Why I Own So Many Movies. (1 Viewer)

[Josh Steinberg]

I’ve had the opposite reaction with DVDs - they look far better than they have any right to on my TCL 55” 4K set. I was really worried about that too because a lot of my favorites are DVD-only.

The player you’re using might make a difference there. I have an Oppo and it’s known to be among the best at upscaling content, so maybe that’s why the DVDs have looked as good as they do.

 

[OLDTIMER]

DVDs on a 4K TV set will only look worse if it's a bigger screen. As Josh says, they should look better.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

For years, I put all my money into the discs and almost nothing into the players or display. And then one day I realized that maybe I was being silly by having over a thousand discs but a smaller TV and cheap player. I eventually upgraded piece by piece.

Anyhow, what I’ve discovered over the years since I went HD is that most Blu-ray players do a nearly identical job playing Blu-ray, but they vary wildly when it comes to DVD playback. For those of us who still have lots of DVDs, spending more on a disc player probably makes sense with these newer 4K displays. The DVDs seem to benefit from that extra help.

 

[OLDTIMER]

A good DVD can look extremely good given a good player and good TV set. Unfortunately, most - and I do mean most - DVDs are sub-standard and thus look crappy on a big screen. That's why I'm continuously replacing my standard DVDs with Blu's of the same movie when and if they become available.

 

[English Invader]

Re HD catching on. I invested in a 4K player and some 4K discs. My TV is a 55inch Panasonic OLED. Unless I sit 4 feet from the screen I can't see the difference between 4K and HD. I'm thus not buying any more 4k discs. Trouble with a super large screen TV is that standard DVDs look awful.

My GF has a 4K TV because when she finally got round to upgrading her 14" CRT portable it made sense to go that extra mile. The main benefit I've noticed over regular HD is the High Dynamic Range (HDR) that helps brighten up some of the dark areas on badly made DVDs and Blu-Rays (this was particularly noticeable with my BR copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula) but I can't help feeling that manufacturers are touting HDR as some kind of great technical innovation when it's nothing more than a fix to technical flaws that should have been addressed ten years ago.

If the source material is well made in the first place, there shouldn't be any dark spots. I have VHS copies of the 1989 Batman that look just fine on my trusty 32" Panasonic and they'd look even better on my CRT.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Re HD catching on. I invested in a 4K player and some 4K discs. My TV is a 55inch Panasonic OLED. Unless I sit 4 feet from the screen I can't see the difference between 4K and HD. I'm thus not buying any more 4k discs. Trouble with a super large screen TV is that standard DVDs look awful.

I keep reading this type of comment from some posters on this forum and I have to say there is a definite difference between 4K and HD discs on my 65" LG OLED with an Oppo 203 player. I'm sitting about 9 feet from my display.

A week from now, I'm getting my second LG OLED display that is 55" for my second HT setup which will also be paired with another Oppo 203 player. My sitting position from this new OLED will be about 6.5 feet away. I'll be watching a ton of DVDs, Blu-rays, 4K/UHD and HD & 4K streams on this 55" display.

I'm going to cull my movie collection as DVD Profiler list my collection as over 10,800 which includes HD & 4K digital purchases from iTunes, Vudu and to a much smaller extent Amazon. As well as redeemed digital codes. My physical disc collection is way over 8000 and that's not counting the nearly 300 DVD-R titles that I recorded from TCM and such which isn't listed on DVD Profiler. However, those discs are shrinking in numbers as these boutique retailers keep releasing more and more titles on Blu-ray as well as some of them are becoming available for purchase digitally.

 

[The Drifter]

A good DVD can look extremely good given a good player and good TV set. Unfortunately, most - and I do mean most - DVDs are sub-standard and thus look crappy on a big screen. That's why I'm continuously replacing my standard DVDs with Blu's of the same movie when and if they become available.

There's a lot of truth to this. I remember watching some regular DVD's on my old, relatively small CRT TV back in the 200X's (well before I got my HD player) and the PQ was not bad. However, once I upgraded to my much newer, larger, and far superior HD set & watched these exact same DVD's - I noticed a lot more flaws; the picture was "soft"; the color was washed-out; etc.

That being said, I have seen some newer DVD's on my HD set & they look great.

So, my take on this is that it all depends on the source material.

 

[Jasper70]

I have a 4K setup. And I have a ton of DVDs. Some look great such as Mannix, original Hawaii 5-0, The Streets of San Francisco but these have been remastered. Other sets such as Magnum P.I., Emergency, WKRP look not so hot. Of course individual movies on DVD vary in quality.

I have just started buying some digital shows, I really don’t want to go that route but may not have a choice to get what I want. So far I have only bought three complete series. Magnum P.I., Hill Street Blues, Little House on the Prairie. All bought on sale. MPI and HSB I already have on DVD. LH I didn’t have on any format but $20 was hard to resist. I suspect as time rolls on more of my old favorites will be available digitally but not on disc —- speaking of HD.

My player is an Oppo 203.

 

[OLDTIMER]

I can't help feeling that manufacturers are touting HDR as some kind of great technical innovation when it's nothing more than a fix to technical flaws that should have been addressed ten years ago.

I agree that HDR is over touted. For instance, I prefer the standard Blu of Pirates of the Caribbean V over the HDR 4K version which over-does HDR. Before I watch a movie I always adjust Brightness, Contrast and Colour to get the best result. (Disc to disc often vary in these parameters.) My Panny TV also has a Gamma control which is great to uncrush blacks.

 

[Cleopatra]

I often wondered the same question myself.
Although I only buy movies I love, with a high replay value or which I'll want to show to someone else at some point, I know there are a lot I'll never watch again, if only because of time constraints.
But I keep buying and collecting. It's compulsive, I just enjoy it a lot.
That must be true for any passionate collector I guess, whatever the field.

 

[Maxman43]

But I keep buying and collecting. It's compulsive, I just enjoy it a lot.

Same here. I'm currently hooked on classic film noir.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Same here. I'm currently hooked on classic film noir.

Bill: If you haven't checked out THIS THREAD, Robert Crawford is one of the biggest noir fans on this site.

If you don't want to wade through all 114 pages skip to the last dozen or so and you'll get the idea.

 

[Maxman43]

Bill: If you haven't checked out THIS THREAD, Robert Crawford is one of the biggest noir fans on this site.

If you don't want to wade through all 114 pages skip to the last dozen or so and you'll get the idea.

Thanks; will do!

 

[Brent Reid]

I think everyone in this thread will relate to this great tweet from director J. A. Bayona: https://twitter.com/FilmBayona/status/1155780175558299648

 

[Mike Frezon]

I think everyone in this thread will relate to this great tweet from director J. A. Bayona: https://twitter.com/FilmBayona/status/1155780175558299648

It surely speaks right to the point of the essay embraced by RAF (in the OP)!

Thanks, Brent!

 

[Martin_Teller]

This guy makes me sick. So much money, so little taste. He's bought at least 5 copies of Alien Covenant ffs.

 

[Robert Crawford]

This guy makes me sick. So much money, so little taste. He's bought at least 5 copies of Alien Covenant ffs.

Well, he would probably think your taste in film sucks too.

 

[titch]

This guy makes me sick. So much money, so little taste. He's bought at least 5 copies of Alien Covenant ffs.

Deep down, we all wish we could have a secret room like this. Amazing.

 

[Vegas 1]

This guy makes me sick. So much money, so little taste. He's bought at least 5 copies of Alien Covenant ffs.

I only watched a few minutes of the video, what an awesome room I saw items I have never seen in stores.

 

[Carlo_M]

I like how it's shot in 60fps