I’m tired of pretending physical media isn’t better than digital streaming

As movie theaters face a tumultuous future and ticket prices continue to rise, movies and television at home are becoming the leading family entertainment option. But even as someone who considers themselves a movie buff (I watch movies for a living), I didn’t understand how bad the situation was with options at home… until I had my baby earlier this year and couldn’t see a movie . I went to the theater almost as often as before.

And it’s all thanks to that small circle of cushioning doom. Even Beyoncé made fun of it when she indirectly told Netflix that they better not mess with her NFL Christmas halftime show. We root for our western disco space singer here and agree: the biggest flaw of streaming is the inconsistency of the connection and the very inopportune moments where suspension of disbelief in the narrative can be marked by failures on any platform.

At the beginning of the year, when I was early in my pregnancy, I was assigned to monitor Furious at the glorious IMAX headquarters in Los Angeles. To prepare, I thought I’d turn on Max and watch again. Crazy Max: path of fury. And to my surprise and quick dismay, what was discovered within minutes of watching the film was that something was wrong with the audio of the score. My husband and I have been movie goers for a long time (we are there on the first or second day of the screening) and we remember how Mad Max: Fury Road rang. This was not all. Thinking something must have gone wrong with the compression of the Max streaming service’s audio files, we switched to our digital copy. And it still didn’t sound quite right. So we pulled out our Blu-ray, put it on, and there it was: the pristine sounds of Junkie XL’s warring drums and guitars pouring out of our soundbar.

I knew that as a parent, I would have to get used to more entertainment at home than before. I admit, even to rewatch or see classics for the first time, I would prefer to experience them on the big screen in revival houses like New Beverly, American Cinemathque or Vidiots. If I loved it on the big screen, I would go to the store or my favorite used video store to add that title to my collection, only to see it if the occasion called for it.

Now that a future movie buff has joined our family, my husband and I are excited to curate his entertainment for as long as possible. And that goes for TV shows too. Our home has been a bluish home even before welcoming our little one; there will not be Cocomelon, Peppa Pig,either Minions if we can avoid it. Going from childless millennials who loved bluish Reaching out to new parents has been quite a journey to make sure our children experience the show as it should be. It wasn’t surprising that when Disney acquired the show Ludo Studio, they made some edits and banned episodes, although thankfully they’ve gone back to doing so for the most part.

Still, we hunted down the first two seasons on DVD to avoid any unwanted sanitization and captured the show’s music on vinyl. Seriously, why do we have to sit in silence through all the international credits before the next episode plays?

Being home after giving birth during the holidays was another learning curve; Most of the time, these were typical buffering interruptions on most streaming services. And sure, it could just be my Internet connection, but that’s not a problem when you have a good Blu-ray player and disc.

You might be wondering, if it bothers me so much to watch movies on Max, Disney+, Netflix and the rest, why don’t I watch them from my snob movie collection? It’s funny you ask, because it’s a not-so-fun story: I moved during the pandemic and someone heist our collection of physical media, save for a box of our absolute favorites. That’s right, somewhere in the Valley someone acquired the best movies from a film school on Blu-ray and DVD right next to a moving truck. Rude.

And how does that relate to my current situation as a parent?

Our Mutant Teen Ninja Turtles Pizza box collection? Missing. How did we find out? shortly before looking Mutant Chaos We look through our box. It wasn’t there, so we went looking to see what platform had the original movies. Supreme? Oh, we didn’t subscribe! The same goes if you want to catch up with the Sonic movies before watching Sonic the hedgehog 3. Spending time with a baby at home has been a hassle trying to figure out which streaming service has what, watching certain retired titles, and trying to figure out if we still have what we wanted to watch.

For example, we’re still in peak holiday movie season; if you want to look an american tail For Hanukkah, bad luck. Amblin animated movies are not available at the price you are paying for. You can rent or buy Fievel’s Adventures on Prime Video, but if, like most households, you pay for multiple platforms that you can’t even share with your loved ones anymore, that only increases the cost. And even if you subscribe to Disney+ and want to watch Frozengood luck trying to stream it at the same time as millions of people hanging out at home over the winter holidays. kept receiving frozen and I won’t let it go.

So unless you have them and expect your PS4 to still work, it’s quite a problem. Quite a problem that I will write about in a new column about the importance of physical media and the best way to watch it at home. Fortunately, we have a PS5 for Christmas, so the journey begins now and when the time comes. Wicked is released on Blu-ray, hopefully we’ll have some answers.

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