Posted: 10-13-2024
I keep seeing resurgences of cries for physical media, and a return to physical media as opposed to streaming services. For movies, for books, for games, for music. I always find these resurgences interesting for many reasons.
The first and foremost one to my mind is a bit of a duality. Whether a movie is housed on a bluray, vhs, external harddrive, or computer server, it is still technically on physical media. And this is paired with the knowledge that physical media is not some static, unchanging safe. All physical media decays (much like all things, in general) and thus media and knowledge is always at risk of destruction.
There's arguments to be made about the decline and decay of physical media, versus a streaming company's sudden decision to obliterate a piece of work from all of their systems, and to demand its removal from all other possible streaming locations. This is true and fair. The desctruction caused by a company is active - a predatory threat intent on complete destruction for the sake of their bottom line. Decay on the other hand is passive, and not seeking in nature.
Even so, the collapse can still be sudden. A smashed disc versus one that simply does not read when placed in the disc tray. An external harddrive that fails to register when connected to the computer. Media is always in some risk, and having it on disc or a personal computer does not suddenly make it "safe."
To protect media is to share it. To make sure it is widely available. To routinely check personal copies and update them to new media systems as those systems evolve. Afterall, a VHS tape is no good if there are no players to play it, or TVs that can connect to the player.
I recently learned that the timing delay on smart TVs when displaying from component cables, while not severe enough for something like watching a movie, absolutely ruins the functionality of rhythm or timing focused games such as DDR, Rhythm Heaven, or even Wii Tennis. But all modern televisions use the same converter chip for reading component inputs, and so without an older TV, they become incredibly frustrating to play.
I love physical media, as well as media archival. I routinely take older movies and shows that have been abandoned and cannot be obtained and make professional-looking BluRay copies of them. But this in itself will not save them. Backups upon backups upon backups are necessary.
I always appreciate the calls for physical media, but that alone will save nothing from extant decay. Preservation is not a passive task of holding. Preservation is an action - it is active. It requires sharing media widely, holding copies across many locations, many mediums, and many people who all are willing to reshare and remake and reupload when the media begins to disappear.
So yes, cheer for physical copies, but do more than simply requesting them. Get a bluray writer for your desktop, pull copies from the internet and reupload them elsewhere when they are taken down. Keep local copies, and share it with your friends, acquantances, and strangers, so they become another person who might have a copy when your own copies decay. Be active in your preservation. Be a digital hoarder, but also share your digital hoarde.