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Comment by Wowfunhappy | Hacker News Reader

This is why I'm still surprised they separated out (and eventually killed) their disc-by-mail service. I understand the visceral feeling that discs are an antiquated relic—but you just can't beat that catalog.

Combining discs and streaming in one subscription provides customers with the best of both worlds. Need something to watch right now? No problem, we have an excellent streaming catalog and you're going to love Stranger Things! Want a specific movie or show, maybe Friends or The Lion King? We've got that too, it'll be in your mailbox in a couple days.

And if some customers choose to forgo either the digital or physical side of the package, it doesn't cost Netflix anything.

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I'd say the majority of their customers wouldn't have a way to play the discs if sent.

I agree, but largely because Netflix stopped renting them.

I disagree, because I stopped watching disks long before I lacked devices to play them.

Or Netflix could BUY Redbox, and treat them as instant-rental or "free rental/return with subscription".

That would be the best of all worlds. Just scan the Redbox with your Netflix app, look at the top 1000 discs in there. And just get it.

(Again this would be better than what pirates can offer. Cheap AND easy AND good.)

RedBox is mostly useful for current blockbusters. The selection is (has to be) very limited so it's not great for random older films.

You can always buy most films. It's just relatively expensive (and not instant) for a one-time watch. Of course many are available for a la carte buying/rental via streaming as well.

It's not that hard to get DVD and Blu-Ray players. I went to this place

https://ithacareuse.org/

this afternoon and saw 5 DVD or Blu-Ray players that cost about $20. They even had a funky VCR with a USB port (to digitize movies on your computer) for $12.

That assumes you have some kind of TV set. I'd think a lot of people get their entertainment on a laptop or phone, VR headset or something like that and don't have a TV.

A digitizing VCR sounds awesome.

I see more and more DVD collections on TikTok lately. I’m not sure how widespread it is but I think DVDs are coming back. It can be hard to find specific movie or shows streaming anymore even when willing to buy a digital copy and hope if doesn’t get taken away when you cancel prime or whatever.

Yeah, I'm buying DVD's again cause I can't stream a lot of my old faves any more, I'm not alone. If you want something older they're just disappearing, or you have to subscribe to watch one show.

Man, I'd pay someone to take away all these DVDs lying around that we never watch

Even many relatively older people I know look at you weird if you talk about playing a DVD. Netflix didn't drive this change. It just happened--Netflix isn't that powerful.

I think that I should put the DVD in my old PlayStation 2.

Right? I have a half-dozen old devices around my house that could play a DVD, but I've never owned anything that can play bluRay, much less 4K disks (I've never even seen one of those IRL). And DVDs are no longer worth bothering with mostly because of the aspect ratio hassle if nothing else.

Many people own an Xbox One S/X, Xbox Series X, or PS5, which can all play 4K Blu-ray. Many more people own a PS3, PS4, or regular Xbox One, which can all play regular Blu-ray.

Xbox One S/X doesn't have a disc drive, Xbox Series X doesn't have a disc drive, PS5 needs the disc drive bought separately and paired over the internet.

Only the original Xbox One had a disc drive integrated.

> Xbox One S/X doesn't have a disc drive, Xbox Series X doesn't have a disc drive, PS5 needs the disc drive bought separately and paired over the internet. Only the original Xbox One had a disc drive integrated.

It’s always fascinating that people say things that are verifiably untrue. Like, really?

OP may have meant Xbox Series S and X? Honestly a partly blame MS, their console naming has always baffled me.

I meant One S and One X, plus Series X. The One S and One X are refreshes of the One, with the One S getting 4K HDMI and Blu-ray support and the One X getting both of those plus more power and 4K gaming support. There was a version of the One S that didn't have an optical drive, but it was a bit of a flop. The Series X is one of the two successors to the One line (along with the Series S), with the Series X having a 4K Blu-ray drive and the Series S not having an optical drive.

Source: I own all of them except for the One X.

My Xbox One X legitimately has no disc drive.

The Xbox One X certainly does have a disc drive, it's a little out-of-the-way though. Check on the left side of the front of the console, under the overhang.

Not to dump on LoganDark, but I find it absolutely fascinating that you owned an Xbox and legitimately only today discovered that it has an optical drive!

EDIT: Definitely shows the shift to online game delivery in a way that I have not seen before.

I grew up with a 360, and knew about the drive on the original Xbox One, but I really could not tell that my Xbox One X had a disc drive. I don't know how I missed it.

I checked and you are right, apparently it does. It's weird that I was never able to find it before, because I did look under the overhang, but was unable to get any discs in there. Oops.

Weird, everyone I can find online says that the One X has a disc drive.

> It’s always fascinating that people say things that are verifiably untrue. Like, really?

I have an Xbox One X and there is no disc drive. I remember having an Xbox One before that did have a disc drive.

When I looked it up, the first search results are news outlets saying the Xbox Series X/S are not going to have disc drives...

> PS5 needs the disc drive bought separately

You can get a PS5 with a built in disc player.

Ironically one of the reasons I bought a PS3 was to play Blu Ray movies. But during Covid I ripped all my physical media and got rid of them, I only use the disc model of the PS5 to play my old PS4 games.

The regular One S and the One X both have 4K Blu-Ray drives (the One S All-Digital Edition doesn’t). The Series X does have a 4K Blu-Ray drive (the Series S doesn’t).

I have a One X (the Gold Rush Special Edition) and there is no disc drive. At least I haven't been able to find one.

> At least I haven't been able to find one

Isn't there a slightly wider hole the left (other side than the Xbox log) between the top part and the black bottom part? You should be able to fit a disk there even if it's pretty hard to notice...

e.g.: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61+XhWct5lL._AC_SL1500_....

Apparently so?? I've never been able to fit a disc there. Oops.

There are 2 versions of the PS5: base and digital. The base version comes with a Blu-ray drive that can play Ultra HD Blu-ray discs.

The "base" one didn't exist when the console first released, there was only digital. The "base" version bundles the disc drive that is normally purchased separately.

They launched with one with a built-in disc drive and one without. For their mid-cycle refresh they changed it to a single model with a disc drive add-on but sell a SKU that includes the drive in the box.

That is incorrect. The PS5 disc version was available at launch. The recent refresh has an optional disc accessory.

My pet peeve is that I wanted to buy a couple blu-rays a few years ago to watch on my PS4. But I either I had to buy the DVD, or the Blu-Ray+DVD. There was no blu-ray only option, and I was like... what I'm gonna do with the dvd?

DVDs aspect ratio is 16:9, just like the vast majority of TVs and PC Monitors.

Were you referring to resolution instead? The picture quality of a DVD (even properly digitized) would be atrocious by modern standards (high bitrate 1080p)

NTSC DVD native max resolution is 720x480 (ignore more depth like overscan) that isn't 16:9. So most 16:9 titles uses non-1:1 PAR to display 16:9 that isn't ideal for quality. Though anyway any DVD quality is now considered poor regardless of aspect ratio.

Why is non-1:1 PAR bad beyond just the raw pixel count?

I think it's obviously bad for Dot-by-Dot displaying especially on LCD, but I remembered that 480p DbD LCD wasn't a thing.

480p LCD's do exist (or did), iirc they were marketed as "Enhanced Definition" as opposed to the later "High Definition" displays. However, they were 4:3.

Remember it's compressed, so a higher pixel resolution at the same bitrate could end up lower quality.

I guess either my DVDs or my player is garbage because even though it's hooked up by HDMI I often find DVDs with 4:3 menus and then double-letterboxed (so, like, framed) video within.

This is HN in 2024, and people are complaining about aspect ratios? For about 15 years now I have been feeding physical DVDs & BluRays into < $100 USB DVD/BR players, filtered through makemkv, and then through mpv or whatever which understands AC3 pass through to at first a NAD pre-amp and currently now that my NAD died, Denon receiver, which does the down mix to 3.0. Looks and sounds glorious, aspect ratios are not a problem at all, and a backup drops out, huh.

I loved greencine and physical netflix but those killed themselves, seppuku, it seemed like, a long time ago.

I'm sure they just ran the numbers and realized that being both a data streaming software company and a physical package logistics company just didn't add up. Every dollar they spent on the latter would have net them more profit if they instead invested it in the former.

Maybe--I of course don't have their numbers--but remember that Netflix kept offering discs up until last year, just under a separate subscription. So they were still investing some money.

I think Netflix got cocky. When Netflix separated the plans, streaming rights were cheap and Netflix's streaming catalog was growing quickly. They didn't foresee the market becoming so competitive.

Continuing to offer discs would have allowed Netflix to hedge their bets and avoid relying on rights-holders. The original content push did that too, but at a much higher cost. If keeping DVDs meant Netflix could produce a few less original shows per year, that seems worth the trade.

The transition from not needing a license (mailing discs) to renting content to owning it was intrinsic in their business plan all along.

They saw that streaming was the future but that mailing discs would let them build a big brand early on, but they took the disc market very seriously and optimized it.

Once you're streaming the cost structure is like this: Fox or Disney or someone like that will charge them $X /month/sub but it costs $Y to create a piece of content, independent of how many subscribers you have. There is a crossover point where you have enough subscribers that it makes sense to own.

I'm more surprised they didn't sell it off so it could keep running, as the claims were that it was still profitable.

I was a die hard subscriber to the end. I would have happily paid more money per month to get access to 4k disks as well

The DVD business was ~1% of total revenues by the time they shuttered it. At that point, it was no longer really cost effective for them to retain such a large physical infrastructure for so little ROI.

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