Do you like DVDs or digital viewings?

media degradation is a real issue with optical or magnetic media (ie CDs/DVDs and hard drives). I've worked my whole adult life in IT and have a few suggestions on how to minimise this issue.

1 - make a backup of your DVD to hard drive. You can use free software like DVDFab to do this (there are about a half dozen "buy me" prompts but you can cancel these and use it to create a backup fine.

2 - If you can afford it, have 2 disks with your backups and replace these every 3-5 years, or simply buy a newer disk to replace one of the backup disks and keep the older one as a secondary backup. Disks are cheap now (about £60 for a good brand portable 4Tb disk) and this has space for around 1,000 DVDs.

3 - remember to keep backups of your documents, spreadsheets, photos, videos and whatever else is important to you - I do these monthly and use the same disks to back up to. They have saved my bacon on several occasions when a disk on my laptop has died or been lost/stolen.

4 - keep a copy somewhere offsite. Maybe leave and older backup disk with a family member and just grad it once a year to copy your current backup disk to. This will save you from losing everything in the event of a fire / burglary / malicious attack on your data (eg where it gets encrypted and the hackers want money to decrypt it..

I know cloud storage is an option and I do use it for stuff I am actively working on (docs, spreadsheets etc) but there have been several experiences where cloud providers have lost data of my colleagues (through the cloud suppliers fault) and a backup was not available. Luckily my directive to keep local backups saved them, but I just don't trust cloud suppliers fully.

Just my 2p worth, I hope it helps

That's a good collection you got there. Paddington is one of my favourites. I used to be dvds all the way but now prefer digital for the following:

• I can own as much as I like and it doesn't take up any space in my house.
• It's convenient.
• There's a lot on Amazon, Britbox, Netflix and Disney Plus.

For me it's easy and easy is better. Dvds are cool but I need easier in my life.

I am a recent digital convert.

Previously I loved DVDs.  I have a collection of around 300 DVD and Blu-ray.  I love owning them with all the extras such as commentaries and off cuts and other background information.

The number one problem with DVDs is that they decay and become unreadable.  I store them at room temperature with no excessive dampness, I don't scratch or do anything to them.  But, I try to play a favourite and they stop with messages about no disk in drive or the just get stuck at certain points.  I have tried cleaning them, that helps temporarily but later they fail again.

Now, I have joined the 21st century and I stream onto my tablet.

Both for me. I’m good with tech and media and generally engage promptly with new developments so streaming is a natural for me, however I still watch DVDs from time to time, especially niche things not easily or cheaply available to stream. I gave maybe 80% of my dvd collection to charity shops but there’s a fair few I will keep as long as they can be read by modern kit. 

in my mind your both issues create a branch which leads to:

Matrix - How it begun ...

In a board room of a company selling hibernation chambers:

In 2011 the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) finally defined cloud services. The broadest one of them, loosely summed up and abbreviated into one sentence sounds like that: 

IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-service) type of cloud services offering internet access to a network of client-serviceable and accessible computing resources with one crucial addition in the form of a device capable of storing and holding the client's physical form in a life supporting enclosed and isolated environment.

Let’s make one more step forward and call it ''Time Capsule - the futuristic business plan for a whole of the humanity’’.

I have a confession to make. Whilst I don't possess a vast collection of DVDs, my collection mostly consists of films I've recorded off the TV, with DVD covers I've downloaded off the internet and printed off. A DVD without an insert just isn't the same. 

However, because I have a set-top box that allows me to record and access subscription services like Netflix, I now tend to favour digital viewing. Whilst I do think there is something nice about owning a purchased DVD that I can hold in my hands, I've always tended to be the type of person that is happy to wait until a film is broadcast on TV. Yes, I could be considered a bit of a cheapskate. 

star trek TNG

oh I have seen that. Have you read the book it is even better, it is nothing like the film. 

Tonight I've watched Yes Man, Jim Carrey movie. It's pretty funny and very feel good so put me in a really upbeat mood now.

X

Yes! Same here, so I have all my favs on DVD. 

I like both, I do like to have my ultimate favs on DVD though. I dont keep the covers as I have lots of DVD's that I put into DVD books to save storage space in my small flat. I recently bought Mrs Harris Goes to Paris and it was a good film

I do like hard copies of digital media in general tbh, but I think my fave is CDs.

Digital is my preferred option, but I always keep an offline copy to avoid the pain of when a service drops a film/series.

I'm also often in a situation where I can be without decent internet access for weeks or months at a time so having my entire collection on a disk with me is quite comforting.

It also takes up way less space than book cases full of DVDs and allows me to have them from a wide range of sources (especially fan edits) all in one convenient collection.

Maybe it is the Aspie collecting urge that makes a part of this for me.

Being autistic and also a technotwit can make watching DVDs a difficult and surreal experience. For instance, the DVD kept stalling, buffering, freezing and fast-forwarding when I watched The Matrix; so the slow-motion bits were fast, the fast bits were slow, and half of Neo was Trinity.

I get you there lol :P 

Always annoying when you need to change disc or if it freezes and it needs cleaning *shudders*

Frankly I don’t like the idea of something I buy digitally being lost because a service is cancelled or the drm stops working. So I prefer physical media but digital is useful from time to time.

Dvds for me.   I have Netflix but prefer dvds. Sit down each night and watch one. Tonights is Ratrace. Cracking. 

At least blu ray seems to have a bit of a more prominent place still. 

Dvds every time. It’s weird, I do have Netflix and now tv access via my phone but with House of Dragons I watched one ep that way before deciding I’d only enjoy it if I could just have the simplicity of putting discs in a player and watching on television. I’m old fashioned I suppose. But I sometimes just need reduced ambient complexity and the buzz of ‘online’ to recede a bit despite its near ubiquity on most modern lives. 

There was an online newspaper column that I saw the other week, in which the passionate writer raved about sorting out his DVD collection. But he made it sound like he was carefully, delicately removing bandages from Tutankhamun's trousers without daring to take a breath, as if he was handling the oldest of antiques.  So, in 2023, apparently we're all supposed to think of DVDs as being something from the distant, cobwebbed past. *cries* 

TL;DR version: Modern life is rubbish.