DVD shop owner vows to be ‘last man standing’ | Hacker News Reader

DVD shop owner vows to be ‘last man standing’

bbc.com

57 pointsyladiz55 comments

I’ve switched to buying everything on DVD or Blu-ray. It’s the only way to be sure I can watch, for example, Community Season 2 Episode 14 (one of the funniest episodes ever). If you don’t own the physical medium, you’re just renting a stream. No thanks.

And then ripping them.

When I hit PLAY I want the movie to start — not FBI warnings, not "previews" (ads), etc.

I've been hesitant to do this because DVD is a bit too low quality for my big TV, but I've heard that ripping Blu-Rays on Linux can be a nightmare. Anyone have experience ripping blu-rays on Linux willing to share what it's currently like?

I started ripping on Linux this year and it's honestly been pretty easy, I just use makemkv to rip and it wasn't much trouble to get running. you'll wanna flash libredrive to your drive to rip 4k Blu-rays and iirc it's a pain on Linux but if you've got a windows PC anywhere you can flash it pretty effortlessly and then you don't have to worry about it ever again

Don’t even need a windows PC. You can do USB passthrough with KVM. Just setup a Windows VM, USB passthrough the drive, do it, through the VM away.

The iso can be downloaded officially from MS, activation is not needed for this.

If it takes more than half an hour on Linux just so it in the VM.

I occasionally rip Blu-rays (1080p, not 4K I hear those are more difficult) just using makemkv inside of Docker running directly on my Synology NAS, it's a piece of cake.

Same here. I backup all DVDs to iso. Don't really care for BluRay because ripping/playing them is a nightmare. I then create MP4s and ingest them into my Plex server. I keep my DVDs stored away in the basement, making me 100% legal. Having your own media server is VERY nice. The ripping process is not straight-forware. Almost impossible to automate.

I would ravage this guy's store.

During lockdown I ripped my entire DVD collection using makemkv. It's as close to one click as you'll get and works brilliantly. All my DVDs are stored away now and I play them from Plex in full quality.

My main issue is with ripping TV series. The title to episode mapping is all over the place.

Filebot is very helpful for this. There are free utilities too but filebot is pretty fool proof so worth the cost imo.

Technically storing ripped DVDs doesn't make the rip legal. However if they try to come after you for that the courts will start questioning the law and so you have a good chance of winning on appeal.

> Don't really care for BluRay because ripping/playing them is a nightmare.

What makes you say this? The only issue I occasionally run into is needing to clean 4k BR discs that aren’t reading well.

They might be doing it on linux. I've had the same experience. Supposedly it's possible! I never managed to get around the DRM nonsense.

makemkv->mkv->handbrake->mp4 is pretty straightforward for saving media, especially if you don't mess with handbrake much (I just use one settings profile for everything). _Playing_ bluray directly from disk is a PITA because of needing to set up the encryption keys and extra system libraries.

The part that eats my time is converting the subtitles from an image format (vosub/psg) to a text format (srt), since the image formats have never worked well for me on plex. SubtitleEdit is good but it still takes manual managing.

Edit: I forgot about the annoyance of finding a drive that works with ripping software, iirc there's only a couple that will without flashing firmware

DVDs rot after a while. Can’t be sure you’ll be able to watch them indefinitely. Def recommend ripping it and backing up the copy periodically for archival purposes.

While this is undoubtedly true, the lifetime is almost certainly a multiple of whatever it is on a streaming service. I have working DVDs older than Netflix's streaming service.

Oh I agree streaming is not an alternative if you want to stay in control of your library. Just DVD are probably not great for foolproof long-term archival.

Burned DVDs rot after a while (and quite inconsistently between brands), but pressed CDs and DVDs – such as retail movie DVDs – barely rot at all.

It's true unless there was a manufacturing issue. A notorious example, well-known in the collectors' community, is Warner Bros. HD-DVDs: https://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=840

There have been manufacturing 'incidents' in the past, also with audio CD's. Some of my old Aphex Twin CDs rot because one big UK manufacturer screwed up production in the early 90s.

I would argue internet piracy is a more sure bet than your DVD collection.

I am playing the long game: I want folks to keep on releasing great movies and TV on disc, so I buy great movies and TV on disc.

Sucks how much extra effort it is, while paying, to get the same convince of pirating.

Background info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Dungeons_%26_Dragons_...

It's a great episode. And the dark-elf-face joke is not at the expense of any demographic.

Been buying up DVDs and Blu-rays that are cheap of movies I like or have heard a lot about. Experienced the whole no one is streaming it this time so just buying the discs and never looking back has been my thing.

PSA: Your local library has a good collection of DVDs. Go in there and see how they are still relevant. Sometimes the DVDs are free to borrow.

even really poorly funded library networks I've seen in the states tend to have pretty great Blu-ray selections, not just DVDs

Whenever this sort of topic comes up, I always have to give a shout out to 20th Century Flicks in Bristol:

https://20thcenturyflicks.co.uk/

They have a huge library of DVD and VHS for rental!

There is going to be an interesting breaking point when DVDs and Blu-rays stop being sold mass-market. I think a lot of people will realize the downside of going all-in on streaming.

New ones, sure. But there's a thriving retail market of "recycled" optical media being repackaged and sold for cheap in discount stores last I checked. That should stick around for another few years after.

Many things already don't make it to DVD, unfortunately.

Can't be far off given manufacturing of blu-ray players is winding down.

That has already happened in a lot of parts of the world.

We had one that finally shut down a few years ago.

The key seems to be if they own the shop they’re operating out of; then they can last quite a while if the owner wants them to.

This is an important thing for any brick and mortar business--if you don't own your building, you're always at more risk for rent changing and putting you in bad straits.

We're the Last Man Standing in Zurich, Switzerland. We have DVDs and Blu-rays but do not rent them, we only sell. Many many regular customers, all Fulm Freaks / Nerds. Our name is LASERZONE because we startet in the early 90's with Laserdiscs. Come to visit us, when you're in Zurich an mention that you read this comment. We will love you for that! Just search for DVD, Zürich and you will find us.

Bay Street Video near Bay and Bloor in Toronto is still alive and well: https://www.baystreetvideo.com/ and has a very deep catalogue and active new release schedule: https://www.baystreetvideo.com/recentbydate.php?sortbytitle=...

Shoutout to Scarecrow Video in Seattle as well. Over 150k titles in stock along with device rentals for region locked movies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarecrow_Video

They recently had to go through a donation drive to keep the lights on, so it’s worth supporting them.

As long as they also sell DVD players, I think they stand a chance. The longer they hold out, the more unique they get.

I hope he does well. On the flip side I cannot help but feel this is one of the greatest times to be a media consumer. I definitely look back and have nostalgia for going to Blockbuster on a Friday to pick out some tapes to watch but it may just be mostly the nostalgia of it all. We have easy access to almost any movie/show you want to watch, this includes lots of media that is outside of the country you live in. It is far from perfect and while there is a minority that prefers to own the disc, I suspect the vast majority of consumers prefer renting or buying digital.

I think it's the resolution that will kill dvd's. 55" TV's are now entry level. A cinefile in ten years may well have an affordable laser projector filling and suddenly see the merits of 4k.

"DVD" is usually used as an umbrella term that includes blu-ray and 4K blu-ray.

No streaming service matches the quality of 4K blu-ray, and often they look worse even than regular blu-ray.

Perhaps, thought blu ray is looking a little laserdisc like. Never quite got the mass adoption to stay around and now fading away. It's now hard to buy a cdrom drive without dvd support. But ones without blue ray remains common. Notmto mention second hand dvds are available for pennies on bulk for hoarders ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjH9cEoEup8

There are still plenty of vintage vinyl, cassette, and VHS stores. Lots of runway left for even younger niche markets.

It's sad we can't buy people media anymore. Most don't have a way to play CDs or DVDs!

Most? I find that very hard to believe. Only the latest generation of consoles and a few late models of the last generation have no disc drives. Plenty of people will still have PS* and Xbox-n with disc drives, not to mention a lot of people will have 30-year-old Walkman CD players and 20-year-old set-top DVD players in their garages that still work. I have several working computers that have working DVD drives. My car still has a CD player. If all else fails, new USB-connected drives are still purchasable for very cheap prices.

I don't have anything that can play a DVD or a Blu-ray. It is a lot more common than you think. A lot of people don't game or they don't game on console.

New DVD players are available (HDMI) for $30 online. Pick up a couple for the price of a mediocre meal + delivery. Literally plug and play.

I don't want one and neither do the majority of consumers. Hence why most people don't have media players anymore.

I donate most equipment that I don't use regularly. Most people I know do even worse: They throw stuff away in the garbage.

My old PS4 and XBox-X got donated, and then I bought a discless series-S because I am a casual gamer, and game pass is cheap and good enough for me, as most AAA exclusive games on PS are now woke boring trash.

If my life depended on playing an old DVD I would probably die.

There are some real hard truths about not being able to own physical media, but purely in terms of UX, on-demand streaming blows anything else out of the water. I can stream any children's audiobook under the son to my daughter's Bluetooth speaker in a whim, instead of shuffling through a bunch of optical media that break easily, and for my own purposes I don't have to have a physical player, space to store the media, etc.

Maybe the best of both worlds would be to rip everything to a Plex server and have the originals in the basement.

Using the phrase “real hard truth” and “optical media that break easily” in the same post made my eyes cross. Are you referring to glass plate negatives from early 19th C. photography? And storing 400 DVDs in a binder takes about 1 cu ft of storage, and DVD players are $30 and the size of a hardback book.

Your best of both worlds proposal sounds right, though.

Why do you care about buying CDs? Music you pay for has been DRM free since 2009 from all of the stores including Apple’s.

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