Disney to Stop Selling Blu-Rays in NZ and Australia

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Canuckabroad

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#306900 2-Sep-2023 10:49

We've recently seen Disney announce that they have stopped selling physical media for their content in Australia with Guardians of the Galaxy 3 being their final release, and from what I'm aware they had already stopped selling in NZ (we had some stores shipping media from Australia to sell here, but I think Disney stopped selling directly in 2021). Obviously there has been a significant decrease in sales of physical media with the relentless march to streaming everything, but for those who are picky about their home theatre a 4K UHD Blu-Ray has typically given much better results than a 4K stream on any platform.

Thoughts about what this might mean in the future? Are we going to see similar moves from other studios? Are home theatre buffs going to buy physical media from other regions and go with a region-free player, or is that at risk in the future and we might find ourselves in a place where the only source of media will be via streaming (or someone who has recorded a stream and distributed via the high seas)? Is physical media going away?

Behodar

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#3122898 2-Sep-2023 11:10

Personally I've gone back to Amazon US. If you buy a bunch of movies at once then the postage isn't too bad, really.

kennedybaird

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#3122905 2-Sep-2023 11:57

I think it's a shame. The transition to purely digital will mean that the cut is no longer sacred.

One recent example was their post release CGI coverup of the Paul Bettany's arms in Wandavision.

Also no resale options? Can only watch with an ongoing subscription? I think studios are shooting themselves in the feet and piracy is likely to increase.

Behodar

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#3122907 2-Sep-2023 12:10

You're often forced into using the service's player app too, which might not be ideal. For example, the Blu-ray of Guardians of the Galaxy 3 is in 1.90:1 aspect ratio, and presumably official streams are the same. My screen is 2.39:1. To make this fill the screen (and match how it was played in 2.39:1 cinemas) I had to crop an equal amount off the top and bottom. Easy enough when you have an .m2ts file that you can play with anything, and a lot trickier when you don't have a file at all.

rb99

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#3122910 2-Sep-2023 12:13

Its always good when a company sends out the message - hey, we don't think you guys are worth the effort...

Used to get movies from Zavvi, but thats gone. Now Disney, though I've got most of the stuff I want from them in 4K anyway. Would be nice if they put more effort into Fox though.

And then there's stuff you can just record before it gets pulled so they can save some tax.

Still, there's Amazon US and AU (and US ordered from AU), plus eBay and Rarewaves.

And whats wrong with Mr. Bettany's arms anyway...

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

rb99

kennedybaird

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#3123232 3-Sep-2023 11:26

rb99:

And whats wrong with Mr. Bettany's arms anyway...

Well, the funniest thing about that is they could have passed it off as excellent writing and foreshadowing that Wanda was not as fully in control as she expected..

wellygary

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#3123364 3-Sep-2023 16:06

kennedybaird: I think it's a shame. The transition to purely digital will mean that the cut is no longer sacred.

One recent example was their post release CGI coverup of the Paul Bettany's arms in Wandavision.

Also no resale options? Can only watch with an ongoing subscription? I think studios are shooting themselves in the feet and piracy is likely to increase.

Although Disney do not appear to have a single corporate direction on a "Digital only" policy, Because less than a month after the winding down of the OZ distribution of discs, we got disc announcements for Loki, Mando and Wandavision, plus a future mention of Falcon and Winter Soldier,

https://www.ign.com/articles/disney-plus-shows-4k-blu-ray-mandalorian-loki-and-wandavision