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The Rise and Fall of DVDs · The Recess Bell

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  Speaker 1: This production is brought to.
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  Speaker 2: You by the Recess Bell.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Hey, what the heck is that?
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  Speaker 2: This is DVD h and this, oh gag is what
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  Speaker 2: happens when you want That's so cool. It's a movie
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  Speaker 2: on a disc the size of a CD nut pictures
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  Speaker 2: twice as sharp as VHS. The sound is infinitely clearer.
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  Speaker 2: It looks and sounds like you're at the movies, but
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  Speaker 2: you can experience it at home. Not to mention, you
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  Speaker 2: can watch it in widescreen. Listen to audio commentary June
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  Speaker 2: from features like director's notes, behind the scenes, footage, trailers,
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  Speaker 2: and more. Watch a movie right on your computer and
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  Speaker 2: red orbie DVDs from these great Hollywood studios DVD see
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  Speaker 2: how good a movie at home can be. With over
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  Speaker 2: three thousand titles to choose from. Make sure you see
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  Speaker 2: your next movie on DVD.
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  Speaker 1: Ah, this is cool.
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  Speaker 2: I like DVD. DVD.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, that takes me back. I loved buying and renting DVDs.
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  Speaker 1: Now I grew up before the DVD. I'm a VHS kid,
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  Speaker 1: and I have a special place in my heart for
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  Speaker 1: VHS and very nostalgic for VHS. In fact, I currently
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  Speaker 1: collect VHS tapes again. I am single. If any ladies
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  Speaker 1: are out there and interested in the guy that has
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  Speaker 1: a vast collection of VHS tapes, I'm your guy. But
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  Speaker 1: DVD's was the next evolution in watching film. As you
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  Speaker 1: heard from that commercial, the quality of sound and picture,
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  Speaker 1: we're gonna be far more advanced now. We had laser
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  Speaker 1: discs going on at the same time as VHS tapes,
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  Speaker 1: and those were, you know, a higher quality sound and
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  Speaker 1: a higher quality picture. But I didn't know a single
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  Speaker 1: person on God's Green Arth that actually owned a laser
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  Speaker 1: disc play. So DVDs were, you know, the next thing,
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  Speaker 1: the next evolution, just like cassettes took over from vinyl records,
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  Speaker 1: and then once cassettes were phased out, you had CDs
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  Speaker 1: and then MP three's and now everybody listens to music
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  Speaker 1: on their phone. DVDs were such a big part of
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  Speaker 1: my life. I can remember the first why is their phone?
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  Speaker 1: Every single week i'm recording this podcast, this freaking phone
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  Speaker 1: goes off. I'm not answering it. I'm not answering the phone.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not being paid right now, not answering the phone.
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  Speaker 1: All right, someone answered the phone. So I can remember
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  Speaker 1: the first DVD that I actually watched it was the
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  Speaker 1: film The Patriot starring Mel Gibson. And I remember one
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  Speaker 1: of the features that we were able to access on
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  Speaker 1: our DVD remote was slow motion, So, you know, getting
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  Speaker 1: to see movies in slow motion specific scenes blew me
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  Speaker 1: and my friend's minds. There's a scene in The Patriot
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  Speaker 1: where a guy's leg gets blown off by a cannon ball,
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  Speaker 1: and it was such a great scene, but it was
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  Speaker 1: even better in slow motion.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 1: Eventually our family got our own DVD player. You know,
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  Speaker 1: I was watching The Patriot at my buddy's house. And
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  Speaker 1: I can also remember the first movies that we rented
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  Speaker 1: on DVD, movies that I don't really care for, but
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  Speaker 1: I just I remember it was something that was like
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  Speaker 1: a monumental moment in my life. It was the film
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  Speaker 1: Patent and the film Swamp Thing, two movies that I
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  Speaker 1: haven't seen since I initially got that DVD player, which
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  Speaker 1: must have been I want to say, in early two
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  Speaker 1: thousand and one, so quite a while ago. And the
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  Speaker 1: beauty of DVDs, and this is something that we're actually
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  Speaker 1: missing out with our streaming services, is the extras. I
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  Speaker 1: love the process of movies being made. I think it's
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  Speaker 1: so fascinating all the behind the scenes drama that goes
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  Speaker 1: on while filming a movie. And with DVDs you've got
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  Speaker 1: all these great documentaries about the process of you know,
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  Speaker 1: writing a movie, filming a movie, releasing a movie. That
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  Speaker 1: blew my mind. Then the granddaddy of them all was
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  Speaker 1: the DVD commentary track. So sometimes you get the writer,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes you get the director. Sometimes you get the entire
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  Speaker 1: cast and they talk while watching the movie. It's sort
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  Speaker 1: of like Mystery Science Theater three thousand, which was a
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  Speaker 1: show from years ago where you know, people were talking
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  Speaker 1: over the movie and I love that. It was like
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  Speaker 1: you were watching movies with your friends. You're watching the
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  Speaker 1: movies with the stars and they're joking along. And there's
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  Speaker 1: some great DVD commentary tracks out there, you know, Kurt
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  Speaker 1: Russell and John Carpenter, I think are the gold standard
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  Speaker 1: when it comes to DVD commentary tracks. The Simpsons, The
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  Speaker 1: Simpsons box sets, Oh my god, box sets, I gotta
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  Speaker 1: get There's so much to talk about on this DVD
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  Speaker 1: episode The Simpsons. When that was released on DVD, it
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  Speaker 1: was like, WHOA. I could watch any episode of The Simpsons,
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  Speaker 1: I could watch any episode of Chappelle's show Family Guy.
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  Speaker 1: Speaking of Family Guy, my mind's running. I got like
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  Speaker 1: all these thoughts going on. Family Guy was canceled, you know,
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  Speaker 1: years ago, and the DVD sales were so high that
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  Speaker 1: they actually brought the show back. That in the success
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  Speaker 1: of the ratings on Adult Swim brought that show back.
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  Speaker 1: DVDs literally resurrected that show. But back to the Simpsons
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  Speaker 1: DVD you know the commentary tracks. Every single episode had
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  Speaker 1: a commentary track from whether it's the rider or the
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  Speaker 1: cast or you know, Matt Graany and the creator. And
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  Speaker 1: you got all these behind the scenes, you know, like
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  Speaker 1: the all these episodes that I watched for years. It
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  Speaker 1: was like now I get to see the inner workings
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  Speaker 1: of how this was made, behind the scenes stories of
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  Speaker 1: you know, trying to get this episode on the air.
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  Speaker 1: And I love that. I was eating up every DVD
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  Speaker 1: I could get. I would go to Fye, I would
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  Speaker 1: go to Sam Goody, and I was buying everything. Every Christmas,
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  Speaker 1: every Birthday. All I asked for was DVDs, and I
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  Speaker 1: am asked a large collection, whether it's titles based on
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  Speaker 1: pro wrestling. I have all the WrestleMania and Royal Rumble
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  Speaker 1: box sets. As I mentioned, my cartoons. I got Futurama
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  Speaker 1: and all these Disney movies back in the day, and
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  Speaker 1: I had a lot of these things on VHS. But
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  Speaker 1: now you get the added higher quality because the DVD
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  Speaker 1: eventually deteriorates. You know, there's things like discrap, but that
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  Speaker 1: takes years, hundreds of years. VHS, though, you know, you
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  Speaker 1: play that thing for a while, you play it for
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  Speaker 1: ten years every every now and then it's gonna deteriorate
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  Speaker 1: and it's not gonna look sharp like when you first
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  Speaker 1: opened that VHS tape. So the DVD was more consistent,
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  Speaker 1: and as I mentioned, the sound was better, the visual
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  Speaker 1: drew better, and you got all those extras. Now, I
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  Speaker 1: think there's a certain charm with the VHS tape. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna talk so much about VHS tapes. I
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  Speaker 1: think that'll be a full episode on itself. But you know,
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  Speaker 1: the VHS tape has that charms. That's my childhood, childhood.
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  Speaker 1: This was more of my teenage years, my angsty teenage years.
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  Speaker 1: It's gone through a lot of stuff. I started smoking pot,
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  Speaker 1: my dad passed away. I was focused on DVDs. But
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  Speaker 1: like the VHS tape is the innocence of my childhood,
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  Speaker 1: and there's something that I think that's why I'm collecting those.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not collecting DVDs. A lot of people aren't collecting DVDs.
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  Speaker 1: DVDs are at an all time look, if you want
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  Speaker 1: to start collecting DVDs, now is the opportunity because they
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  Speaker 1: are dirt cheap. You go to any thrift shop, you
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  Speaker 1: go on eBay, you could buy these things for fifty cents.
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  Speaker 1: Nobody wants them. In fact, nobody wants any form of
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  Speaker 1: physical media when it comes to feature films, and I
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  Speaker 1: think that's a damn shame because of many reasons. You know,
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  Speaker 1: we mentioned the lack of special features, but then also
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  Speaker 1: a lot of things get pulled off of streaming services.
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  Speaker 1: If I want to watch a certain product, I got
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  Speaker 1: to have fifteen different streaming services to actually always be
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  Speaker 1: able to watch that product. And then a lot of
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  Speaker 1: times those things are still pulled. There's certain episodes from
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  Speaker 1: TV shows, you know, Always Sunny in Philadelphia and the
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  Speaker 1: Office and The Simpsons have all pulled episodes that will
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  Speaker 1: never air on any streaming service. Pro Wrestling has pulled
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  Speaker 1: a lot of things that they do not air on
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  Speaker 1: their network anymore. The WWE has their network on Peacock.
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  Speaker 1: They pulled certain things that I guess didn't age well,
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  Speaker 1: and to me, that's censorship. And yes, maybe it's offensive.
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  Speaker 1: Looking at it in twenty twenty four vision, it is offensive.
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  Speaker 1: But I still don't think we should delete our history.
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  Speaker 1: We can learn from our history. And I know that's
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  Speaker 1: something I've talked about a few times on this program,
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  Speaker 1: but I just think it's said that all major studios
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  Speaker 1: now your Disney's, your Sony's, your universals, they stopped, you know,
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  Speaker 1: releasing physical media. Your DVD eventually evolved into the Blu ray,
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  Speaker 1: and I have a few Blu rays, but they don't
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  Speaker 1: make those anymore. There are certain companies like Vinegar Syndrome
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  Speaker 1: that that do release DVDs and they pack them full
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  Speaker 1: with features. But you go to any best buy. Best
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  Speaker 1: Buy actually stop holding physical media. They don't do that anymore.
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  Speaker 1: You go to any Target, it's the bare minimum, and
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  Speaker 1: you know they're not releasing them. They're all focused on
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  Speaker 1: the streaming service. And again those things get pulled eventually.
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  Speaker 1: There's so many things that you know used to be
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  Speaker 1: on Netflix that aren't on Netflix anymore. But if you
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  Speaker 1: have the DVD, you're always going to have the DVD.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I just I just take I'm taking myself
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  Speaker 1: back in time while talking about DVDs. I'm going in
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  Speaker 1: the mall, I got an annie An's pretzel. I'm walking
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  Speaker 1: the aisles of Fye and I'm seeing, Oh, this is
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  Speaker 1: on DVD, this is on DVD. I was on all
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  Speaker 1: the DVD websites, the message board, seeing which you know
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  Speaker 1: DVD has the best special features, which is the one
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  Speaker 1: to avoid? And it does make me a little said,
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  Speaker 1: it makes me sad that that, you know, era of
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  Speaker 1: life is gone. And you know, that's another issue with
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  Speaker 1: streaming when you have so many things. And I talked
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  Speaker 1: about this when I was talking about Blockbuster a while
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  Speaker 1: ago on this program. When you have all these things
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  Speaker 1: accessible at once, whether it's on your phone or through
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  Speaker 1: all those streaming services, you don't give things an opportunity
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  Speaker 1: to breathe. If you don't like something on a streaming service,
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  Speaker 1: within five minutes, majority of the people are tuned out.
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  Speaker 1: They go, oh, let's see what else. But when you
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  Speaker 1: rented something or when you bought something on DVD, it's like,
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  Speaker 1: all right, I spent my money on this specific item.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to watch it from start to finish, and
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  Speaker 1: a lot of times, these older movies, in particular, they
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  Speaker 1: take a while to get that momentum going. So I
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  Speaker 1: think it's just that's just the way the world is
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  Speaker 1: going that. You know, people get so upset when movies
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  Speaker 1: are over two and a half hours. If the movie's good,
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  Speaker 1: it shouldn't matther the length of the movie. There's so
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  Speaker 1: many great movies that are three hours plus. You know,
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  Speaker 1: your Titanics, your Dances with Wolves, countless Scorsese movies. So
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  Speaker 1: that's just the world we live in, unfortunately. But I'll
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  Speaker 1: always remember those DVD years because they were some of
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  Speaker 1: the most fun, informative years of my life. That's when
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  Speaker 1: I found a new love for cinema, and that's when
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  Speaker 1: I found out, you know, all those great behind the
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  Speaker 1: scenes stories that you still can find. You know, some
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  Speaker 1: good documentaries here and there about the making of movies,
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  Speaker 1: but there's something about it all being on one physical media,
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  Speaker 1: one disc. But it's time to move on, Grandpa. You
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  Speaker 1: can't keep living in the past. You got to move forward, man,
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  Speaker 1: and collect those VHS tapes because that's the future. That's
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  Speaker 1: the future.
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  Speaker 2: Baby.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you everybody for listening to the film reel.
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  Speaker 1: If you want to hear the DVD commentary Trek about
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  Speaker 1: this episode, uh, stay tuned, that's coming up right now. Hey,
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  Speaker 1: you know, when I was introducing this this episode, I
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  Speaker 1: knew I was going to start off a bit wacky,
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  Speaker 1: but I wanted it to be, you know, sort of
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  Speaker 1: a different style of the episode. So I wanted it
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  Speaker 1: to feel unique in the process of