DVDs made a huge impact on consumers because it took the VHS cassette tape that everybody had been using and turned it into a higher quality viewing experience. Over time higher resolution was needed to maximize the new HD flat panel TV capabilities, which prompted the development of Blu-ray technology: again a major improvement in the image quality. The latest disc improvement is 4K HDR Ultra HD — again a higher resolution to match the K HDR Ultra HD TVs that we carry. But many find streaming a better alternative because there’s no cost involved, at least as far as buying a 4K disc goes (you have to have a resolution-compatible Internet service, costing $, as well as a resolution compatible device (again costing $) that’s doing the streaming). So here’s 3 reasons why for many people, having a disc is better than streaming:
Play The Movie Whenever You Want: Physical
possession of a disc with your favorite movie/TV show/etc. means that you can
play it whenever you want to. There’s no issues with the server streaming the
content to you not working right or being overloaded (think Netflix on
Christmas Eve a few years ago).
You’ll Always Have What’s On The Disc:
There’s no guarantee that the content you want to watch will always be there —
the service providing the movie, etc. might decide to “retire” it at some
future date. You have no say in the matter when it’s streaming, as opposed to
owning the disc.
Get All The Resolution Possible: There are
many things that affect the streaming of the content to you: there’s how much
added compression the service is applying to the content or the traffic on the
Internet at any given time, or how efficiently your Internet provider or your
Internet reception is, along with other technical issues. All of this affects
the resolution of the content that you’re watching. This is not the case with a
disc, because all the content is there in full — pop it into a player and the
content goes directly through a cable to the TV and that’s it.
There’s no question that streaming is a very
convenient way to watch content. But many will find that owing a disc provides
a better viewing experience that more than offsets that convenience.