While some of the cited services have done some egregious stuff all on there own, I was taking it as mostly about how you have just so many of them and you have to keep track of what content is available via what service and how that changes over time.

Curiosity isn't part of the content shuffling part of it, but it is still a reminder of just how fractured the general experience is.

Don't forget S-VHS, D-VHS, and HD-DVD...

I'll only watch a VHS, if it's a weird Japanese anime OVA from the 80s.

I'll edit. I would have sworn I mentioned the title. Silly me

Funny thing.

I did a quick search of 'robert downey jr stays in character in dvd extras' and got the result instantly.

Yes, but there's no reason why Nebula wouldn't enshittify in the future. At least they dare to offer a lifetime account so it's not just one more subscription. And I just want google to loose.

I’ve bought a lot of physical media over the last couple of years and it can be great, but there’s a lot of pitfalls

The quality of, particularly, DVDs is all over the place and the transition from NTSC to digital is handled in so many different ways that each require special handling.

PAL and European releases can be terrible in all kinds of ways including speeding up the content and optionally pitch correcting the audio.

A lot of content you’d want isn’t available or is only available at exorbitant prices.

UHD discs have tons of read errors that make ripping perfectly difficult and the quality (and this price) of the drive makes a big difference in how well you can do this.

Drives don’t last if you’re ripping lots of stuff.

Just some things off the top of my head, nowhere near a complete list.

It’s still worth it, though, and new releases are easier if that’s what you’re looking for.

Toss Betamax in there and you've got me. I miss those little tapes.

Good to know. I’m not picky on subtitles but my wife needs them. A friend of mine is very familiar with the high seas so I may consider getting his help instead.

I’ll look into it, I appreciate it.

I'm anticipating a crackdown on piracy in the near future. Even if you use a VPN that could get you flagged and traffic analyzed maybe even dropped from your ISP.

If companies are allowed unlicensed access (AI training) to media en masse I don't see a reason everyone else shouldn't have that either.

Buy one that can also burn m-disc

No they’re not, hard drives are for sale everywhere and not being phased out any time soon.

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I was talking about blu-rays

Bluray was always luxury.

Laserdisk, I had this friend who collected all sorts of junk and this was impressive Tek from decades ago.

I agree - if they stop piracy, i will start selling copies of my stash for the cost of the Hdds to clone to and the time it took me to copy the files, under the pretense that they do the same for others. free delivery!

hmmm somewhat of an offline torrent lol

and fill up my hard drives.

This is the real cost of your method. Luckily hard drive costs halve every 2 years or so.