In an era of unprecedented inflation and rising subscription costs, some individuals are starting to wonder whether or not it is necessarily worth it to keep streaming services. Gone are the days of the $6.99, all-inclusive, singular Netflix subscription. Now, a system more reminiscent of cable television packages, with all of their convoluted bundles and confusing rates, has taken the entire film and television industry hostage. Disney+, Hulu, Peacock, Paramount+, whatever HBO rebrands their service to within the next calendar year and more all have their own unique content catalogs and costs.
Music wise, the situation is a little better, with Spotify and Apple Music being the only two services that listeners may have to pay for. Regardless, the whole thing is still a nightmare. Overnight, an entire fan’s playlist can be delisted over contractional conflicts between artists and corporations, as was seen with uber-popular artists Taylor Swift and JAY-Z in 2014 and 2017, respectively. In other creative industries, like the literature or video game industries, the loss of one distribution method or vendor would not necessarily result in the complete eradication of the media from history. There are almost always second-hand sellers of these items, or, at the very least, the option to buy some sort of copy of it, whether it be physical or digital. With music, film, and TV, though, that is not really the case.
CD albums, for instance, only made up about 2.6% of all record revenue in 2022, while streaming accounted for an astonishing 86.4%. While some formats, like vinyl, have made somewhat of a comeback in recent years, outselling CDs by several percentage points for the first time in decades during 2021, both still have yet to reclaim the mass appeal they once had, with the former only making up 7.4% as compared to its peak of over 50% in 1973.
Films that once relied on ticket sales and DVD revenue to turn a profit are now struggling to break even, with many movies, such as “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” and “The Flash” hemorrhaging money and failing to make back just half of their production expenses. Some seasons of television shows are skipping physical releases altogether. In an era of constant cancellations and content being pulled from streaming services, whether they be acclaimed or not, is it not worrying that there is no way to preserve them beyond simply the good will of a heartless corporation?
Last month, the beloved television series “The Amazing World of Gumball” was inexplicably and unexpectedly pulled, in its entirety, from HBO’s streaming service. While the show is still available on Hulu, the idea that something as popular and ubiquitous as one of Cartoon Network’s premiere pieces of programming during the mid-to-late 2010s can be erased so suddenly should be alarming to consumers, especially because these shows are what brought them to those platforms in the first place.
All that being said, what exactly is the alternative?
Music is the most readily available of the bunch, with most artists releasing their albums on physical formats like vinyls and CDs. Independent artists or “indies” who lack the funding to do so may also put out their work on distribution sites like Bandcamp.
Movies, on the other hand, are pretty hit-or-miss. Some have high-definition releases, some have remasters, a few are too old to even understand what that means, and the remaining majority are stuck on streaming services. Further still, the minority that seemingly has ideal conditions for preservation was forced to pick sides in a custody battle between Toshiba and the Blu-Ray Association, resulting in the creation of the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats respectively. Of course, HD-DVD was not going to let their children hang out at Blu-Ray’s house, for the latter was clearly the favored parent and it was apparent the former was insecure about that whole thing, so both decided that their respective houses would only allow their respective children. Translation, HD DVDs could not be used on Blu-Ray players and vice versa. I clearly need to see a therapist.
If films were “hit-or-miss,” then TV shows are dead and gone. Shows like “Family Guy” have quietly ceased their once-annual physical media releases during the pandemic, and many others seem to be following suit, with disc releases of television series slowly becoming a rarity rather than the accepted reality.
Of what is left, there are benefits to owning them in their physical form. CDs, for example, have significantly higher-quality audio than their streamed counterparts. Audio fidelity is typically measured in kilobytes per second, which, in layman’s terms, is roughly equivalent to a photo’s image resolution. Spotify’s free tier can hit a maximum of 256 kilobytes per second, while their premium tier can reach up to 320 kilobytes per second. Apple Music possesses a similar structure. Discs, on the other hand, typically store and read audio at 1411 kilobytes per second, leading to a much more full sound profile due to the preservation of what is known as a piece’s “soundstage,” or the perceived distance between each element of the track, something that is often omitted from streamed music during its compression process. There are other elements of high-fidelity audio, like increased bit depth and sampling rate that are also present in CDs, but those largely affect a song in the same way a higher bitrate does. A bigger number results in a richer sound. These discs also have the benefit of providing one of the only ways to listen to completely uncompressed audio, allowing for a more faithful experience to the original, intended master.
Like any high-quality medium of entertainment, to take advantage of it to its full extent, higher-quality equipment may be needed. Not necessarily top-of-the-line, but enough of a jump in performance that the increase in kilobytes per second can actually be perceived. Keep that in mind before switching to CDs entirely. It is more expensive than streaming, after all.
Luckily, at the time of writing, the CD market seems to be at a bit of a low point right now. The standard retail price for a brand-new album is around twenty dollars. However, they can easily be obtained secondhand for less than ten. Vinyls, though, are pricier, at around thirty dollars.
Which sounds better? I most definitely do not want to be getting into that massive can of worms. Some say that vinyl creates a more authentic, natural sound, while others say that CDs provide the most consistent quality. Nonetheless, they are both fantastic options for high-quality, physical copies of audio. If someone is really stressing about whether or not the sanctity of their music’s individual waveforms are being perfectly preserved, or whether the sound is being pristinely burned onto a 24-bit, forty-four-thousand-hertz disc, I think they are buried a little too far into the weeds, personally. Both formats blow Spotify and Apple Music out of the water in every metric other than cost. While another streaming service, JAY-Z’s Tidal, has the ability to stream high-quality audio that could potentially rival CDs and vinyl, it is significantly more expensive than its competitors, while also having glaring gaps in its selection due to licensing and exclusivity deals.
Physical copies of movies, particularly Blu-Rays, also follow the same trend as physical audio, in that they are both higher quality than their streamed counterparts. While Netflix can technically output 4K video, users can only do so on the service’s premium tier, which now costs $22.99 per month. Competitors, like Hulu and Disney+, give similar offerings at $18.99 per month and $15.99 per month, respectively, though each use wording such as “up to 4K” or “with a selection of titles.” It is also worth noting that these rates are updated frequently, so they could always be hiked in the future.
By comparison, owning a Blu-Ray means that a film can be watched at a consistent quality forever. However, there is much less of a quality difference between the two, with the only noticeable difference really being in terms of sound quality, where physical once again uses its superior bitrate to achieve a more complete sound profile.
Discs can technically have better image quality, but only in terms of the finer details, like color range or picture tearing, both of which are hardly noticeable on most displays, especially at such a high resolution. Also, for those worried about cost, there is nothing to worry about. People are throwing movie discs out all the time. I found an entire shelf full of Blu-Rays at Goodwill in decent condition and priced at $2.99 each.
One apparent drawback of owning physical media is all the hoops one may need to jump through to get a disc running. Disc readers can be expensive sometimes, and certain movies will most definitely not be cheap. But, buying physical media means that it cannot be taken away or lost to the sands of time, and, who knows, maybe a monthly streaming bill is already more expensive than going physical? With all the competing services, plans, and upgrades, I would not be surprised.
