Disney To No Longer Release Physical Media (DVDs/Blu-Ray) In Australia

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Disney To No Longer Release Physical Media (DVDs/Blu-Ray) In Australia

The sales of physical media, including Blu-Ray and DVDs, have been in decline for years, following the increased popularity of streaming services and a shift to digital movie releases.

Recently, Disney announced it was closing down its Movie Club program in Canada following a shift in consumer patterns to watching films on digital and Disney+. And now, according to Digital Bits, multiple industry, distributor, and retailer sources, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment will be pulling out of distributing physical discs in Australia.

Over the past few years, many retailers in Australia and other countries, have slowly been withdrawing physical media, including video games, movies and music from sale, as audiences shift to digital platforms. Disney has previously stopped releasing movies on physical media in Latin America and across most of Asia. And it is likely other countries and regions will follow, as the sales of physical discs continue to fall.

For context, in the United States, in 2006, "Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man's Chest" sold 14,476,924 million discs. In 2012, the highest-selling disc was "Hunger Games", with 7,434,058 discs sold and in 2022, "Top Gun: Maverick" was the highest-selling DVD with 829,831 sold. However, in 2023, currently, "Black Adam" is the highest-selling DVD of the year, with just 74,353 discs sold in the US.

Many movie fans are unhappy with this news, especially with a growing trend of streaming services like Disney+ making changes or removing content without notice. Disney has been releasing fewer of its films and shows on physical media over the past few years. Australian film collectors will still be able to import films from global retailers, but this will result in much higher costs due to international shipping etc.

"Guardians Of The Galaxy: Vol 3" is set to be the last physical release in Australia, which arrives in stores in August. Previously released titles will continue to be on sale, but as stock is reduced, these may become unavailable over time.
Ultimately, as audiences have moved to watching films on streaming services such as Disney+ and buying/renting films on digital platforms, it now looks like it's no longer sustainable to distribute physical discs in Australia.

What do you think of Disney stopping sales of physical media in Australia?

Source: What's On

Goodbye, physical media.

[ian]

I'd like more star wars on 4k, but can't win em all.. actually I'd like ALL of star wars on 4K, but most other stuff streaming is fine, I guess.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

The Star Wars Holiday Special in 4K would be nice.

[ian]

Yes! And also finally release detours at the same time!

[Hawq]

Well thats got test market written all over it, that & Walts head spinning for joy in its cryo pod as the Disney+ subsritions increase, unless everyone goes "Screw this, wheres me eyepatch & parrot"

[pixel]

Hey at least Australia is well known for its high-quality ISPs that have always offered fast Internet connections!

But in all seriousness, my Linux ISO collection grows each day. I have a few streaming services for convenience but I'm never above downloading a new distro if needed.

[ian]

Hey at least Australia is well known for its high-quality ISPs that have always offered fast Internet connections!

And the fact that it wasn't one of us who pointed that out helps to highlight how screwed we are.

[Roofus]

Hey at least Australia is well known for its high-quality ISPs that have always offered fast Internet connections!

But in all seriousness, my Linux ISO collection grows each day. I have a few streaming services for convenience but I'm never above downloading a new distro if needed.

Emby is my current favorite distro. It has all kinds of open source software packages that have been pulled from the official repositories.

We're talking about pirating TV and movies right?

[pixel]

Hey at least Australia is well known for its high-quality ISPs that have always offered fast Internet connections!

But in all seriousness, my Linux ISO collection grows each day. I have a few streaming services for convenience but I'm never above downloading a new distro if needed.

We're talking about pirating TV and movies right?

[pixel]

Emby is my current favorite distro. It has all kinds of open source software packages that have been pulled from the official repositories.

I'm a bit hamstrung with Plex because I like the library sharing feature. It makes me feel like the family don. I've hated most of the other "features" they've added.

[Roofus]

Emby is my current favorite distro. It has all kinds of open source software packages that have been pulled from the official repositories.

I'm a bit hamstrung with Plex because I like the library sharing feature. It makes me feel like the family don. I've hated most of the other "features" they've added.

Emby has library sharing. You have to pay for it but you do with Plex too. Emby is better because your users don't need an account and they can use the app if they want, not just the browser

[melancholy]

Well I personally hate this. Stream quality never, ever comes close to comparing to a 4K disc. I refuse to watch any movie on Disney+ if there is a 4K disc option because the quality difference it just too great.

[ian]

Well I personally hate this. Stream quality never, ever comes close to comparing to a 4K disc. I refuse to watch any movie on Disney+ if there is a 4K disc option because the quality difference it just too great.

It may not affect you guys for a while. There's probably still enough numbers in the U.S. (and Asian markets for that matter) to make physical media feasible for a little while to come.

But in Australia, Zoidberg and myself represent 50% of people still buying physical media.

Streaming is just so damn convenient that anyone under 30 just doesn't give a shit about owning media... Until their favourite thing gets cancelled or altered or simply erased and they turn to outrage and piracy to save them. And ask those of us who grew up in the prime of easy piracy to help them find shows.

Piracy has actually gotten a bit harder than a decade ago, but film and TV piracy is still the easiest of all the entertainment to pirate. I tried pirating some music and games recently and fuck me it was a lot harder than Spotify and Steam... But TV and movies? Still easier than managing 364744 different fucking services, and probably better for the home than shelves upon shelves of things I'd watch once every 5-30 years.

Ripping discs is still pretty easy, and even though ripping 4K discs is a bit more of a fuck around (as is playing them on a PC) the quality can actually be kept.

also, if streaming services could give me even the most basic of picture options like: keep aspect ratio, or Fit to frame, or fuck it by stretching to buggery, along with audio commentaries again. They could bury the corpse of physical media a lot faster and convert the last of the hold outs with options we've had for 25+ years.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

I don't think DVDs/blu-ray will totally disappear. Limited Run Games type companies will probably start popping up for movie releases when the major companies stop making them.

Also, while they won't be releasing in Australia, we have the same region discs as the UK and Europe, so getting Disney stuff off Amazon or ebay won't be that hard for people that still want it.

[ian]

Might see a rise in manufactured on demand discs later on too.

If Disney had made the decision to stop physical media in 1997 I wouldn't have cared at all... But now they own 50% of all the entertainment the world has ever produced, it's starting to concern me a little more than it was.

[pixel]

I was against buying more physical releases for a long time. I never had the space and I hated moving all my CDs and DVDs.

Piracy is all I need and I like the fact that I should be able to redownload anything if I should lose a hard drive. But now torrents are even getting a bit tricky after losing RARBG. I might switch to Usenet, but that seems to be more complicated/expensive than ever. And it's all overall time and money prohibitive too, especially if you don't enjoy maintaining a home server. I haven't even started on 4K and that alone might require new home network equipment.

I've only bought one Blu-ray and it was a locally produced documentary. We just moved to a bigger place and don't rent anymore, so I might start buying second-hand Blu-ray discs. At least just for archival purposes.

I'm with Ian: I don't like losing access to stuff when I'm paying for it. I like knowing I've got all my favorites saved as remuxed MKV files, protected from corporate whims. (It's also a good moral argument to justify wanton piracy these days.)

However, I do like like the streaming services because they are often good sources for 1080p/4K upscales of older movies.

[melancholy]

I don't think DVDs/blu-ray will totally disappear. Limited Run Games type companies will probably start popping up for movie releases when the major companies stop making them.

The problem with that is, if the studio themselves isn’t making it, where are those third-party companies getting their source material? If they can’t source the masters and just put the streamed version on a disk, how is that better?

[Dr. Zoidberg]

The problem with that is, if the studio themselves isn’t making it, where are those third-party companies getting their source material? If they can’t source the masters and just put the streamed version on a disk, how is that better?

They would get access to the source material. They would license the movie and distribute it. It would be like what Criterion do now, but probably on a smaller scale.

[Calavera]

Most the people complaining that they are doing this probably hasn't bought a physical disc in years. You'd think I'd be for physical media but really there is no reason. Even if I want to watch a movie that I own on DVD I'd rather just quickly download and play it rather than getting the disc out and hooking up a USB DVD to my PC.

[Dr. Zoidberg]