i get that DVD is more accessible to consumers that never made the switch, and it's more cost-effective for companies exploring physical media releases. but with a 4K TV, you're upscaling a DVD's resolution by a factor of 24 - compared to a factor of 4 for Blu-ray. Walmart sells $70 Blu-ray players, and you can probably find one cheaper at Goodwill. if you're interested in physical media, why not take the extra step and pick up a cheap Blu-ray player?
Every once in a while there will be something really obscure that I can only find a VHS or DVD rip and I can't believe that used to be acceptable to us.
We have many movies that we've only released in DVD, people would be shocked at how poorly some movies sell on Blu-ray vs DVD
i mean i get it. people never saw the benefit of Blu-ray over DVD on their older sets. and with the rise of streaming, any consideration for physical media for the average consumer became obsolete. but unless your player or TV has amazing upscaling, it's gonna look like shit. i remember when Best Buy still sold movies, at one point they were charging more for the DVD than a Blu-ray combo pack. it's just kind of insane that the option for better quality that you technically get to own forever is right there, and those who are interested in physical media just kind of overlook it (for a multitude of reasons). i know i'm preaching to the choir, but still
i only really buy DVD if i can't find it in another format. otherwise, i go Blu-ray or 4K when possible. i do have a handful of VHS as well, but i have them more for novelty than for actual playback
I guess part of it is that they are both discs. People could see that DVD was superior to VHS in part because we had already seen CD overtake cassettes.
I have a guy I went to college with who acted in/collaborated with the guys who made Eephus, Ham on Rye and Christmas in Miller’s Point (and who is making his own movie starring James Duval) coming in to talk to my class later this semester. I’m excited, but I don’t know which to show my classes that they would be into. Ham on Rye is the most like…relevant I guess? Christmas is the best and maybe the most universal, it’s just gonna be out of season. Whichever one I pick, I plan on including in my coming of age unit with Dazed and Breakfast club. Nostalgia for/the death of the small community
I put up some movie posters this year and discovered that I have a couple of developing cinephiles among my students. There was one student I did not think I would like because of how annoying his mother is but he watched all of Paul Thomas Anderson's movies at my suggestion. I didn't realize how seriously people take the Letterboxd top four. I had not really thought about or changed mine in a while but it is like a badge to them.