Dedicated to Discs

THOUGH THE famous Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) quote, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated," has been twisted over time from the original quote, "The report of my death was an exaggeration," both very much apply to the state of physical media today.

- David Vaughn

Physical media is far from dead even though Best Buy has decided to stop selling DVDs, Blu-ray, and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs both in stores and online. The only people cheering Best Buy's decision are the stockholders of Amazon, Walmart, Target, and other smaller online marketplaces who will now increase their market share of physical media.

Regardless, physical media isn't going away anytime soon. Just look at the release of the Oscar-nominated Oppenheimer-it sold out within days upon its release in December 2023 and the studio had to issue a press release saying that more physical copies were being produced and would be in stores as quickly as possible. Was this a case of the bean counters underestimating demand or of consumers wanting the best presentation possible for the Best Picture of 2023.

Regardless, NBC/Universal was thrilled with the response to the movie, and their new collaboration with Christopher Nolan is off to a resounding start.

As much as I personally love physical media-and my collection of over 2,000 titles will attest to that-I can't say that I don't stream a good quantity of my entertainment these days. While the picture quality has come a long way due to advanced compression technologies, the audio still leaves a lot to be desired with the low-bitrate Dolby Digital Plus. Until the streaming companies can figure out a way to give us uncompressed Dolby Digital Atmos and DTS:X, those who want the absolute best quality are going to stick with physical discs to consume the best that Hollywood has to offer, so the need for a top-quality Ultra HD Blu-ray player isn't going away anytime soon.