Rip your media.
The end of physical media is neigh
Very sad news for me personally. Honestly this struck me as hard or harder than hearing about the death of a beloved artist. With the advent of machine learning and AI controlling our music listening we are becoming a world without any control at all over our music or movie culture.
124 responses Add your response
I am happy to move on. I used to have a laser disc collection, then a room dedicated to (three walls of racks) VHS tapes, then DVD , then Bluray... I only bought a couple... what was the next thing... 4K disks. I am so done with physical media. A waste of resources and fills up huge amount of space in millions of homes. I moved on to Kindle books, then Audible. We had rooms full of books. Now only a few hundred leather bound. |
I have boxes of dvds and blu ray discs. I have a Sony blu ray player that I mostly use to play music videos in surround sound. I have a Pioneer Elite dvd player sitting in a box as a backup, but it doesn't do blu ray. I might watch for a deal on a blu ray player just to have one in the event that my Sony craps out. I really don't think a lot of what I have on media is available from streaming. At least not for free. |
I can’t deny the convenience of streaming. The problem I have is that we are at the mercy of whatever the streaming companies want to have in their library at the time, which is not a cultural or artistic decision, it’s based on negotiations which have nothing to do with anything but money. And that’s fine, streaming companies have a right to optimize their offerings. My concern is rather, being able to share beloved movies with friends and younger generations when the powers that be have decided they are not lucrative or no longer available in your market region. |
Related, but a tangent, is the way AI is taking over our listening. Driving in my car it is impossible to ask for U2. Google keeps hearing it as Youtube and damned if I can specify "Play the irish band U2" Alexa for instance can’t hear "Halie Loren" but plays some random artist with a name that sounds like Lauren. And the number of times I wanted to hear a specific song from a specific artist and couldn't is often. |
I dont miss physical format for music at all... I use digital lossless files... I could not keep a house for 10,000 albums. Nor for 10,000 books... Now a simple hard disk (double for security) contain all ... The only thing i miss is paper books... You cannot study very specialized books or deep one on screen... I do it because i do not have the choice... Reading on screen is like typing on a keyboard, catastrophic for memory and understanding when you are young...I am old then it is less a problem even if i can notice it... Writing cursive is fundamental neurological learning when young... Reading a difficult book writing in it or underlining sentences or going back and ahead at will is fundamental for memory dynamics. For music digital is paradise for my budget and my living space...
|
Not surprising Blu-ray is going away. With CDs there will maybe be enough die hard audiophiles to keep the market afloat because they think it sounds better. My take is that streaming can sound as good or better than CDs (plus you get hi res in streaming), but it takes a lot more effort to optimize versus just buying a high quality transport and DAC and being done. I get it. But with movies, does anyone really care that much if streaming movies isn’t quite as good as Blu-ray? I’d say 95% of the population couldn’t give a crap and the convenience of streaming overwhelms any quality differences. It’s just not as important when it comes to movies, hence the demise of Blu-ray. I will say a major takeaway from this that I did not know was that I always assumed if you bought/downloaded music you owned it but apparently you do not and stuff you bought can still be yanked from you. That’s just flat-out wrong and scary. You don’t own the music but rather just the right to play the music. That was new for me and quite concerning. It’s a brave/scary new world. I’m not up on downloading but is it possible to ultimately download the music to a server? I’d think then you’d have it forever but not sure how that works. Like, if you buy something from Qobuz, can you ultimately download it to your own personal server? I’m admittedly ignorant in these things. Still scary. |
@glennewdick , The Sony Playstation 5 is a good blu-ray player. All the gamer dudes would need to go full digital before the gaming consoles stop having a blu-ray drive in them. |
Part of the reason I haven't added music streaming is the result of my experience with movie streaming. No matter how many subscriptions you have you'll never have access to everything you want. And that's assuming you're willing to take the time to search. BTW, I still have my laserdiscs and three (3) laserdisc players. Which means I have to keep at least one television with legacy video inputs. Life is so hard! |
I am sure that the GenZ person who cleans out my space. Is going to get a lot more excited pulling the INNUOS instead of 24 IKEA crates of vinyl albums. technology can be a cruel mistress, but we signed the dotted line. And until someone can convince me that what I listen to is a bad thing I’m enjoying the boat ride |
@onhwy61 No, you only need a AV prepro or receiver with a legacy video input or a cheap composite video to hdmi converter from Amazon for 9.99. |
It is sad for those who care about getting the best picture quality, just as we care greatly about good sound. Even today with "fast" Internet, streaming of movies is lousy in quality compared to that from a well-done Blu-ray disc. Just compare the data rates. Streaming is nowhere close to giving you a gorgeous picture. And even Blu-ray is compressed. Ironically, the TVs themselves are very good and cheap. It's like have a nice Thorens turntable but limiting its performance by using a $29 Audio-Technica conical cartridge on it. |
Sometime, convenience can come to the sacrifice of quality. At least, at first, before the new convenient technologies have had a chance to evolve and improve. I no longer watch movies via surround sound, DVD and Blu-ray, like I did 15 or 20 years ago, so their demise doesn’t concerns me too much. However, I can see how others may see cause for concern. I’ll tell you what relatively new technology I have become madly in love with....."Music Streaming." Music streaming at a very high level, that is. I love streaming my music so much that I now stream exclusively. Happy listening. |
100% audiophile, 0% videophile, never got into videophilia... though i supposedly have a decent tv, according to a video dude i know. Movies in ultra high definition 4k look like documentaries (ugh) to me. I saw that OG predator movie more recently in UHD and it felt like Schwarzenegger was doing a documentary on birds in the forest or something I guess i can understand now why the vinyl guys like all the awful vinyl crackles and low-fi warpy wowy fluttery sound (bwaaahahahaha) that they claim is the "organic" sound of life...Videophiles might hate me.. |
@bolong well done, that was my first thought too! |
As a sidebar, @mahgister is so right, neurologically, about reading and writing! |
@cleeds Thanks. That’s what I would’ve thought but wasn’t sure. It makes total sense. |
Hogwash. There are and will almost certainly be used cds and stores to sell them. Every time I go to the music store I see plenty of people buying physical media of all sorts. Mostly LPs but cds too. My Oppo UDP-205 player still works great (just used it tonight) and I imagine it will for a lot longer. |
Try to buy a composer of the Franco-Flemish school as Obrecht on vinyl ? I dont want vinyl... It is useless for world music (india-Persia Africa) I dont want cd.......
The same problem exist for books... The books i want you will not discover them in most University... Their cost will be very high in many case... When i bought the handbook of logic 40 years ago i paid it 80 dollars... Imagine the cost with the inflation calculator... the 25 books of the linguist that interest me cost 40 dollars each book ... Do you think i will go with my life without these essential books ? No ... Then it is like audio : the solution is studying acoustic... For the books it is knowing internet... Life is too short to live without the tools necessary to think ...
i never had the budget to create my audio system as i dreamed of... I discover that a very good hi-fi cost peanuts if we learn how to do it... We must study not buy...
|
I read the starting post on here with real dismay. I’ll never forget the day that Oppo announced it was ceasing production of its players. Luckily I signed up in time to win the right to buy my Oppo UDP-205 (whew!) I retain all the LPs I ever bought from 1956 onward, also the tape cassettes, the VHS Tapes, the Laser Discs,the CDs, the SACDs, the DVDs, the Blu-ray Discs and I still have working media gear for them all. i now stream 99% of the time. All my CDs are ripped and all the many I still acquire, though most of the time they are used because they only need to play perfectly once and that is to produce a rip. I do subscribe to Tidal but only to preview some music I’d like to buy. High res downloads typically sound fantastic!! But they do cost too much considering there is no physical copy.. One of the things that really annoys me is that TVs no longer provide legacy inputs for our vintage players! One of the things that worries me is if I have a drawer failure on my various players. I don’t need them very often, but I like having them just in case. I do wish I could easily rip my DVDs and BLURAYS. Then I wouldn’t worry about my player going down and a replacement unavailable. |
I bought a CD transport in August because the good ones are few and far between and who knows how long you'll be able to buy them. I was at work yesterday and was trying to find a song on Qobuz. Couldn't find it. Searched Tidal ... same thing . I own the CD. Doesn't happen often but it's frustrating. |
| Post removed |
I’ve been trying to decide about buying a Magnetar UDP 900 and therefore Googling reviews, etc. The LG article cited by Eric popped into my Google feed yesterday and I just thought that I was being fed the usual algorithm feed, but surprised to see it here. According to one story I saw the major manufacturers-Sony, LG, Panasonic-haven’t come out with a new BRP since 2018. The new ones have been Magnetar and Reavon. I would have thought that the Pandemic, which drove people to reexplore their Audio systems, might have driven some new development, but once the Covid restrictions were lifted I suspect the people that neglected audio went back to their old habits and demand fell.I listen to SACDs, Blu Rays, and my DVD-A collection, as do many here, but we are the dinosaurs |
I really hate this. Even though I’ve ripped all of my cds and SACDs to a NAS, I’d still have a hard time getting rid of my collection. I’ve thought about it and it makes sense considering the huge amount of space it takes up. Then there’s the Blu-ray’s and dvds. We purged quite a bit a couple of years ago and luckily I’ve haven’t missed any of those but when it comes to my music collection, I just can’t do it, and my albums, they are completely off the table! |
I’m all streaming now but seriously considering the painful cost of adding vinyl. They cant take that away from me easily. However my x wife did in fact easily take all my vinyl- so there’s that. I popped in a CD recently- man do those sound like crap. Sadly I have hundreds of the darn things and can’t bring myself to jettison them. |
@agwca If you’re considering adding streaming my strong advice is to just do it. I too went into it kinda reluctantly about five years ago and my only regret is that I didn’t do it much sooner. The freedom to explore worlds of new music, much of it in hi res BTW, has increased my enjoyment of music listening more than anything else in my lifetime by a large margin. I’ve never had so much enjoyment as an audiophile. Discovering incredible new music is so much more interesting and rewarding than just playing the same stuff over and over. That’s fun as far as it goes, but it doesn’t compare in the least to finding tons of awesome new music, and I hardly ever spin a CD anymore. If you’re on the fence, jump! Just my $0.02 FWIW. |
Folks, there are a couple of elephants in this room 1. I don't know about you, but if I ever listen to 30-40% of all the audio media I have that's the end of it. Regular rotation, 10% or less. So, 60-70% is dead wood. But, I don't get rid of it because on a regular basis I rediscover a dusty corner of my music, like, Alice Cooper really was a misunderstood genius? In that event, having LPs or CDs around isolates one from the vagaries of streaming services. 2. A conversation we should be having as a society is the nature of ownership in a changing world. For decades, it was blissfully simple: you purchased a LP or a CD, you owned it, you could play the music on it at will, sell it, give it, whatever. In reality, when we paid $14.95 for a CD that cost less than $1 to manufacture, the value was always in the music, not in the physical support. With streaming, we pay for music untethered from any physical support. That's fine, but we no longer have full control over the music we paid for. Conceivably, a copyright owner could win a lawsuit and have music you own ordered removed from your library by a court. 3. Torrent
|
Physical media: It has been over three years since I moved away from physical media. I have an extensive vinyl collection and a decent playback system, but only listen to vinyl on those rare occasions where an album is not offered on the streaming service I use. I am contemplating selling my vinyl playback system. I find my digital playback system equal to and often superior to vinyl playback SQ and much more convenient, not having to remove from storage and clean the vinyl. I also have not played silver/gold disks. I burn disks not offered on streaming services to my server. I do not have a working CD player. |
With over ten million albums...it’s not a very restrictive list. Also, Qobuz has over half a million high resolution albums. It is very seldom that I find an album not available.
More importantly, when you have access to all that music your focus changes over time to listen to new music instead of the same old stuff. The re-listening to the same stuff had a lot to do with the required investment to have it in your library. Now the entire world of music is available to you. I don’t relisten to old stuff very often any more. The sound quality of my digital rig equaled my analog rig about four or five years ago. My listening habits started to change a little at first and after a couple years changed rapidly leaving old stuff to collect dust most of the time. |
It is still "blissfully simple." Nothing has changed.
A copyright owner can no more have a court order that you return "his" CDs or LPs than he can have the court order that you return audio files that you have purchased. It is still "blissfully simple." Nothing has changed. Of course, if you never purchase files and only stream them, then you get what you pay for and can lose access at any time.
|
. i like me a good dose of film grain and the low-fi look of those spaghetti westerns on tape.