Entering Best Video is like stepping in to a time capsule to the glory days of video rental. Rows of DVDs line the walls with signs indicating genres and directors.
Located on the corner of Thornton and Whitney streets in Hamden, Best Video Film and Cultural Center has kept alive the spirit of independent video stores and become a haven for the physical media niche.
While the Best Video floor usually has tables for enjoying a drink or snack from the coffee bar, on Oct. 19 it was filled with vendors selling antiquated video formats, movie guides and various other wares for National Video Rental Store Day.
Joe Fay, one such vendor, sells VHS, DVDs, horror magazines and other movie memorabilia.
For Fay, the appeal of physical media in the age of streaming has a little bit to do with nostalgia, but also is a matter of access.
“Streaming itself, you’re at the mercy of the streamers, you know the streaming companies seem to have haphazard schedules for the rights that they obtain for these movies,” Fay said. “It’s here today, gone tomorrow.”
Fay also pointed out that a lot of media never graduated to another format and only exists on VHS or DVD.
He talked about how “Dogma,” the Kevin Smith movie, has faced rights issues for over 15 years, making it virtually impossible to find anywhere.
Raizine Bruton, the administrative director for Best Video and an event organizer, said the goal of the day was to celebrate all things physical media and honor National Video Store Day.
To her, physical media is important from a collector’s point of view as well as sharing a love of media with future generations.
“I have a young child and I love the fact that I can share some of my favorite things with her on VHS and DVD,” she said. “Some of those things are not available on streaming.”
Fay talked about growing up in video stores and how the nostalgia for this time influenced his collection of physical media. Despite this, he has noticed a lot of collectors that were too young to remember when physical media was the norm.
“It’s been surprisingly young,” Fay said. “There are a lot of millennials and Gen Z who I don’t know if they think it’s cool or if it’s fun or what the motivation is but I’ve been surprised that so many young people have gotten into not only VHS and physical movie media, but vinyl records are selling better than they have in a generation.”
According to the Recording Industry Association of America, vinyl record sales were at 43.2 million in 2023 up from less than a million in 2006.
Henry St. Pierre, a sophomore computer science major at UConn, is one of these young collectors.
“I like collecting vinyl because I like looking at the album art and there’s something cool about being able to hold an album that you really like in your own hands,” he said. “It feels a lot different when it’s something analog.”
St. Pierre started collecting DVDs in middle school and later branched out to CDs and vinyl in high school.
He said that with streaming, the stakes are lower, and owning something physical makes people more inclined to engage with media.
Fay said that while there is value in streaming, viewers are up to the whim of the streaming companies for their content.
“Streaming is good, but it’s not the solution. It’s not the end. It’s another sort of arrow in the quiver of being a film fan,” he said.
