Streaming Confusion

~ beetleypete

At one time, not too long ago in the dim and distant past, if I wanted to watch a film that I had missed at the cinema, there was a straightforward option.

I could buy the DVD.

Not only from Amazon, but from many other DVD sellers around the UK. Even if the film was a Region 1 release that only played in North America, there was a 95% chance that I could find a Region 2 copy, released for the European market. I have bought over 700 films on DVD since they first launched the concept, and killed off VHS in the process.

Then everything changed.

Netflix released its own films.
Amazon Prime released its own films.
Apple TV released its own films.
And Disney put many of its better releases onto Disney+.
Then came Hulu, HBO, HBO Max. SKY Films, and many more…

So now, buying a DVD is often a very difficult prospect, and sometimes impossible.

Yes, I can rent a DVD on Amazon, or watch some films free on Prime. But that means watching it on a computer for me.

I can see a Netflix film on the streaming service, but that costs money, and we currently have access via my stepson’s account. I cannot buy a Netflix film to keep on DVD though.

As for Disney+, most of their output is not to my taste, so I am unlikely to pay a monthly fee to watch just an occasional film.

I get recommendations from blogging friends. I think “Ooh, I would like to see that”. Only to find it is on SKY Cinema, Hulu, HBO Max, or Paramount. If those services are available in Britain, I am not aware of them, except for SKY. Even if they are, they probably cost close to £10 a month each or more, so I cannot justify another £30-£50 a month outlay just to watch a few films during the year.

My conclusion is that DVD will soon be dead.

It is currently in the Intensive Care Department, struggling to live. But it has enemies, and those enemies are the ever-growing army of streaming service providers who want to kill it off completely. The shiny discs will soon be a thing of the past, along with the players that we can watch them on.

Thing of the past? Yes I know.

A lot like me.

63 thoughts on “Streaming Confusion”

  6. I gave up on buying DVDs a long time ago, I was a bit of a pirate pioneer back in the early 2000’s recording UK TV to my PC and burning DVDs for my Sister who was living in Spain at the time.
    We have Netflix and Prime now that Amazon entered the Polish market, at £10 a year it was hard to resist. And to be honest I’m not averse to finding dodgy copies of the occasional Disney or HBO title via torrent sites, which seem to be more popular than ever now that everything is digital.
    I’d recommend a small home server to anyone, for storage of films and other media, but I realise that this wont happen until they make them more user friendly, but if you do have one at least you still have something to watch when the internet stops working 🙂
    Old CDs and DVDs on a string are good for scaring birds of pray off your chickens….or so they say, I wouldn’t know as all our chickens were eaten 🙂

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  8. I miss the excitement of going to the theater to watch a film. There is no outlet here for old films, but in college I treasured going many times to the same film. I loved the noises of people enthralled in a movie, not on their phones or talking to each other, just a collective intake of a deep breath at key points.

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    1. The cinemas were my wonderland when I was young. Now they have ‘ambient safety lighting’, people talking and sharing selfies on Facebook, and many spending the whole film eating and slurping their way through a sack of snacks. I almost never bother to go to a ‘real’ cinema now, Elizabeth.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  9. Our charity shops are stocked full of box sets and films people have thrown out. I have never understood why anyone would want to watch a film more than once. You know what happens there is no mystery left – time to move on to the next one.

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    1. There are very many films I have watched more than once, Lucinda, and some I have watched 5 or 6 times. If it is a real cinematic masterpiece, there is always something new to discover, if you look carefully.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  10. Pete, I assume your TV can’t add Amazon as an app much like it has Netflix? That is your best bet to be able to see out of what is new – also Apple TV app will also allow you to rent many of those same movies….it is a pain and I also dumped hundreds of VHS tapes – and don’t get me started on LaserDisc!

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    1. My TV doesn’t support the Amazon app, though it is happy with (pre-loaded) Netflix. To watch Amazon on my TV ( which is 10 years old) I have to search Amazon on Google, then log in again to the Amazon site. (Every time) I can’t be bothered with all the faff, and I know nothing about Apple TV, as I have no Apple products. I get to the stage where I hear myself saying “Life’s too short for all this stuff!” (Or something less polite…)
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  11. I find it all too confusing to bother with. Same with music. I had songs saved on my phone in Google play and then they all disappeared! You had to switch over to some paid service and I refused to do it. Too many competing choices.

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        1. No, we don’t pay for radio. In fact, I no longer listen to the radio in my car. They rotate the same songs or news reports on a loop these days, and the inane chatter of the presenters drives me crazy! 🙂
          Best wishes, Pete.

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  12. Ah, yes the days of visiting the video store and choosing a film to view over the weekend! We sold most of our Vinyl albums when we moved from Ludow, got a good price for some of them, but quite a few ended up at Oxfam! We saved one or two, but never play them. Same for CDs and DVDs though we haven’t got many of those. Always useful as bird scarers on the veggie patch!

    (BTW odd that for some reason I was no longer following you today – had to seek you out and follow again)

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    1. Just left you a comment about the following. WordPress keeps ‘unfollowing’ me from quite a few bloggers on a regular basis. Perhaps they finally read my complaints about the Block Editor! 🙂

      I suspect that when I am dead and gone, or maybe even before that, my DVD collection will end up in a skip. Along with all my CDs, a large box of vinyl albums, and three boxes of vinyl .45 singles.
      Best wishes, Pete. x

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        1. I have a lot of early 70s stuff, including most (if not all) Bowie albums. Might sell them one day as I haven’t played them since moving to Norfolk. The record player is in the garage in a box, there’s nowhere really suitable for it in our big ‘oblong’ of a living room. x

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  13. I had an LP collection, as well as dad’s old 78’s and 45’s and then I started a CD and DVD collection. Also had quite a few VHS but now I get music on my PC and if I decided to watch anything (which is rare these days) I’ll either use my PC or IPad. It’s one of the few modern inventions I enjoy. I still prefer books to Kindle, though.

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    1. I like to see films on the biggest screen possible. I find them disappointing on my tablet, and I would never think of watching one on a phone. Your vinyl records are probably quite valuable now, Carolyn.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  15. A bit like CDs – I think they’re going the same way. We sold our LPs to a chap on the Island who was interested in them. We hardly touch our CDs now as we play music through a BoomBar that we’ve uploaded to our phones. I think they call it ‘progress’. We still play our DVDs though.

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    1. My CD collection is large, but I also rarely play them these days. We have a ‘Roxi’ box that plays anything you want through the TV. It has around 36 million songs to choose from, and Julie has Spotify on her phone. Vinyl is very popular with younger people though.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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        1. No monthly fee, unless you don’t want to see any advertising. Then it is £52 a year, just £1 a week. I posted about it when I bought it for Julie. Dead easy to set up and control.
          It is available direct from them, or Amazon. (It was cheaper from Roxi, and came with one year free of ads, so saved an extra £52. )

          Gift Review: Roxi


          Best wishes, Pete.

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            1. The box and controller are very small, and we have still never found a song they didn’t have, with the exception of a few that are brand-new releases. I have to renew the subscription soon and this has reminded me. 🙂

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  16. I buy loads of dvds these days. They’re really cheap and the ‘used’ section on Amazon are often only a couple of quid and in very good condition.
    Old and new, I’ve recently bought a varied selection from classics like ‘Cool hand Luke’, ‘Serpico’, and ‘The silence of the lambs’ to more recent releases such as Willys Wonderland’… starring Nicolas Cage in case you were wondering; Modern war series ‘Generation Kill’, ‘and Over There’, sci-fi movies ‘Rollerball’ and the underrated ‘ Event Horizon’ and independent films like ‘Plan Z’ and ‘100 mornings’
    I even bought a brand new shrink wrapped copy of ‘Cabaret’ for £3.
    I treat movies like my books, and enjoy physically owning them.
    Buying or renting ‘downloads’ just doesn’t provide me the same pleasure. Much like when cd’s replaced the LP, I had enjoyed the packaging of an LP as much as I did the music, so felt a strange loss at the arrival of the cd format.
    I still use Prime and Netflix although like you, I’m not enamoured with the selection on Netflix.
    Anyway, I’m going to jump on my exercise bike now and cycle through a couple of episodes of the excellent cop drama ‘Southland’.
    Cheers!

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    1. Much the same as me then, Keith. (Event Horizon is one of my favourite sci-fi films). I buy the used DVD films from Marketplace, and usually look for those sold by Music Magpie. They are often still sealed, and they also guarantee them in addition to the Amazon guarantee.
      Cheers, pete. x

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    1. I usually wait to buy DVD films until they are sold used on Amazon Marketplace. That way, they are guaranteed by Amazon, and can cost as little as 99p. Most new ones I have are those bought new and sealed as gifts for birthdays or Christmas.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  18. Yes gone are the days of walking up to Blockbusters with the children and browsing and deciding what to watch for a treat! Back further still when we emigrated to Western Australia in 1964, television was in its infancy and there was ONE film a week on a Friday night that I was allowed to stay up and watch, a real treat! I have recorded films on television that I didn’t want to miss and three years later still haven’t seen them!

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  19. Might be worth having another look at Disney +. I quit last year, because it was mainly kids films that I didn’t need or want to see. But since they absorbed the Fox catalogue, and also have films and series that would have been on Hulu if we had it in the UK, there’s some good stuff on there…

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  21. We’re still holding onto our DVDs, although we never watch them now. As for streaming services, we have them, but it takes hours of scrolling through dreck to find a decent movie to watch. It was more fun to go to the video store.

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  22. I don’t really miss my DVDs…I still have them, but I rarely watch them and at some point I’ll probably donate them to Goodwill. I’m just accustomed to streaming them now…I’ve bought quite a few that way too. It’s just easier.

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  23. I know. I enjoyed going to the video store on a Saturday afternoon and picking out a movie that we would watch together later that evening. When we moved to Spain I gave/threw away a box full of VHS tapes. Planned obsolescence at work.

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