Related Posts
Co-hosts, Robert Meyer Burnett (in Hollywood) and Dieter Bastian (all the way from Saarbrücken, Deutschland), talk about the future of physical media and recent personnel changes in the industry that seem to indicate the end may come sooner than we think.
Our two favorite physical media junkies, separated by an ocean, share their mutual love of movies, special editions and obscure cult films.
Hi Rob and Dieter,
We all know the sales of Physical Media is in decline. But do you really think it will disappear out right?
Personal I don’t think it will for two reasons.
1. Look at Vinyl albums. With the introduction of CD it all put disappeared. You could no longer buy a vinyl albums from the big chain music stores as they stopped stocking them in favour of CD which was selling like hot cakes.
If you were a collector of vinyl records, the only place you find them was in the Mum & Pop owned stores. Then I think it was in the early 00’s collecting vinyl records exploded again and over the last twenty years with the introduction of streaming music, Vinyl albums are now slowly starting to overtake the sales of CD.
Given the demand for Viny,l stores that stop stocking them in the 90’s have reintroduce them back onto their shelves. Though admittedly not in the way they once were. But that okay as you can now get it from online stores and still the Mum and Pop stores.
2. With the current copyright laws, there is a lot of content that is about to come end of the studios owning the rights to them and the rights go into the public domain. In order for the studio to extend the ownership of the rights, they have to release said content on physical media. This has lead us to the golden age of collection.
There are stuff that is being released now that has never come out on Blu-ray and 4K. And don’t forget Blu-ray is now coming up to being twenty years old. At this stage with VHS it was dying out thanks to DVD’s. While studio are not releasing the films like they use to they are giving them to third parties to release life Arrow Video, Criterion etc.
So those are my reasons why I think Physical Media will not disappear, it becoming a collector’s environment like Vinyl has.
Rob, you have stated sales of physical media dropped another 20% in 2020. But you have also stated more younger people are jumping on the collector band wagon.
Sure there is less Blu-rays in stores, but there is more new releases than ever before. You just have to head online and go to Zavvi or Amazon and many other sites to pick up release that you can’t find in shops. Given that the studio don’t want to lose their rights to their films and are releasing more films than they ever have.
Then you got companies like Stinky Tuna that are releasing content like that Abyss Extended Edition that you can’t get from anywhere else. I don’t know how legal it is for them to do that is. But it proves there is still a demand for these films otherwise there would be no need for a company like Stinky Tuna to fill that demand.
So Rob and Dieter, the masses may not be buying physical media like they did twenty years ago. But there will always be a group of people out there collecting it. Physical Media will be around for years to come. Do you agree?
Peace and Long Life,
Dean M.
Well Dean, i surely hope so. Even with Rob being a doomsayer. 😉
Dear Rob and Dieter,
Greetings from Liverpool in the U.K. ( yes, my name actually is Chris Evans but alas I’m not blessed with the talent or good looks of the more famous world known Mr. Evans).
I’ve been a big fan of the show right from the very first episode – hope the elusive episode #6 surfaces soon. The dynamic between the two of you and the pure and unreserved passion for our beloved physical media makes for a joyful watch.
I am most certainly a junkie, being a Star Trek fan I have owned the various movies and TV series in a variety of formats, from VHS and Laserdisc to DVD and Blu-ray (those extras that you produced for the TNG sets are fantastic Rob). Here’s hoping the original Trek movies eventually come to 4k…especially the Director’s Edition of ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’!
Rob, you’ll be pleased to hear that I own the Region 1 U.S. release of ‘Free Enterprise’ with the movie in the correct aspect ratio and not 4:3. Do you think there is ever a possibility of the movie getting a Blu-ray or even 4k release?
Dieter – I’m sorry to say I haven’t seen any of the Hunger Games franchise but seeing your collection has me curious!
Anyway, great work with the show guys and I’ll just sign off now by saying “live long and prosper”.
Best wishes,
Chris.
Well Captain America, even if you´re not the real C.E. 😉
If your interested in THE HUNGER GAMES, there are good complete editions available and since the discs are out for a long time you could even make a Schnäppchen considering buying a complete collection. So do it, do it now! 😁
Btw. thx for the kind words Chris and even if hope springs eternal let me say this and it will get my manager upset. But since FREE ENTERPRISE hasn´t been released in Germany on BD at this point, it will not happen. Only if Rob can get the rights and negative back there could be something happening. But before that happens, i wouldn´t get my hopes up.
Best regards,
Dieter
Greetings Rob , Dieter & my fellow PGS community.
Back again with a letter for Let’s Get Physical Media on my recent haul & current preorders.
This past week I received a pretty good haul & even some Schnäppchen as Dieter says. Picked up Hustlers with Jennifer Lopez for $10.99 at Best Buy & First Man with Ryan Gosling playing Neil Armstrong for $9.99 from Amazon. Two great deals I couldn’t pass up. I also picked up 2 Steelbook copies of Leon The Professional (which I had never seen) & The Town an underrated film directed by Ben Affleck.
As we know Shout Factory has began delving into 4K releases also with The Deer Hunter. Well this month through their Scream Factory line they released 2 great John Carpenter films: They Live & Prince of Darkness. While good & classic films they both had fairly good Collection Edition Blu Ray releases. Why Shout would double dip them for 4K who knows? I know Carpenter’s films are some their biggest sellers but give us films in 4K that have never been released Shout, yet they still got me to buy them. You win this time Shout Factory LOL.
These last 3 films I would definitely call them guilty pleasure movies. I’m a sucker for any good disaster flick & no director does them better than Roland Emmerich. So of course I picked up the 4K release of 2012, sure not as good as Independence Day or Day After Tomorrow (which also deserves a 4K release), but why not right?
The last 2 guilty pleasure films I had imported from Zavvi because they don’t have a US 4K release. The 2 GI Joe films were together in one set & I have been meaning to get this one for quite sometime. Both fun little flicks to have & I think I prefer Retaliation over Rise of Cobra.
Now onto the films I have either currently ordered or have preordered. These first few orders I’ll have to give Rob credit for convincing me to purchase them. The first one is the recent Arrow 4K release of Crash and well silly me actually has 2 of them coming. Because I ordered directly from Arrow’s site, but an hour later I found it much cheaper on eBay & unfortunately Arrow was unable to cancel my order. No worries though I have already found a fellow PGS community member to sell my extra copy to once it arrives. Looking forward to seeing Crash once it gets here.
The next orders although Blu Ray copies, Rob did such an amazing showing off the look & packaging & thanks to my love of horror films. I had to pick up the steelbook versions from Synapse of Massacre at Central High and Living Dead at Manchester. Looking forward to seeing these 2 gems once they have arrived & again thank you Rob for the recommendation.
Now onto the preorders I recently made & this first one surprised me. So I get an email from Zavvi & yes indeed in April Second Sight will release a much smaller & cheaper edition of Dawn of the Dead. I immediately went to Zavvi’s site & preordered it. The set still has all 3 movie versions & the special features. The only difference is no soundtrack, booklet and poster like the first edition set. For nearly $80 less at $50 with shipping, I would most certainly call this release a Schnäppchen!
Sorry for the long letter & I will be going through these next preorders fast. From Severin films I preordered the 4K releases of Day of the Beast, Perdita Durango & Santa Sangre. From Amazon I preordered Do The Right Thing & Gattaca, both 4K releases as well.
In conclusion thanks Rob & Dieter for allowing me to share my recent haul & orders. This looks to be another good year for the fellow Physical Media collectors. As I am waiting to still preorder the 4K releases of Gravity, The 10 Commandments, The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, Spaceballs & Super 8.
Until next time, take care & happy hunting my friends.
#PhysicalMedia4Life
Well Philip, keep up the collecting and it´s great to see the word Schnäppchen getting traction, you also spelled it correctly too. Kudos. 😉😁
Until the next show,
Dieter