2018 was a steadfast year in which we, as a team, continued to work together to make heads or tales from the variety of changes that hit us in 2017. Focusing pretty heavily on new releases as they become available, the reDVDit review team persevered with an emphasis that our personal lives take precedence over the continuation of content for the site.

Andrew continues to help in keeping us flexible and relevant with his video reviews, allowing us to promptly share some feedback on some the latest releases, his thoughts on some of the hardware, and the nooks and crannies of the UHD format as a whole. Chris and Will, our two local LaserDisc enthusiasts have been on a personal hiatus to focus on some personal things that have come up, and we anxiously await for things to calm down for them and eagerly await their next feature piece. Jon has been taking some time off to focus on his career, and we anticipate him coming back sometime in the spring as things calm down. And our newest member, Steven, has provided some really awesome thoughts and insights into some of the latest Digital and Video-On-Demand titles throughout the year. Lastly, Doug and his wife have been striving to keep up with the barrage of new releases while finally adjusting to parenthood.

Now that that’s all out of the way, let’s talk about 2018 — what happened, why it was important, and how it impacts us moving onward:

4K UHD Explodes into the Market

Now that these production companies have finally gotten everything figured out with the format, we’ve seen a pretty significant explosion of releases in the format, some of which might make you question if it’s really needed or not. With the variety of genre’s hitting the format, it will simply be up to you to decide on whether or not you want to opt for that release; but, rest assured that we will be there to share our opinions on each release as they become available.

With more and more new releases coming to the format, we’re also seeing many more catalog titles coming to the format. With releases like the Rambo Trilogy, the Jack Ryan Collection, Schindler’s List and others to name a few, you can finally see these films in the manner in which they were originally meant to be presented, and the outlook for 2019 with catalog titles is already starting to look like a solid one with the upcoming release of Cliffhanger and Black Hawk Down.

With the explosion of titles reaching the format, we’re also seeing a lot of people asking for recommendations on players as it’s understandable that you want to get the most bang for your buck, and still get a reliable player out of the mix. Unfortunately, with the folks over at Oppo closing their doors to the idea of making more players, we’re left with a lot of commercial players that you will see at Best Buy, Walmart, etc. We here at reDVDit have tested a variety of brands and can assure you that, unfortunately, there is no “perfect” brand out there as each company has their problems. We recommend that you read a variety of consumer reports on the players before making your decision.

We’re Seeing More & More Collectors Of Physical Media

You certainly read that right! We’ve reached just over 30,000 subscribers to the /r/dvdcollection subreddit and are continuing to see it grow each day!

Another nice thing that we’re starting to see is less and less toxicity directed at people who collect DVDs and other older formats. There used to be a decent amount of backlash from what we like to call “quality snobs” that shunned people simply because they grabbed a movie on DVD; and that is not what we are about! People collect movies for different reasons. Anything from just wanting to sit down to a movie to making sure they get the best of the best in presentation, no collector should be shunned because of their choice of format or their taste in movies.

The moderation team at /r/dvdcollection sure are excited to see the continued growth of the community as we all share our common interest in movies.

More People Are Making The Jump To Region Free Setups

There have been more and more people inquiring about Region Free Blu-ray and DVD players. We wanted to include this brief segment mostly because you need to go into the topic understanding that there is no “real” Region Free player. Every commercial unit that’s currently available will require either a software based or hardware based modification to be performed, so you’ll want to ensure that you’re purchasing from a reputable seller in the market.

To date, the only seller we can vouch for is the guys from over at 220-electronics. Between their customer service, and quality work that they do on the units, you will want to take a look at their website to try and find one that suits your needs and your budget. That said, a modified Blu-ray player only grants you the ability to change the region lock on the drive. It will not unlock any “special features” of the drive, it doesn’t offer anything “special” nor does it really offer any kind of operation outside of the standard operation and your ability to change the drive region. If you want to see any kind of recommendations on devices, search the /r/dvdcollection subreddit because the same question seems to get posted at least once a week with people who have not done any kind of research whatsoever.

Upcoming Changes

We, the reDVDit review team have ultimately decided that it’s time to work out a new design for the site that will be getting applied over the coming weeks. Our current layout with both the desktop and mobile sites, while they’re brief and to the point, are a little dull and can be improved significantly. So, stay tuned for those changes!

/r/dvdcollection’s Top Releases Of 2018

We polled the /r/dvdcollection subreddit to see what the Top releases of 2018 were. We were quite surprised to see that only 5 people responded to the poll, and one of the releases that were submitted was from 2017. So, without further adieu, and with the 2017 release removed from the results, and in no particular order:

2001: A Space Odyssey (4K UHD) The Passion of Joan of Arc (Criterion)

Ready Player One (no specific version provided)

Howl’s Moving Castle (Steelbook)

A Brief Summery of Things Brought To /r/dvdcollection in 2018

Just like 2017, we are continuing to work to curb scammers who have tried to take advantage of people through the monthly Digital Exchange Thread. We’ve also seen some issues with people who had tried to share links with malicious content on our reviews in the beginning of 2018, coupled with trying to SPAM the subreddit with either personal sites or methods of self-advertisement. This is why we’ve opted to completely remove the ability to comment on our review posts, because as far as we’re concerned, you can share your agreement or disagreement through upvotes. We are looking into options to securely reinstate commenting for the Review posts; but, until that can be done, they will remain disabled.

Additionally, we’ve recently created what we call the dvdcollection shitlist. We’ve seen an increasing number of people who are DM’ing or commenting on posts asking for free handouts of digital codes. Our goal with this list is to expose these beggars and to help people to proactively block these people from communicating with them. For now, it is up to you as a member of this group to (a) periodically check the list for updated people and (b) to let us know when people are breaking this rule. We are actively working on a more streamlined solution to help keep this list updated and to give everyone a heads up as updates are made. For more information, see this post.

Lastly, we’ve heard your voices about trying to sticky the monthly “Digital Exchange” and “For Sale & Trade” posts to the subreddit. Right now, Reddit only allows for two stickied posts, so we want to reserve those spots for subreddit announcements, etc. We are actively working on automating a way to generate a post to contain both of those monthly threads automatically and have it stickied. However, as we’re all people, time does get away from us more often than we’d like it to. Until then, please refer to this information to quickly access these posts and we’ll make a separate announcement post to the group once we’ve managed to get this working.

Are You Following Us?

Stay Tuned!

I think that just about sums up the year for us. After taking the holidays off for a break to kick back and relax, think about the overall general direction of where I would like to take things with this site, we’re ready and anxious to take on the new year; and we hope to revitalize the brand, the site and the community so we can continue to grow as a group. With the upcoming redesign, and various tools that we’re going to work on building, we’re looking forward to checking out new releases, and ultimately seeing where the year goes. We’re going to try to publish a new review for every day of the year, regardless of the author as we want to strive toward providing the details of various releases both new and old. So, with that, Happy New Year!