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Sony Killing Off Blu-Ray Production Is a Mistake...The slow death of physical media is painful and short-sighted.
Gizmodo ^ | JULY 9, 2024 | Lucas Ropek

Posted on 07/09/2024 12:36:55 PM PDT by Red Badger

Last week, Sony broke the news that it is putting the kibosh on its writeable Blu-Ray disc business. While that’s not catastrophic news for physical media fans, it’s certainly disappointing.

The first hint about the death of Sony’s recordable discs business was a rumor about layoffs at the company’s optical media plant that recently circulated the web. That rumor was ultimately confirmed by Japanese outlet AV Watch last week. Tom’s Hardware subsequently picked up the news last week and translated it into English, setting off a minor panic about what impact this could have on Blu-Ray fans’ collecting habits.

While the exact date and time when the discs in question will become unavailable isn’t known, what is known is that their days are numbered.

Thankfully, Sony does not currently have plans to kill Blu-Ray releases from studios. Those discs will continue to be available for the foreseeable future. “We will continue to sell B2B products by making them in advance, and for consumer products, we will decide on the specific end date in the future through discussions with distribution partners such as mass retailers, but we will continue to sell them for the time being,” the company told AV Watch.

That said, Sony is still messing up by getting out of the writeable disc business. You’ll now have one less option for archiving that show or movie you want to watch. There’s been a wave of renewed interest in physical media as streaming splinters in a million directions and users have realized they don’t really own their digital purchases. The ability to create copies of your library is essential to preservation. And honestly, Blu-Ray is just a great storage format.

Gizmodo reached out to Sony for more information about its decision to phase out writeable discs and will update this story when it responds.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet; Music/Entertainment; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: hh2; streaming
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1 posted on 07/09/2024 12:36:55 PM PDT by Red Badger
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To: Red Badger

NOOO! I have a nice Sony Blu-Ray.

These need to stay around.


2 posted on 07/09/2024 12:37:39 PM PDT by ConservativeMind (Trump: Befuddling Democrats, Republicans, and the Media for the benefit of the US and all mankind.)
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To: ShadowAce; dayglored

Ping!....................


3 posted on 07/09/2024 12:37:56 PM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Red Badger

I’m guessing this has something to do with the cult of the climate change crazies.


4 posted on 07/09/2024 12:38:07 PM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: ConservativeMind

Red Box filed for Bankruptcy last week................


5 posted on 07/09/2024 12:38:39 PM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Red Badger

6 posted on 07/09/2024 12:40:04 PM PDT by Magnum44 (...against all enemies, foreign and domestic... )
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To: No name given

People are streaming so physical discs are not needed any more...............


7 posted on 07/09/2024 12:41:19 PM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: ConservativeMind

Not going anywhere. There’s a bit of a coup going on in gaming and movie circles right now. Streaming has become almost insulting. You can’t even RENT a movie from Amazon without having to sit through a 30-45 second commercial at the beginning of it!

I’ve been snatching up movie series on BR where I can find them and supplementing my Kindle collection with physical books that I find important.

Nation state actors are targeting media delivery services like CDNs with DDoS and takedown attacks rendering services unavailable to many streaming services. It’s only a matter of time before this is weaponized on a large scale.


8 posted on 07/09/2024 12:42:22 PM PDT by rarestia (“A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.” -Hamilton)
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To: Red Badger

I never stepped up to blue-ray. I have many music CD’s and movie DVD’s. On a large screen I have no complaints about DVD quality. Some Blue-Ray movies I have seen on other TV’s look too crisp, almost as if you can tell its a movie set or CGI. The lower definition of a standard CD looks more like the real world to my eyes.


9 posted on 07/09/2024 12:43:51 PM PDT by Magnum44 (...against all enemies, foreign and domestic... )
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To: Red Badger
It sounds like the headline might be a tad misleading because the article specifically mentions writeable Blu-Ray discs. Given that Sony’s consoles (PS4, PS5) and Microsoft’s Xbox Series X both use Blu-Ray discs for games distributed on physical media (even though technically they’re just used as a key, since they most often don’t have all the contents of the game on the disc), that would be profoundly stupid.

Then again, in the past couple of years, they’ve really been hammering on the accelerator on digital distribution, right along with movies, TV, and basically everything else. So it wouldn’t come as a shock for Sony to declare, “No more discs. 100% digital distribution for everything, and we hold the keys.”

You will own nothing, and by God, you will by happy.

10 posted on 07/09/2024 12:47:56 PM PDT by cross_bearer_02
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To: rarestia

I’m a firm believer in having physical copies of what TV, movies, and music I like.

Most of that is vintage stuff from 69s, 70s, and 80s.


11 posted on 07/09/2024 12:51:27 PM PDT by wally_bert (I cannot be sure for certain, but in my personal opinion I am certain that I am not sure..)
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To: rarestia

what is BR


12 posted on 07/09/2024 12:56:22 PM PDT by Karoo
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To: Red Badger
users have realized they don’t really own their digital purchases

Bingo!

Yahtzee!!!

If you don't own the media, guess what buoys and gulls?

YOU DON'T OWN THE CONTENT!!!

13 posted on 07/09/2024 12:57:33 PM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: wally_bert

for fun, check out ok.ru, the Russian tik tok or Russian Youtube. I found old forgotten films and tv episodes there that were literally unavailable anywhere here on youtube, amazon, Netflix, Prime, Hulu, Tubitv, etc.


14 posted on 07/09/2024 12:59:36 PM PDT by desertsolitaire (Perhaps the Great Ape Lawgiver in the series Planet of the Apes was correct in his view of humans?)
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To: Red Badger

“physical discs are not needed any more”

They might be useful once the streaming rewrites history and the hard core brainwashing begins.

The world may become like the Stalinist Soviet Union. People may become “unpersons” and politically incorrect ideas may be erased.


15 posted on 07/09/2024 1:00:34 PM PDT by cgbg ("Our democracy" = Their Kleptocracy)
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To: cgbg
Where's Waldo Lavrentiy?


16 posted on 07/09/2024 1:05:48 PM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: Red Badger

Again they are forcing the quality and ownership for convenience trade off. Streaming cannot come close to matching the picture and sound quality of the disc mostly due to the compression. A 4K DVD gives far superior picture and sound and you own it.


17 posted on 07/09/2024 1:06:29 PM PDT by gibsonguy
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To: wally_bert

I made sure to get a DVD of Blazing Saddles a few years ago, anyway.


18 posted on 07/09/2024 1:06:44 PM PDT by HartleyMBaldwin
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To: Red Badger

Did Han shoot first ?

Cause did on my original Japanese import laserdisc


19 posted on 07/09/2024 1:08:37 PM PDT by algore
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To: Red Badger
The ability to create copies of your library is essential to preservation. And honestly, Blu-Ray is just a great storage format.

Yes. But so is ripping the Blu-Rays you buy to a convenient video format and storing on your RAID array. I just need to hope that they don't stop selling movies on Blu-Ray. Or maybe I don't - I already have nearly every movie I care about stored, and new movies I'd care to watch again are few and far between (Oppenheimer is the only recent exception I can think of).
20 posted on 07/09/2024 1:09:16 PM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
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