In Disconnect

In recent years, even as services like Spotify and Apple Music have dominated the music market, there’s been a resurgence in vinyl sales as people have seen the benefit of having a physical product: not just because you actually own it and can display it, but because it sounds better too. (It’s not just vinyl either; even CD sales are up.) I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing something similar with video.

There are already suggestions that 4K Blu-rays are filling a similar niche as vinyl for home video, with the backing of prominent directors. Asteroid City director Wes Anderson told The Wrap, “A good Blu-ray is sharp as a tack — and consistent. It always plays exactly right. It does not disappear from a cloud or platform.” Last year, Christopher Nolan put special attention into the Blu-ray release of Oppenheimer and encouraged people who liked the movie to buy it “so no evil streaming service can come steal it from you.”

The physical disc doesn’t just mean it can never be removed from your digital library, but they also tend to come with bonuses like behind-the-scenes footage and it’s the best way to watch the movie: the visuals and audio will be higher quality than a more compressed version that’s streamed or downloaded. With the flaws in the streaming model becoming increasingly apparent, is physical media in for a resurgence?