Why the Disc Format Has Yet To Die For Some TV Series (variety.com) 100
Kaare Eriksen writes via Variety: As the Digital Entertainment Group, the trade association for home entertainment, tells it, business is better than ever: The U.S. consumer spend on home entertainment grew 11.4% year over year in 2022, totaling nearly $37 billion. Of course, success depends on how you define "home entertainment": Essentially none of that growth came courtesy of anything other than streaming, let alone DVD sales of any kind. When you remove SVOD from the equation, the truth is tough but unsurprising -- outside of theaters, people are increasingly losing the urge to pay for individual films or TV series, with all rentals and physical sales continuing to decline on an annual basis.
One apparent exception to this is digital sales made across platforms like Amazon, Apple TV and Vudu. Digital sell-through commands the largest share of home entertainment spend after streaming and increased ever so slightly in 2022. That said, it's important to remember that the scaling back of COVID restrictions throughout 2021 meant 2022 was the first (relatively) normal year at the box office since the pandemic started. As a result, more films from major studios were released in theaters and subsequently hit their digital windows sooner, per a bevy of deals Hollywood has worked out with exhibitors. But the key word there is films. TV is a different situation.
Between February of last year and May 2023, just over 100 TV releases from the major studios alongside AMC Networks and Lionsgate will have received Blu-ray or 4K Ultra HD releases in the U.S. market. From a studio-by-studio standpoint, there is little to no consistency as to the strategy behind these physical releases. The most staggering factor is how Paramount alone accounts for well over a third of these releases. [...] What's strange is Paramount's sheer commitment to physical releases for its more obscure series spread across the TV landscape. Just about everything originating from Paramount Pictures has at least a Blu-ray release. "Other than those Paramount releases, the only TV series that got 4K physical editions over the last 12 months are 'House of the Dragon' and the final season of 'Westworld,'" adds Variety. "By contrast, Disney has practically parted ways with physical TV releases altogether. To date, the only Disney+ series that has received a Blu-ray release is Peter Jackson's 'The Beatles: Get Back' docuseries." The same is true for Hulu.
One apparent exception to this is digital sales made across platforms like Amazon, Apple TV and Vudu. Digital sell-through commands the largest share of home entertainment spend after streaming and increased ever so slightly in 2022. That said, it's important to remember that the scaling back of COVID restrictions throughout 2021 meant 2022 was the first (relatively) normal year at the box office since the pandemic started. As a result, more films from major studios were released in theaters and subsequently hit their digital windows sooner, per a bevy of deals Hollywood has worked out with exhibitors. But the key word there is films. TV is a different situation.
Between February of last year and May 2023, just over 100 TV releases from the major studios alongside AMC Networks and Lionsgate will have received Blu-ray or 4K Ultra HD releases in the U.S. market. From a studio-by-studio standpoint, there is little to no consistency as to the strategy behind these physical releases. The most staggering factor is how Paramount alone accounts for well over a third of these releases. [...] What's strange is Paramount's sheer commitment to physical releases for its more obscure series spread across the TV landscape. Just about everything originating from Paramount Pictures has at least a Blu-ray release. "Other than those Paramount releases, the only TV series that got 4K physical editions over the last 12 months are 'House of the Dragon' and the final season of 'Westworld,'" adds Variety. "By contrast, Disney has practically parted ways with physical TV releases altogether. To date, the only Disney+ series that has received a Blu-ray release is Peter Jackson's 'The Beatles: Get Back' docuseries." The same is true for Hulu.
HDMI capture to the rescue (Score:5, Interesting)
By contrast, Disney has practically parted ways with physical TV releases altogether.
And this is why I bought an Elgato capture dongle and a generic HDMI splitter from Amazon. I don't trust that something is always going to be available to stream, and some content just isn't popular enough that it makes it to the high seas. In the past I'd buy a physical disc so I'd always have a copy, but if you don't want to sell me one, that's your loss.
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Re:HDMI capture to the rescue (Score:5, Informative)
Isn't HDCP an issue?
Most generic HDMI splitters strip HDCP. But as always, check the reviews.
Re:HDMI capture to the rescue (Score:5, Informative)
For 1080p capture which used HDCP v1, it is a busted flush as the master key was reverse engineered back in 2010. As a consequence, any random HDMI capture device from China on eBay/Aliexpress will work just fine capturing any 1080p content.
To counter this a 4k stream uses HDCP v2, but as anyone will tell you *EVERY* DRM scheme has been busted because if they make the tiniest smallest mistake in the scheme it's game over. Of course, they made a mistake in HDCP v2 and 4k HDMI capture devices that can capture HDCP encrypted content are available. They are a lot more expensive than the 1080p ones but they exist.
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It's different with DRM than encryption in general. Sure you can beat AES256 bit encryption but without a quantum computer good luck finding the key. However with DRM you have to have all the means necessary to decrypt the media otherwise you can't watch/listen/read it. Therefore you are just "hiding" the decryption keys.
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Interesting, what content is not available via BitTorrent? The only things I've found are some obscure documentaries that aren't on streaming services either. Searching for Skylab comes to mind.
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I'm with you on the usually "buy a physical disk".
I've got a decent collection of DVD, Blu-Ray and 4K physical media - I don't trust streaming services...
If I care about a show / like a movie I try and buy the physical media so I can rewatch any time of my choosing without worrying if it suddenly disappeared (BBC, I'm looking at you for suddenly removing all traces of new Dr Who due to some exclusive US deal with HBO Max)
If studios etc stop releasing physical media, I may resort to a method such as you are
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It's none of that. Studios hate discs because it's a one time purchase. Streaming services are a constant income stream.
They want you to keep paying, paying once is so un-American.
one time purchase (Score:2)
Not just that, but with streaming the individual or household preferences can be surveilled, analysed, sold.
Yo man, I still got a stack of AOL CD's (Score:3, Funny)
Selling them for only 15 each.
Re:Yo man, I still got a stack of AOL CD's (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yo man, I still got a stack of AOL CD's (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Yo man, I still got a stack of AOL CD's (Score:3)
I have audio CDs more than 30 years old and they still work flawlessly.
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I have CD-Rs that are 25 years old that still work flawlessly. In fact, of the ones that don't from that era, almost all of them (and there aren't many) are some generic unlabeled discs that were probably cheap for a reason).
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Bitrate (Score:5, Interesting)
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1080P is more than good enough for almost all shows anyway.
Re:Bitrate (Score:4, Insightful)
It depends on your screen size and sitting distance.
Re:Bitrate (Score:5, Insightful)
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It depends on your screen size and sitting distance.
Somebody's sitting too close...
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It depends on your screen size and sitting distance.
I find that the writing and acting makes a lot more difference to me than the resolution. Adding pixels to a poorly written story doesn't really help. And if I'm looking at individual pixels in a 1080 display it's a pretty good indication that the acting isn't good enough. I don't think screen size or sitting distance has much impact on the acting.
I suppose for nature documentaries or something 4K might be worthwhile, but for things like MIT Open Courseware I find the blackboards perfectly readable at 1080
Re:Bitrate (Score:4, Interesting)
4k isn't just better resolution. It includes HDR and certified colour grading. Even if you can't see the extra resolution, you will be able to notice the HDR and colour changes.
Additionally a lot of 1080p releases were botched. The recent 4k release of the Star Trek movies is a good example. The TNG era ones were sharpened and the colour adjusted for the 1080p release, and they look kinda bad. The sharpening is a personal preference but the colour looks ridiculous in some scenes. The Lord of The Rings trilogy is similar, the 4k release fixes a lot of colour issues with the original 1080p one.
Now the industry has had time to get to grips with remastering older stuff, and we have proper HDR and colour profiles, and OLED displays are capable of accurately reproducing those shades, 4k releases are often way more than just a resolution bump.
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4k isn't just better resolution. It includes HDR and certified colour grading. Even if you can't see the extra resolution, you will be able to notice the HDR and colour changes.
Normalize your displays HDR and SDR profiles and them come back here and tell us about the noticeable differences.
What people actually love is not HDR but bright supersaturated displays just like the demo loops playing on the TVs at the local electronics store.
Re:Bitrate (Score:5, Interesting)
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Can confirm this. I set my Android box to use 4k YouTube steams, even though the display is only 1080p. They look better than the 1080p versions, considerably sharper and with a lot fewer artefacts.
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The 4k torrents of The Last Of Us look amazing.
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Blurays on the other hand, require much newer hardware. Most OEMs dropped the optical drive as a standard include on their
Re:Bitrate (Score:5, Informative)
You'll also need to buy a large SSD as even the smallest Blurays above 1080p quality are around 20GB in size. Then you'll need an internet connection to use the ripping software, which will take hours to do it's job. You'll also want to re-encode the resulting video file to shrink it's size. (Assuming the ripping software didn't do that for you.) Which will take even more time. The encode times can be reduced if you have a modern GPU with hardware accelerated video decoding and encoding, but that costs even more money.
Close, but here's some more accurate info:
You don't need a large SSD for storing your ripped movies. Spinning rust will do the job. Even external SMR drives primarily intended for backup purposes will work just fine (WD My Book, etc.) connected to a USB 3 port.
MakeMKV is IMHO the ripping tool to use. If it's taking hours to finish its task, that's the fault of your optical drive and not the software. Some drives have Riplock [wikipedia.org], which limits the maximum read speed. It's worth checking to see if there's a firmware hack available for your drive to remove this limitation, as it will speed things up considerably.
Finally, when it comes to re-encoding, Handbrake works just as well for HD content as it does for DVDs. You don't need a dedicated GPU to transcode HD video, but you do need a fairly high-end (we're talking consumer level high-end, so something like a current gen Ryzen 7 or Core i7) CPU for software-based encoding (which yields the best quality), or you can get by with an older (at least Skylake or later, though) Intel CPU if you're willing to accept the quality loss that comes with using Intel QuickSync [wikipedia.org]. Any of those solutions mentioned will transcode a Blu-ray rip to HEVC in a reasonable amount of time (usually less than the time it would take to watch the video/movie in realtime).
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I'm amused when the overall effect of high resolution and fast frame rate makes a very expensive production somehow look like a home movie. Plenty of scenes in Avengers movies are like that, instead of brain making a mental model of superheroes and supertech and magic you see actors with costumes and props and of course everything human about them.
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Too many people think that it all boils down to resolution. 4K is obviously better than 1080P, right? and 1080P is obviously better than 720p, right? But in reality, the 4K that most streaming services uses such a low bitrate (keeps their server hosting costs down) that you see compression artifacts such as color-banding everywhere, etc. Even high-bitrate 720p can look better than low-bitrate 4k in some cases. The only guaranteed easy way to get *high-bitrate* 4K in many cases is via Blu-Ray.
While you are 100% correct, and I agree with yoiu 100%, you are forgeting HDR.
While it is technically possible to have 720P HDR or 1080P HDR (or even 480P HDR), most of the participants in the content supply chain decided that HDR will only be available in 4K, which means that, if you want HDR, then 4K it is...
Is sad, but it is what it is...
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While it is technically possible to have 720P HDR or 1080P HDR (or even 480P HDR), most of the participants in the content supply chain decided that HDR will only be available in 4K, which means that, if you want HDR, then 4K it is...
I've done AB testing with the same blu-ray content in HD and 4k HDR and for the life of me found no meaningful difference at least on my display.
I suspect most of what people notice is not actually higher dynamic range but the mode switch to a different display profile that drives illumination and power consumption through the roof.
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The bitrate is kept low because you need to satisfy your customers. There's no point to offering 50Mbps 4K video if most of your customers can't get it - that's why most UHD offerings are around 25Mbps. Most people can get a 50Mbps connection which is suitable for 1 4K stream at 25Mbps,
And remember there are people outside of major urban centers where 100Mbps service is a luxury, so any service needs to target a lower bitrate to attract as many customers are possible.
Correlation, causation ... (Score:2)
Re: Correlation, causation ... (Score:2)
Re: Correlation, causation ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Their motivation usually boils down to [...] wanting a local copy for archive and to remove reliance on a 3rd party to watch.
I have started hoarding content I liked. Reasons:
1. Publishers have developed this annoying tendency to rework (read: "censor") older content to fit today's social requirements. I don't like that at all.
2. Content suddenly becomes unavailable on certain streaming services because deals expire, someone else gains exclusivity, etc. No, I will not subscribe to 50 streaming services to hunt for that show I like.
3. Some releases are pulled for unknown reasons (could be 1. or 2., but who knows)
4. Some releases are simply not available anywhere, either online or in physical format. They just aren't.
5. Some releases are geofenced. Oh, no, you're in *insert 3rd world country*? Not available to you, peasant!
I bought several series as DVD bundles (Seinfeld, M*A*S*H to name a few). They are awesome. I will start ripping them at some point just for kicks.
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Depending on your location and choice of show, there might not be any availability whatsoever aside from piracy.
Re:Correlation, causation ... (Score:4, Interesting)
We have something like 2200 titles on home media formats. Yes, they take space. Yes, when moving, it takes time and effort. Yes, we have to physically go to the shelves to select what we want to watch. No, with probably 2/3 on an analog format, we're not going to rip/encode any time soon.
But, you know what? I don't have to worry about the content that I want to watch disappearing from a service that I'm payng for, possibly because the rights to it have now ended up on a different service that I'm not paying for. I don't have to worry about some crazy director or producer deciding that the version I have is no longer his or her vision and suddenly changing things, burying the prior release(s) so they aren't seen anymore.
Sure, it would be nice if everything I had was on a digital medium in its native format or the best achievable format, but I'm not going to sweat that some titles are on VHS or Laserdisc. Over time we do purchase DVD or Blu-ray copies when we only have them on VHS or LD, when we find them for money we're happy to spend on them. I've been a big fan of the $2 DVDs and $5 Blu-rays that I find at many used places.
Either way I have control over what I have in my collection. I don't expect anyone else to like what I have, or to value what I do, but it means that when I want to watch something that I own a physical copy of, I can do so without someone else revoking my rights to the work contained therein.
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This is why I still buy audio CDs, but that is partially because it supports the band a lot more than streaming does. (Streaming pretty much gives $0 to artists.)
The advantage of physical media (well today's... I'd probably expect some new music format to demand one create an account and lock stuff to it, like DIVX did. No, not the DiVX codec, the DIVX player that Circuit City used to sell), is that it doesn't need Internet access and other stuff to play. You own the physical media, and it is perfectly l
Spend is a verb not a noun (Score:1, Offtopic)
Spend is a verb not a noun, and it seems juvenile to use it as the latter.
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Spend is a verb and a noun.
From https://dictionary.cambridge.o... [cambridge.org]:
spend
noun [ S ]
ECONOMICS, FINANCE
the amount of money that is spent on a particular activity:
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Eventually questionable usage does tend to get ratified by the dictionaries. It doesn't make you sound any less juvenile to use it though, like you are too lazy to use proper English or follow long standing linguistic conventions.
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Once it's ratified by the dictionaries, it IS proper English. There's no need to make yourself look like a fuddy-duddy by complaining about such trivia. The world moves on.
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"Once it's ratified by the dictionaries, it IS proper English."
No, and your case would be stronger if you actually provided evidence that "the dictionaries" actually did so. Let's see evidence of who "the dictionaries" are that are definitive and then see evidence that. each of them "ratified" this nonsense.
This is merely an example of "nounifying" a verb. Spend is a verb. I don't agree that doing this is "juvenile", it is creative use of incorrect grammar and should not be overused nor used when communi
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Actually "spendan" is a verb, "spend" is a modern corruption. Or we could argue that all of English is a modern corruption of Latin and German, so "spendere" is a verb. Although it's been a long time since I studied Latin I don't think either dropping the "ere" or changing the "ere" to "an" are valid conjugations.
https://www.etymonline.com/wor... [etymonline.com]
You're simply picking an arbitrary point in time, probably around the time you went to grade school, and declaring that by virtue of the glorious event of your birt
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On the contrary there is extensive commentary on what is proper usage that does not even begin to concede the issue when something is added to a dictionary, and the consensus is that "spending" is to be preferred over "spend" when a noun is required. If you are in an informal context in Britain that may be different, but here we are talking about a published article not a post it note in London.
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(Sorry about the duplicate posting there)
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Once it's ratified by the dictionaries, it IS proper English. There's no need to make yourself look like a fuddy-duddy by complaining about such trivia. The world moves on.
On the contrary there is extensive commentary on what is proper usage that does not even begin to concede the issue when something is added to a dictionary, and the consensus is that "spending" is to be preferred over "spend" when a noun is required. If you are in an informal context in Britain that may be different, but here we are talking about a published article not a post it note in London.
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Those who lack either the education or knowledge to properly comprehend the concept of 'language' should not cast aspersions on the usage of others.
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Spend is a verb not a noun, and it seems juvenile to use it as the latter.
One of the basic tenets of nerd language is that all nouns can be verbed, and all verbs can be nouned. As it turns out, it's actually a general principle [voanews.com], and you're wrong not just from a nerdy standpoint, but from an absolute one. It's a tradition going back to the earliest days of English.
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Do you not think verbing weirds language?
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Keep language weird. Or weird language keep, or something.
A favorite movie: Colossus the Forbin Project (Score:2)
Re: A favorite movie: Colossus the Forbin Project (Score:2)
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No.
Then: Why do I pay one company for a ton of shit I hate or am at best disinterested in, just to access a few gems?
Now: Why do I have to deal with so many companies to cobble together access to small bits of interesting content, only to have that content stop being produced prematurely, move to another company's service, or disappear completely?
Re: A favorite movie: Colossus the Forbin Project (Score:2)
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The situation is almost entirely better FOR ME
FTFY
Re: A favorite movie: Colossus the Forbin Project (Score:2)
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Streaming is temporary. If what you want is streamed today, it might not be there tomorrow. But the DVD I have from 20 years ago still works. Maybe the there are some today who can't understand watching something twice, or listening to last year's music, or playing last year's games don't care, but many people do want a product that lasts for longer than the current fashion.
Tangible library (Score:1)
If I just want to watch it, streaming is easier.
If I want to display it like book on a bookshelf, I want something physical.
Re:Tangible library (Score:4)
If I just want to watch it, streaming is easier.
Is it, though?
Random show: M*A*S*H. Is it streaming anywhere?
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Hulul/Disney & Apple+
https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/m-a-s-h [justwatch.com]
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Not in my country, it isn't.
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Yes, but you did not give a country. Don't move the goal posts.
In any event, that website will let you search for availability by country.
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I'm not moving any goal posts.
But I must apologize, I had written a longer post earlier, and I confused the two entries, here's the one I am referring to:
https://news.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]
See point #5.
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Still (Score:2)
substantial areas without good enough web access for streaming, that end up going to libraries for web access for school assignments.
Nevermind the primary way for those groups to access new media is either purchasing or libraries lending physical media.
Overlook creating a digital divide, physical media is pennies on the dollar to produce, with collectors editions and whatnot re-released as high buck affairs.
This is essentially leaving money on the table, and for what?
And physical media is still widely avai
You'd Think It'd Be An Obvious Sell (Score:4, Interesting)
Paramount is committed to physical releases...because it makes at lest some sense.
If I buy a season of Picard, a season of Lower Decks, and a season of Strange New Worlds on Blu-Ray, each costing about $35 a pop, I've spent $105.
If I subscribe to Paramount+ for a year, I spend $100.
Exactly which is more profitable for Paramount is unclear; odds are good that the streaming revenue is more profitable than the disc release, but that math changes quite a bit if we expense the production of the series against the streaming service, since the show would be produced for P+ regardless of the physical release.
Paramount's ideal, of course, is that I do both and spend $205. There is also a possibility that there are people who buy physical copies of shows in enough quantity (i.e. 4 or more in a year) that they spend more than they would for just the streaming version.
The ultimate takeaway here is that Paramount's money men have done the sort of math which shows that there is at least some profit to be had from selling physical copies of shows. It would be really, really interesting to see if Disney could manage to nudge the needle of their money-losing Disney+ service by doing some runs of their Marvel and Star Wars series on DVD and Blu-Ray. They probably won't sell trillions, but if Paramount can find some profitability in discs, Disney sure can.
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If I subscribe to Paramount+ for a year, I spend $100.
What I do is subscribe for a month or two, watch what I want, and then cancel. It's almost certainly not want Paramount wants me to do, but they and the others chose this path.
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The hardware required for a streaming service, the amount of hardware required for a (global) streaming service, the energy that hardware consumes, the cooling of that hardware, the rent for the locations of that hardware, the bandwidth consumed and maintenance...that is all free?
Let alone the administration of customers, setting up deals with banks/instances that actually transfer the customer's money onto your account....that is free?
And what is worse, most of those costs need to be payed before you can p
Disney knows what they're doing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Those "missing" titles will get a physical release... once there's enough pent-up demand and after a hype campaign. After a heavily promoted release, probably coupled with special events in the parks, the discs will be available for a few years. Then, just before the title would be about to be demoted to the bargain bin, the hype will begin again. Fans will be implored and cautioned to buy their copies now. Because in a few months, the title will "go back in the vault" and once the existing stock sells out, that's IT. Then, several years later, once there's enough pent-up demand and after a hype campaign....
That's Disney's MO with physical media, going at least as far back as VHS.
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And this is why I specifically NEVER buy anything from Disney. Fuck em. I will, however, buy seasons of shows I like. It sends a clear message that I liked the show and am willing to pay for the content. And it means if the show gets cancelled, in any sense of the word, then I can still watch it. What's the downside? I guess I do have to get up off my fat arse and insert a disc at some point, even if it's just to rip it to a hard drive on the network. I can live with that.
Some People Rent When they Can Own (Score:3)
Take note Adobe.
Disney? (Score:2)
Disney has largely parted ways with entertainment.
streaming is done for (Score:2)
The music industry did something right which the movie industry is now doing wrong.
When buying an album from any artist I favor became a two-clicks-and-a-few-moments matter, I stopped looking for mp3s and torrents. I can give ten bucks to my favorite musician and click on a "buy" button.
Streaming doesn't do that. That you need a monthly subscription is bad enough. That you need at least three to get whatever the current major shows are is what breaks the deal. Why does everyone need to have their own stream
Normal (Score:2)
The Vinyl hipsters are ditching the Laser-discs and start a new 4K collection.
The physical format is dead. (Score:2)
I know what you're thinking, a lot of you will be upset by my headline here, especially since we're often being royally screwed by the media, movie and streaming companies because our beloved movies which we remember and revere so much is being taken offline, appear on some other paid streaming network all the time, and it's a pain. We own nothing anymore.
But it's true. I mean, I'm a guy that grew up in the 80s with cassette tapes, vinyl records and a VHS recorder, and we had FLOPPY DISCS.
What do we use tod
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Since you asked,
My kids still pick out DVDs to watch in the minivan on the screen in the back as recently as this week.
I listened to some CDs on my commute yesterday. Those same CDs have been ripped and stored on my NAS for home listening, but my favorites still get used in the car player regularly.
I will admit to using a USB drive instead of CDs on my wife's car for road trips. Holds a lot more. Unlike streaming, doesn't run into issues driving through mountains or other remote areas.
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My headphones never need charging. I don't know why people get the inferior kind with batteries. My car still has a CD player, which makes it easy to listen to music in the car. If I had to mess with an infotainment center, I probably wouldn't, either.
Watch more than once ... (Score:2)
Watch more than once and it's cheaper on physical media ...and when (not if) it is taken off streaming or moves to another, you can still watch it ...
They want to keep charging you again and again for what you paid for...
Not everyone can stream (Score:2)
Lots of places in the US have a Walmart within an hour drive but not enough internet for streaming video, maybe even music.
Other reasons
Your streaming service drops the show you've been re-watching over & over.
You have a media server/portable device and want to rip media to it. And don't want to torrent it.
You want to support a band.
Your streaming doesn't let you repeat
Streaming doesn't work for you in the car/bus/subway/camping trip
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Libraries are still popular (Score:2)
My library also partners with a streaming service, which carries the kind of stuff that libraries had back when there were video stores and the libraries were admonished not to take the food from their mouths: documentaries, older movies, B-movies.
But, after the video stores closed, the public libraries started buying movies on disc, and more importantly, TV series. They bought TV series from all over the world. My family has a jones for mysteries and PIs and we've found some wonderful series from Britai
Physical media rules but I really like streaming (Score:1)
Physical media rules. I spent much of the early 2000's to almost 2015 purchasing so many DVD's. Most of the bigger action/sci fi/fantasy movies, most of the good animated stuff, and the biggest part of my collection was TV seasons on DVD.
I was broke, still paying back student loans, then I found torrents. I bought the special stuff on physical media (saved my pennies for a cool collectors or limited edition) but I just downloaded most of everything else because I couldn't afford a lot of extras. And if a mo
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>Physical media rules
It fails due to physical damage... but yes. It's yours, if you take care of it, it will always be yours. It will never be 'updated' (censored, given a 'new edition', pulled due to changes in licensing), or lost because the storage system of the device you stored it on failed. You can resell it if you later lose interest.
Besides, if you're a collector it'll come with some nice cover art, maybe some additional physical companion media.
When you are willing to buy a TV series... they
Disk need to die: Nonsense - Your World, Folks (Score:2)