BlueRay, RIP?

[Mr. Scram]

It's not about cost. It's about another bloody box on the cabinet that needs another damned remote to lose and most likely line of sight to the box to operate. It's about storing physical media, fingerprints on discs, kids stuffing the wrong disc into the wrong cover and user option overrides that make you watch the FBI warnings or in some cases entire trailers for movies ten years gone from public interest. It's about the eventual failure of the spindle motor or laser which requires a new unit to be purchased because you can't fix the damn things anymore seeing as parts are impossible to source, which means a new UI and remote to learn to use.

No thank you!

RAID6 in the basement running Plex, Chromecast plugged in behind the TV. Any phone or tablet or even laptop becomes the remote, one of which will be within arms reach since they're used for a lot of other things besides TV. Every movie I've ever owned is instantly available and searchable. No additional remote, no ugly box sitting on a shelf in plain view. The exact same access device (the Chromecast) lets me watch netflix or youtube or even home videos of Christmasses or birthdays past, all with the Exact. Same. Interface.

And it's $30. $30!

Physical media for entertainment is long dead. Broadcast and cable television is even deader and has been for much longer. Zero commercials. Zero ugly boxes. Zero shelf space. Zero hassles!

Every movie you ripped from BluRay is instantly available, I presume? Nexflix is known for pulling series, or having part two of a movie but not part one. You don't own any content and should be happy as long as it's available. Here today, gone tomorrow. That's the price you pay for not having physical media.

Oh, don't forget the incessant logging of your behaviour when using a Chromecast.

[Mr. Scram]

Yep! And I bloody hate it! Most rediculous thing ever (from a consumer point of view) but the companies are loving the on-going revenue stream.

Take Microsoft Office 365 for example, why on earth should a simple office suite of applications be a "service". I'll go back to an old-fashioned type writer long before I use any of that crap!

Admittedly, for companies it can actually make sense not having to pay a huge upfront cost for a server park and then having to maintain it too. Just pay an amount per employee and everything is taken care of. However, making it the only option, or other options being strongly discouraged by crippling them or making them unreasonably expensive, is a terrible practice.

Cloud based services are a great tool to have in the toolkit. Making it the tool of choice for every problem is a huge mistake. Horses for courses and all that.

[hamster_nz]

Take Microsoft Office 365 for example, why on earth should a simple office suite of applications be a "service". I'll go back to an old-fashioned type writer long before I use any of that crap!

As we all know, it is to provide a continuous stream of revenue for the vendor.

Early on software companies thrived based on release cycles, and new, improved packages that were not backward compatible and licensing for hardware refreshes.

Now that is all over, and the aim is to get recurring revenue streams by providing 'essential' services.

[aandrew]

Every movie you ripped from BluRay is instantly available, I presume? Nexflix is known for pulling series, or having part two of a movie but not part one. You don't own any content and should be happy as long as it's available. Here today, gone tomorrow. That's the price you pay for not having physical media.

DVD, not Bluray (never owned one), but yes.  And your point about Netflix is valid and why I use it primarily for kid's TV shows (again with zero commercials). The movies I want to watch once I'm happy to stream, just as I'm happy to go to a movie theatre once in a while; there aren't THAT many movies worth owning. Between Netflix, Amazon prime (which doesn't work with Chromecast    and Google Play... I'm good.

I'm not terribly concerned about Google knowing what I watch. Your cable box would be mining you for the same info. Much the same as I'm happy to exchange my shopping habits for coupons which are actually useful and meaningful to me, I feel that is a fair exchange of data. I feel quite differently about Windows 10 or general browsing habits.

[Mr. Scram]

DVD, not Bluray (never owned one), but yes.  And your point about Netflix is valid and why I use it primarily for kid's TV shows (again with zero commercials). The movies I want to watch once I'm happy to stream, just as I'm happy to go to a movie theatre once in a while; there aren't THAT many movies worth owning. Between Netflix, Amazon prime (which doesn't work with Chromecast    and Google Play... I'm good.

I'm not terribly concerned about Google knowing what I watch. Your cable box would be mining you for the same info. Much the same as I'm happy to exchange my shopping habits for coupons which are actually useful and meaningful to me, I feel that is a fair exchange of data. I feel quite differently about Windows 10 or general browsing habits.

My cable box certainly won't be mining the same information, as I've taken care to select a variant that's broadcast, rather than IP or stream based. I get every signal delivered to my house and the cable company won't ever know what I do with it.

[aandrew]

My cable box certainly won't be mining the same information, as I've taken care to select a variant that's broadcast, rather than IP or stream based. I get every signal delivered to my house and the cable company won't ever know what I do with it.

At least in Canada, you don't have any such thing as analog cable TV anymore. It's all digital, and yes, those cable boxes have an upstream channel back to the mothership...

[Mr. Scram]

At least in Canada, you don't have any such thing as analog cable TV anymore. It's all digital, and yes, those cable boxes have an upstream channel back to the mothership...

Good thing I'm not in Canada then

[coppice]

I personally found DVD rather adequate for movies.  When DVD was new, I upgraded many of my VHS tapes to DVD version.  Seeing some of those movies on BlueRay disc in store-displays, I have not found the small incremental gain BlueRay has over DVD worth the extra $.

I remember watching Back To The Future on Bluray for the first time, the difference in detail was staggering!
I saw all new detail I'd never seen before.

Blu-ray discs are highly variable. If you are in an NTSC zone, a large number of Blu-rays show a distinct improvement over the DVD (480 lines -> 1080 lines). If you live in a PAL zone a large number of Blu-rays look little different from the DVD (576 lines -> 1080 lines). Its not just old material, either. So much stuff just isn't that sharp. Modern animation looks consistently impressive on Blu-ray, though. 

[Halcyon]

Early on software companies thrived based on release cycles, and new, improved packages that were not backward compatible and licensing for hardware refreshes.

I'm all for companies making money, but there is a lot that doesn't need to be in "the cloud". A lot of the software I use is dongle-based, even the latest versions today. But it means I can run it on any machine I like and can even "share" dongles on a network with other users through a dongle server.

I would much rather something tangible like a disc and a dongle that I can use anywhere, any time, than rely on the internet.

Blu-ray discs are highly variable. If you are in an NTSC zone, a large number of Blu-rays show a distinct improvement over the DVD (480 lines -> 1080 lines). If you live in a PAL zone a large number of Blu-rays look little different from the DVD (576 lines -> 1080 lines). Its not just old material, either. So much stuff just isn't that sharp. Modern animation looks consistently impressive on Blu-ray, though. 

Blu-ray is very capable. I often find the old film-based recordings look fantastic (again, Back to the Future is a great example of that). It just depends on how how it's all mastered and produced.

[BrianHG]

Quality wise, you cant compare at the consumer end.  Cable/Netflix/Sat dish HD sucks shit, even 4K variants are shit next to BD releases in picture and sound.  If you want to avoid the BD FBI junk and adds, you best bet is 'MakeMKV'  It will copy without any transcoding.  The true BD .h264 stream of just the movie portion itself copied to your HD within 15 minutes (depends on the speed of you BD-ROM) as a single 18-40gb ***.mkv file.  No adds, no warnings, stupid HDCP enable flag disabled so you can use older video projectors before HDCP compliance, streams perfect through any fast enough network connection.  Movie pause/seek to any point is instantaneously fast and with a good videoplayer, time-stretch playback I find useful for documentaries.  Using a CPU software non-accelerated public domain written to commercial industry spec decoder means guaranteed full picture quality (though such players eats CPU cycles and heats up laptops galore).  There is more, but, again, a slim 0.00001% of consumers use a PC as their main video and even have it properly setup to deliver.

4K bluray, with the new HDCP, well, that's currently a new F---fest with proper compatibility and all the variants of extended color gamut features from what I hear, you cant be assured of anything yet, but, I sure in time, it will all iron out.  Probably right after it has been hacked...

[tooki]

With streaming seemingly taking over, and with Sony apparently not planning on doing a new 4K format for BlueRay...

What are you talking about? UltraHD Blu-Ray is already on the market.

Blu-ray discs are highly variable. If you are in an NTSC zone, a large number of Blu-rays show a distinct improvement over the DVD (480 lines -> 1080 lines). If you live in a PAL zone a large number of Blu-rays look little different from the DVD (576 lines -> 1080 lines). Its not just old material, either. So much stuff just isn't that sharp. Modern animation looks consistently impressive on Blu-ray, though. 

The difference between PAL and NTSC DVD is negligible. 1080p is infinitely better than either. If a movie looks insignificantly better in 1080p, then it's because the 1080p copy you have (or possibly even the source film) stinks.

[Brumby]

When I buy a movie, I want it on a real, physical object that can't be taken away from me because I stop subscribing to a service, or the internet connection goes down somewhere between me and the server where the content is stored, or it otherwise becomes unavailable for some reason outside of my control.

I also want to be sure that it'll play continuously from start to finish, only stopping when I want to pause the action to get more popcorn or go for a p*ss. When I'm settled on the sofa with my wife, beer and cat, the last thing I want to do is get up to reboot some piece of network equipment.

Absolutely 100% agree. I want media that I can play when *I* feel like playing it, regardless if my NBN is down or not (which is a common occurrence). I can also keep it and play it forever and not be at the mercy of the streaming provider when they feel like making titles unavailable to free up some disk space on their servers. Physical media/rips stored on my NAS also guarantee it's 100% ad-free forever.

As a secondary thing, I enjoy the quality that Bluray brings. As Dave said, Back to the Future is a great example of what most people miss out on. Even on good quality rips, it's still not the same.

Another vote for the "I own it" camp.

I don't spend a lot of time watching movies - but when I do, I like the certainty of ownership of physical media.  I've paid the creators for the privilege and am happy to have all the delivery tech under my control.  If something goes wrong - I can actually fix it.

[BrianHG]

Blu-ray discs are highly variable. If you are in an NTSC zone, a large number of Blu-rays show a distinct improvement over the DVD (480 lines -> 1080 lines). If you live in a PAL zone a large number of Blu-rays look little different from the DVD (576 lines -> 1080 lines). Its not just old material, either. So much stuff just isn't that sharp. Modern animation looks consistently impressive on Blu-ray, though. 

The difference between PAL and NTSC DVD is negligible. 1080p is infinitely better than either. If a movie looks insignificantly better in 1080p, then it's because the 1080p copy you have (or possibly even the source film) stinks.

Or you have a fake up-sample version of the movie.  Or a cheap transcode to a lousy bit-rate with noise removal algorithms necessary for broadcasts like cable/dish/netflix to allow lower bitrates...  And so on...

How about even a faulty HDCP key in your TV.  In some circumstances, the video is allowed, 'BUT', down-sampled to 480p.

[nctnico]

I can't remember the last time I bought, rent or even played a DVD of any type. We stream 100%! Everything is at our finger tips.

Same here. Don't even own a DVD player anymore and never even owned a bluray player.

[hamster_nz]

I am just waiting for hipsters to discover the joy of analog video, before I sell them my VCR and art-house tape collection...

[ElektroQuark]

Blu-ray discs are highly variable. If you are in an NTSC zone, a large number of Blu-rays show a distinct improvement over the DVD (480 lines -> 1080 lines). If you live in a PAL zone a large number of Blu-rays look little different from the DVD (576 lines -> 1080 lines). Its not just old material, either. So much stuff just isn't that sharp. Modern animation looks consistently impressive on Blu-ray, though. 

You're forgetting about mpeg2 and mpeg4 quality difference here. And bit rate too.

[vealmike]

If ever a thread needed emojie, this is it: 

I upgraded almost exactly one year ago. I swapped a 28" CRT for a 55" OLED so called 4K (it's not 4K dumbo, it only has 2160p vertical lines) set. I also bought a so called 4K HDR BluRay player. I know 55" is a bit small for 2160p, but I only have a small lounge.

The TV set and the player are stunning. The TV really shows how bad Sky Satellite 1080p is when compared to terrestrial digital. Even Sky audio is awful. Given how bad Skys' 1080p service is, I certainly won't be subscribing to their 2160p service.

I stream ripped video from my NAS through a Pi running Kodi at 1080p with a quality equal to the terrestrial digital transmission.

But when you slam a so called 4K HDR disk into the player, oh wow! The picture quality jumps another level.
I can also stream video directly on the TV. It supports 4K streaming, but I've yet to find another source that comes close to a so called 4K HDR BluRay, nothing's even in the same ball park.

So is BluRay dead?
No, not by a very long way. The quality offered far outstrips any (current) streaming service. There's no technical reason why streaming services shouldn't be able to catch up, but we need a large jump in infrastructure performance to achieve this.

And as for the guy who get's better quality from a ripped BluRay on a NAS than the original BluRay had, not sure whether I should or  .

[grumpydoc]

Blu-ray discs are highly variable. If you are in an NTSC zone, a large number of Blu-rays show a distinct improvement over the DVD (480 lines -> 1080 lines). If you live in a PAL zone a large number of Blu-rays look little different from the DVD (576 lines -> 1080 lines). Its not just old material, either. So much stuff just isn't that sharp. Modern animation looks consistently impressive on Blu-ray, though. 

There is something going on if you can't see the difference between 576i and 1080p - however, good upscaling players/TVs can make DVD content look surprisingly effective - are you sure you were not comparing upscaled 576i content with native 1080p?

That said you can't substitute for resolution - having more pixels is always going to look better, no matter how good the upscaling.

But, and it is a significant but in my opinion - the number of pixels does not change the quality of the writing, acting, direction or production of a film. At most I'd say 1080p compared with decent 576i is maybe a 5%, 10% at most contribution to the overall enjoyment of a film. 576i will not wreck a classic, 2160p will not make the remake of "The Italian Job" a patch on the original. 

[BrianHG]

So is BluRay dead?
No, not by a very long way. The quality offered far outstrips any (current) streaming service. There's no technical reason why streaming services shouldn't be able to catch up, but we need a large jump in infrastructure performance to achieve this.

The quality will never get better on the streaming services.  It has nothing to do with infrastructure.  The vast majority of us have never experienced the authentic high bit rate properly setup UltraHD, never will, and don't care.  We will just keep on giving money to the convenient streaming services and they will continue to deliver the minimum bitrate possible which consumers will pay for, and not a bit-per-second faster.  This is all profit for them and every bit they transmit too much costs them money in 2 ways, 1. Actual transmition of said bits, 2. if the end user has a poor connection, or their ISP adds charges per bit, the streaming provider may loose a potential sale.

I personally demand only high quality high bit rate, but, my kind is in the minority...

[Zero999]

Blu-ray discs are highly variable. If you are in an NTSC zone, a large number of Blu-rays show a distinct improvement over the DVD (480 lines -> 1080 lines). If you live in a PAL zone a large number of Blu-rays look little different from the DVD (576 lines -> 1080 lines). Its not just old material, either. So much stuff just isn't that sharp. Modern animation looks consistently impressive on Blu-ray, though. 

There is something going on if you can't see the difference between 576i and 1080p - however, good upscaling players/TVs can make DVD content look surprisingly effective - are you sure you were not comparing upscaled 576i content with native 1080p?

That said you can't substitute for resolution - having more pixels is always going to look better, no matter how good the upscaling.

But, and it is a significant but in my opinion - the number of pixels does not change the quality of the writing, acting, direction or production of a film. At most I'd say 1080p compared with decent 576i is maybe a 5%, 10% at most contribution to the overall enjoyment of a film. 576i will not wreck a classic, 2160p will not make the remake of "The Italian Job" a patch on the original. 

I agree. High resolution is nice, but the quality of of the film is much more important.

As far as owning vs renting it is concerned, with films I'm happy renting, since I seldom watch the same film more than once. For software, I hate anything which must be have the Internet to work, so I have to own it.

[Mr. Scram]

I agree. High resolution is nice, but the quality of of the film is much more important.

As far as owning vs renting it is concerned, with films I'm happy renting, since I seldom watch the same film more than once. For software, I hate anything which must be have the Internet to work, so I have to own it.

Regarding owning software and the internet, one does unfortunately not preclude the other. There are plenty of games that you buy, yet stop working almost as soon as the first packet drops.

I consider games on services like Steam to be rentals. I get to use them for a while, until Valve calls it quits and I lose access. I'd rather own them and buy them from the developer or without DRM wherever I can, but that isn't always an option.

[coppice]

With streaming seemingly taking over, and with Sony apparently not planning on doing a new 4K format for BlueRay...

What are you talking about? UltraHD Blu-Ray is already on the market.

You are missing the point. 4k Blu-ray has been around for quite a while now, and many consumer electronics makers haven't bothered releasing a single model of player. Few places stock the discs. It isn't going anywhere.

Blu-ray discs are highly variable. If you are in an NTSC zone, a large number of Blu-rays show a distinct improvement over the DVD (480 lines -> 1080 lines). If you live in a PAL zone a large number of Blu-rays look little different from the DVD (576 lines -> 1080 lines). Its not just old material, either. So much stuff just isn't that sharp. Modern animation looks consistently impressive on Blu-ray, though. 

The difference between PAL and NTSC DVD is negligible. 1080p is infinitely better than either. If a movie looks insignificantly better in 1080p, then it's because the 1080p copy you have (or possibly even the source film) stinks.

Again you are missing the point. End users don't care what the systems are technically capable of. They care about what they can buy and use. What percentage of actual Blu-ray discs in the shops look materially better than the DVD version that costs half as much? It isn't that high. It isn't nearly as high a percentage as it could be, if the people mastering the discs did the maximum they could to get the best results. The reality is that not enough people care. Its a similar picture with NTSC and PAL DVDs. The PAL version is capable of substantially better results. 480 to 576 lines is a significant step up in resolution, and many PAL DVDs look considerably better than the equivalent NTSC version. A lot don't, though. A lot look like the PAL version was fudged from the NTSC one.

[Rick Law]

With streaming seemingly taking over, and with Sony apparently not planning on doing a new 4K format for BlueRay...

Do you think BlueRay is dying?  Would you miss it?

I personally found DVD rather adequate for movies.  When DVD was new, I upgraded many of my VHS tapes to DVD version.  Seeing some of those movies on BlueRay disc in store-displays, I have not found the small incremental gain BlueRay has over DVD worth the extra $.  Personally, I would miss DVD when it dies.  I would not miss BlueRay as long as DVD can still be purchased.

What display device are you using? I can plainly see the increased resolution and apparent increase in color depth with blueray.

I don't own a blueray player.  I only see them playing in stores.  Yes, I do notice improvements - just not enough for me to upgrade from DVD.  At home, I usually watch in the kitchen with a smaller 720p (22inch, I think) - the larger/better player is in the living room.  So, that further reduces the value of high resolution/quality to me.  It would have to be a lot lot better resolution/playback-experience for me to giving up my convenient access to snack and drinks.

I agree. High resolution is nice, but the quality of of the film is much more important.
...

[bold added]
I sure am with you on this one!  The quality of recent movies are much much lower than before in my opinion.

I can't remember the last time I bought, rent or even played a DVD of any type. We stream 100%! Everything is at our finger tips.

Same here. Don't even own a DVD player anymore and never even owned a bluray player.

Ever gone back to Netflix streaming to re-watch something and found it gone?

There are some classic that I feel compelled to own:
"A Bridge Too Far",
"2001: A Space Odyssey",
"Ben Hur",
"Terminator II",
"The Thing (1982)",
"The Sounds of Music",
"My Fair Lady",
"Gone With the Wind",
"Bizet - Carmen",
"We Were Soldiers",
"Downfall" ... ... ...

[Zbig]

What percentage of actual Blu-ray discs in the shops look materially better than the DVD version that costs half as much? It isn't that high. It isn't nearly as high a percentage as it could be, if the people mastering the discs did the maximum they could to get the best results.
[..]

I have yet to see a BD release botched so badly that I couldn't immediately tell the difference between that and the DVD quality. Well, maybe there are some BD re-releases that are straight re-encodes of the PAL/NTSC material but personally, I haven't encountered any.

[tszaboo]

I dont even have a computer with ODD anymore. I had to write CDs for the car at work. And then I realized that I can just play everything I want on Bluetooth. Such a waste of time.
Everything I want to watch is online. It is on Netflix, or Yarr. Withouth the all the ads, FBI warning, intro video to the intro video bullshit, that is on a physical disk. And they dont stop working in a decade.
Yes, and good luck buying a BD player in 10 years, when the current one dies after warranty period+1 day. Probably due to a firmware update.

Yarr: That is the sound a pirate makes, when he takes your data and shares it with everyone.