The Future of Home Video

[DeprongMori]

I was in Paris recently, and visited both the Cinematheque Francaise and FNAC. I can confirm that they both had amazing selections of Blu-rays, and if they had English subtitles I would have had to have checked several extra bags for my flight home.

I did manage to find a copy “La Femme et le Pantin” (1929) with English subs on Blu-ray and on discount in FNAC, so mission accomplished.

[rrenault]

I was also at the Cinematheque a little while back () for the Marilyn Monroe exhibit, and the store there does indeed sell Blu-rays. The larger Fnac outlets typically have good selections too. It’s a shame the location on the Champs-Elysées closed, since that one sold imported Criterions. None of the others do it seems. I’d also recommend Gibert Joseph on Boulevard Saint-Michel(which is akin to NYC’s J&R Music World(no longer exists ) in its overall vibe) and the Potemkine Store, which is sort of like your typical modern-day indie vinyl store except one that sells DVD and Blu-ray rather than music.

[colinr0380]

This was amusing: the Gamers Nexus channel is producing an in-house Blu-ray with a lot of their Factory Tours and Special Reports on it, and another one with the series about the GPU Smuggling Situation in Asia post-US tariffs.

[Finch]

Sony appear to cease production of the UBP-X700, at least in Japan.

Ugh. Maybe I should get that backup player for my UBP-X800M2 sooner than later.

EDIT: Oh no, they already discontinued the X800M2 in 2025. Eeek. This thing is now going for nearly a thousand bucks. I paid $320 for it only three years ago. Jesus. I really don't want to get a Panasonic if I can help it.

[midnitedave]

Ugh. Maybe I should get that backup player for my UBP-X800M2 sooner than later.

EDIT: Oh no, they already discontinued the X800M2 in 2025. Eeek. This thing is now going for nearly a thousand bucks. I paid $320 for it only three years ago. Jesus. I really don't want to get a Panasonic if I can help it.

Pardon my confusion, but why so against Panasonic?

[onedimension]

Unfortunate that physical media sales are strong but the manufacturing capacity to even build physical disc players is eroding.

We're down to entry level Sony, midrange Panasonic (now $650 USD!), and the high end Magnetar players...

[onedimension]

Ugh. Maybe I should get that backup player for my UBP-X800M2 sooner than later.

EDIT: Oh no, they already discontinued the X800M2 in 2025. Eeek. This thing is now going for nearly a thousand bucks. I paid $320 for it only three years ago. Jesus. I really don't want to get a Panasonic if I can help it.

Pardon my confusion, but why so against Panasonic?

My own Panasonic 820 is *Great* 90 percent of the time, but the 10 percent of discs it absolutely bungles are maddening. I get 25 minutes into an incredible Dolby Vision encode of Eyes Wide Shut and the entire screen pixelates and tiles, sound drops out, disc is unwatchable. I've only had this problem with 4-5 Criterion UHDs and a couple of others, but cleaning the discs does nothing to resolve it.

[criterionsnob]

I'm glad I bought a second Sony UBP-X800M2 player, but maybe I should've bought a third. They're now $949 on 220 Electronics, almost double what I paid just last year!