Those releases he is referring to are definitely bootlegs. He should get his movies from a more respectable outlet instead.

I imagine that he started collecting DVDs because it’s a cheap way to own a physical copy of your favorite shows…

But for the love of god just go hunt for cheap Blu-ray versions instead and leave DVDs in the past.

Unless you, for whatever reason, just must own a specific DVD release because it has otherwise unreleased extra content/commentary, or it never made it to Blu-ray.

I’m somewhat leaning towards DVDs because you can reliably rip them and store the originals away. Blu-ray either works easily, or it’s a major pain that can only be done by peeking into the memory of a Windows Blu-ray player to extract the key.

I’ve never had a normal bluray that I couldn’t rip with MakeMKV. It’s the UHD blurays that are a pain to rip.