Much like CDs, I believe you will still be able to find films on Blu-Ray in the future as long as you're willing to look some for it. Still I don't really like the look of things at the moment. Criterion have struggled with their streaming services and want to get into that market, yet I feel that they should at least release some films on UHD-BD. When they started with regular Blu-Ray, most of their announcements were still only limited to DVD for quite a while so I guess it could be done again. Pretty much none of the films I scan ever hit DVD or Blu-Ray. The only time it happens is if a customer really asks for it, and in those cases it's usually because they're 80 years old or more and don't have a functional computer or smartpad to stream it on. They just get a burned disc then. It's really difficult for small companies and film archives to satisfy a minority of customers that want the content delivered a different way.

And, excuse me if I'm conspiratorial, but I feel very uncomfortable that those streaming companies (Netflix, HBO, iTunes etc) all keep track of what I'm watching and keep on telling you "HEY YOU'VE WATCHED THIS, SO GIVE THIS A TRY!". I'm only watching films on my Oppo and it's only connected to the internet when there's an update. Call me crazy but it's all about integrity for me and I do want at least some privacy.

I guess I just have the most rotten luck, that's all.

I haven't run much into rot over the years, either. I mostly have issues with warped discs. I have this problem with 5% of my collection I would say. The rest is working fine. This is mostly due to the fact that the discs I bought were not stored in ideal conditions ( stacks of LDs piled on top of each other for many years etc. ). But rot really isn't something that I have come across very often. Some discs have mild rot but I have the feeling that some discs might have some rot but it won't get worse past a certain point. I have a few PDO UK manufactured discs from the very beginning like 1982-1983 that exhibit some rot but are still perfectly playable. Not every disc that shows signs of rot will eventually die one day. At least that is my impression. I have some German PAL discs that I bought back in 2002-2003 that already had mild rot when I bought them back then and 15 years later they don't look any worse than the day I bought them. Witness ( film with Harrison Ford , with German audio ) is a PDO UK manufactured disc that I got in 2003 and the rot hasn't gotten worse over the past 15 years at all. The audio is still there and the video is watchable even though it has speckles but it is still acceptable.

I'm a huge fan of physical media. As long as I have a working player, those vinyl records/CDs/DVDs/Blu-rays/LDs/VHS/etc. in my collection will still be playable*.

The risk of digital files is that they may be DRM-locked, and the service you bought it from might go down and render the files unplayable. This has already happened to me.

*discounting media decay

Here is an article in the news from today at Engadget:

https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/06/ultraviolet-closure-digital-media-dvds/

Just mentally replace 'DVD' with 'LD' in your mind when you read it. Same point being made here regarding the streaming services going away and/or controlling the flow of content that is available.

"Yes, their existence is a blight on my interior decor, but they can't be whisked away in the same way that, say, Taylor Swift's catalog was pulled from Spotify."

Humans like this are why the world is screwed.

"So, if you care about something, the smart thing to do is to keep it alive in your own home."

Well at least he had something quite sensible (albeit obvious) to say...

Well, we are almost at 8 billion, I think people who have problems such as keeping plastic around is the least of our worries.

HD streaming is significantly better than the best DVD upscaling has to offer, in fact I'd argue that 1080p streaming is coming close to Blu-Ray. I watch on a 55" screen from 5m back.

To be honest I see DVD outlasting UHD and BD. DVD is appealing to those who want something that's cost effective and who don't care so much about quality. The senior crowd makes up a large percentage of this.

There is almost no relevant difference in the price point of BR to DVD, at least not in the US. I seriously hope that DVD isn’t the one we’re stuck with. I consider 1080p BR to be good enough for almost anything and with $60 players and $7 discs I think it’s a pretty good stopping point on our race to cheapen everything we can as much as possible. Customers who will only pay less than that aren’t worth any company pursuing, IMO, unless they’re ad based.

When will the longer LD version (36 minutes longer than the DVD!!) of Minako Honda: The Virgin Live in Budokan 1986 come to streaming exactly?

It's ridiculous I know but plenty of people either don't have BD players or they do but once again don't care for the better quality, so they will gravitate to the cheaper DVD option even if it is only a couple of dollars cheaper.

In 10 years time DVD very well might be the only format keeping physical media alive.

Isn't the appeal of 4K supposed to be more the HDR than the increased resolution? While the latter is limited by how big your screen is and how close you sit to it, the benefits of the former should be inherently obvious regardless of either.

You know every BR player also does DVD, right? I don’t see why Sony would continue manufacturing DVD players that don’t also play BR. After a certain period, possibly even now, there isn’t going to be any significant difference in cost to manufacture for them and when that happens usually manufacturers drop the other model because it starts to become more expensive to make the antique than the current spec. DVD also is less durable and has weaker copy protection which motivates studios. I don’t know what the difference in manufacturing costs is now but it has to be $1 or less I’d think judging from the MSRP on these things.

In other words it will soon be a manufactured distinction and the market is shrinking all the time so it doesn’t need excess diversity.

Great, then I can cash in on my late release DVDs like others do on late release LDs.
Who wants Avengers 4 DVD for a grand

We can pretty much count on that happening. I'll meet everyone here to laugh about it in 2036.

My whole point was having a go at at just how insignificant those "dramas" are.

Earth's (and our) biggest problem is us.

Read my post again. I said: "plenty of people either don't have BD players or they do but once again don't care for the better quality"

These people with Blu-Ray Players care with very little for BD playback, they will opt for buying the "cheaper" DVD versions of whatever movie or show they are looking for.

Lets not discount people with poor vision who simply cannot tell the difference between DVD and BD, that's yet another reason why people will continue to support DVD instead of BD and UHD.

What a hippy thing to say.

Earth doesn't care about us. It's actually not alive as a single entity.

You keep assuming it will be a choice. There’s no reason to think it will remain one.

We’re already at a point where most department stores only carry three or four players period. They aren’t going to see what the point is in keeping around something that goes out of its way to be archaic. They will simply carry a machine that plays everything from CDs to BRs. A five inch disc player. They don’t have AM radios and FM radios. They just have radios because the entire business is one chip at this point. CD/DVD/BR players will someday be soon. They dumped composite out on the cheap players ages ago. So what do people who don’t care about the extra quality of HDMI buy? The same thing as everyone else.