For Those Who Still Think Physical Media Has No Place in the 21st century… (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

Would you buy native 4K remastered material only available on standard BD? The case with many, many BD titles

Yes.

I haven’t upgraded to 4K yet so I don’t feel strongly about that. SD is 11 years past, so I don’t mind putting it behind me at this point. And UHD in my limited experience is a much more modest improvement over HD than HD was to SD. So new materials are HD or UHD depending on pricing. But in five or ten years, I can imagine no longer buying HD material.

 

[Carl David]

I'll chime in on a slight tangent, in a very different context.

As a way of squelching my ocd compulsive collecting/hoarding behavior, I've been using a jedi mindfuck mantra of "no bluray = no sale" to trick myself into NOT buying a particular title which has not been released on bluray.

For example, such as many tv show season sets and various less popular non-genre type movies (ie. lousy action movies, romcoms, generic dramas, etc ...). Outside of genre stuff, my other big weakness is for lousy action movies which litter many dvd dump bins.

Wish I could do that. I buy films that are on DVD only as I worry they will never get released on Blu Ray.

I fear these DVD titles will sell in the future for very high prices if they don't make it to Blu Ray and will be hard to buy so I bite the bullet.

It's very annoying when you do this and not much later the Blu Ray gets released.

This recently happened to me when I purchased Undertow and no more than 2 weeks later the Blu Ray came out .

I now check online to ensure there is no pending Blu Ray release of a film that I wish to get on DVD.

 

[Worth]

Does this include old film which was scanned again at 4K or higher resolutions? How about stuff that was digitally filmed originally at 4K/8K or even higher resolutions?

There's nothing above 4K right now. Even if the cameras are capable of higher resolutions, post production is limited to 4K, or more likely, 2K.

 

[jcroy]

There's nothing above 4K right now. Even if the cameras are capable of higher resolutions, post production is limited to 4K, or more likely, 2K.

I want a holodeck !!!

 

[BobO'Link]

It has already been seen that the bluray advocates have completely failed in their propaganda / advertising efforts in convincing the general public to buy their product. (ie. People who are not hardcore tech/av types). At this point I suspect any further efforts at advertising (or "education"), will be falling on deaf ears.

Blu-ray failed as much as anything because the average viewer just didn't see the improvement in the image like they did going from tape to DVD. It didn't help that the image quality of many early BR releases was only marginally better than the DVD they were replacing - heck there are still sub-standard releases being produced. At the same time those fancy new discs and players cost more - sometimes significantly more - and portable BR players never dropped to prices to make them attractive for the kids to use at home or in the car. It generally comes down to DVD being "good enough" for most people. If someone's not upgraded to BR by now it's very unlikely they will in the future.

It's a lot of work to properly research a BR title to see if it's worthy of adding to a collection or just a quick money grab.

 

[jcroy]

Blu-ray failed as much as anything because the average viewer just didn't see the improvement in the image like they did going from tape to DVD. It didn't help that the image quality of many early BR releases was only marginally better than the DVD they were replacing - heck there are still sub-standard releases being produced. At the same time those fancy new discs and players cost more - sometimes significantly more - and portable BR players never dropped to prices to make them attractive for the kids to use at home or in the car. It generally comes down to DVD being "good enough" for most people. If someone's not upgraded to BR by now it's very unlikely they will in the future.

It's a lot of work to properly research a BR title to see if it's worthy of adding to a collection or just a quick money grab.

I would be somewhat surprised if Joe Sixpack would be thinking about ANY research at all.

My strong suspicion is Joe Q Public or Joe Sixpack would be thinking: "What a FUCKIN' RIPOFF !!!!!!"


(Pass me another beer).

 

[jcroy]

How would the bluray propaganda folks penetrate the "What a FUCKING RIPOFF!" perception in the first place?

 

[Worth]

A well authored DVD from a good master produces a very acceptable image - sometimes I'm surprised by how not-bad it looks. I don't know what the average screen size is, but I suspect it's below 55". Watching a DVD on a set that size or smaller, from a typical viewing distance of 10-12 feet, looks quite good. Especially given that most people have sets that are incorrectly set up to begin with.

 

[Carl David]

I have just been viewing a "Digital vs Physical & The Future Of Home Video" thread over at Bluray.com.

I happened to stumble upon an interesting response from someone who goes by the user name "Vilya".

He wrote as follows:

"Same here I ditched pay TV in 2014 and now here in 2020 I use streaming and an over the air antenna in its place. The best part is that I'm only paying for Amazon Prime and that is for the two day shipping perk not for their poorest in quality streaming service. I have never watched a single one of my redeemed digital copies; I watch the blu-ray or 4K disc instead every time."

"For the other streaming services, I do what so many people do: I share accounts and that means that I am paying nothing for all of the other services that interest me. Of the 12 people that are nearest to me that use streaming, only 4 of them are actually paying for it. Streaming really is cheap and convenient now!"

Now, how are the streaming companies going to get around this?

Many users sharing their login IDs and passwords with each other so they can use multiple streaming companies basically for free.

It will not take long for this habit to spread especially between family members & friends who trust each other.

My guess is the streaming companies will have to charge on a per film basis to get around this.

It may be possible they could perhaps develop a system that can limit the service to a specific IP address.
However, where would that leave the younger generations that probably use their devices at home to stream as well as their smartphone when they are away from home?

We therefore now have an issue where you would have limited accessibility to either an individual smartphone/mobile contract or via your IP address at home.

Is there any other means the companies can minimize/prevent this exploitation of their weak business model?

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Would you buy native 4K remastered material only available on standard BD? The case with many, many BD titles

For me, yes. The difference is that 480i content on DVD looks obviously deficient, while 1080p content on Blu-Ray looks "good enough." I'd prefer a UHD release, but it's not a deal breaker.

 

[jcroy]

It may be possible they could perhaps develop a system that can limit the service to a specific IP address.

When there is a change in ip, one strategy is to send a temporary time-limited pin code to your cellphone which you have to enter AFTER your login and password has been entered. Some banks already do this on online bank accounts, whenever there is a change in ip trying to access a particular account.

 

[jcroy]

For me, yes. The difference is that 480i content on DVD looks obviously deficient, while 1080p content on Blu-Ray looks "good enough." I'd prefer a UHD release, but it's not a deal breaker.

Once holodecks are common, do you believe 1080p or 4Kbluray will still look "good enough" ?

 

[Traveling Matt]

A well authored DVD from a good master produces a very acceptable image - sometimes I'm surprised by how not-bad it looks. I don't know what the average screen size is, but I suspect it's below 55". Watching a DVD on a set that size or smaller, from a typical viewing distance of 10-12 feet, looks quite good. Especially given that most people have sets that are incorrectly set up to begin with.

Don't forget the upscale if you're playing on a BD player. That can make a nice difference too.

 

[jcroy]

Don't forget the upscale if you're playing on a BD player. That can make a nice difference too.

I don't think I have ever come across a generic bluray player which does an excellent upscale (subjectively) from 480 ntsc to 1080p (or higher).

The best looking upscales I have come across, were usually done on a computer with something like the MadVR renderer on a recent powerful graphics card which caters to hardcore gamer types. Such cutting edge graphics cards are just as expensive (or more) than the best Oppo bluray/4Kbluray players.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I have just been viewing a "Digital vs Physical & The Future Of Home Video" thread over at Bluray.com.

I happened to stumble upon an interesting response from someone who goes by the user name "Vilya".

He wrote as follows:

"Same here I ditched pay TV in 2014 and now here in 2020 I use streaming and an over the air antenna in its place. The best part is that I'm only paying for Amazon Prime and that is for the two day shipping perk not for their poorest in quality streaming service. I have never watched a single one of my redeemed digital copies; I watch the blu-ray or 4K disc instead every time."

"For the other streaming services, I do what so many people do: I share accounts and that means that I am paying nothing for all of the other services that interest me. Of the 12 people that are nearest to me that use streaming, only 4 of them are actually paying for it. Streaming really is cheap and convenient now!"

Now, how are the streaming companies going to get around this?

Many users sharing their login IDs and passwords with each other so they can use multiple streaming companies basically for free.

It will not take long for this habit to spread especially between family members & friends who trust each other.

My guess is the streaming companies will have to charge on a per film basis to get around this.

It may be possible they could perhaps develop a system that can limit the service to a specific IP address.
However, where would that leave the younger generations that probably use their devices at home to stream as well as their smartphone when they are away from home?

We therefore now have an issue where you would have limited accessibility to either an individual smartphone/mobile contract or via your IP address at home.

Is there any other means the companies can minimize/prevent this exploitation of their weak business model?

This is a feature, not a bug. The streaming companies are well aware of this. That’s why Netflix allows you to customize user profiles and offer different levels of service based on how many devices can be used simultaneously. The HBO folks have also commented positively about it. It means that they have your eyeballs in their ecosystem vs not. Streaming outlets like Netflix and premium services like HBO Now don’t think of physical media as their competition. They think of piracy as their competition. If you’re using a Netflix account that you’re sharing with four people, that means that someone is paying for the service and everyone is accessing it legitimately and being exposed to all of their offerings and messaging. They prefer that to piracy, where everyone in the group downloads it illegally and they don’t get any payment at all and don’t get any engagement with the users.

 

[jcroy]

This is a feature, not a bug. The streaming companies are well aware of this. That’s why Netflix allows you to customize user profiles and offer different levels of service based on how many devices can be used simultaneously. The HBO folks have also commented positively about it. It means that they have your eyeballs in their ecosystem vs not. Streaming outlets like Netflix and premium services like HBO Now don’t think of physical media as their competition. They think of piracy as their competition. If you’re using a Netflix account that you’re sharing with four people, that means that someone is paying for the service and everyone is accessing it legitimately and being exposed to all of their offerings and messaging. They prefer that to piracy, where everyone in the group downloads it illegally and they don’t get any payment at all and don’t get any engagement with the users.

Inside their own ecosystems (Netflix, HBO, Disney, etc ...), they can also track each individual user/profile and record all that viewership statistics for further analysis. Something which would be a goldmine for data analysts and algorithms.

In contrast, it would be harder to track viewership statistics on bittorrents.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

And that’s ultimately what voting with our dollars and our eyeballs means. Enough people watch something, they make more of it. Enough people don’t, they stop. That’s how it’s worked forever in TV. The difference is, the streaming data is much more precise than the Neilson ratings ever were.

I tend to like stuff that doesn’t immediately explode out the gate, gets canceled, gets discovered and loved in streaming or syndication, and then the network execs say “if we had only known this many people liked it, we would have kept it.”

My hope is with better data, that maybe some of those types of things will get to do better because the metrics are measured differently and they can have different goals instead of everything needing to hit the same target.

 

[jcroy]

Even statistics which might look meaningless initially, may very well be telling something about a show.

For example, stuff like how far into an episode does a person pause or hit the stop button altogether. Too many doing this in the middle of the first/pilot episode, might suggest it is either a really boring episode and/or viewers are simply not immediately connecting to any of the characters at all.

 

[jcroy]

My hope is with better data, that maybe some of those types of things will get to do better because the metrics are measured differently and they can have different goals instead of everything needing to hit the same target.

I think if these data analysis / miners are able to figure out anything, it might be what exactly will immediately connect to the viewers such that the viewers are constantly jonesing for the next scene.

Almost like doing better than the generic George Lucas + Joseph Campbell paradigm, but this time for execution.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

One of the first Netflix originals, House Of Cards, sorta came about that way. Netflix noticed that their viewers especially loved streaming political dramas, serialized shows, American versions of British properties, Kevin Spacey, and the work of David Fincher. So they hired a writer known for political plays to work with Fincher to develop an American version of the British series House of Cards, and it was a big hit for them.