My streaming fatigue got so bad I started collecting DVDs

If I have a dozen music CDs and that's all the music I get to listen to, I am going to start hearing the music on a deeper level, picking out the individual instruments and following them through the song, taking notice of the quality of the vocal swing in a singer's voice, relating the narratives presented in the music to my own life in different ways, etc...

The paradox of choice is not just a problem in the artistic media we are exposed to, but also our information diet in general.

How many people seem to know a little bit about everything currently happening in the world? How many of those people have deep knowledge of any of those things?

Am I the only one who thinks that this premise is flawed? DVDs, like any physical storage medium, have a limited lease on life. If I was serious enough about movies to go into a store and pick them by hand, the first thing in would do is to create a digital backup. And when you already have a social copy, why not just watch that one instead?

With my “adult” schedule, I find now that I often don’t even watch more than 2 or 3 movies in the month, for which I could easily just purchase a “forever” physical copy second hand.

My concern is now for the video games industry where if we go all digital, we will be locked into these services with no option to only buy that one game you player for a one off fee.

I can just get any quality of any movie or show. It might take hours or days for obscure stuff to pop up, but mainstream media is usually downloaded in ten minutes. Then it lives in my jellyfin server where my husband and I can watch at any time anywhere.

It's been really nice. I was dismayed at first that there's no function to browse, only search for specific titles. But after a few weeks I think this is the right decision. I have to specifically seek out what I want, which has greatly reduced the amount of utter trash being consumed.

It's really nice. It's an actually pleasant experience when it works well. Netflix is more consistent than my multilayered stack of server containers, but Netflix is pure agony to use no matter how stable it is.

Piracy is now an order of magnitude easier than paying for something. Even if you do pay for something anymore, it's usually a license that can be revoked at any time with no notice or refund. Why would I even waste my time with that?

Since then the number of UHD disc has grown and I have slowly removed things from the NAS in favor of the glorious UHD versions. Have the shelf of disc has made family movie night more fun.

As an aside I did a little experiment. Same movie streamed (at max quality), the UHD disc on the Sony(UBP-X800M2) and same UHD on the PS5. Everyone could without fail pick out which was which.

The bitrate of a 4k UHD stream on Netflix is optimistically 20 Mbps max. A standard blu-ray does about 40 Mbps. A 4k UHD blu-ray is often 100+ Mbps. And you can tell.

Streaming is for watching throwaway content on a laptop or phone. Blu-rays are for watching films with a theater-like experience.

Second-hand stores are great sources for CDs and DVDs. A friend of mine buys tons of them at flea markets, as well.

So streaming is exactly the same as cable and satellite packages of old.

At least with DVDs, you can buy the ones you want, and keep them on the same shelf.

I think you could happily watch a different movie every night for a year on Netflix if you were happy with 'bargain bin' quality films. $5/night would be an expensive way of doing the same thing.

And that's before you start on TV series...