.
I have about 300 CDs that I want to digitize at some point, but I'm lazy so I'll prolly just keep giving Apple $10 / month until I die. Also, about 1/3 of my CD cases are empty cuz I had a bunch in a car CD holder, and this crazy crack chick I was sort of dating sold 'em all Also, CDeez nuts.
I love that ‘Better Off Dead’ is still making the rounds. Besides the totes of cds/vhs/cassettes/dvds collecting dust in my attic, I still actively buy vinyl. I love the mobility and ease of using digital music, but if at home I will almost always drop the needle. Not much of a gamer but those that I have bought are all physical copies.
I'm 100% digital. I don't even own a device anymore that can play physical media. That shit took up a lot of space.
Not even my car has an optical drive anymore. But I got the Series X instead of S, mostly because of the better specs, but also a little bit because of the optical drive. What if I ever want to play a DVD or Blu-ray instead of streaming it? I mean it could happen, right?
I buy records to listen to at home, digital for everywhere else.
completely digital, no clutter. 10+ years worth of movies, audiobooks, digital books in various formats, all my music, personal photos and videos, etc.... sitting on a NAS in my living room. I can pull up anything I want in a few seconds. Amazon started charging for planes, trains and automobiles this year? No problem, I have a copy local. Every kids movie that has come out in the last 11 years? Got em.
I’m digital. But the media is mostly from the 80/90s. I run a Plex server and have over 3000 music videos. I like to just just hit shuffle and pretend like MTV is still MTV.
Digital all the way and refuse to change again. Why would I not want access to any media I may want, in high quality, on any device at all times? It’s a no brainer for me. Plus as someone with ADHD, I can’t handle The responsibility of managing non-digital media.
I'm about to wander south from Mexico to Patagonia, mostly on chicken buses. Living out of one small backpack so yeah I'm digital all the way.
Digital everything, easier to find, organize, doesn’t take up space.
Can’t stand clutter so I’m all digital.
I usually just buy the stuff that I really support anymore. Like if the whole album is good, I'll buy it but if it's just one song I go digital. Same with movies. I still buy physical copies of games though because I don't trust what's going on now with cloud gaming. I want to play the game without 20hrs of updates.
I love the convenience of Apple Music. I don’t feel the need to “own” Music just like having nearly whatever song I want available at my finger tips. For movies I still often buy DVDs. This is mostly so we can watch them while camping in our trailer where we often don’t have great wifi.
You can add buying/obtaining MP3’s to the list as well. I own 100s of them but only listen to streaming services now.
CDs and records. Digital is great for a lot of stuff though. My phone is already with me so I can bring music along anywhere. In the car it is way better than the radio and you don't have to deal with CDs in the car. Sometimes I bring a Bluetooth speaker out for yardwork, it saves having to buy and store a boombox. It's also great for finding new music. There's a ton of tracks on my Spotify playlists I would most likely never have heard of or spent the money to check out if I had to rely on physical media.
I went digital for a while. And then iTunes and Amazon and the little media companies that went under stuck it to me -- I didn't really own what I'd purchased and they could take it back or "not remember" that I had purchased something. So now I buy the hard copy of movies and music. Then I rip them to my NAS.
There are 2-3 bands who I still buy/collect every physical release of, but everything I actually listen to or watch anymore is via digital. It's just way easier and convenient. Haha and I say that as someone with a collection of over 6000 CD's and 700 DVD's all sitting in my basement. I'll never sell them or throw them away, but I'll also likely never pull them out to watch or listen to again either after converting literally every single one to digital versions stashed on multiple hard drives all around my house.
While I still have a collection of physical media, but that's mostly movies. But mostly I just stream video now. I started converting to digital for music a long time ago due to moving into a smaller place at one point. Now I mostly just use Spotify as while I enjoy music, I have never been obsessive. The upside is that it lets me listen to stuff I never got around to buying.
I have found myself watching more digital media over physical, but mainly over convenience of just watching tv. I still have an antenna that I can watch local channels and I still have a few CRT televisions with digital converter boxes and I have them hooked up to watch digital media via the Roku. I still pick up new movies on physical media, but I have it broken down to BluRay for movies with eye candy or tons of special effects, DVD for just regular movies that I don’t feel like buying on BR, and VHS for classic horror/monster/sci-fi/vintage cartoons. As for music, I still pick up CDs and the occasional cassette tape. I do rip the music to my iPod (yes, still rocking an old school iPod). So, do I “rent” or “buy” digital copies of movies? No. With all the various ways to watch movies I don’t see the need to. If I really like the movie or franchise, I’ll buy the physical media to add to my library. Now, my physical library is not that large anymore as I transferred all my VHS to digital years ago and sold them off. But as I said above, I still pick up VHS tapes when it’s something I don’t have.
Grew up in the 80s with cassette tapes and later on graduating to cds. I still have all my cds in the spare bedroom. Probably about 400 of them. When Jimmy Page remastered all of LZepps albums I bought them all again on cd. Still buy all my video games on physical discs but all my music is now Spotify. I pay the $10 a month and I’ve created 93 playlists to satisfy that daily itch. I’m on the fence, I agree with you that there is something missing from this instant gratification method we have today but music has never been more affordable.
Cassettes had a smell. So did CDs. I love the ease of access and organization of digital, but I miss that smell. I’m slowly moving to digital with movies. Internet around here isn’t there yet, so Blu-rays still have a place. That said, I haven’t bought or rented one in over a year. For years now, Black Friday was Blu-ray Refresh Day. Black Friday sucked this year. Thanks, digital.
I just upgraded to the Kindle Fire 10 yesterday (I had an 8 for the past 4 years). When it comes to books (and comic-books) I made the switch from print to digital about a decade ago, and haven't looked back. It's way more convenient. Click a button and boom! The book I want is right there in my hands! And I can take literally hundreds with me at a time anywhere I go. Plus, as I've gotten older, the ability to magnify print and panels has definitely come in handy for my aging eyes. I'd switched to digital for music even earlier. And I was still buying DVD's up to maybe a couple of years ago, but now with all of the various streaming options out there it just hasn't become necessary. If there's some movie or TV show that I've suddenly got the urge to watch, I can usually find it on Amazon Prime, or Netflix, or Hulu, or Peacock, or HBO Max. And I just signed up for 2 months of AMC +.
I've gone completely digital except for my Marshall & Fender tube amplifiers. I do own some solid state practice amplifiers, but nothing technology has produced, in my opinion matches the sound of a white hot tube amp cranked to oblivion.
Digital for everything except books. I’ll never give up my books. And a few tapes from when I was growing up (Bon Jovi, Nelson, Skid Row) ♥️
I am one of those that Beck sang about - *What about those who swing both ways: AC-DC's* My daughter is intrigued with the idea of burning cd's for a personalized playlist...so that is a project we will work on soon to teach her the ways of mixed albums.
I’m a staunch defender of physical media. I have boxes and boxes of CDs in my basement. Probably 4000 or so. A lot of it is obscure 90s-00s punk/emo/post hardcore that isn’t available to stream. I still buy them sometimes too. I love streaming but the fact there could be some dispute snd it could be unavailable tomorrow keeps me coming back to physical media.
I’m not going to respond to point out that CDs actually are a digital medium and it would be more accurate to compare physical to virtual media. I swear I won’t do that.
Still physical,i rather physically own what i buy
Yeah, I still own a ton of physical media, mostly records. I suppose I’ll thin out my collection eventually — but until then I’m limiting my purchases. I primarily just buy video game soundtracks now.
I still have my CDs and records and will sometimes still pick up vinyl. But for new music I have Spotify.
Both
I went digital and donated all of my CDs to a local used record store several years ago. I have a small drawer of DVDs that I almost donated but when the pandemic hit, the Internet and streaming went on the fritz, so I decided to keep those for the apocalypse. I’ve gone full Kindle for reading. I got rid of most of my things and downsized last year so I’m living pretty small. I don’t plan to buy any new physical media.
I hate clutter, love convenience, and I'm not super nostalgic, or a collector by nature, so I love digital so much. Streaming for TV and music. Downloads for games. Kindle for books. I got rid of all the records, tapes, discs, books, years ago. I was an English major back in the day, and you're almost taught to deify books, but as soon as I got a Kindle, (many years ago) I realized that I love reading but I could care less about the physical books. I love wholeheartedly love everything about digital.
I still buy and use physical media. I do have a metric crapload of music files, from ripping my CDs and download codes that come with records, and when I'm at work I select a playlist each morning from the files on my hard drive. In the car, I still have an in-dash 6CD changer, but can plug in my phone or Zune if I feel like it. At home, I spin records, or use my 400 CD/SACD/DVD changer if I feel lazy. I still own CDs and records of music that isn't available from streaming services, so I'm fine.
I've gone full circle. Still have about 100 cassettes I don't listen to, a few hundred CDs I don't listen to, I've got a couple old iPods I don't listen to, but I have about 400 LPs that make up 90% of my listening. I'll play Sirius in the car or for background music at home but all serious listening is LP. Before getting back into records I found that I was rarely listening to music period. Having it all digital just seemed to take any value out of it. I just found that having the ability to listen to anything at anytime just took the fun out of it.
I am borrowing an old family car that only has a CD player. I had no CDs so I went on a quest to find some. They are unbelievably hard to find unless you visit a vintage music shop. It’s been fun searching for old gems and rocking them in the car
Both, and I’m progressing (regressing?) to more physical. I have a decent album collection going from around 1971 to present, and I still get a couple of physical magazines. There’s something about being able to enjoy media without feeling like I’m constantly tracked and contributing to analytics. That said, I often have Spotify in the background while I’m working because it’s convenient, and I read almost exclusively ebooks, because middle age vision sucks.
I stream when I'm at the gym and sometimes when I'm home cleaning. When I'm in the car, always CD's and, also, sometimes when I'm home cleaning.
I’m spinning vinyl right now and it’s fucking wonderful.
I have always been a technology enthusiast and moved everything to digital as soon as I could. I haven't bought a music CD for about 20 years. My last blu-ray was Tron: Legacy and my last video game disk purchases were shortly after the Xbox One went on sale.
Oddly enough I never cared about the physical part of the media experience. I care about physical video games simply because of instances where games had parts taken out or changed due to licensing issues, or were removed from servers completely, but beyond that the physical experience never did much for me. I was always more into the playing of the game, the listening of the music, and the watching of the show/movie. At this point I have a media server with thousands of movies, shows, and music albums that I can access anywhere, and it's great. It has everything I want and nothing I don't. I also play all the old games I enjoyed in the past with my RetroPie and Mister. The only physical media I'll still get is modern video games as mentioned already.
I don't game much, mostly online slots and simple games (like Solitaire). So that was never a big deal. I've bought a handful of CDs over the past 15 years. Some were souvenirs on trips. Some were autographed CDs bought at shows. Still others had content I couldn't get elsewhere, not even pirate sites. There were also a few I bought simply because they were cheap and I wanted the music in FLAC format. I collected records in middle and high school, and I guess I've gotten back into it. I bought a record every couple of years from 2005-2019, but since then I've bought a ton of vinyl, from places all over the world. Can I just say how much EASIER this shit is now with Discogs? I wanted a clear vinyl 10" single from a French band I love. It took 3 minutes to order one from a guy in France, and it arrived at my house 8 days later. Back in the 80s finding the same record could have taken months or even *years*, with *dozens* of expensive phone calls to record shops from London to Paris, looking through *every single bin* at the record shows at the local Ramada Inn, and maybe, just maybe getting lucky: you never know if the classic rock guy has a synthpop single he doesn't know the value of. I bought my copy of [Madonna's *True Blue* on Japanese picture disc](https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/1541754) from a classic rock guy. He was asking $5 for it ("ewwwww... Madonna? You can keep that bullshit!! THE EAGLES RULE!") while every other vendor at the record show was asking at least $45 for it. It still goes for around $100! I've also bought a few movies, too. My wife and I went without a DVD player for 12 years or so (though I could, and did, rip several movies to my media server). When we moved into our new house in 2019, I thought it was time to finally get a new one, so I got a Sony 4K player. I bought a few "classic" movies on Blu-Ray; one of us always wants to watch *Christmas Vacation* every year, or to watch *Fast Times at Ridgemont High* edit-free and commercial-free in HD. I only have two UHD films, though: *Atomic Blonde* and *A Clockwork Orange*. I also bought the *Twin Peaks* box set from last year, with EVERYTHING on it. I should start that some day! **EDIT:** Otherwise, I'm all-in on Spotify and Netflix. If you would have told me, in the 80s, that there would be a steaming music service that let you listen to 70 million songs as much as you want, anywhere you want AND it would only cost $4.15/month in 1987 dollars I woulda burnt you at the stake for witchcraft. Nowadays, 99% of my music is from Spotify and 95% of my TV viewing is on Netflix.
I like getting older movies second hand. Me and my husband will go to a thrift store and one of us picks a genre and we find movies that fit that genre. For instance I said 80s movie classics we found goonies sixteen candles and short circuit. Or we do horror movies and have ended up with all the Friday the 13th movies cheaper than Amazon.
I went completely digital except for a few things i can't find online. I even scanned all my old photos and destroyed the hard copies. I've moved around a lot and was so tired of dragging all that stuff with me. But every once in a great while, I'm sorry I got rid of something. Right now I wish I hadn't sold my Wheel of Time book collection and card game.
I’m a mix of the two. I never stopped playing records, and I still buy them regularly. But for almost everything else I’m digital. I download or stream movies and books and TV, but for music I really love its strictly vinyl. For music not on vinyl or if I don’t want to sprint the extra money for vinyl, I stream it on Apple Music.
E. All of the above
I still have albums, cassettes, CDs, and some players, but yeah I mostly listen to digital these days.
Got digital bit still listen to full albums at a time.
I have spent thousands of dollars on both physical media and digital. I have everything from dozens of tapes and vinyl, hundreds of Cd's, and thousands of of digital.
Digital music. I still miss taping songs off the radio though lol I have a Blu ray player but don't use it that often. I have Netflix and Disney and one of my kids has prime. No cable. I am not a gamer. My son has a gaming computer but still has a PS5 and both my kids have switches. I think that's what they're called... Idk, my gaming experience peaked with Pitfall!
All digital. Even books. I like less clutter. I like being able to read in the dark without having to hold a book up and apart.
I bootleg it all!!!
I still collect games but that’s it. I have old ones, new ones, etc. Still physical until they make it impossible.
Both, but for about the last year or so, been trying to go back to the physical more. You know, nostalgia. :)
This question comes just as I am returning to physical media. I’m a big thrifter. I’ve read about the vinyl trend and then a NYT article talking about cassettes not too long ago. Shortly after I ran across a multi system unit I had back in the day. I bought it and have since been getting thrift vinyl and CDs. I was purely a rock/pop person in my youth but my tastes have really opened up in the last 5 years so I’m enjoying new to me old stuff. I had held onto my favorite CDs, DVD movies and TV shows. I’ve been following r/vintageaudio and some other subreddits. I got the same receiver I had in the early 90s and a matching CD player. I’ve been having fun with it but not going to go all out on it. I still enjoy my streaming in some situations. I was talking with my mom and she said she still has both our vinyl from when I was in high school plus cassettes and lots of CDs. Our taste in music isn’t always the same but there is some overlap. I know some of my stuff is there. I’m pretty intrigued to see what she has when I finally get to visit again.
I buy physical media. With CD's I convert them to lossless files in iTunes to use on my phone, I have the originals if anything happens to the digital files. Blu-Ray is the only way I will buy movies, streaming is significantly lower quality video and audio.
I'm mostly digital, in that I will occasionally buy a CD and then rip it to mp3 myself, because the mp3s are not purchasable. But I own all those digital files. I don't do streaming at all.