Top 10 Reasons Blu-Ray Sucks

[kylor]

I bet that title grabbed some attention!

But seriously, I came across this video (which albeit is quite old now, from February 2020) :

Top 10 Reasons Blu-ray Sucks - Cinemassacre - YouTube

I happened to come across it today and gave it a watch; as someone who watches blu-ray films, I was interested as to what would be discussed.

You can watch it for yourself if you like, otherwise I will briefly bring up each of the 10 reasons myself here.

Reason 10: Lack of creativity in blu-ray menus compared to DVD menus.

Reason 9: Bonus features being much more and prominent in DVDs than blu-rays, in some cases requiring someone to keep both a DVD and blu-ray copy of the same movie.

Reason 8: Oversized cases, being unable to neatly store/shelve the movie with the rest of your collection.

Reason 7: Disc holders/sleeves, causing you to inadvertently smudge the underside of a disc, requiring extra cleaning of a disc, compared to DVD cases where you could just press the center and not mark the disc with fingerprints. In other blu-ray cases the discs are attached to pegs that can get stuck and require you to bend the disc to get the disc out.

Reason 6: Reconfiguring buttons; based on the experience of the person giving the reason, playing a blu-ray disc can cause you to have to use different buttons on your controller than you would do regularly.

Reason 5: Software updates, having to renew the encryption key of a blu-ray.

Reason 4: Blu-ray is owned by Sony, which could cause complications with bringing new or even older content to Blu-ray, in some cases there are films that still haven't made their way to blu-ray.

Reason 3: The name. Blu-Ray is a dumb name, in the subjective opinion of the person listing these reasons.

Reason 2: Bookmarking. On DVD's you could stop the movie at any point and continue where you left off. With blu-rays, most of the time you can't do this. Bookmarking doesn't always work to save the point where you left off, and when you do set a bookmark, it's hard to retrieve. Introducing a more complicated system than simply working like a regular DVD.

Reason 1: Commercials and trailers. Most if not all formats have these, but with blu-ray there's way too many and for the most part can't be skipped. Streaming does not have this; you can click a movie and it just plays, no nonsense.

The video explains these points smuch better than I. And I happen to agree with quite a few reasons regarding the Blu-ray format; I think some good points were definitely raised.

Which of these reasons to you agree/disagree with regarding blu-rays? What are your overall thoughts on this?

[mwynn]

Reason 5: Software updates, having to renew the encryption key of a blu-ray.


Why does this never come up when people try to downplay streaming over physical?

[Warm Gun]

Reason 10: Lack of creativity in blu-ray menus compared to DVD menus.

Good. So many DVDs menus were awful. It's like every designer decided every navigation should be a cumbersome roller coaster video game sequence. Always a CG animation that takes too long to get you where you need to go. The CG was always really bad too.

Reason 3: The name. Blu-Ray is a dumb name, in the subjective opinion of the person listing these reasons.

This I agree with. There's a reason so many people still call them DVDs. Most people don't even know what the blue ray is. DVD is simple without even understanding the abbreviation.

[StarWarsIsAwesome123]

This thread should be in the Blu-ray movies section.

[BluBonnet]

Originally Posted by Warm Gun

Good. So many DVDs menus were awful. It's like every designer decided every navigation should be a cumbersome roller coaster video game sequence. Always a CG animation that takes too long to get you where you need to go. The CG was always really bad too.

I always hated overly complicated DVD menus that you couldn't just fast-forward to the play buttons.

[unberechenbar]

I thought Blu-ray has smaller disc holders than DVD does. I think most of my Blu-rays have an auto-resume function outside of the Paramount ones. I've only seen trailers on a handful of my discs (only on the Sony ones). I only have UHDs so maybe these are more of a problem on regular Blu-rays.

[KManX89]

Originally Posted by kylor

Reason 1: Commercials and trailers. Most if not all formtats have these, but with blu-ray there's way too many and for the most part can't be skipped. Streaming does not have this; you can click a movie and it just plays, no nonsense.

You know what streaming has that physical doesn't? Buffering. So f*cking annoying, and it happens to me quite a bit, so movies I own on Blu-Ray/4K that are available for streaming still have use for me.

[mwynn]

Originally Posted by KManX89

You know what else streaming has that physical doesn't? Buffering. So f*cking annoying, and it happens to me quite a bit, so movies I own on Blu-Ray/4K that are available for streaming still have use for me.

What is your internet speed?

[JediJones77]

I miss those cool DVD menus like Goonies and The Abyss had.

Reason 3: The name. Blu-Ray is a dumb name, in the subjective opinion of the person listing these reasons.

Absolutely true. Blu-ray would've been so much more popular if it had the HD-DVD name. They created a giant hurdle for them to get over with the average consumer with that name.

[kylor]

Originally Posted by mwynn

What is your internet speed?

Sometimes the issue may not be internet speed. IIRC people were having issues with the HBO Max App, and that's not including slow internet speeds.

[mwynn]

Originally Posted by kylor

Sometimes the issue may not be internet speed. IIRC people were having issues with the HBO Max App, and that's not including slow internet speeds.

True, yet when you are trouble shooting you start at the bottom and work your way up.

[kylor]

Originally Posted by mwynn

True, yet when you are trouble shooting you start at the bottom and work your way up.

Of course apps get updated. I've personally had no issues so far, or had much trouble with buffering at all.

[Lee A Stewart]

I watch HBO Max all the time and I have no buffering issues. On a very slow Wi-Fi. So slow I can only watch HD. No UHD even though both my TV and Roku are 4K UHD models. TV and router are in the same room about 6 feet apart. No option for a wired connection on the TV. WiFi only.

[filmbuffTX]

Originally Posted by mwynn

Reason 5: Software updates, having to renew the encryption key of a blu-ray.


Why does this never come up when people try to downplay streaming over physical?

Because it’s a non issue and not a legit downside to watching Blu-rays. I’ve watched hundreds? thousands? of Blu-rays and have never had that problem. It might have been more of an issue in the earlier years of the format.

[Lee A Stewart]

Reason 3: The name. Blu-Ray is a dumb name, in the subjective opinion of the person listing these reasons.

I don't know about dumb but it is misleading. The laser is not blue - it's violet.

Reason 4: Blu-ray is owned by Sony, which could cause complications with bringing new or even older content to Blu-ray, in some cases there are films that still haven't made their way to blu-ray.

Well that's false. Sony is one of many patent holders like Panasonic and Philips.

[Cremildo]

Most of the so-called "reasons" are so petty as to border on childish. Like, software updates? Reconfiguring buttons? Never had to do that. Disc holders? How's that a problem with the format? It's about packaging.

The only one I think has any merit is the name of the product. Needlessly cumbersome and confusing for the uninitiated, and doesn't roll off the tongue easily outside of non-English-speaking countries.

[mwynn]

Originally Posted by filmbuffTX

Because it’s a non issue and not a legit downside to watching Blu-rays. I’ve watched hundreds? thousands? of Blu-rays and have never had that problem. It might have been more of an issue in the earlier years of the format.

Is your blu-ray player connected to the internet?

[filmbuffTX]

Originally Posted by mwynn

Is your blu-ray player connected to the internet?

Not currently. The only reason it isn’t is because I got a new modem/router several weeks ago and never bothered re-connecting it. I connected it before just to update the firmware, but it was working perfectly fine before that.

My previous player was always connected since I also used it as my streaming device.

[mwynn]

Originally Posted by filmbuffTX

Not currently. The only reason it isn’t is because I got a new modem/router several weeks ago and never bothered re-connecting it. I connected it before just to update the firmware, but it was working perfectly fine before that.

My previous player was always connected since I also used it as my streaming device.

Check the firmware updates for encryption updates. I did a quick search and found this thread.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=287464

And this article from Sony.

https://www.sony.ie/electronics/supp...loads/Z0005254

Stop running or uninstall those updates and you will more than likely run into the issue he had in the video.

[meremortal]

James is an interesting guy and sometimes he can blur the lines between himself and his AVGN character. I get the impression he's not much of an a/v guy and that's fine. He's definitely a film buff and I like what I've seen of his series where he and friends sit around talking about a particular movie; the one with Macaulay Culkin as a guest was fun. The concerns he has with blu are pretty outdated.