Is there any reason to buy DVDs/Blu-rays anymore when the episodes are streamed online?

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Looks like home video is still growing in the UK:

The report mentions that the the BBFC is classifying more anime than ever before for physical media release in the UK. "In 2025 so far, anime has accounted for nearly a quarter (24%) of content classified by the BBFC for release on DVD and Blu-ray – a proportion that has more than doubled in recent years."

Isn't home video market bigger in Europe/UK than North America/USA?
I know Arrow Video UK has been releasing tons of movies on BD/4K UHD that has yet to be released in America.
I don't know how big streaming market it is in Europe.

I don't know if home video is bigger here than in North America, it probably is in Germany as seemingly everything gets released there, hell they even released the original Yu-Gi-Oh on Blu-Ray, which also hasn't come stateside.

As Yellow Flower King said though BBFC costs are crippling and undoubtedly a massive hurdle that any releases physical or otherwise have to overcome here. It's a miracle that Manga UK, Anime Limited and MVM have put out their extensive libraries of content considering they need to pay extortionate amounts for everything they put out (for Dragon Ball Z it was $6 per minute back in 2011/2012, so would probably be higher now with inflation and the rising cost of everything under the sun).

Streaming is massive here, and probably everywhere at this stage I imagine, but it will never be able to fully replace physical media because once you have a copy of a show/movie you own it forever, streaming offers you a rental service, which is great for saving money and sampling new stuff but isn't the be-all, end-all for all Dragon Ball fans, certainly not myself.

[Peach]

The content you see streamed online is heavily compressed, despite it saying HD.

[MasenkoHA]

The content you see streamed online is heavily compressed, despite it saying HD.

This. It’s why I’m hoping the Dragon Box remaster of og Dragon Ball we got on Hulu gets a physical media release for 2026

[sangofe]

The content you see streamed online is heavily compressed, despite it saying HD.

This. It’s why I’m hoping the Dragon Box remaster of og Dragon Ball we got on Hulu gets a physical media release for 2026

It's still gonna be way worse than what AB put out.

[MasenkoHA]

The content you see streamed online is heavily compressed, despite it saying HD.

This. It’s why I’m hoping the Dragon Box remaster of og Dragon Ball we got on Hulu gets a physical media release for 2026

It's still gonna be way worse than what AB put out.

It’s also more likely to be a complete release so

[sangofe]

This. It’s why I’m hoping the Dragon Box remaster of og Dragon Ball we got on Hulu gets a physical media release for 2026

It's still gonna be way worse than what AB put out.

It’s also more likely to be a complete release so

And that's a reason to support crap? Do you think by supporting really bad releases we will ever have good enough releases?

[MasenkoHA]

It's still gonna be way worse than what AB put out.

It’s also more likely to be a complete release so

And that's a reason to support crap? Do you think by supporting really bad releases we will ever have good enough releases?

There’s a pretty big margin between crap and “not as good as it could be” and I don’t know why the fandom is so weird about this. For example, could the Dragon Boxes Z have been better? Sure. They’re still a solid dvd release (other than being long out of print and kinda pricey even when they were in stores) that are far and away better than the godawful Orange Bricks.

I don’t care how much fans cream themselves over the Funimation level sets or the AB Groupe HD release. They were left incomplete and thus rendered completely worthless .

I’d rather have a solid release that is complete than a fantastic release of only the first 28-34 episodes.

[sangofe]

It’s also more likely to be a complete release so

And that's a reason to support crap? Do you think by supporting really bad releases we will ever have good enough releases?

There’s a pretty big margin between crap and “not as good as it could be” and I don’t know why the fandom is so weird about this. For example, could the Dragon Boxes Z have been better? Sure. They’re still a solid dvd release (other than being long out of print and kinda pricey even when they were in stores) that are far and away better than the godawful Orange Bricks.

I don’t care how much fans cream themselves over the Funimation level sets or the AB Groupe HD release. They were left incomplete and thus rendered completely worthless .

I’d rather have a solid release that is complete than a fantastic release of only the first 28-34 episodes.

They were left incomplete because of Toei animation. If everyone let Toei know this is shit they would make better releases.