Another sign the end of physical media is near (1 Viewer)

[Dave Moritz]

Yes, streaming is simple. But streaming isn't owning, and a lot of folks seem to want to own specific titles so they can watch them anytime they want.

I totally agree that streaming is simple and movies downloaded stored locally keep content available to watch at anytime you want. But I have to disagree about the owning part. Physical media is the only way you can own a copy of a movie as you can sell it or you can leave it in a will to a family member or friend. With a digital version of a film as I understand it no one actually owns that copy when purchased. Anyone that purchases the digital version is actually purchasing a viewing license and when you die your license dies with you. You can not legally give it to anyone nor can you leave it in a will.






Now on a different note, I just found out how to get video and music content to my home theater system but music is hit and miss as some songs play and some do not. I am just right clicking on a file and choosing cast to device. I downloaded two movies on Vudu and I could not access the file or copy it to another hard drive to try and play it on my home theater set up. I think that even if I could afford a NAS set up and tried having downloaded content I honestly would still prefer physical media, will leave it at that. The internet connection I have now is 150 mbps up and down so I can download full movies in very little time. Right now even if I wanted to try and and check it out income is so bad I have to put what little I do get extra into getting a few movies here and there and I want to upgrade my Pioneer Elite SC-05 receiver to a new Marantz SR-7011 and upgrade my Samsung 4K UHD to a Oppo 4K UHD player. I want 4K switching and Dolby Atmos/DTS-X so any thoughts of a NAS would have to wait as it isn't on my priority list. If I ever started to purchase digital downloads I would still have same requirements that being 1080p minimum but focusing on 4K UHD for video and lossless only audio, no dolby digital plus for purchasing titles. Dolby Digital Plus is the minimum that I would like to get for streaming/renting.

I will have to stop by some day and check out your home theater bigshot

 

[Cranston37+]

I post this here as an example of how fundamentally the movie business is changing - going from discs to streaming is just a small part of that.

I was floored when I saw this...

http://cordcuttersnews.com/netflix-martin-scorsese-team-new-movie/

 

[Dave Moritz]

It is a major shift that has been taken place in how people get there entertainment. More people are ether streaming or downloading and quality has greatly improved over the years. But I would say that one of the disappointing outcomes of how this new delivery system is changing things, is the death of collecting! This effects both music and movies and has also changed music and movies from ownership to purchasing of a viewing license! I am happy to see lossless and even Atmos become available but to my knowledge Dolby is the only choice at this time. I feel that movies should be available in what ever codex the studios want to support and it wouldn't be hard for two formats to be available on digital downloads and or streaming. Back in the day of DVD I hated Dolby Digital and I would run out and replace titles when the DTS version became available. When HD-DVD came out I was not big on Dolby Digital Plus even though it was an good improvement over Dolby Digital. Now with lossless codex like Dolby True HD and DTS-HD Master Audio on 1080p blu-ray I do not replace a title because of audio track! I am very happy with getting ether True HD or Master Audio!

Right now I have Netflix and Vudu which I use to back up my blu-ray/4K Blu-ray titles that have ultraviolet codes. And for watching Netflix, watching a movie title via Vudu or renting a movie via Vudu, Dolby Digital Plus is ok. We have no seen any major failures of companies that sell digital content yet so one of the things I wonder about is what would happen to those who purchase content if that happened? Also delivery of content depends on having an internet connection which not everyone has at home and not everyone has a great high speed connection. Physical media is no where near dead yet and we can only hope they can exist side by side for some time to come. How else could studios sell movies to those who do not have internet? I have been involved in this hobby for many years and it has seen many changes and I have owned a number of formats as many of us here have also owned a number of formats. Currently I am not interested in purchasing digital versions of movies and I have even gone as far as to say I would be done if physical media went away. I have always adopted new formats and I even build my own pc's so I do love technology but there are limits I feel. Maybe I am not that comfortable with the apparent move to digital delivery and it is a IMHO a very different experience overall between the two. Streaming and downloading have improved 1080p HD video and will soon have many 4K UHD versions available and we should be seeing more and more lossless and object based audio tracks available.

I will amend my previous statements that I have made to being done with the hobby if physical media to the following. Currently have no plans to buy movies via digital delivery but I will see what happens in the future and see how much studios charge for future content and see if my finances improve to the point where I can afford the NAS storage to have instant access at home in case I was to loose internet because of financial reasons. The changes that have happened have come a long way from VHS stereo movies to VHS Dolby Surround to Laser Disc movies with Dolby Digital and DTS. To DVD with both Dolby Digital and DTS and HD-DVD with Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby True HD along with 1080p blu-ray with PCM, Dolby True HD and DTS-HD Master Audio. And now we have 4K blu-ray and also an every improving digital content delivery system and the new object based surround formats of Dolby Atmos and DTS-X. I am still blown away that we went from low resolution VHS to having 4K UHD movies available, how freakin awesome is that! I will say one thing with digital delivery that has been fixed is gone is the day where you can not get a movie because the store is out of a copy of the movie you are looking for!

Current Upgrade Plans:
Marantz SR-7011 Surround Receiver
Oppo UDP-203 4K UHD Player
4K UHD Projector
120" min Projection Screen

Future Upgrade And Purchases:
Bowers & Wilkens Surrounds
Bowers & Wilkens Hight / Ceiling Speakers
?? New Subwoofer ??
Audio / Room Treatments

Possible Future Purchases:
NAS drives for local storage of HD and 4K content

 

[TJPC]

We are in a planned vicious cycle here where companies get us excited about bigger and bigger televisions and new formats that make our old formats look terrible. I remember being very excited about the wonderful quality displayed on my Sony trinitron with the 26" screen when I played a commercially made VHS tape.
These same tapes looked terrible when played on my Hitachi 42 inch rear projection "HDTV". All my movies had to be replaced by DVDs of course etc. etc.

I read in I think in "That Fabulous Phonograph" that there is a lot of evidence that record companies in the mid 1920s purposely made their new electrically recorded discs sound terrible on acoustic machines so everybody had to buy new electric Victrolas. ...

 

[DaveF]

Another casualty: commentaries.

http://tedium.co/2017/02/21/dvd-audio-commentary-decline/amp/

 

[Matt Hough]

Another casualty: commentaries.

http://tedium.co/2017/02/21/dvd-audio-commentary-decline/amp/

Thanks for the link. It's an interesting article with some valuable information, but where did Andrew Egan get the idea that King Kong was a 1928 film?

 

[Traveling Matt]

As long as they keep making DVD players...

 

[Josh Steinberg]

We are in a planned vicious cycle here where companies get us excited about bigger and bigger televisions and new formats that make our old formats look terrible.

For me, fortunately, I'm at the end of that cycle.

VHS, Laserdisc, and even DVD were only approximations of what films originally looked like. BD and UHD have the capability of playing films back at the resolution and frame rates and picture and audio formats they were originally created in. Experts in film have generally said that most negatives have about 4K worth of information on them, and that release prints we grew up seeing had probably closer to 720 resolution. In other words, what we have now can pretty much match what's possible for most films.

I'm sure that they'll continue to re-release and enhance older films in newer formats - whether that new format is a physical or digital one. But as we're seeing with some UHD releases of classic movies, they've been altered for UHD with HDR to give them a look and feel different from what the filmmakers originally intended or released. I don't really have any interest in that. I understand that the people making these releases have incentives to have them show off everything a new TV is capable of, but I'm not interested in using my media to show off my TV - I want to use my TV to show off my media, which means playing the movie as close as possible to the original intentions, not altering the movie to show off how many colors my TV has or how bright my TV can get.

Newer re-releases of old movies may be more focused on that kind of experience. But unlike a VHS or DVD, an existing BD in a lot of cases has all there really is to get off the film, so I'm comfortable sticking with it.

Most commercial movie theaters are using 2K projectors to show 2K masters of new and classic films. HD is only a few pixels away from 2K. If 2K is good enough for commercial theaters, it can be good enough for me too, especially as a way of representing content that doesn't have much more than 2K resolution in the first place.

 

[jcroy]

For me, fortunately, I'm at the end of that cycle.

VHS, Laserdisc, and even DVD were only approximations of what films originally looked like. BD and UHD have the capability of playing films back at the resolution and frame rates and picture and audio formats they were originally created in. Experts in film have generally said that most negatives have about 4K worth of information on them, and that release prints we grew up seeing had probably closer to 720 resolution. In other words, what we have now can pretty much match what's possible for most films.

I'm pretty much at the end of the cycle too, though not for reasons of picture quality, etc ... and/or other technical reasons.

For me it is due to "burnout", pure and simple.

(I'm not the only one).

 

[Dave Moritz]

I'm pretty much at the end of the cycle too, though not for reasons of picture quality, etc ... and/or other technical reasons.

For me it is due to "burnout", pure and simple.

(I'm not the only one).

This may be part of my problem as well. I have been buying music and movies since the 80's and have had a number of titles purchased over and over again. I do admit it does get old after a few decades.

 

[bigshot]

I'm the exact opposite... the more movies I watch, the more excited I get about the medium and the more my tastes broaden. I'm digging through foreign films and television now, and it's like starting all over with a fresh list. There's more good stuff out there than a single person can absorb in a lifetime. You just have to think outside the box and not get stuck in a particular genre or time period.

But I don't care about format. I buy as many DVDs as I do blu-rays.

 

[Dave Moritz]

When I buy movies with what very limited funds I have, I have to not only get the best bang for my buck but if I am going to be able to buy new titles. I can no longer keep going back and buying and replacing all the old titles because I wouldn't have any money for the new titles I want. This is bad enough since I also need to buy some new updated gear and my employer pays me crap and uses me! So for me DVD's are not an option and are not worth buying so 1080p blu-ray is my new minimum and I try to get what 4K titles I can. In the past I have purchased titles over and over and as my income goes down hill I have to be very picky in what I spend my money on. If I had the money I would invest in alot more movies across more genres and the goal would be to have a very large collection.

I still have my DVD's but that is only because I have not been able to get around financially to upgrade these titles to HD yet and or 4K when they become available depending on available funds.

 

[atfree]

I'm pretty much at the end of the cycle too, though not for reasons of picture quality, etc ... and/or other technical reasons.

For me it is due to "burnout", pure and simple.

(I'm not the only one).

Yep... I have 873 movies on BD...I have curtailed my spending a great deal this year. I'm limiting purchases to films totally in my wheelhouse and will not be upgrading to UHD for media although I will upgrade fror my display eventually. I've passed on many WAC and KLSC titles this year simply because I don't HAVE to have a better than DVD presentation for films that aren't "must haves". Breaking the vicious cycle.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Certain titles I will repurchase one last time in 4K as 4K is my end game. Not saying I will never purchase an 8K display but by the time 8K movies are out my age and income may rule it out. Will have to wait and see what happens but 4K is the last planned format I intend to build a library of titles with. My focus is 4K how ever 1080p HD releases are not ruled out.

 

[bigshot]

Movies are more important than the number of pixels.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Movies are more important than the number of pixels.

Agreed.

And beyond simple pixel math, the availability of cameras and displays with higher pixel counts doesn't actually mean that any movies will be finished in those higher pixel formats. Though we've now got UHD panels roughly equivalent to 4K becoming the new standard at home, and though many movie theaters have 4K digital projectors, and though many movies are being shot on cameras with resolutions equal to or higher than 4K, the overwhelming majority of movies go through postproduction at 2K and will forever be 2K movies. And to be clear, I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with that. I'm sure studios will do in the future what they do now when dealing with one of those titles - they'll simply upscale it to 4K or whatever K comes next. "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" - the biggest blockbuster in the last decade - was finished in 2K and shown on the largest screens in the world, and people were generally satisfied with the presentation. That movie might come out on 4K disc one day, or 8K streaming, or whatever, but no matter the container of the format, the film was finished in 2K and that's what it'll always be.

I might be rambling a little bit, but my basic point is this: the evolution of tech specs in the hardware are going to continue to outpace the evolution of tech specs in the software. My concern isn't about having the latest and greatest version of everything just for the sake of having it; my concern has always been to have copies of the movies I like in formats that reproduce, as closely as possible, what the filmmakers intended and what was shown in theaters. I feel that Blu-ray is able to do that for me, and that UHD BD will be even better for newer titles that went through a 4K workflow from start to finish. But if movie studios are still making most of their movies in 2K in the year 2017, I have a hard time believing that they're going to be making 8K movies in a couple years just because the TV manufacturers decided to increase the number of pixels in their sets. And I'm not sure that an audience would really be able to notice the difference, or care.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Movies are more important than the number of pixels.

Agreed, but I want to have the best presentation I can get and I don't feel that is a bad thing. Personally DVD doesn't look all that good anymore and not on a large display. I have to consider how good it will look only because my end goal is to have a 120 screen with a 4K projector and I know DVD's will look bad on a screen that size. Currently I have a 55" display but in a few years I want to have a 120" projection screen. For me 4K is my goal and basically is what I have been shooting for for a long time, to have cinema quality video close to the master. I bet that they come out with something else beyond Dolby Atmos but I doubt I will be itching to get it. On the audio side I am totally happy with lossless audio and upgrading to Atmos is about being immersed! 4K and Atmos is the end game for me and upgrading after that is not a priority. I want to be able to visit Germany and maybe Switzerland someday and I can not do that if I continue on the never ending hardware upgrade path. 1080p HD content looks good and I figure that anything that is not on a must have top shelf for me can be purchased on 1080p blu-ray. All my top titles I will want on 4K UHD if I can get it and while I am not currently interested in digital downloads as I was saying in an earlier post I will try and keep an open mind later on down the road. As far as a future 8K goes ya sure I might get a tv once 4K tvs are fazed out and 8K is the only thing available. I am sure it will look great but how much better will it or can it look over 4K remains to be seen. My push is for 4K and after that I just want to concentrate on content and going on a trip or two if I am able to do so.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Movies are more important than the number of pixels.

Such a simple statement, but it says so much. I couldn't agree more.

Blu-ray and UHD will probably be my end game format, too. I cannot fathom investing in a much larger display than our current 70-inch model (maybe another 10 inches if our retirement home has more space), so going beyond these formats will make little sense for me.

As for re-buying titles in UHD, I am determined to be much, much more selective than I was with the transition from DVD to BD. I only plan on re-buying absolute favorites, and only after checking reviews to determine if the upgrade produces a significantly higher quality image. I have already severely reduced the number of blind buys of discs the past few years, after many years of buying titles I only watched a single time. Streaming works well as a "rental" format for me, allowing me to check out movies I have not yet seen. If I'm going to purchase a film in UHD, it will be because of the film itself, not just so I can have something in the latest format to watch on my new 4K display. I did that too often when DVD and BD each were new, and I am determined to not go down that same path a third time.

I will try to buy new titles in UHD instead of BD, though, simply to avoid any temptation of re-buying them later. However, that will also mean waiting a little longer for the price to come down before buying a new title. I have a set price I am willing to pay for discs, and I am not planning on increasing that threshold much for the new UHD format.

 

[TJPC]

I buy everything in Blu ray now, but replace a lot of catalogue titles by raiding the Blu ray bin at Walmart ($7.99) and on Black Friday (Harry Potters & James Bonds). As for the rest, DVD is good enough.
Until there is broadcast UHD and my current set up fails I'll not upgrade. My only reason for a new TV at this point is to get a 2016 before 3D is phased out.

 

[Keith Cobby]

I no longer want to buy DVDs and have about 50 favourite films that need blu-rays (mostly Warners).