So a lot of disc consumers have worried—especially with companies like Oppo getting out of the player business—how they’ll be able to get a BD/4K player to watch their movies. By supporting the PS5 with a 4K optical disc drive, Sony is almost single-handedly extending the life of physical media. Not only will it be a good player, it’s likely to be one of the better players.
It’s even possible (though we’ll have to wait and see) that Microsoft will include a similar 4K drive in their next generation Xbox, currently known as Project Scarlett, which is due around the same time (late 2020).
So the good news is, there’s going to be at least one great BD/4K disc player available for much of the next decade. Sony’s PS3 debuted in 2006. Seven years later, in 2012, the company introduced the PS4. A late 2020 debut for the PS5 will mark another 7 years. So it seems reasonable to assume that you’ll be able to watch your existing (and future) movie disc collections on Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K UHD until at least 2027. There’s been plenty of depressing news for disc fans in the last year or two, so this should give you all some solace.
Now them, the other big piece of news today is that 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has just announced that they’re releasing a massive limited edition 79-disc/441-episode DVD box set, The Simpsons: The Complete Seasons 1-20, on 12/3. Only 1000 units will be available, half of which will be distributed to Amazon while the others will go to Best Buy. The SRP on Amazon is (or was, it seems to be unavailable at the moment) was $499.98. There’s no exclusive content in the set, so it’s reasonable to assume it just collects all of the previously released DVDs. Here’s what the packaging looks like (with an Amazon link)...
Now, people have asked: Why DVD? Keep in mind that Seasons 1-12 of the show are only available in SD (in the original 1.33:1 aspect ratio). Seasons 12-17 plus 20 have been released in Blu-ray too at the 1.78:1 aspect ratio. So it’s complicated. They can’t really do a full BD box set of Seasons 1-20, and to add the BDs of Seasons 12-17 and 20 to this set would increase the expensive even more. So DVD is what we get.
And one last thing today: Our own Dr. Adam Jahnke has been working on his Tribulation audio drama. Adam released the first series of the story online as a podcast and Audible picked it up as an Audible Original! They’ve now recorded a newly-enhanced version of the first series which debuts on October 17 with actor Josh Charles playing the lead role... AND they’ve recorded a second series too. You can find it here, it’s terrific, and we highly recommend you all check it out!
All right, that’s it for today. Stay tuned...
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