Bad news for fans of physical media: Disney has announced that it will no longer release DVDs and Blu-rays in certain regions of the world due to declining sales.
According to Sky News, the first country to have its physical media taken away is Australia — which will no longer have DVDs or Blu-rays after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 releases on August 1.
Although physical media sales have been declining for years, the final nail in the coffin here seems to be the success of Disney Plus, Disney’s streaming service that competes with the likes of Netflix, Prime Video and Max.
No other markets have been announced by Disney so far, but it does feel like this is the first domino to fall and a telling sign of what’s to come.
The slow decline of DVDs and Blu-rays
Anyone who’s lived through the ’90s will remember a time when VHS collections were all the rage. But, when DVDs came around offering a crisper image and didn’t need to be rewound after every viewing, VHS tapes began to disappear off store shelves.
Although the circumstances are very different here — the DVD/VHS switch replaced one type of physical media with another — there are still some pertinent parallels.
That said, the decline and now utter disappearance of physical media is a shame: 4K Blu-rays, Blu-rays and DVDs still present some huge advantages over streaming, which is why I still advocate for owning a 4K Blu-ray player.
What makes physical media better? For one, once you buy physical media, it’s yours forever. With shows and films disappearing off streaming services every month, owning a copy of it means it will always be available for you to watch.
More importantly, however, physical media often represents the highest quality of the film. All streaming services need to compress digital media to send it over the internet to your TV. Physical media is still compressed but not to the same amount and therefore offers the best visual and audio experience.
Finally, physical media can be shared. I love letting friends and family borrow movies from my collection. Denis Villeneuve’s Dune was a cinematic masterpiece, so when I heard a friend of mine hadn’t seen it, I rushed over to my Blu-ray shelf to give him my copy. (I've yet to see that Blu-ray returned, mind you, but that doesn't change my thoughts on the subject.) In my mind, movies are meant to be shared experiences.
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