Physical & Digital EST: The Future of Home Video Discussion Thread

[NightMovie901]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

Not sure why pro streamers continue to use the success of SVOD to make streaming look like it has some big advantage over physical media sales. SVOD is just another form of pay TV and as such represents a fairly small revenue amount when compared to traditional pay TV.

Physical sales ≠ SVOD
Physical sales = EST
SVOD = Pay TV

Currently physical sales is almost double that of EST. One would think with 230 million connected devices in the US that EST would be doing much better than it is.

Last I heard Hulu was still losing money, anyone heard different?

You guys have convinced me that 4K physical with digital copy is the way to go.

However, the cost equation on that is pretty poor at the moment which is why I have acquired around 160 digital movies in a short period of time and 0 physical.

I still want to start adding some physical but when I can buy a 4K digital movie for $4.99 and they still want $29.99 for the 4K Blu-ray it makes it tough.

[PenguinInfinity]

Originally Posted by Vilya

It is also my understanding that Netflix's disc selection includes many titles that are unavailable on their streaming service, which is good because I find that their streaming selection, while very large, is also very mediocre for the most part.

That's true. Last I heard Netflix's streaming service has around 3,000 titles and that number is dropping as the studios pull their titles off Netflix to put on their own streaming services. Netflix's disc rental service has around 90,000 titles and they constantly add more.

For the vast majority of titles disc rentals continue to be the absolute cheapest way to watch them.

[recS-12]

Originally Posted by NightMovie901

You guys have convinced me that 4K physical with digital copy is the way to go.

However, the cost equation on that is pretty poor at the moment which is why I have acquired around 160 digital movies in a short period of time and 0 physical.

I still want to start adding some physical but when I can buy a 4K digital movie for $4.99 and they still want $29.99 for the 4K Blu-ray it makes it tough.

Walmart has an entire rack of $14.96 UHD+Digital. Approximately 20 titles or so. Although I own none of those titles, it may be worth you looking into if your serious about adding physical.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by NightMovie901

You guys have convinced me that 4K physical with digital copy is the way to go.

However, the cost equation on that is pretty poor at the moment which is why I have acquired around 160 digital movies in a short period of time and 0 physical.

I still want to start adding some physical but when I can buy a 4K digital movie for $4.99 and they still want $29.99 for the 4K Blu-ray it makes it tough.

I rarely pay $29.99 for a 4K blu-ray. They go on sale like everything else. Check the Deals heading at the top of the page and look at "4K Blu-ray"; you will sometimes find 4K discs as low as $10, some at $15, many at $20-$25.

There are 38 titles listed at or under $20 right now with 17 at or under $15.

https://www.blu-ray.com/deals/?sortb...egory=4kbluray

[RefractiveIndex]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

Last I heard Hulu was still losing money, anyone heard different?

Disney lost $580 million from Hulu last year. In fact, according to the linked article, Disney combined streaming losses totaled $1 billion last year.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/18/disn...n-started.html

Have to laugh when people suggest Disney will stop releasing physical media in the next few years, or the even more absurd idea they will skip cinema as well in favour of subscription service exclusive as Netflix does it. Even when Disney+ goes live, Disney will have to pour billions more into exclusive TV series to attract subscribers. It isn't going to be an easy time for anyone in the streaming business. I have a feeling a reason the big traditional studios are getting into the subscription game is more about choking the growth potential of the new kids on the block(Netflix, Amazon, iTunes etc...) rather than profiting directly from streaming.

[4K fanatic]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

Anyone notice how streamers rarely mention terms like DCI-P3, Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+, HLG, MaxCLL, MaxFALL or Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Atmos, DTS Master Audio and DTS:X

It appears they will never learn why some of us will not settle for less. I know some streaming titles have Dolby Vision but does anyone know how these titles were graded if the title was not mastered for UHD Blu-ray? As in a human colorist or done on an AI computer.

I know most streaming titles with Dolby Digital + has a bit rate of 192 Kbps with Dolby Atmos titles somewhat higher. On Blu-ray and UHD Blu-ray it is quite common to see the audio running 5 Mbps with peaks hitting 10 to 15 Mbps.

Someone recently posted that the Apple TV 4K does not pass MaxCLL and MaxFALL for their UHD streams and it dorks with the audio on titles with Dolby Atmos.

All the 4K Itunes movies indicate if they are 4K & if they are in HDR or Dolby Vision color. What happened to the trading forum because I’d like to trade my entire collection of 1080p Blu-rays and the few UHD Blu-ray movies I have. Maybe there’s a marginal difference when you sit 5-6 feet away from a 65’’ or bigger 4K tv but I sit about 15 feet away. I’d like to list and sell my collection, so if there’s a thread still, I’ll list what I have and see if I can get some cash via Paypal. Thanks for help.

Also, there are some tasty gourmet burger places out there but good ole’ McDonalds is tge one whi sells more than a billion burgers worldwide.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by 4K fanatic

All the 4K Itunes movies indicate if they are 4K & if they are in HDR or Dolby Vision color. What happened to the trading forum because I’d like to trade my entire collection of 1080p Blu-rays and the few UHD Blu-ray movies I have. Maybe there’s a marginal difference when you sit 5-6 feet away from a 65’’ or bigger 4K tv but I sit about 15 feet away. I’d like to list and sell my collection, so if there’s a thread still, I’ll list what I have and see if I can get some cash via Paypal. Thanks for help.

Also, there are some tasty gourmet burger places out there but good ole’ McDonalds is tge one whi sells more than a billion burgers worldwide.

No one here gives a flying f*** in a rolling donut hole about who sells the most garbage burgers. No one who prizes quality seeks the cheapest nor do they care about what most people choose. Seeing as you reference people's love for bargain burgers, most people in this country are overweight and more than a third are outright obese; is that something desirable? Junk food, a fat arse, and a coronary?

Enthusiasts care about real ownership and the best quality. If you can't see that quality improvement, can't hear it, don't appreciate it, and choose instead to place blind trust in digital content providers to preserve your purchases (without ever having even read their terms of service) and are also oblivious to their history of editing and deleting content then, well, bon appetit. Enjoy the illusion of owning your purchases and try not to choke on your subpar streaming Happy Meal.

If your fickle self ever gets fed up with your digital collection, just how do you think you'll sell that shyte? You can't because it has zero resell value. You can't even give that crap away.

You have internet access and you can do your own research on how to best sell off your stuff. Are you truly that helpless or are you just too lazy? You should offer a fee or a commission for such assistance when you can easily do this work yourself. Cheapskates always wanting something of value for free. All you get for free here is my late night Was it as good for you as it was for me?

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by 4K fanatic

All the 4K Itunes movies indicate if they are 4K & if they are in HDR or Dolby Vision color. What happened to the trading forum because I’d like to trade my entire collection of 1080p Blu-rays and the few UHD Blu-ray movies I have. Maybe there’s a marginal difference when you sit 5-6 feet away from a 65’’ or bigger 4K tv but I sit about 15 feet away. I’d like to list and sell my collection, so if there’s a thread still, I’ll list what I have and see if I can get some cash via Paypal. Thanks for help.

Also, there are some tasty gourmet burger places out there but good ole’ McDonalds is tge one whi sells more than a billion burgers worldwide.

What will you do if Disney pull all 4K Fox and Disney titles from the store? A very real possibility. That’s quite a chunk of content in current 4K and future 4K.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Vilya

No one here gives a flying f*** in a rolling donut hole about who sells the most garbage burgers. No one who prizes quality seeks the cheapest nor do they care about what most people choose. Seeing as you reference people's love for bargain burgers, most people in this country are overweight and more than a third are outright obese; is that something desirable? Junk food, a fat arse, and a coronary?

Enthusiasts care about real ownership and the best quality. If you can't see that quality improvement, can't hear it, don't appreciate it, and choose instead to place blind trust in digital content providers to preserve your purchases (without ever having even read their terms of service) and are also oblivious to their history of editing and deleting content then, well, bon appetit. Enjoy the illusion of owning your purchases and try not to choke on your subpar streaming Happy Meal.

If your fickle self ever gets fed up with your digital collection, just how do you think you'll sell that shyte? You can't because it has zero resell value. You can't even give that crap away.

You have internet access and you can do your own research on how to best sell off your stuff. Are you truly that helpless or are you just too lazy? You should offer a fee or a commission for such assistance when you can easily do this work yourself. Cheapskates always wanting something of value for free. All you get for free here is my late night Was it as good for you as it was for me?

^this 100%

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

Not sure why pro streamers continue to use the success of SVOD to make streaming look like it has some big advantage over physical media sales. SVOD is just another form of pay TV and as such represents a fairly small revenue amount when compared to traditional pay TV.

Physical sales ≠ SVOD
Physical sales = EST
SVOD = Pay TV

Currently physical sales is almost double that of EST. One would think with 230 million connected devices in the US that EST would be doing much better than it is.

Last I heard Hulu was still losing money, anyone heard different?

We all know the industry would be singing it from the rooftops if it was doing well. Instead, we see everyone in the industry migrating to subscription.

Meanwhile, I buy new releases and obscure cult/classic films thought long lost or forgotten. Some fantastic Blu-Ray titles available. No fuss, just great picture and audio. Thank goodness for the spiinning disc.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I'm glad that you had a good day, but I think that I instructed you to have a great time. You'll just have to try again until you get it right.

Well,I had a GREAT time in London. How is that? I had to work on my birthday so it was only good.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by 4K fanatic

All the 4K Itunes movies indicate if they are 4K & if they are in HDR or Dolby Vision color.

I take it you have the Apple TV 4K, if so, care to address some of the comments by other owners as posted on AVS:

The inability to bitstream Atmos/DTS:X from rips is the major shortcoming of the Apple TV 4K.

Does not pass MaxCLL and MaxFALL to TV.

I have an AppleTV4K, but there is a lot not to like for that player - no 24p native support (only 23.976 leading to dropped frame every 42s with affected 24p content) and also all HDR10 is converted from DV for Netflix, with stupid metadata that changes instead of being static per title.

The Nvidia Shield however does not support Atmos in Netflix. The Nvidia Shield also can't do Dolby Vision, whereas the Apple TV 4K supports DV from streaming services like Netflix and Vudu. I don't think either of these devices will support full Blu-ray menus if you need that.

BTW, my Oppo-203 will convert HDR10 to Dolby Vision. Not sure if it will convert HDR10 to HDR10+, will look into it sometime in the future.

As to the rest of your lame post, well Vilya took care of that .

[Wendell R. Breland]

For those that like info on bit-rate vs quality may like to read some of the latest comments from the folks at x265 here.

Stacey Spears commented the upcoming Spears & Munsil UHD Blu-ray test disc will be encoded using x265 with bit rates in the 80 to 90 Mbps range.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

For those that like info on bit-rate vs quality may like to read some of the latest comments from the folks at x265 here.

Stacey Spears commented the upcoming Spears & Munsil UHD Blu-ray test disc will be encoded using x265 with bit rates in the 80 to 90 Mbps range.

I am interested in getting that Spears & Munsil UHD Blu-ray test disc once it is available. It'll probably be a bit pricey, but quality products are worth it. A fact lost on some around these parts.

I can't wait to have the limitations of my TV fully exposed! Hopefully, it will help me to get the most out of what I have until I can do better.

[avs commenter]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

I take it you have the Apple TV 4K, if so, care to address some of the comments by other owners as posted on AVS:



BTW, my Oppo-203 will convert HDR10 to Dolby Vision. Not sure if it will convert HDR10 to HDR10+, will look into it sometime in the future.

As to the rest of your lame post, well Vilya took care of that .

Aren't you using a projector with your Oppo though? So you're not even really getting true HDR. I don't see how that's any better than a 4K HDR stream on an LCD screen.

[NightMovie901]

Originally Posted by recS-12

Walmart has an entire rack of $14.96 UHD+Digital. Approximately 20 titles or so. Although I own none of those titles, it may be worth you looking into if your serious about adding physical.

Yes, but most of the time the "cheap" 4K discs are crappy movies.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by NightMovie901

Yes, but most of the time the "cheap" 4K discs are crappy movies.

Define "crappy." It sounds like you are just making an excuse for not even trying to find any bargains.

I have found that pretty much all 4K titles go on sale. Again, check here often as listings change frequently:

https://www.blu-ray.com/deals/?sortb...egory=4kbluray

Check the weekly sales ads from your preferred retailer for even more sales opportunities; the above link primarily shows what Amazon is offering. Most retailers will price match Amazon, also, if the item is sold by Amazon, not third party sellers, and if it is in stock.

Seek and ye shall find. As someone who buys discs very often, I know I can find a good deal with minimal effort. I have three 4K titles arriving today; one cost me $14.96, one cost me $19.99, and one cost me $24.99. They include the 4K disc, the blu-ray disc, and the digital code.

They were all less than the $29.99 price that you mistakenly imply is the average that one has to pay for these 4K combo packs. I checked my order history for the last six months and I found that I only paid $29.99+ twice. Just two times in half a year of ordering. Most were $19.99 and some were just $14.96.

[dublinbluray108]

For those of you talking about the removal of Michael Jackson from The Simpsons digital copies and possibly future physical releases.

WB have now apparently beginning to remove R Kelly's music video 'Gotham City' from their upcoming UHD Blu-ray release of Batman & Robin which is due for release in the summer. I had a look at the UHD back cover of the movie an hour ago on it's own thread. It say it has 3 music videos included on the UHD release. On the Special Edition DVD & original Blu-ray master of the movie; they all have 4 videos included. R Kelly's music video is one of the video's presumably not going to be included in the upcoming UHD release of Batman & Robin this time round. This is probably going to be more controversial from WB because R Kelly himself is still alive & he should be able to defend himself in court as a result of his apparent allegations going from the recently released documentary on him. All I'm saying here is that if R Kelly is found completely innocent of his crimes in court when it get's to it's eventual verdict. WB could find themselves in hot water with fans for removing his music video if it wasn't taken lightly from the UHD Blu-ray of Batman & Robin.

Does anyone else agree with what I'm saying here?

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by dublinbluray108

For those of you talking about the removal of Michael Jackson from The Simpsons digital copies and possibly future physical releases.

WB have now apparently beginning to remove R Kelly's music video 'Gotham City' from their upcoming UHD Blu-ray release of Batman & Robin which is due for release in the summer. I had a look at the UHD back cover of the movie an hour ago on it's own thread. It say it has 3 music videos included on the UHD release. On the Special Edition DVD & original Blu-ray master of the movie; they all have 4 videos included. R Kelly's music video is one of the video's presumably not going to be included in the upcoming UHD release of Batman & Robin this time round. This is probably going to be more controversial from WB because R Kelly himself is still alive & he should be able to defend himself in court as a result of his apparent allegations going from the recently released documentary on him. All I'm saying here is that if R Kelly is found completely innocent of his crimes in court when it get's to it's eventual verdict. WB could find themselves in hot water with fans for removing his music video if it wasn't taken lightly from the UHD Blu-ray of Batman & Robin.

Does anyone else agree with what I'm saying here?

A few fans will be angry among those that even notice the possible removal of this video as an extra feature. Most won't notice and overall few will care. Extra features often vary from one edition to another; many have come to expect it. It's a Batman movie on UHD and that will be all that matters to most fans of this franchise.

Most likely WB cares about public perception, not court case outcomes. If R. Kelly prevails in court his image may still be tarnished. O.J.'s acquittal in his murder trial did little to nothing to help his image. The court of public opinion is another matter entirely.

It could also be a coincidence; maybe R. Kelly wants too much money to include his video this time around?

Still, all of this highlights why I value physical media and why I now hang onto previous editions of my movies. Nothing can be removed from earlier releases and they also serve as a back-up copy.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by avs commenter

Aren't you using a projector with your Oppo though? So you're not even really getting true HDR. I don't see how that's any better than a 4K HDR stream on an LCD screen.

I only commented on that because of repeated posting of, “XYZ has more DV titles than is on UHD Blu-ray.” AFAIK, there is no such thing as a Dolby Vision projector, Dolby Vision Theaters are just calibrated and meet certain Dolby standards.

I will say this, in my 100% light controlled room there has been several instances where bright parts of the picture would be almost obnoxious, like a campfire at night. The better half has to close her eyes during the dance scene of Flash Dance that uses a strobe light.

Last but not least, most of my movies are scope films, as in ≈ 2.39:1, so I have a 133" scope screen so I can see as intended. Below is how I see my scope titles compared to a 65" panel displaying a scope title. The ratio is correct.

Before I am called an elitist look back several post where I described how I got to this point.

[Show spoiler]