I’m Tired of Pretending Physical Media Isn’t Still Better Than Streaming Digital

As cinemas face a tumultuous future, and ticket prices continue to rise, movies and television at home are becoming the main option for family entertainment. But even as someone who considers themselves a cinephile—I watch movies for a living—I didn’t quite understand how dire the situation was with options at home… until I had my baby earlier this year, and couldn’t get to a movie theater nearly as often as I once had.

And it’s all thanks to that little circle of buffering doom. Even Beyonce poked fun at it when she indirectly told Netflix they better not play with her NFL Christmas Halftime Show. We stan our disco space western songtress here, and agree: the biggest flaw with streaming is the inconsistency of connection, and the very inopportune moments that the suspension of disbelief in storytelling can be marked by glitches on any platform.

At the start of the year, when I was early in my pregnancy, I was assigned to watch Furiosa at LA’s glorious IMAX Headquarters. In order to prep, I thought I’d just turn on Max and re-watch Mad Max: Fury Road. And to my surprise and quick consternation, what was discovered within a few minutes of watching the film is that something was off with the score’s audio. My husband and I have long been appointment movie theater goers—we’re there at the first or second opening-day showtime—and we remember how Mad Max: Fury Road sounded. This was not it. Figuring that something must have gone wrong with Max’s streaming service compression of the audio files, we switched over to our digital copy. And still it didn’t sound quite right. So we dug out our Blu-ray and popped it in, and there it was: the pristine sounds of Junkie XL’s warring drums and guitars coming out of our soundbar.

I knew that as a parent, I’d have to get used to more home entertainment than before. I’ll admit, even for re-watches or first-time viewings of classics I would prefer to experience them on the big screen at revival houses like the New Beverly, American Cinemathque, or Vidiots. If I loved it on the big screen, I’d then go to the store or my fave used video shop to add that title to my collection—only to watch if the occasion called for it.

Now that a future cinephile has joined our family, my husband and I are excited to curate their entertainment for as long as we can. And that goes for TV shows as well. Our home has been a Bluey household even before we welcomed our little one; there will be no Cocomelon, Peppa Pig,or Minions if we can help it. Going from childless millennials who loved Bluey to new parents has been a whole journey in making sure our kid gets to experience the show as it’s meant to be. It was unsurprising that when Disney acquired the Ludo Studio show, it did some editing and episode banning, though fortunately it has gone back on that for the most part.

Still, we went and tracked down the first couple seasons on DVD to circumvent any unwanted sanitizing, and nabbed the music from the show on vinyl. Like, really, why do we have to sit through all the international credits in silence before the next episode plays?

Being home postpartum during the holidays was a whole other learning curve; more often than not, it was typical buffering interruptions while on most streaming services. And sure, it could just be my internet connection but that’s not an issue when you have a good Blu-ray player and disc.

You might be asking, if I am so annoyed by watching movies on Max, Disney+, Netflix, and the rest, why don’t I just watch them from my film snob collection? Funny you should ask, because it’s a not-so-funny story: I moved during the pandemic and someone stole our physical media collection—save for one box of our absolute faves. That’s right, somewhere in the Valley someone acquired a film school’s worth of greatest movies on Blu-ray and DVDs right off the curb next to a moving truck. Rude.

And how does that come around to my current predicament as a parent?

Our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pizza box collection? Gone. How did we realize? Shortly before watching Mutant Mayhem we looked through our box. It wasn’t there, so we went searching to see which platform had the original films. Paramount? Oh, we don’t subscribe! Same goes for if you want to catch up on the Sonic movies before seeing Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Passing the time with a baby at home has been a whole mess of trying to figure out which streaming service has what, seeing certain titles pulled, and trying to find out if we still owned what we wanted to watch.

For example, we’re still in peak festive movie season; if you want to watch An American Tail for Hanukkah, tough luck. Amblin animated movies are not available on what you’re paying for. You can rent or buy Fievel’s adventures on Prime Video, but if like most households you’re paying for multiple platforms which you can’t even share with loved ones anymore, it’s just adding to the cost. And even if you subscribe to Disney+ and want to watch Frozen, good luck trying to stream it at the same time as millions of others hanging out at home over the winter break. It kept getting frozen and I will not let that go.

So unless you own them and are hoping your PS4 will still work, it’s a whole problem. A whole problem I’ll be writing about in a new column about the importance of physical media and how best to watch it at home. Thankfully we got a PS5 for Christmas so the journey starts now and by the time Wicked is released on Blu-ray, we’ll hopefully have some answers.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.