A History of Home Video (MMM, Episode 13)

Morning everyone,

Madeline here back with another entry in The Movie Minute. To celebrate the end of the year as the holiday season approaches, we will focus on a movie topic I have a deep passion for: home video and physical media!

According to WeChronicle, home video has its roots around the mid-70s, when JVC first released the VHS format for use by movie studios and video rental companies, providing a way for people to watch their favorite movies in the comfort of their own home. By the 1980s, the VHS had become the most powerful format, effectively defeating its former competitor, the Sony-developed Betamax. While there also existed a competing format known as LaserDisc, with higher visual and audio quality, it failed to gain traction in many markets as the VHS was much more affordable and common to the average consumer. The rise of video rental stores such as Blockbuster further emphasized the home video market as a gold mine for retailers and movie studios. In addition, the availability of blank videotapes allowed people not only to use their VCRs for playing movies, but even to record their favorite programs from TV onto a tape, as well as special cameras for making “home movies”.

Things changed, however, with the advent of the DVD in the late 90s and early 2000s. This marked a dramatic change in the home video landscape, especially with the transition from an analog format to a digital format. Not only was a DVD much smaller than a VHS cassette, it also boasted more capabilities such as higher quality video and audio, as well as numerous other features that the VHS medium could not handle. Over time, the VHS market slowly started to decline, with the last tapes being made around 2006 and the last manufacturer to produce VHS players pulling out a decade later.

When HD TVs became much more common, the Blu-ray disc format was introduced, which contained even higher media quality and storage capacity, as well as resistance to disc scratches that DVDs are vulnerable to. While DVDs typically were encoded in MPEG format, Blu-ray discs are mostly encoded in AVC or H.264 format, which is also used by many streaming services and video websites, helping to save on storage space while maintaining quality. Blu-ray players have much more power and capability compared to DVD players, and are even backwards compatible with most DVDs as well. There also existed a short-lived competitor known as HD DVD, but it failed to gain the amount of popularity and adoption and was discontinued not long after.

Around 2016, with 4K resolution TVs becoming more mainstream, an Ultra HD Blu-ray format was released, which utilised the HEVC or H.265 format, as well as support for high dynamic range (HDR) and wider color gamuts. Such discs would often be sold in combo packs that also included the same content in regular Blu-ray and DVD format, as well as a code to redeem for a digital copy of the film on a service such as Movies Anywhere.

Things changed around 2019-2020 however, with the advent of the “streaming wars”. While Netflix was once the most dominant streaming platform, moving away from its original focus on DVD rentals, other entertainment and media companies started pulling their content in favor of starting their own services, such as Disney+ and Max. Together with more people cancelling their cable TV subscriptions, streaming eventually would take over as the most dominant form of home entertainment,especially as a result of the pandemic and its impact on movie theaters. However, the streaming wars also resulted in sales of physical media having gone down, with many retailers discontinuing sales of home video due to shrinking demand, and studios outsourcing their home video operations to other companies. Video rental stores have also suffered immensely, with the Redbox network of video rental kiosks being shut down this year, and Blockbuster being reduced from thousands of stores in the world to just one in Bend, Oregon that still operates to this day. So why is physical media worth it even if you could just simply stream or buy/rent on VOD? 

One reason is that content regularly comes and goes on streaming services, and that in recent years, streaming services have become more like cable TV in regards to pricing and content being spread across multiple platforms. In addition, even if you buy a digital copy of a movie from a reliable retailer, it could disappear at any time, which is why having a physical copy ensures that you can always watch your favorite movie whenever you want, and have all your content in one place as opposed to scattered across 10 different streaming services.. Furthermore, the bitrate on a physical disc is much more stable and consistent, as streaming quality depends on the reliability of an internet connection which can be unpredictable at times.

Even with the rise of streaming, physical media continues to be sold at big retailers, and there has been a rise in speciality, or “boutique” home video companies such as The Criterion Collection (my personal favorite), Arrow Video, and Shout, which often focus on a niche market, such as films with a cult following and iconic classic masterpieces. Many special versions of physical media have even become valuable collectors’ items that can be resold for a fortune! I started collecting physical media around 2022, and my collection has since grown to a vast library of decades of cinema, ranging from VHS tapes to the latest 4K Blu-rays.

Overall, despite the dominance and convenience of streaming, physical media remains an important element in cinema that will forever remain in history, and continues to live on for the foreseeable future. No matter what the future holds for how physical media will continue to be produced, it will nonetheless persist as a core component of how we watch our favorite content.

This will be the final entry in The Movie Minute for 2024. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and I will see you all in 2025, with a big change coming. Stay tuned! -Madeline

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