Netflix Will Support DVDs for at Least Five More Years

Megalith

Megalith

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While Netflix’s focus is on streaming these days, the company still has 3.3 million customers subscribed to its DVD service. According to CEO Reed Hastings, the mailing of red of envelopes should continue for at least five more years: the support mainly comes from rural subscribers and serious film buffs.

The company that used to be best known from the days of mailing DVDs in red envelopes dominates streaming. It’s everything HBO once wanted to be — a monthly premium subscription offering of commercial-free movies and original productions. Unlike HBO, Netflix doesn’t have to share its profits with a middleman — i.e. the cable operator.
 
The company that used to be best known from the days of mailing DVDs in red envelopes dominates
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I memba'. Hey, memba' when Netflix was purple & black before changing to yellow & black? I memba'!

Hard to believe it's been around this long. Time is flying.
 
RiPpLeeFFecT said:
We still get 1 Blu Ray at a time. If its available on disc, we get it. The quality is much better than streaming.
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Question for you as someone that seems to use this service, does it support 4K Blu-ray Discs or is it limited to just 1080P blu-ray discs? A friend of mine wants to know if it's potentially a good source to rip pretty high quality 4k content. A friend does.
 
WBurchnall said:
Question for you as someone that seems to use this service, does it support 4K Blu-ray Discs or is it limited to just 1080P blu-ray discs? A friend of mine wants to know if it's potentially a good source to rip pretty high quality 4k content. A friend does.
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Just the HD (1080P) disks. There are a few disk rental sites that do the UHD disks but they are more expensive, with lower selection, and greater shipping times.

I have both the streaming and the disks as the selection of movies available on streaming is pretty poor.
 
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I have went to almost zero for physical media, I have a ton of DVDs and blu-ray, 3d even, just don't use much.
 
Megalith said:
While Netflix’s focus is on streaming these days, the company still has 3.3 million customers subscribed to its DVD service. According to CEO Reed Hastings, the mailing of red of envelopes should continue for at least five more years: the support mainly comes from rural subscribers and serious film buffs.

The company that used to be best known from the days of mailing DVDs in red envelopes dominates streaming. It’s everything HBO once wanted to be — a monthly premium subscription offering of commercial-free movies and original productions. Unlike HBO, Netflix doesn’t have to share its profits with a middleman — i.e. the cable operator.
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They better start getting all their DVD on their streaming service then.
 
I'm at the point where I'm considering switching back to disks (I turned them off when they started charging for streaming separately), I can't count the number of times I wanted to watch a well known movie from my youth, and they're just not available for streaming. I've heard Netflix is having trouble keeping the back catalog stocked in physical media too, though.

OTOH, so much crap for my son to watch.
 
The selection is so much better when going for disks over streaming. And older movies are not at redbox usually so its a great option. I may restart by one blu ray plan.
 
polonyc2 said:
Blu-ray over streaming all day every day for me...it's not just 'film buffs', it's people who want the best video/audio quality (which is hopefully not a niche segment)...
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It's close to being a niche segment considering sales are dropping fast on physical media.

Get ready for digital sales/rentals only.
 
toast0 said:
I'm at the point where I'm considering switching back to disks (I turned them off when they started charging for streaming separately), I can't count the number of times I wanted to watch a well known movie from my youth, and they're just not available for streaming. I've heard Netflix is having trouble keeping the back catalog stocked in physical media too, though.

OTOH, so much crap for my son to watch.
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Their back catalog is hit and miss. I was on the 3 disc program until last week, since I'm going overseas it's not needed anymore but in the last 2 years I've had about 20 movies put into the "saved" area, which are discs that are in the system still but physically they are all lost or what not, just cleared out that queue. It's mostly older shit tho, stuff from the late 80s early 90 (original release, not DVD re-release obviously lol) 90% of it was stuff my wife wanted though, shit like Mary-Kate and Ashley, old TV specials, stuff like that, stuff that Netflix probably only had 1 or 2 discs to start with. It's a pain trying to get some new BluRays but has really been a boon to my plex server for the last 2-3 years lol
 
It's still the only way to get new releases and if I'm going to pay to rent a new release, I may as well get it to watch on Blu-Ray.
 
dark_reign said:
Get ready for digital sales/rentals only.
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the article in this thread states that Netflix will continue supporting it for at least the next 5 years...plus Redbox recently announced they will start rolling out UHD (4K) rentals soon...so it's not going away anytime soon
 
polonyc2 said:
the article in this thread states that Netflix will continue supporting it for at least the next 5 years...plus Redbox recently announced they will start rolling out UHD (4K) rentals soon...so it's not going away anytime soon
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True, but buying or renting physical media is pretty much a niche thing now since sales and rentals are way down. Redbox will ride it out for as long as they can.
 
I don't think buying physical has reached niche status.. shit they still make vinyl records, that's niche. I'll stay on physical until a digital download on a 92" screen looks as good as a blu ray, and they better offer 50-100 GB download options for 4k UHD
 
Vaulter98c said:
I don't think buying physical has reached niche status.. shit they still make vinyl records, that's niche. I'll stay on physical until a digital download on a 92" screen looks as good as a blu ray, and they better offer 50-100 GB download options for 4k UHD
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Well Blu-ray never really took off. It's been a niche product since launch. DVDs were very popular and sold well for several years, but sales figures show a steady downward trend year after year.

Netflix got it right since all signs point to a streaming-only future.
 
The only reason I have Netflix is for the discs; I don't stream much from it. For the same quality and availability reasons already mentioned by others. So when they eliminate the disc option, I'll just drop Netflix. There are fewer and fewer movies made every year that I really care about seeing, so by then there probably won't be any. I'll just go to the theater to see the one or two that are worth it, and use the rest of my free time for more worthwhile pursuits, like catching up on my reading. I probably have a decade's worth on my to-read list.
 
Since Netflix introduced their 1080p streaming, and they paid Verizon FIOS hush money, it's been "good enough" on my 65" TV. Even after I upgraded from 46" to 65", I didn't notice any difference. And I have the best eyesight of anyone I know.

With movements like wall-mounting TVs, people are watching TV further and further away. Every two feet you move it away is another drop down in resolution your eyes can make out.

And the thing that's holding-back 4k Blu-Ray is the same "FOR VIDEO PLAYBACK ON TV, 1080p is good enough" problem. That, plus there's a large number of movies still mastered in Digital Cinema Initiative 2k...even though you can actually see the difference on a big theater screen!

The only REAL benefit of going UHD is HDR! But you can already get that with a streaming "4k" movie.
 
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I've still on 1 Disc plan...have been since 2009. Sometimes I forget to use it. Held on to the copy of The Town for sixteen months once. :banghead:

But now that I have Plex and MakeMKV--- I'm am using the living shit out of it.
 
dark_reign said:
Well Blu-ray never really took off. It's been a niche product since launch. DVDs were very popular and sold well for several years, but sales figures show a steady downward trend year after year.

Netflix got it right since all signs point to a streaming-only future.
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Actually, if these guys are to be trusted, it seems BluRay is still doing quite well, much better than DVD is now, though that is to be expected. Also note, because of delays in reporting, this is only covering the first 4 weeks of the year so far yet there is already a reported 85 million for 1 month.

https://www.the-numbers.com/home-market/bluray-sales/2018

If we look at the last complete year, 2017, BluRay seems to be doing much better than niche bringing in over 1.3 billion dollars just for the top 100 releases, not even to mention all of the releases that didn't make the chart. That's still a huge market segment.

https://www.the-numbers.com/home-market/bluray-sales/2017

I don't know what it could have been if Netflix and stuff were not there but it's quite clear that we are nowhere close to a streaming only future yet. The tech, quality, and infrastructure isn't there yet. Based on these numbers I think it's safe to say people still want physical media, and I'm only sourcing BluRay numbers here, DVD adds another few hundred million bucks to the list. There is a clear reason why over a billion and a half dollars were spent on physcial media last year, because streaming doesn't check the box for everyone yet. Maybe in a decade or so but there's a lot of hurdles still that people ignore. Personally, I dread the day they stop making physical media. I do a lot online but outside of Steam I rarely do online over physical, and it seems I'm not alone in that group.

EDIT-

Plus, I think later this year or early next year we are going to see new problems emerge in streaming. These are problems that can be overcome but I think there's going to be a wall that we run into here pretty soon. Once Disney and a few other major players get their streaming services online we're going to start seeing people getting pissed. Pretty soon there is going to be Hulu, Netflix, Disney, HBO, Showtime, CBS, and a few smaller networks as well all with their own streaming services playing in the same market segment and they are all going to start hoarding content on their platforms to make it look like a better value than other platforms. I think viewership as a whole is going to go down for a bit as no one wants to pay for half a dozen services to get what they would have gotten on 2 services the year before. That's also going to bleed into the cable market which then has reaching advertising into other sectors that will be affected. Add in streaming quality and the mess it is and ISP data caps to this mess. Who knows, that may even be a slight boon to physical sales. Only time will tell, but it's clear we've got a ways to go still.
 
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Yeah, now that people can actually afford 1080p TVs in large sizes, the market for Blu-Ray has opened-up.

The other things that was hurting adoption were:

1. The format war,
2. The astronomical price of players and drives.
3. The astronomical price of discs.

But since players dipped below $50, and the burners have dropped below $80 and discs have dipped below $20 it's finally viable for people to use everywhere, just like DVD was!


For people who don't have the perfect streaming setup I do, they're a good value for home libraries.
 
Vaulter98c said:
I don't know what it could have been if Netflix and stuff were not there but it's quite clear that we are nowhere close to a streaming only future yet. The tech, quality, and infrastructure isn't there yet. Based on these numbers I think it's safe to say people still want physical media, and I'm only sourcing BluRay numbers here, DVD adds another few hundred million bucks to the list. There is a clear reason why over a billion and a half dollars were spent on physcial media last year, because streaming doesn't check the box for everyone yet. Maybe in a decade or so but there's a lot of hurdles still that people ignore. Personally, I dread the day they stop making physical media. I do a lot online but outside of Steam I rarely do online over physical, and it seems I'm not alone in that group.
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Not yet, but sales figures for both DVD and Blu-ray are falling. Netflix dropping DVDs in five years is a sure sign it's over for physical media for the masses. The average Joe would rather click and watch than invest in what will soon become extinct.
 
eventually yea but we still have a ways to go, the rental market will go long before the ownership segment, so even at 5 years from now it'll be years after that until it goes away. Until streaming gets better I don't think it will truly go away for a while.

Look at CDs. Music became viable online long before movies, and even last year there was still 1.1x billion in physical CD sales. Vinyl in 2016 made some 430 million in sales. Online streaming services made 2.2 billion but they are still going to be making CDs for a long time, people haven't even dropped CDs yet over the ability to stream 320kbps audio streams, which spells a long forecast until people abandon movies for streams in the 8-50 Mbps range, let alone full Quality level data.

We'll get there some day but for like 10 years now people have been saying physical is dying soon, I'd say we've got a good 15+ years until that actually becomes the case. And don't forget 4k is taking over and 8k is already knocking on the door, the internet infrastructure is no where close to handling that. Someday, but not for a long time yet
 
I wonder how many people are currently still bitter about having a large VHS collection and their tapes dying due to the magnetic field strength decreasing over time on the VHS's and also the inability to find VHS players.
 
WBurchnall said:
I wonder how many people are currently still bitter about having a large VHS collection and their tapes dying due to the magnetic field strength decreasing over time on the VHS's and also the inability to find VHS players.
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I have plenty of magnetic tape media that's outlived CD-Rs and DVD-Rs from the late90s early 2000s.
 
stephen2002 said:
Just the HD (1080P) disks. There are a few disk rental sites that do the UHD disks but they are more expensive, with lower selection, and greater shipping times.

I have both the streaming and the disks as the selection of movies available on streaming is pretty poor.
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Thanks for the reply, Stephen. I don't suppose there's anyway to see the catalog of blu-rays or dvd's available without subscribing for the trial....
 
Like a lot of folks here, I'm sure our home networks and the hardware behind them are a bit better than most. I'm not a video snob/elitist, but streaming gives only adequate quality. Bluray is far, far better.

With Netflix, I'll see compression artifacts on screen (especially when there are large areas of similar color); I'll notice dropped frames (motion seems to stutter) (If you drop every other frame, then you relieve your streaming burden by nearly half).

With Bluray, there is none of that.

This is with both of them at 1080p.

The network backbone does not exist to support streaming without the "shortcuts" of compression and cutting.
 
dark_reign said:
Well Blu-ray never really took off. It's been a niche product since launch. DVDs were very popular and sold well for several years, but sales figures show a steady downward trend year after year.

Netflix got it right since all signs point to a streaming-only future.
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Is that why the new Blu-ray sections at Target and Best Buy are always empty when I stop by at the end of the work day on Tuesdays and none of the DVD copies have been sold? Interesting.
Vaulter98c said:
eventually yea but we still have a ways to go, the rental market will go long before the ownership segment, so even at 5 years from now it'll be years after that until it goes away. Until streaming gets better I don't think it will truly go away for a while.

Look at CDs. Music became viable online long before movies, and even last year there was still 1.1x billion in physical CD sales. Vinyl in 2016 made some 430 million in sales. Online streaming services made 2.2 billion but they are still going to be making CDs for a long time, people haven't even dropped CDs yet over the ability to stream 320kbps audio streams, which spells a long forecast until people abandon movies for streams in the 8-50 Mbps range, let alone full Quality level data.

We'll get there some day but for like 10 years now people have been saying physical is dying soon, I'd say we've got a good 15+ years until that actually becomes the case. And don't forget 4k is taking over and 8k is already knocking on the door, the internet infrastructure is no where close to handling that. Someday, but not for a long time yet
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Until I can download or stream 4K at 128 Mbps or greater I am not giving up physical media. Lossless audio has just started to be available from most of the bands I listen to in the past couple of years, so I think the outlook for video is not that good for the near future. 4K streams on Amazon are only 25 Mbps for crying out loud, which is only adequate for 1080p.
 
Armenius said:
Is that why the new Blu-ray sections at Target and Best Buy are always empty when I stop by at the end of the work day on Tuesdays and none of the DVD copies have been sold? Interesting.
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DVDs are nearly dead since people who bought or rented them have moved on to streaming. Blu-ray being niche means there's going to be a moderate demand until the studios throw in the towel.

In the end, streaming will win out.
 
WBurchnall said:
Thanks for the reply, Stephen. I don't suppose there's anyway to see the catalog of blu-rays or dvd's available without subscribing for the trial....
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There is basic browsing of a few categories available without signing up.
https://dvd.netflix.com/NewReleases

Their disk selection is very good for movies. Less popular TV shows tend to have random disks or entire seasons missing so that can be a little frustrating. Those mailers eat disks, I've had quite a few show up scratched, cracked, or just in pieces.
 
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