I agree, but for me, collecting and consuming are 2 different worlds. Physical releases suck for consumption to begin with, thus their only appeal for me would be collecting.
How does a digital copy feel anymore authentic than a physical copy?
I never said it was. I said digital copies are better for consumption, authenticity is not a factor unless you’re collecting.
With digital you have lesser quality as you rely on an internet connection and then also suffer from compression from whichever service you bought it from.
Not always the case, but in such cases the compression is usually a non-issue since it’s not visible if you know how to source a proper rip or make your own, ideally from a bluray. Also if it requires an internet connection it’s streaming and not a digital copy, a streaming service cannot give you a digital copy.
A lot of the time physical releases are monitored by the original filmmakers so they are usually even superior to the original versions.
People change and develop, that older director is not the same as the person he was when he was younger. Plus, in the case of spaghetti westerns, the original filmmakers are dead more often than not.
Even with the large number of Italian movies they have, it is only a small part of their entire library so it isn’t really all that surprising. I’m sure that people in Europe have access to U.S. movies at times that we in the U.S. don’t have. 
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I think its best to just mix it up. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. I collect what I love, and the rest I watch where I can and leave it at that. But when it comes to this genre especially, I love to have them, and that’s why I am here in the first place. Same with many others, I’m sure.
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To each his own man. Personally the priority for me is digital files with English audio (since it’s very odd to have something set in the wild west be in Italian, even if I know the language), I’ve been adding to my collection for quite a while and I might buy a few physical re releases to rip them myself since I can’t find them digitally.
the fact is that these are digital files on physical media, that you will rip to have the digital files on your harddrive, which ,as the name implies, is also a physical medium 
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My journey on this, like many I expect, has changed over the years depending on circumstances.
To begin with, and for many years, I was just grateful to get to see these films in any medium I could access them. Late night television, VHS, VHS rips, DVDrs, CG downloads. And physical media was the only way you could be sure you could watch them again so we all became collectors and then that became a passion in and of itself. And again, for years my collection was made up of whatever I could get. But that came with some real pleasures in terms of desperately hunting out sources and sharing discs with other collectors. Deviant trading if you will @Bill_san_Antonio . The advent of DVDs were a godsend in this regard.
In recent years more and more films which were once hard to find became easily accessible as they got official DVD releases and then Bluray. We are currently, without doubt in a golden age for this stuff and I’m lucky enough to have a more secure financial position now than I had for many years in the past so am able to indulge my passion and load my shelves with all the latest releases.
So, with that history in mind it’s not surprising that collecting physical copies of these films has become intrinsically linked to my love of the films themselves and somehow being able to hold a physical object, even a DVDr of a 3rd generation VHS rip downloaded from CG, has a certain pleasure and sense of security. Because despite all the benefits streaming may bring us we should never forget that you can’t trust corporations and rights holders to always make these things available in any media in the future.
My son is of a more modern mindset and looks at my large collection of films filling multiple shelves and thinks I’m nuts. He streams everything and doesn’t want any possessions like that cluttering up his space. But we all have our own history and I’m comfortable with mine. Besides, in the unlikely event that he comes to me one day and says “I’ve heard there’s an extended cut to El Puro which shows how Aldo Berti started wearing the top of a woman’s dress through the second two thirds of the film but I can’t find it online. Do you have that?” I will be able to smile and feel the warm glow of self righteousness flow through me.
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But it’s not the same thing. Books and Music are produced and released by the artist/author on a medium that is either a vinyl/cd or a book and the first pressings/printings of those are ‘special’ yes even though defining a first printing that came out perhaps a month before the second one as the only real deal is a bit collectorish talk Movies are produced to come out in the cinema so have no direct release.
The older movies had no public release at all but your argument is then that the first 8 mm / 16 mm / vhs / dvd / blu-ray / uhd release thereafter is the only real deal? That doesn’t make much sense. Unlike music and books the medium for releasing these movies has been vastly improved so I would rather have a UHD-release of a old giallo than a vhs one even though that might have been the first one around. What I’m saying is that there is no real ‘first pressing’ of a movie. Yes on a given media but it doesn’t really make much sense. Therefore you will also see that the prices of old dvds are diminished when a superior release comes out and blu-ray will experience the same.
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Haha you’re not wrong but with that reasoning everything is a physical copy, even streaming since it’s stored on a physical server
I get your perspective, you make good points, and you’re right regarding the differences between movies and music but there’s still this inauthentic feeling for me, especially with 2020s rereleases of 60s movies… and again, as I said, physical disks are poor for consumption to begin with because they are inconvenient, so the quality of the picture is only relevant when I struggle to source the movie and in such a situation I don’t care about the physical copy of the rerelease after I make a good rip of it, since it served it’s purpose because I have no interest in it for collecting reasons.
I should clarify tho that it doesn’t feel like the real deal FOR ME personally, I’m by no means trying to say it’s the only valid viewpoint.
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but I still don’t quite get the point, the only other solution would be a 35mm film print… so… unless you’re among the tiny elite group on this planet who has access to those, this is what we got and it applies to all movies made and available from the invention of film to whatever played in theaters until a few weeks ago
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No no I understand it’s your point of view and if that is how you feel that is how you feel but I personally do not. Have collected books on and off since forever and I know the want for getting that first printing instead of that inferior second one :), music not as much, am into soundtrack collecting but go for the most complete releases and mainly on cd but I understand the pull for getting that first vinyl release pressing It’s just not for me (or my wallet ).
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Regarding streaming, I believe our passion is way too niche to trust any provider long term. There’s Amazon who have a good number of films but of sometimes very, very bad quality. Netflix has always excellent quality but only a handful of films in our niche. Disney+ and Paramount+ have zero. The big players just can’t be bothered with this kind of fringe business. And if there ever were a steaming service specialising in our target genre(s), it would either be of crappy quality, or be a quite expensive monthly subscription, or it would be out of business after a year or two and then we would have lost all access to these films again.
The only chance would be something like a collective streaming service of all Italian production companies and rights holders who wouldn’t have to pay any licencing fees as they already own it. This way they could see it as a steady side income to make some little money off their old library titles through subscription models. But that’s pure fantasy, of course. Unfortunately, it will never happen. So, for us nerds, there’s only physical media from boutique labels if we want to see these films in the best possible quality. (There are also streaming services of boutique labels like the Arrow Player, I believe, but these are restricted to their respective countries and they probably only have licences for a certain amount of limited time to offer the films.)
Yes, but with the recent record of seemingly strong long established companies going under (Network for example) these services can drop out at any time. I much prefer to have the product on the shelf where it can’t be withdrawn.
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Same here. As I said, it’s the only way to go unless you want to break the boutique labels’ necks by collecting ripped downloads.
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Subscribing to multiple providers on the chance of seeing one or two titles you might find interesting is just crazy!
These sites are for people with only the most glancing interest in film / or none at all.
Netflix UK has a very small selection of films on offer, apart from ‘Classics’ like Jaws or The Great Escape, which you probably already own … they’re other output are titles which I would never dream of seeing, even on a long plane flight or wet Wednesday.
Getting slightly off topic … but is Hammerfist just pulling our chain regarding the “authentic” …
How do you obtain your groceries ???
Do you order on line have the items delivered to your home?
Do you go to a supermarket and pay directly to the cashier or self service checkout ?
Do you grow your own fruit and vegetables and hunt wild animals when you require meat ?
Blah blah blah!
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Is this a post from 20 years ago?
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I refuse to buy any more groceries until I take a survey and find out how it should be done.
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That’s what I was trying to say, basically.
On the other hand, subscribing to Netflix for just one month and watching the 10 or so interesting classic Italian and French titles they have, plus maybe the Corbucci and Sad Hill documentaries, sounds almost like a bargain. If you don’t have them already anyway, and if you manage to watch all of them in that one month. And don’t forget to cancel your subscription.
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That’s what most of these services are counting on.
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