A few days ago, I tried using the external DVD player that I bought to go with my laptop, to play a film on my Smart LG TV. I discovered that the DVD player only has a USB interface and that films on DVDs won’t play without an HDMI interface. So, to be able to play any of our collection of DVDs , we would have to buy an HDMI-capable DVD player which a quick search of the net determined would cost in the region of £30 – £50. Unlike my current very compact and easy-to-store external DVD drive (measuring some 14x14x1.5 cm), such beasts are larger, may employ a pop-up lid as opposed to a sliding drawer, and require an external power source. These are all factors which would affect the aesthetics of the piece of furniture on which our TV sits: it would mean accommodating an extra big black box with two lots of additional wiring for a facility that might be only rarely used – and this after having been pleased to get rid of our previous very large DVD recorder box. I guess it could be kept in a drawer and just installed temporarily when needed – but setting it up wouldn’t be easy because there is little space to get behind the 65inch TV screen to access HDMI ports and power points. Of course, such a device could also be used on my laptop – but I don’t really think I’d want to watch films on my laptop screen or even the 27-inch screen on my study desk. In fact, I wouldn’t want to watch films in my study: movie-watching is more of a relaxing lounge activity.

Many of the above factors are the reasons why we decided to dispense with a video recorder and the physical DVDs in the first place; so, I’m not really envisaging going down that route again. Nevertheless, it will be useful to have a clear understanding of all the possibilities and constraints when I get down to deciding which films, if any, I particularly want to keep and in what format.