I’m tired of pretending that physical media isn’t better than digital streaming

Movie theaters have a turbulent future and ticket prices continue to rise, making home movies and television the primary choice for family entertainment. But even as a self-proclaimed cinephile –I watch movies for a living— I didn’t realize how difficult the situation was with the options at home… until I had my child earlier this year and I couldn’t go to the cinema like I once did.

And it’s all thanks to the small circle of buffering agony. Even Beyoncé indirectly poked fun at Netflix when she told them it better not play with its NFL Christmas Race Show. We’ll keep our disco western singer here and agree: the biggest flaw with the stream is the inconsistent connection and moments so inconsistent that the suspension of disbelief in the storytelling can be marked by glitches on any platform.

At the beginning of the year, early in my pregnancy, I was assigned to look Angry at LA’s glorious IMAX Headquarters. To prepare, I thought I’d turn Max on and watch it again Mad Max: Fury Road. Within minutes of watching the film, I was surprised and confused. My wife and I have been going to the movie theater for a long time – we were there on the first or second opening day – and we remember what it was like. Mad Max: Fury Road it sounded. It wasn’t. Thinking something had gone wrong with the way Max’s streaming service was compressing the audio files, we switched to our digital copy. And it still didn’t sound quite right. So we dug out our Blu-ray and popped it in, and there it was: the pure sounds of Junkie XL’s warring drums and guitars pouring out of our soundbar.

I knew that as a parent, I had to get more involved in home entertainment than before. Admittedly, even for re-watching or watching classics for the first time, I’d rather 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 go to the store or my favorite video store to add that title to my collection—only to watch it when the occasion called for it.

With the upcoming movie addition to our family, my husband and I are excited to manage their entertainment for as long as possible. And that goes for TV shows too. Our house became one Blue home even before welcoming our little one; will disappear Cocomelon, Peppa Pigor Minions if we can help it. It’s about the childless millennials he loves Blue It’s been quite a journey for new parents to make sure our child lives the show as it should. Unsurprisingly, when Disney acquired the Ludo Studio show, it did some editing and an episode ban, though fortunately it has returned for the most part.

Still, we went and watched the first few seasons on DVD and picked up the music from the show on vinyl to avoid any unwanted sanitisation. Really, why do we have to skip all the international credits before playing the next episode?

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

You might ask, if watching movies on Max, Disney+, Netflix, etc. annoys me, why don’t I just watch them from my movie snob collection? Funny, you should ask, because it’s a not-so-funny story: I moved during a pandemic and someone stole it our physical media collection—save for a box of our absolute favorites. That’s right, somewhere in the Valley, someone got a movie school’s worth of the best movies on Blu-ray and DVD next to a moving truck. Rude.

And how does this fit into my current predicament as a parent?

Ours Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pizza box collection? It’s gone. How did we understand? Just before watching Mutant Mayhem we looked at our box. It wasn’t there, so we went searching to see what platform the original movies were on. Paramount? Oh, we’re not subscribed! The same applies if you want to achieve the same thing Sonic before watching movies Sonic hedgehog 3. It was a mess of hanging out with the baby at home, trying to figure out which streaming service was what, seeing certain titles pulled, and trying to figure out if we still had the ones we wanted to watch.

For example, we’re still in peak holiday movie season; if you want to look American tail Hard luck for Hanukkah. Amblin cartoons are not available at the amount you pay. You can rent or buy Fievel’s adventures on Prime Video, but if, like most households, you’re paying for multiple platforms that you can’t even share with loved ones anymore, that just adds to the cost. Even if you subscribe to Disney+ and want to watch Frozengood luck trying to stream it at the same time millions of others are hanging out at home during winter break. He continued to buy frozen and I won’t let it go.

So if you don’t own them and hope your PS4 still works, that’s a whole lot of trouble. The importance of physical media and how to best watch it at home is a whole challenge that I will write about in a new column. Thankfully we got a PS5 for Christmas so the journey starts now and over time It’s bad Released on Blu-ray, hopefully we’ll have some answers.

Want more io9 news? Check when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Warsand Star Trek releases, why next The DC Universe in Film and TVand everything you need to know about its future Doctor Who.