Saying goodbye to streaming was the best thing I’ve done so far this year

I love streaming movies and TV shows as much as the next person. It’s easy, it’s convenient, there seems to be a nearly endless amount of content available. Yet I find myself trying to pull away more and more from streaming, and back toward my old love of physical media. Give me a good Blu-ray any day of the week over the latest arrival on streaming.

There are a lot of reasons to like physical media. Generally speaking, if quality is the most important thing, a Blu-ray or 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray is the place to look, especially compared to the compressed streams available on streaming services and VOD. But it’s not really quality alone that has attracted me to Blu-rays. Rather, it’s the fact that I can hold them in my hand, and that’s led me to buy a lot of discs over the last few years.

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The Panasonic DP-UB820

It all starts with the player

Panasonic DP-UB820EB-K

$390 $498 Save $108

With all those Blu-rays on my shelf, it may be no surprise that one of my most prized possessions is a Panasonic DP-UB820, the gold standard of UHD Blu-ray players. The machine first hit the market in 2018, and was at that time one of the best, most advanced, and most reliable UHD player. It can handle just about any format thrown its way, with rarely an issue. That’s not true of many other players, which either compromise on features, or seize up regularly. All these years later, the UB820 is still the go-to player for physical media enthusiasts who want the best quality available.

In my case, I’ve also got a modded version of the machine, allowing it to play discs from all regions. That’s not really an issue for 4K discs, which, according to format standards, are not supposed to be region-locked. Regular old 1080p Blu-ray discs, though, are still often locked to their region of release. For most consumers, that won’t be a problem, but at this point I’m a collector, and being able to buy Blu-ray releases from overseas has been a game-changer.

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The collector’s mindset

It’s all about ownership

books on a shelf

One of the reasons I’ve gravitated toward Blu-rays over streaming, especially for movies, is that I have the heart of a collector. My collection is, at this point, getting somewhere near 500 discs (though I promise, it’s slowing down). I love it, because I own them. I started buying a lot more Blu-rays during the pandemic, when I was at home, hunting through streaming services looking for things to watch, and discovering that actually many of them were not available to stream. At best, a digital rental. I started figuring that if I was going to have to spend money on a movie, I might as well own it, and often sales make discs not much more expensive than a rental or two.

Of course, the collections eventually expanded beyond cheap discs, towards boutique Blu-ray releases from labels like Criterion, Vinegar Syndrome, Severin, Arrow Video, Indicator, 88 Films, and others. These labels, often run by very small teams, do amazing work releasing films from across the history of the medium. Everything from studio movies that the studios no longer care to release on disc, to obscure films that few people have seen in decades. Many of these films are not available on streaming services, or even for rental, so owning them becomes both a way to see them, and preserve access. The distributor might still own the copyright, but I own the disc, and they can’t take that away from me like they do when movies expire from streaming services.

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Getting serious about movies

It’s a matter of engagement

Sony

Like I said, I love sitting lazily on the couch while surfing for something to watching on a streaming service. I do it all the time. But I’ve also come to recognize that there can be something a little too passive about the experience, especially when I’m bingeing my fortieth episode of 9-1-1. When I started buying more Blu-rays, I discovered their real value.

Instead of content being fed to me by algorithms that start playing before I even choose to watch the movie or TV show in question, I actually have to get up, look through my library, make a selection, take it out of the case, and pop it into the player. It’s a physical process that puts me in a different frame of mind to watch something. I’m instantly more engaged, because I’ve put some real, if still very minor, effort into the whole thing. It’s similar to the experience of putting on a CD or vinyl record instead of listening to something on Spotify, where listening to music becomes a more active experience.

Putting on a Blu-ray similarly becomes a more active experience. Boutique Blu-ray labels are especially handy in this regard. They usually go to a lot of effort to provide supplemental materials like audio commentaries, bonus features, and printed booklets with essays and other information to learn more about the film in question. It’s the difference between having a movie on the TV, and really watching one. And that’s why I’d encourage everyone to try weaning themselves off of streaming a little. Give physical media some love, too.

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