With streaming and digital everywhere these days, does anyone collect physical media any more? That’s the question on the table for today’s discussion. Do we still collect physical media for movies (DVDs, Blu-Ray, 4K, etc) — and what do our personal collections look like these days?

Kyle: Short answer: Yes, I still collect physical media.

Long answer: Thanks to the storage at my dad’s house, I’ve never had to get rid of anything. I did sell/donate a lot of my childhood VHS tapes as I upgraded those movies to DVD or Blu-Ray, and I’ve flipped quite a few of the TV series I once owned box sets of (my grad school had a ‘free closet’ and I know a lot of my old sets got passed around to the entertainment of a lot of my fellow students who otherwise didn’t have access to full seasons of Burn Notice, classic seasons of Doctor Who, or the entire run of Boston Legal).

When it comes to movies, though, I’ve kept them all. Especially horror films, which are notoriously hard to come by and therefore impossible to part with. My only misstep that haunts me occurred in my college years, which I moved my bulky DVD collection to several storage cases which meant I got rid of a ton of plastic cases and artwork sleeves just to have 100s of DVDs together in one case. It made sense at the time, but I soon grew to regret not having the cases and having to constantly reorganize the order of the discs so it made slightly more sense than before.

I’m fortunate to have enough disposable income and good access to used shops that I was able to build back what was lost (especially MST3K box sets) while taking advantage of sales the emerging boutique cult/horror Blu-Ray houses offered, especially on Black Friday and the day after Christmas. My overstuffed open closet collection became a bit unwieldy, and my dad suggested buying a few IKEA bookshelves and setting up a new mock-video store in his unused guest room. I actually have three more shelves getting delivered this week to handle the overflow, but I think I can finally say I’m satisfied with my physical media collection… while always keeping an eye on new releases and used shelves everywhere I go!

My dad also maintains a small closet that his mother/my grandma kept all of her VHS bootlegs tapes in. This was the holy closet that I utilized as a kid to have access to all kinds of movies, since my grandma rented and pirated things at random so a typical tape would features Terminator 2, The Land Before Time, and Basic Instinct. Don’t worry, mom and dad, I just want this one for The Land Before Time! (wink)

Justin: A bit yes and a bit no. Back in the day, I had an insane VHS collection of copied films (thanks to working at a video store), and I got rid of those once I invested in DVDs. But around the late 2000s, I rarely picked up new movies any more, only asking for box sets of certain TV shows that I wanted to own.

Today I have a healthy amount of DVDs packaged up in binders (for space) and am working on digitizing my favorite movies so I can throw them on my phone or tablet and never have to worry about a streaming service discontinuing or censoring them. I’ve even started perusing the shelves of thrift stores for desirable DVDs, although I don’t get too, too many that way. I would like to collect more in 2025, especially as studios and stores are selling less physical media these days. I think it’s incredibly important to own your stuff.

It’s funny because I’ve switched 100% to ebooks for reading but have reverted completely to CDs for music. CDs make up a bulk of my physical media collection these days with around 1600 or so on my shelves. So there’s always this trade-off between ownership, storage space, and convenience.

Sitting Duck: There’s no denying that streaming has been a boon to us cult movie reviewer types, allowing for easy access to all sorts of media properties at a relatively low cost that would have once been unimaginable. And you don’t even have shell out cash for one of those fancy shmancy Premium+ services. Ad-supported platforms like Tubi offer more than enough high-grade schlock for perusing. For it was none other than the Bard of Avon himself who once said, “Tubi or not Tubi, there is no question.”

Well, maybe the one who appears on Upstart Crow.

Yet streaming also has its issues. For people like me with erratic internet connections, there is the constant dread that a seemingly eternal pause will be hit. Thus the viewing experience is marred by frequent glancing at the time bar to see how much buffering is left. But a more universal vexation is how a streaming platform’s rights to a property are not everlasting. There will come a point where the rights expire, and it vanishes into the aether. I recall a mildly embarrassing incident last Christmas where I offered to introduce one of my brother’s spawn to Battlebots, only to learn that it was no longer to be had on Tubi. Furthermore, there are still plenty of movies and TV shows that are unavailable for streaming (not even on YouTube) that have a physical release.

When it comes to something you may wish to view again, physical media is clearly the superior option. While I may on occasion go through the collection to determine what is bound for Goodwill, at the very least my Shout Factory DVD sets of Mystery Science Theater 3000 will never leave my possession so long as my lungs draw air.

Drake: Physical media is still a thing for me, although I’m picking up less stuff than I used to, due to a combination of factors. On the one hand there are tons of streaming options out there, and on the other I already have quite a bit of the stuff I’m looking for on DVD and Blu-ray. I mean, honestly, once you have Stone Cold and Raw Force on BD, you’re pretty well set!

Unless you’re Justin, of course, and you’re waiting for that Megaforce deluxe five-disc Blu-ray edition.

More seriously, I’ll still pick up things that I’m interested in and don’t have yet, but those are generally cult movies and silent films. Silent movies are getting some very nice releases so I’ll end up buying the odd BD here or there, and then waiting to sneak reviews in for them until Justin is on vacation and the Mutant Reviewers offices are in chaos. But the more mainstream stuff is easy to find on one streamer or another, so I’ll generally watch recent stuff and then decide whether or not to get the BD. More often than not I’ll skip it, although I did pick up Shin Godzilla and plan on getting Godzilla Minus One because those movies rock.

So in closing, I own a bunch of discs, I’ll still buy in BD format when it’s something I think is cool, and I also like streaming since it’s another format to find weird and bad movies on (which keeps my reviews rolling along). The end.

ZombieDog: I grew up with vinyl albums, and I may have taken them for granted when I was young. Then cassette tapes came in and after that the somewhat better CD. All were tangible items that you could hold in your hand and appreciate the art that came with each one.

It’s also fair to say that I had a pretty hefty video collection also: VHS tapes from about the mid-80s to about the mid-2000s when DVD started to hit hard. DVDs were still a type of physical media and, let’s be fair, totally better in every way. I’m not going to lie either, I loved having shelves full of videos. In no subtle way it screamed “I love film.” The same can also be said for vinyl records, it just showed your love not just the subject matter but the medium in which they were stored.

It’s an odd feeling because in some ways I’m ashamed and in other ways I am proud to say that all of my media is 100% digital. In many ways this is done for practical purposes because my collection is massive and would probably fill up a room unto itself. As it is now it fills up the top shelf of my pantry (see above).

I guess the one thing that bothers me is that there is nothing physical. I’ve been working on this collection for over 25 years and have collected some wonderful things. Films both rare and common, movies of all types, and it will probably just disappear when somebody formats the drives after I pass. There is a truth to be faced and that is you can’t expect others to share your passions. Everything that we love is exceptionally personal. It’s one of the reasons why I like writing for this group. I doubt we all have identical taste, but I would be willing to bet that our level of passion is a quality we all share and creates a kind of birds of a feather effect.

In the end though, I have never been nostalgic for VHS tapes. They were wonderful to get us to the digital age, I was more than happy to throw them in the garbage heap though.