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Why is having a physical movie collection still this hard?

Fbh

Member
We always hear about sales dropping and how physical movie sales are down while streaming is on the rise .
But then you try to get a physical movie collection and it seems like everyone is trying to make it as hard as posible.

We live in an age where I can buy a Ps4 or Xb1 anywhere I want and play games sold basically anywhere in the world (often in like 5 different languages). We live in an age where even fucking Nintendo went region free with their latest console.

But movies? Oh no. Have a US Ps4 and want to watch a Blu Ray purchased in Europe? Well fuck you, you can't.
Buy a game in Germany or Switzerland (where I'm currently living) and you can play it English, Spanish, German, French and probably 2-3 other languages. A blu ray though? nah, you get German subtitles and maybe German audio and that's it, nothing else. And you better have the right player to watch it.

I think a lot of media has managed to fight piracy by either making it hard or impossible (like current gen consoles) or making things just as easy and even more comfortable like streaming services (spotify, Netflix, etc). But Physical movies are still way behind.
I buy a season of a show in my country and it's hard to share and show it to my relatives that might not know the language. But download it and I can get subtitles in basically any language out there
 
Check your player. I've had a few Blu Ray players that have a code to change regions. Many DVD players were able to do the same thing. If yours doesnt and you plan on multi regional discs maybe look at one you know will allow a region change.

If it's only a subtitle thing than I dunno. Most people don't watch movies with people who can't understand the language of the host.
 

120v

Member
no matter where you stand on the physical vs digital divide, physical is going to be more and more "unreliable". just the way it is

that's why i just gave up
 

gfxtwin

Member
I haven't had a ton of difficulty finding region free imports myself. Maybe I'm lucky and that mostly applies to the movies I want to import.
 
Thankfully with 4k they've taken away regional restrictions. They were awful with DVD and got better with BRD but they're finally gone.
 
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