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

[WestMan]

4k discs are better quality then Vudu UHD streams. I can notice The difference between Blu-ray and 4K discs. I can't notice The difference between UHD and HDX on Vudu.

[veritas]

I still think blu ray is marginally better than uhd streams. Unless they are using a different master for the encode in general blu rays lack of compression looks better to me then a uhd streams compression (+color adjustments).

[Naiera]

Than.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by Naiera

You're on Blu-ray.com. Perhaps not the best place to wage war on discs and those who love them.

Please point me to a streaming service where I can get quality that is comparable to regular Blu-ray or UHD Blu-ray. I'm not going to take you seriously if you find some ultra-premium service where it's $500 to rent a single film...

Yes, but we are in the Digital Section. As for Streaming Providers, I can access them all except for iTunes. It looks like now the Quality is going to be judged on "Disc Like." Some of you know I have a 65" Sony UHD TV Hard Wired with Structured Cat5 straight to my Fiber Feed Switch with Cable Systems Internet at 75Mbps Symmetrical.

I don't have a UHD Player, but I do have a Panasonic Blu-ray Player that I have compared my Streaming Movies. I say the best Disc Like Quality is Sony Ultra, followed by MA, Vudu HDX, and Amazon. I have also used Fandango, and YouTube with very good results. Like I have always said, Discs are just a Storage Device like Servers. So if you set up the Streaming Direct, you should get the same results.

[Naiera]

No, the bitrates on discs are simply higher than what you can get using streaming. This is just a fact. Your cute little 75Mbps connection won’t ever make a ten to 15Mbps stream look better than a Blu-ray with an average bitrate of 25 to 30Mbps.

[veritas]

Originally Posted by alchav21

Yes, but we are in the Digital Section. As for Streaming Providers, I can access them all except for iTunes. It looks like now the Quality is going to be judged on "Disc Like." Some of you know I have a 65" Sony UHD TV Hard Wired with Structured Cat5 straight to my Fiber Feed Switch with Cable Systems Internet at 75Mbps.

I don't have a UHD Player, but I do have a Panasonic Blu-ray Player that I have compared my Streaming Movies. I say the best Disc Like Quality is Sony Ultra, followed by MA, Vudu HDX, and Amazon. I have also used Fandango, and YouTube with very good results. Like I have always said, Discs are just a Storage Device like Servers. So if you set up the Streaming Direct, you should get the same results.

You always say and we always correct you.

Streaming companies cut corners to save both you and themselves bandwidth. Streaming companies so far put out an inferior product we can tell you exactly whats coming off a 4k disc at any particular instance and whats being streamed and the stream is always sending over way less data (for all the mainstream providers).

Quite simply the streamers dont provide movies at a higher quality if your internet is faster. once you are at 20-25mb/s you surpass what vudu itunes etc provide and you are limited by the provider instead of your own system. The systems performance is determined by the weakest link, even when my internet is fast it doesn't make a slow website faster because its waiting on the website.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by Naiera

No, the bitrates on discs are simply higher than what you can get using streaming. This is just a fact. Your cute little 75Mbps connection won’t ever make a ten to 15Mbps stream look better than a Blu-ray with an average bitrate of 25 to 30Mbps.

Bitrates have been going up, especially with the 4K Streaming Providers with the minimums at 25Mbps, but now with many Subscribers having Gigabit connections I'm sure the Bitrates have followed. I can't tell the difference between Blu-ray and Streaming HD. There are many Threads where people feel the same way, and 4K Streaming is all they talk about!

[brentsg]

Originally Posted by alchav21

Some of you know I have a 65" Sony UHD TV Hard Wired with Structured Cat5 straight to my Fiber Feed Switch with Cable Systems Internet at 75Mbps Symmetrical.

Funny with all your talk that your download speed is about 1/3 that of my cable ISP. You can be as proud of that "symmetrical" as you want, it doesn't help at all with streaming.

Originally Posted by alchav21

Bitrates have been going up, especially with the 4K Streaming Providers with the minimums at 25Mbps, but now with many Subscribers having Gigabit connections I'm sure the Bitrates have followed. I can't tell the difference between Blu-ray and Streaming HD. There are many Threads where people feel the same way, and 4K Streaming is all they talk about!

You can speculate all you want, facts are facts. Streaming bitrates are nowhere near that of UHD disks. The good news for everyone is that they can finally match the old Blu-ray disks in some cases.

[supaet]

what about 4k stream with DV vs 4k bd with HDR10?

my current setup is 4k dolby vision iTunes for video and dolby atmos/dts x from blu-ray for audio

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by supaet

what about 4k stream with DV vs 4k bd with HDR10

The one on the disc with the higher bitrate.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by alchav21

Bitrates have been going up, especially with the 4K Streaming Providers with the minimums at 25Mbps ...

NO ONE is streaming movies at 25Mbps.

Streaming is eating away at disc market shares and streaming service providers have no reason to increase bitrates without making a huge deal out of it.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by brentsg

The good news for everyone is that they can finally match the old Blu-ray disks in some cases.

Which streaming services are you referring to?

[Zu Nim]

Originally Posted by Naiera

NO ONE is streaming movies at 25Mbps.

Streaming is eating away at disc market shares and streaming service providers have no reason to increase bitrates without making a huge deal out of it.

That's incorrect. I have watched several iTunes 4K movies that stream at around 25Mbps. Trust me, I was surprised given that iTunes was an average 4-5Mbps with HD compared to Vudu's 9Mbps HDX. Vudu's UHD is 15Mbps, Fandango's seems a bit higher, and iTunes seems to be well beyond both. (And the reason streaming will keep getting better is because of the competition. The same reason your local ISP doesn't get better - lack of competition.)

Before posting I actually watched 15 minutes of Rough Night () on iTunes UHD. It averaged 28Mbps. The bitrate for video on that 4K Blu-ray seems to be 54Mbps, not quite double. The 4K Blu-ray should look better but not so much better. Certainly not enough that I'd trade the convenience of the Apple TV, but I understand why some might feel differently.

[brentsg]

Originally Posted by Naiera

Which streaming services are you referring to?

I don't remember specifically but it was likely iTunes. I had developer mode activated while I was playing with the new Apple TV and comparing the services.

If I have time tomorrow I'll load it up.

[Naiera]

UHD streaming at high bitrates really SHOULD compare favourably to regular Blu-ray, of course

[Zu Nim]

Originally Posted by Naiera

UHD streaming at high bitrates really SHOULD compare favourably to regular Blu-ray, of course

And it does! The Rough Night Blu-ray is 24Mbps AVC-encoded. Assume that HEVC is 40% more efficient than AVC and let's say HEVC is the equivalent of 1.67x AVC or AVCe. Blu-ray's 24Mbps AVC < iTunes UHD's 40Mbps AVCe < 4K Blu-ray's 90Mbps AVCe. Doubling the bitrate doesn't double the perceived picture quality but there should be an improvement at each of those points.

So to answer the OP's question, assuming you have good internet service, 4K Blu-ray video is better than 4K streaming but the difference probably won't blow you away. Audio is another matter but most people don't have killer audio setups. They're lucky if they have a sound bar. But if audio is a big thing for you then streaming might not be.

[Naiera]

It’s difficult to compare these bitrates though. UHD is four times the pixels plus deep colour and HDR. I read that HDR alone takes up an additional 25% of space. I don’t understand why they settled for 100GB as the biggest UHD Blu-ray Disc.

[Zu Nim]

I agree, but it's the best I can do with the back of an envelope. I think the takeaway is that UHD streaming may not be as bad as you assume, that's all. It's certainly different than when Blu-rays had 25Mbps AVC and Fandango had 2.5Mbps AVC or iTunes had 4Mbps. And I'm guessing that 5 years from now those streaming bitrates will be even higher.

[Naiera]

Hey, the point here is that the guy from Utah thinks that streaming improves because his bandwidth does

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by Naiera

Hey, the point here is that the guy from Utah thinks that streaming improves because his bandwidth does

No, the Guy from Utah knows what he sees, and the facts back him up. I was Streaming from Servers decades ago when I would back-up my Blu-rays and DVD's. So I knew that Streaming from a Server could produce Disc Quality under the right conditions. So the Quality doesn't improve with Bandwidth unless the Provider takes this into account. My contention is that Providers will have Variable Bitrates according to Bandwidth. If your Bandwidth is low you will have less Quality than someone with Higher Bandwidth.