Little by little the idea of having entire collections of movies and TV shows solely stored in a digital cloud based format has gained traction. After all, look at how many people have embraced the Netflix streaming model, as well as other options like Amazon, and Hulu. The question is, how realistic and safe is it to want to stash your entire collection of films and various shows on a server you don’t truly have control over?
In my humble opinion, the idea of not having the option of owning an actual physical copy of something is outrageous. Then again, there were also those who felt rock and roll was equally a form of lunacy, and we all know how that turned out. However, humor me for a second and ask yourself how frustrated you’ve gotten the moment you log into Netflix, and the service is unavailable due to some sort of outage that’s entirely out of your control? Exactly, you were pissed off, and if whatever film or TV show you were trying to access wasn’t already in your physical collection, then you were flat out of luck for getting what you want for an undetermined amount of time. That alone is enough for this guy to never want to throw all my eggs into the cloud based, streaming methodology of viewing my favorite films.
Some of you may have noticed the name “Ultraviolet” on certain new releases for Blu-ray, and DVD. This is just one strong example of a cloud-based option for viewing a film you’ve purchased. The idea being it gives you an extra option for viewing the media, all in the name of convenience. That’s certainly nice to have in the event of traveling, and not having access to your physical copy you may have left at home. That being said, is this option apart of some grandiose plan to shift consumers away from physical media?
To take this a step further, what if movie studios (and believe me they’d probably prefer this) only wanted to let you access their films via the cloud format? And let’s say these same studios decide to start editing certain parts out of not just new films, but older films. thereby preventing you from accessing the definitive version of it that you once knew and loved? I guess what I’m getting at is there’s no telling what kind of edits or trims that could be made to certain movies that are just sitting in digital form, on a server that none of us have any oversight on. That’s kind of scary if you ask me. I’m not trying to be Mr. Paranoid here and insinuate that’s what’s absolutely going to happen with collections of entertainment media we have stored online, but when we no longer have physical access to it all like we would with our physical copies at home, there’s no telling what could happen over time.
Additionally, what would phasing out physical media altogether do to certain vendors and stores? I may not be the biggest fan of chain stores, but they still employ a great many people, and when a lot of these places that specialize in selling Blu-ray, DVD, and boxed sets no longer have an inventory, what happens to them? So there’s an economic aspect to the idea of wiping out physical media as well that will most likely be the last thing is considered at the end of the day.
If nothing else, can we all agree it’s just nice to have your OWN copy of a film or TV show? It’s exciting to be able to order something new for my collection, let alone setting up a spot around the house to put my favorite flicks on display. It goes back to that aesthetic experience I mentioned, and that just ain’t happening anymore if all of my movies are sitting on a remote server somewhere else. That alone is enough for me to never embrace outsourcing my compilations to the cloud based format.
Lastly, I think the happy medium is to allow users to continue to enjoy the easy access of online services to stream certain titles you may not have in your physical collection, and have movie studios still support the physical, disc media model that allows movie and TV buffs the chance to enjoy owning their own copy. The idea of having just a single point of failure for accessing our entertainment needs, after a mind-numbing week of work is not something I’ll ever look forward to. Servers do crash, internet has outages, it’s a fact of life, but your physical copy won’t suffer a random outage. So keep it real, and keep the disc-media model alive Hollywood!
As always, feel free to leave your comments below, and chime in on a subject matter I’m certain will generate some interesting opinions! Thanks for reading…
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