Is Physical Media Finally Resting in Peace? – Disney’s Closure of DVD and Blu-ray Distribution in Australia Sparks Debate

2023-08-01 11:55:41
▌Ye Lang’s daily reading: Disney shuts down DVD and Blu-ray distribution business in Australia. Is physical media finally going to be RIPed? ▌20230801 This is a year full of changes in the history of entertainment development: the arms race of streaming wars has finally stepped on the emergency brakes, Peak TV has officially reached the end, the long-overdue recovery of the movie theater box office, and the strike of screenwriters and actors are leading to a complete shutdown of Hollywood.. …but one small but potentially big change almost escaped our notice – Disney is preparing to completely close its DVD and Blu-ray distribution business across the continent, making it impossible for Australians to Buy movies and TV shows from The Disney Group (including Fox) on physical disc. While Disney has no word of a full rollout, one must be wary of the fact that this kind of testing the waters has become prevalent among media conglomerates in recent years. When Netflix started enforcing a no-credential sharing policy in South America, we knew for a long time that they would one day fully implement it. When the basic Netflix plan in Canada was cancelled, we took for granted that it would be our turn soon. Compared with the drastic reorganization of the entire Disney group, the end of the physical media business is a matter of course. While the streaming wars have put the brakes on the conglomerates this year, Disney CEO Bob Iger is all too aware that streaming will be the only way to go. A few days ago, he announced that the traditional media business that may be divested and sold includes the declining wireless TV and cable TV, and even ESPN, which is still very profitable, is included in the list because of the very high capital demand for investment in a comprehensive streaming transformation. listed for sale. Disney knows all too well that it’s been a long time since the last time you bought a DVD or Blu-ray. In addition to the news from the Australian mainland, another gossip from the more niche soundtrack fan community is that the soundtrack to “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Indiana Jones: Roulette” sold out at a very alarming rate. . It’s not that the master John Williams’ possible close-up work is so popular, but Disney didn’t talk about limited release, but it did only release a very, very small number of physical CDs into the market. Soundtrack physical albums don’t constitute a business anymore. With the death of these discs is the precious experience of owning a movie and an album. Before the advent of videotape in 1975, fans around the world could not really legally own a movie. That’s exactly why 1997’s high-definition, affordable DVD. After the listing, we bought like crazy. Soon this owned right will be left only with the emptiness of digital retail. Digital retail websites all have a very vague proviso, which means that what consumers buy is not a permanent and unlimited right to use it. One day their content license expires, and what you bought may be nothing. More importantly, physical media has a “sharing” function that cannot be replaced by digital retail files. Nick Pino, author of the tech review site Tom’s Guild, lamented this disappearing “sharing” experience in an article today: “The nature of physical media is that they can be shared. I like to let my friends and family borrow my movie collection. Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is a masterpiece, so when I knew a friend of mine hadn’t seen it, I immediately ran to my Blu-ray rack and gave him my disc. I haven’t got my Blu-ray back yet, But that doesn’t change my mind. For me, movies are a shared experience.” As someone wrote in “Once upon a Time There Was a Video Store,” “sharing” is exactly what Hollywood never does. Ken gave the reason why he mobilized all resources to prevent the videotape from entering the US market. Now they want to take back this power again. The reality that neither Indiana Jones himself nor fantasy devices such as Archimedes’ wheel of fortune can be reversed is that physical media is no longer an economic model that can support itself, and media groups with limited resources have gradually lost support. Interest in economic models. Another company that is about to shed its physical media business is Netflix. At the end of next month, Netflix will end its 25-year-old mail-in DVD rental business. The CD is like the old Indiana Jones, no matter how he refuses to admit his age, he still has to ride a horse to face his own sunset like all heroes.
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