Physical Versus Digital

I was chatting the other day with a friend and he's moving home, and he was saying that he has to pack up all his games into boxes and such. Then he asked me jokingly, "How many boxes would it take to move my game collection?" I just said "One, I'm all digital since about halfway through the PS3's lifecycle. I can't even remember the last time I went into a Gamestop and bought a game."

I buy all my games via PSN and Steam. So we chatted about the whole digital versus physical arguments as people tend to do and I concluded that the reason I'm all digital is that its convenience. I have high-speed internet so download a decent size game this generation doesn't take that long.

Then he threw a question at me, "Why haven't you switched to all digital when it comes to movies?" It's true my physical collection of films well outnumbers my digital side, and I started to think about it and came to the conclusion that physical is still the best way to watch a film.

When to buying games digitally it's the same product as the physical disc. The game runs at the same framerate and same resolution. If I had two PS4's running the same game side by side, one digital one physical, you would be able to tell the difference. But if you do it with a film, there is a difference.

I find there is a big difference in both picture quality and sound quality when it comes to watching a film either via blu-ray or iTunes or Netflix.

Let's just get sound out of the way, while both Netflix and iTunes can both do standard Dolby Digital 5.1, the basic standard since DVD's came on the market in 1997, they create this sound field at a compressed bitrate of (usually) 640Kbps, which to 99% of the ears out there is fine and does the job. But with blu-ray, it's completely uncompressed with Dolby True HD and DTS-HD and averages out between 2-5Mbps. And now with the advent of Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, the sound fidelity is getting even better, while digital platforms continue to stay at the standard Dolby Digital 5.1.

With picture quality, and this is in regard to 1080p, I've noticed a big difference between the three platforms. Netflix streams at a bitrate of about 5Mbps, while iTunes streams at a rate of 8Mbps. So there is a slight bump in the image quality, it's noticeable in a few films but not every film. Physical, on the other hand, plays its media at a bitrate of 20-25 Mbps. To me, it's a night and day difference, and that's why I continue to invest and support physical media when it comes to films. Maybe it's just the film buff in me that wants to see a film with the best possible picture and sound, and try to recreate that "cinema experience" at home.

Why do you think? Have you gone all digital, for games or movies? Or do you continue to use physical media?

For movies I'm all physical. Love looking at my film/show collections and marveling over how far they've come.

For games, it's more of a split, but I'll still go out of my way to get a physical copy most of the time unless it's something I can't get physically or it's way more logical to get digital (sales). I really leaned into the digital side of things with my 2DS and PS3 so I have a pretty much even amount of physical and digital games on those, but with the Switch's limited storage, it's back to buying that beautiful case whenever I can. I do still have a fair amount of digital games on it though thanks to indies like Shovel Knight and Overcooked.

I had a similar revelation, threw a poll here in the forums for "do you buy physical games" and was surprised by the amount of people that still do. I don't consider myself wealthy, just a man of a singular hobby, and the digital benefits ALWAYS out weighed the physical bargains for me. Couple that with these discs being basically blank once you factor in patches after a month or two, and physical games will soon go the way of the DoDo.

Split on the games front. If I have the time, ill buy physical. I don't really ever resell a game (unless I beat it in a day or so), but I love the option to share a game I'm done with with someone else that also has the same platform. If I'm drunk or something and its late I find myself buying digitally, but that's more for the instant gratification when I have an impulse to play a certain game.

I'm old school I guess, but I would much rather have an actual physical product (I know, I know, much of the game still needs to be downloaded and a lot of disc are little more than shiny CD keys anymore) than what I view as a very limited license to play the game.

So I got back into heavy movie watching last year and I had to decide which way to go for movies I ended up wanting to own (physical vs. digital) and I arrived at the same thing as you. For one I don't think I've ever flawlessly streamed a movie from beginning to end without buffering for no good reason, an app crashing or someone else using the wifi and messing it up. Secondly, like you stated, the picture and sound quality is going to be better than anything that comes over the internet. Thirdly, physical media gets discounted heavily the way an old physical game would. Lastly, I like the idea of having a library of cases for myself and guests to look at and strike up a conversation about movies.

Digital is easier by far but the old school me has to have the physical copy.

I much prefer digital but sometimes end up with physical due to price.