I voted no. I do have an external DVD drive, but it’s not designed to be plugged into a TV or anything. It just let me watch some DVDs from the library on my laptop (and stream it so a friend could watch with me).
When I moved to a much smaller place, the DVD player was something I just didn’t see as important, any more than the big CRT TV is was attached to. I did save one smaller CRT for maybe doing some retro gaming, but that’s it.
I’ve never actually owned an HDTV. I cut the cord well before smart TVs were a thing. HDTVs may have been out, but they were expensive. I’d already gotten used to watching my entertainment on a computer screen.
So I just don’t really have any need for a standalone DVD player.
I expected to be in the minority, but not by that much! Whoa!
The posters on this board trend to the older side of things. Most of us went through the days before streaming and a VCR or DVD player was just what you did.
My niece and nephews would never buy a DVD player (or Blu-Ray or whatever).
I know. That’s why I expected to be in the minority.
I do actually still own a VCR, because I decided to save all our VHS tapes that weren’t movies or such that I could find online. Unfortunately, I didn’t check to see if it worked.
A few months back I was glad to discover that we still have one that is functional. I had bought a DVD set of 5 seasons of Slow Horses (the consensus seems to be that they were pirated) and thought I would have to buy a player for my computer, but my husband had one attached to his TV, so I was able to watch them in the comfort of the living room. Not Blu-Ray, which is good because I don’t have any Blu-Ray DVDs.
For some reporting - it seems a mix of bargain shopping, desire to own media and be untied from some of the endless online services, and of course retro-chic of having the media. I’m young enough to have grown up with semi-common cassettes then CDs, then was an early adopter of iTunes, so I’ve gone through most of the categories of music “ownership”, and same for video media (VHS to DVD to Blu). Given near parity in cost, I prefer to buy CDs and DVDs though they’re by no means invincible. But I’d rather have the media, rip to digital, and store it on my NAS for personal consumption.
A big problem though, is that after the DVD/BR boom of almost everything without right’s issues (mostly music) getting a DVD release, there is ever less getting a physical format release. And many of the deals are gone. No longer do you see last years blockbusters on sale for $5-10, or manage to snag a pile of used DVDs from Blockbuster/Hollywood Video selling off old stock.
So what I want is now often Far more expensive than a digital version. I was looking at the Ulysses Cut of Waterworld (a terrible movie, but I love watching Hopper chew scenery) and it was just shy of $50!!! No way, no how. In fact, people in my circle (not myself, nor do I endorse this) have decided that the profit-gouging splintering of streaming services, each with fees, to access their preferred media PLUS the lack of physical release have once again justified pirating.
For me, personally, I like owning the media. It’s mine now and forever. I hate streaming services where I like a show they have and then lose it cuz the owner moves it. If I have the DVD I can watch it whenever.
I have three, one of which I don’t recall how/why. One I purchased to watch stuff not available in this region. The other two are standard Blu-Ray. One is still in the box and the other I use fairly often. I like to be able to watch a favorite any time, free, and with no commercials.
I abstained from voting because I wasn’t sure what I should vote. I have a Blu Ray player that can play DVDs. In fact I have been using it lately as a DVD player because I still have quite a few discs and I’ve been going through my Futurama collection (The Simpsons and The X Files might follow!). I still own a DVD player but that was part of a surround sound system and it’s now in a box in the garage because my partner didn’t want the wires trailing everywhere in the lounge in our new house. Which is annoying because there’s nothing wrong with it other than that. Surround still working perfectly after about 18 years.
I have three hooked up to TVs. On an old one, it acts as the internet receiver to play streaming services. I still have a few hundred CDs, more than 50 Video Music DVDs. There cheap at thrift stores and free from the library. (I’m the de facto damaged CD/DVD screener for the library.)
I have two blu ray capable ones in my old tower computer. The motherboard was from the era crossing from IDE to PCI headers. It’s got a scuzzi header too. I can plug in 5-1/4 floppy drives, 3-1/2, zip drives, etc… along with a couple of 2tb drives; one mechanical, one solid state.
As with many I own Blu-ray/DVD player separate and it is actually hooked up to my TV/audio system. I also own a shit-ton of DVDs as well as a couple-three handfuls of actual Blu-rays. Almost never watch any of them. Maybe a third of those Blu-rays are still shrink-wrapped.
I’m not to the point of getting rid of them, because there are some I own that technically aren’t super-accessible streaming and they aren’t particularly in the way. But they really are 99% dust-gatherers at this point.
I literally recycled a fairly old upscaling DVD player that had been sitting in a drawer for years just a month or so ago while I was clearing out other old AV junk like unused cables. Probably still technically functional, but unused and utterly worthless.
Nope. No DVD, no Blue-Ray, no CD, no tape deck or record player, not for at least 5 years now. None of our computers have disk drives, either. The only time I have portable physical media in my house is when I put something on a thumb drive or external hard drive.
I must say that this poll isn’t exactly going the way that I had anticipated. I know that we’re an older crowd and tend to hang onto things but I didn’t account for the magnitude of the difference.
One possible distinction could be that we moved 7 years ago and got rid of all of our disks. They just weren’t worth it to us when we could donate them to the school.
I still have a little plug-in DVD drive that gets a bit of work-related use, plus my DVD player of early 2000s vintage finally got replaced with a Blue Ray player, mainly as a treat to myself so i could buy some special box sets (Thunderbirds are 60 mainly), but to keep watching my long-accumulated and eclectic collection of film and TV that has largely never aired in any form on any streamer. Its that invested capital which to me justifies holding on to tech and its legacy format,that lets me keep watching great shows and movies.
I have one in my room that does the job for me, and it’s a Megatek brand-- one really neat feature about it is that I can set the timer on it to count down from the TRT (total running time) of the episode, so I can more clearly see how close I am to finishing an episode.
Unfortunately, this only really works if the episode is less than an hour (like your average 50-min. or 48-min. [or even 42-min.] episode); if it’s a movie, you have to wait for the portion of it that exceeds an hour to count down to zero, and then it counts down from 00:00, starting at 59:59.
Even so, it’s still quite handy, because I rely on the timers to tell me how far along I am in these episodes.
I’m with the overwhelming majority that said “Yes”. If you doubt that most people own standalone DVD players, you must be one of those youngsters who think that any tech that is more than two years old is obsolete!
In many ways I typify the Olde Fart that I am – I value my landline and I hate cell phones except for their occasional emergency utility. But I’m actually somewhat advanced when it comes to movies and TV shows. All of my valued DVDs have been ripped to digital files and I don’t even know where the physical DVDs are since my last move – all in boxes somewhere, I presume. So my standalone DVD player is hardly ever used. And it’s not a Blu-ray player. My HD content is all digital downloads.
But damn, I do value my landline!
Just noticed this. I have all of the above, too, except for the cassette deck. Yes, a turntable, too, and a decent collection of classic vinyl records!
