Best Buy to stop selling CD's in July

[Ninjinister]

I don't think the Best Buy nearest to me has had CDs for over two years....


Honestly I think the only place I've been recently which sold them was FYE and that's because that place is a dinosaur.

[Prowler]

I haven't bought many CDs in my life. By the time I got really interested in music, youtube was already around. And nowadays with services like Spotify, I'm even less interested in buying CDs.

Some people collect CDs, though. Many metalheads I've talked to collect CDs and vinyls. So clearly there's still a lot of market for them.

[Andrew NDB]

It's probably worth pointing out that... well, you know what Best Buy will also stop selling in about one or two years? Everything.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

CD's still do OK for artists mainly aimed at older audiences.

[IndigoErth]

That's a shame. It's been years since I bought one, so I guess it's understandable if many aren't buying, but at the same time, if there's something I really want to own I like having an official hard copy. (Not that those stores are the only source or that they have any say in what gets a hard copy produced of not.)

As if digital is even much cheaper though, right... Digital (be is music, in-game purchases, or whatever) kind of annoys me though in regard to it being such easy money for the seller when it costs them nothing to produce other than the original digital file itself.

As far as music goes, if digital, forget it, I'll just fave it for free on YouTube.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

If you go to a concert, it's still fun to buy a CD and get it signed by the artist(s).

[CyberCubed]

I remember when people had to trash their VHS collections when DVD took off. Now people are looking to get rid of all their DVD collections.

[Storm Eagle]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I remember when people had to trash their VHS collections when DVD took off. Now people are looking to get rid of all their DVD collections.

The only VHS tapes I've trashed are the ones I recorded on, although it's more like I sent them to recycling facilities. Otherwise I'd donate them to Goodwill or sell them on eBay (which I've actually been successful in doing). The only time I'll get rid of a DVD is if it gets a Blu-ray counterpart.

[CyberCubed]

Other than TMNT DVDs and a few other things, I don't really own much DVDs anymore. When it comes to newer stuff I just watch everything on the internet.

[sdp]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

I don't see any CD renaissance coming. CD's are just data burned into a disc, same as an .MP3 file on a thumb drive (every track on a CD is just an uncompressed WAV file, literally)... records are more tactile. A record player is "feeling" the music it's playing, the needle doing its thing.

It's all bullsh**, of course. Invest in a good, $2,000 Bose sound system, and play those HQ .MP3s at the right level, I guarantee it will sound better.

Exactly, CDs are a digital format so nostalgia will be a bit harder, you can argue with analog music like LPs and Casettes it's a different "feel".

I could see DVD nostalgia as many movies had cool ass menus that their upgrades didn't.

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Watching a DVD on a good HD TV vs. Blu-ray is like night and day. I don't mind the 4k movement. What is frustrating is the streaming movement not keeping up with the quality that's able to be delivered.

While true, it's also all about convenience and people prefer it over quality, but the general audience isn't as educated or even notices some of the differences that HDR 4k offers, and you can't blame them, I mean it's there but to spend money on a new tv and buy your movies again for a such a small difference to them is just not worth it.

Netflix quality is good enough and better for them. Videophiles are feeling the same thing audiophiles have for 18 years now. With better music formats people preferred CDs, the Super CD and whatever formats failed in favor to sh-tty quality MP3s. Even today people prefer to listen from youtube than get uncompressed music files, hell it's even difficult to torrent uncompressed files because people prefer the compressed files that take less HDD space on the computers.

Originally Posted by Krutch

What worries me about a completely digitialization of all media is they might stop producing alot of bonus features since that's whats generally used to sell DVDs.

Bonus content died a long time ago, big releases barely include anything. In the early days of the DVD format it was a huge selling point and they marketed it like crazy. What they found out after a few years that most people didn't give a damn about them so that's also why they've gotten lazy over the years. Sucks for the people who liked them as well as commentary tracks but they realized the mass consumer didn't care and Joe Neckbeard on the internet just wasn't as important to them anymore.

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan

If you go to a concert, it's still fun to buy a CD and get it signed by the artist(s).

You can get other stuff signed, a shirt, an LP, your boobs.

Originally Posted by Krutch

God bless pirates, amirite!!

Piracy is great, it has kept in existence so many things that would've been lost to time.

It'll always exist and all the naysayers will always be proven wrong especially in the digital only era where consumers don't control what will be available or not, it's more important than it's ever been.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Other than TMNT DVDs and a few other things, I don't really own much DVDs anymore. When it comes to newer stuff I just watch everything on the internet.

Videotapes dominated between around 1975-2001. DVD for about 10 years. I don't know when DVD sales peaked, but the format never became what it was supposed to be during its peak days because of pirate downloading before the arrival of Internet services like Netflix.

[sdp]

No one wants to rebuild their huge collections every decade, that's the main problem. Even many BR collectors didn't upgrade many DVD movies. And now they have to upgrade to 4K blu-ray and eventually 8k blu-ray which I"m guessing in ten years 8k tvs will be a consumer friendly thing.

People saw DVDs as the "perfect" format when it came out, it was better than VHS by a lot so it made sense to upgrade those huge VHS collections, once BR came out they felt burned, as did I. Sure it looked better but to re-buy everything?

And if streaming hadn't been a thing maybe it would've worked but when you have alternatives the majority of the people don't care about quality, they just want to see what they want to see. Same reason lossless music formats are a niche thing and people prefer to listen to compressed audiofiles on youtube/spotify and even itunes. And when it comes to music it's not even a physical vs digital thing, they prefer an inferior audio format because it's more convenient and they don't care about the "upgrade".

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

As with traditional TV, DVD and bluray are probably still OK among young children.

[Krutch]

Originally Posted by sdp

Bonus content died a long time ago, big releases barely include anything. In the early days of the DVD format it was a huge selling point and they marketed it like crazy. What they found out after a few years that most people didn't give a damn about them so that's also why they've gotten lazy over the years.

Piracy is great, it has kept in existence so many things that would've been lost to time.

Some releases are still packed with content though. Criterion releases are notorious for being the best example for this. And LET'S NOT FORGET the time I picked up American Pie: The Universal 100th Anniversary Edition to discover there was over 5 hours of behind the scenes content. I was blown away. There was pretty much an entirely seperate cut of American Pie 2 included which featured Stifler's dad, Heather and Oz breaking up and cheating on each other... it was like I was in bizarro world watching a whole different movie. Not to mention they included stuff like interviewing the FX guys on how they perfected "floating pubic hair" for the gag in part 3, how they made a "hump rig" for the dog in Wedding... It was literally the greatest 5 hours of my life.

Re: Piracy... Hell yeah, homie. I havent even watched television since Season 3 of Smallville once I figured out how to torrent. TV with no commercials and on my own time? Yes, please! And yeah, tons of niche shows would be lost to the ages by now had it not been for pirates.

Originally Posted by sdp

People saw DVDs as the "perfect" format when it came out, it was better than VHS by a lot so it made sense to upgrade those huge VHS collections, once BR came out they felt burned, as did I. Sure it looked better but to re-buy everything?

And when it comes to music it's not even a physical vs digital thing, they prefer an inferior audio format because it's more convenient and they don't care about the "upgrade".

I know I'll get called out on this but I feel we've reached the cap of quality that matters. At this point, things can become clearer, sure, but our eyes don't pick up the difference unless we're seated closer to the screen, and most people don't sit that close. The leap of quality between DVD and Bluray is considerable. Between lossless 1080p and 4k? Not so much (at a comfortable distance.)

As for music... I'd love to collect Vinyl releases strictly for their large art. But digital will always be my preferred method, so there's no real incentive outside their packaging for me.

[The Deadman]

Not surprising considering everyone either buys them digitally or they're all on Pandora/Spotify/another avenue nowadays

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

As diehard "never digital" as I am, still buying print books and DVDs, I can't remember the last time I bought a CD. 100% digital for my music... mostly YouTube streaming at work or Pandora at home.

[Andrew NDB]

I don't mind seeing CDs go away. There's no reason to cling to a media that only holds about 13 songs when the technology to carry around 1,000s of songs in thumb drives or phones or iPods has existed for 15 years. It seems silly.

4K Blu-Rays and the like, entirely different. Again, there is no way to "stream" 4K movies in any way that is remotely loss-less, and even in file form, to get them down to something you can carry around and play you have to compress it way down... and again, you're losing picture.

[Storm Eagle]

Originally Posted by Krutch

Some releases are still packed with content though. Criterion releases are notorious for being the best example for this. And LET'S NOT FORGET the time I picked up American Pie: The Universal 100th Anniversary Edition to discover there was over 5 hours of behind the scenes content. I was blown away. There was pretty much an entirely seperate cut of American Pie 2 included which featured Stifler's dad, Heather and Oz breaking up and cheating on each other... it was like I was in bizarro world watching a whole different movie. Not to mention they included stuff like interviewing the FX guys on how they perfected "floating pubic hair" for the gag in part 3, how they made a "hump rig" for the dog in Wedding... It was literally the greatest 5 hours of my life.

Yeah it's mostly Blu-rays that have the majority of special features compared to their DVD counterparts. Sometimes it's the DVD versions that are made barebones.

I also still appreciate special features, and the ones I've seen on the recent titles I've bought and rented are rather neat. So I still hope titles continue to get them for a long time.

I just remembered that I bought a CD in 2015, but it was to replace an album I once owned on cassette that got rid of it a while ago. I started selling off my cassettes in 2003 on Amazon, and I was surprised that there were people who wanted them. Then I decided to sell off the whole lot of what I had remaining on eBay, and someone actually took them off of my hands.

[Ninjinister]

Originally Posted by Krutch

I know I'll get called out on this but I feel we've reached the cap of quality that matters. At this point, things can become clearer, sure, but our eyes don't pick up the difference unless we're seated closer to the screen, and most people don't sit that close. The leap of quality between DVD and Bluray is considerable. Between lossless 1080p and 4k? Not so much (at a comfortable distance.)

I can't even tell the difference between quality on DVD and Blu-Ray unless it's side-by-side and so I don't ever have a preference unless it's something I actually collect like TMNT or The Ring. Hell, before I got glasses I couldn't even see side-by-side differences.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Ninjinister

I can't even tell the difference between quality on DVD and Blu-Ray unless it's side-by-side

That's crazy to me. You're telling me you can't tell the difference between a resolution of 640 x 480 and a resolution of 1920 x 1080? Maybe on a small, old tube-style TV (or maybe if the blu-rays you're watching are only 720p, which is 1280 x 720)... but c'mon. It is a staggering difference.