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

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

This is my history of gaming

(The order may be wonky like my memory)

[Show spoiler]Grandstand (pong and soccer with target shooting bonus)
Atari 2600
Sinclair Spectrum
Amstrad
Atari St
Amiga
Sega Master system
Mega drive
SNES
PlayStation
PS2
PS3
PS4
PSVR (hooray!)
Switch

And tangled in with that, regular desktop PC.

Regret that I never bought a Commodore 64.

Not much of a Nintendo fan, are you, historically, anyway?

I had a Commodore Amiga A500; boy was it expensive, but was it ever fun! I kinda wish I still had one. Your list has made me nostalgic for some of my old gaming systems, console and computer both, but there is just not enough to time to relive my childhood when my second childhood has only just begun.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Vilya

Not much of a Nintendo fan, are you, historically, anyway?

I had a Commodore Amiga A500; boy was it expensive, but was it ever fun! I kinda wish I still had one. Your list has made me nostalgic for some of my old gaming systems, console and computer both, but there is just not enough to time to relive my childhood when my second childhood has only just begun.

Loved my SNES, especially Mario and Super Tennis. I see what you mean though. Not huge on Nintendo but I like them. The Switch is quite cool.

[Vilya]

I just read in the news today that Netflix is now worth more than both Disney, by a slim margin, and Comcast. Netflix is worth $151.6 billion, Disney $151 billion, and Comcast $144 billion.

" Competition from Hulu -- the streaming service backed by Disney, Fox and CNN parent company Time Warner -- hasn't really dented Netflix's growth either. Nor has Amazon (AMZN) Prime Video.

In fact, Netflix is now worth more than every traditional media company. It had already passed Time Warner (TWX), Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox (FOXA), CBS (CBS) and Viacom (VIAB)."

http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/24/inve...lue/index.html

Netflix is to video viewing what The Golden Coral is to fine dining. Both are cheap and filling.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I just read in the news today that Netflix is now worth more than both Disney, by a slim margin, and Comcast. Netflix is worth $151.6 billion, Disney $151 billion, and Comcast $144 billion.

" Competition from Hulu -- the streaming service backed by Disney, Fox and CNN parent company Time Warner -- hasn't really dented Netflix's growth either. Nor has Amazon (AMZN) Prime Video.

In fact, Netflix is now worth more than every traditional media company. It had already passed Time Warner (TWX), Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox (FOXA), CBS (CBS) and Viacom (VIAB)."

http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/24/inve...lue/index.html

Doesn’t surprise me. Cheap and cheerful has always won the day and it always will.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I have a Steam account, too, with 169 games- 75% of them gifted to me by my software engineer friend.

My Steam name is a rather questionable parody on Bilbo and Frodo's lineage. I am their distant cousin, and kept at a distance,

[Show spoiler]Colostomy Baggins

. Shameful!, ain't it?

I respect that name.

All my PS4/Xbox names are all Groot based. I get random invites to Marvel games, haha. It always amuses me to see play of the games I happen to get and it's "Groot" eliminating people. Ahhh, the little things.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Groot

I respect that name.

All my PS4/Xbox names are all Groot based. I get random invites to Marvel games, haha. It always amuses me to see play of the games I happen to get and it's "Groot" eliminating people. Ahhh, the little things.

Is that since the films or have you always read the comics?

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Vilya

Netflix is to video viewing what The Golden Coral is to fine dining. Both are cheap and filling.

I wonder how much time fine dining aficionados spend wringing their hands about the popularity of The Olive Garden or The Golden Coral.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by octagon

I wonder how much time fine dining aficionados spend wringing their hands about the popularity of The Olive Garden or The Golden Coral.

I dunno , but I will apply for a federal research grant and try to find out for you.

Then we will conclusively know how much neck wringing , er, hand wringing is happening. We could also send out our favorite intrepid reporter to poll the staff and diners at both establishments, or, frankly, anywhere he shops, but only those places in his neighborhood.

The important thing is that somebody get paid for all of this effort, that somebody being me.

[Groot]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Is that since the films or have you always read the comics?

Films. Never knew much about GOTG until that point. I have went back and read some comics of theirs and actually read the on-going "I Am Groot" series. I became a big fan of Groot quickly with his sacrifice and little pot dancing at the end. I even made my Christmas tree that year look like him and a matching wreath, haha.

[Show spoiler]

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Groot

Films. Never knew much about GOTG until that point. I have went back and read some comics of theirs and actually read the on-going "I Am Groot" series. I became a big fan of Groot quickly with his sacrifice and little pot dancing at the end. I even made my Christmas tree that year look like him and a matching wreath, haha.

[Show spoiler]

Great that.

[octagon]

Under the heading of '& The Future of Home Video' this caught my eye today...

[Show spoiler]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

LG's HU-80K 2018 UHD/HDR laser projector will launch at Value Electronics at the end of May.

The only other Ultra attribute of this portable projector is the Ultra low price, $2,999.

I was attracted to this new laser projector at CES 2018 where LG set-up a dedicated area on the convention show floor. Video performance and brightness made this versatile portable projector catch my attention.

- 2500 peak luminance

- webOS 3.5 built-in

- UHD/HDR capable

- Up to 20,000 hrs of laser bulb life

- 3 table top/floor operational positions plus ceiling mountable

Check out our website page and .pdf spec sheet to learn more about this revolutionary break-through in technology and price.

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

Projector Central just gave LG's HU80KA 5 stars in every category and voted it the "Editor's Choice" award. Projector Central's review matches my findings of our review sample.

This is a 4K UHD/HDR laser projector that belongs in everyone home.

A list price of three grand for a 4K laser projector? Dayum.

Now, it's DLP (which is still a leetle bit of a red flag for me) and I don't know if this chipset is actually native 4K but still...dayum.

Between this and TCL offering very well reviewed 65" UHD sets for just under a grand I gotta say, the future of home video looks pretty damn good.

Hell, the present looks pretty damn good.

[Freis968]

I have approx 500 blurays but I have been buying my movies on iTunes when they go on sale for $4.99-$9.99. Sometimes I’ll buy for $14.99 if it’s something I have to see now.

I just love the immediacy of hitting the play button on my AppleTV and I’m enjoying the movie.

I still buy blurays, it’s an enjoyable habit as I’m sure you all can agree with but the majority is now digital.

I’d like to eventually convert all my discs over to digital but each time I’ve done that it’s taken about 4hrs per disc.

[dublinbluray108]

I had encountered a problem when I tried to play a digital copy of The Greatest Showman via the Google Play Movies & TV app on my Windows 10 laptop. It all began when I bought the Blu-ray with the digital copy from a store in Dublin earlier tonight. I opened the packaging when I got home and I see the digital copy slip to say I had to go to FoxRedeem.com to obtain the copy of that movie. When I entered the code; it told me to Google Play to redeem it. I went to Google Play website which navigated to the movie. That is where I discovered quite a major problem. When I tried to play The Greatest Showman & one of it's extras through the website or through it's Chrome Web store app on at least four occasions; it went through the Windows computer's blue screen of death & restarted over and over again. When I encountered this at first I was really confused. I thought that this movie with all the extras would work fine. It was my first ever movie that was redeemed & played through Google Play in my lifetime. This recurring problem also meant that when I had tried to play the movie from my numerous subsequent attempts to play it; this task of getting the Digital copy to work from one provider was a total failure.

I even read reviews from the Chrome Web store about the Google Play Movies & TV app tonight. Some of those reviews which were 5 star reviews were really positive about the experience. But most people's reviews said that they had encountered similar numerous issues with this app when they tried to play their stuff through no fault of their own. All of it's issues they say belonged to Google. It's an utter joke that Google of all people have to continue with not providing critical support to this app when people need it to play their collection offline. Some of these people were looking to play it from a flight they had booked on a plane & what they got in return from Google after going through all that effort amounted to nothing.

One thing is for sure though; I'm glad I bought the Blu-ray of this movie so I watch at home in peace on my TV & Blu-ray player and don't ever need to face the prospect of being interrupted with that lack of support nonsense from the internet.

It really is a strange one though to be honest. When I downloaded the Play Music app last month from the same place where I installed the Play Movies & TV app; the music app works perfectly fine in my Chrome browser with no issues whatsoever when I play my small purchased mp3 collection.

And there are people in today's world, some of those people do post in this thread of all places, who say to us wholeheartedly that we should be playing our collections completely on digital servers for the rest of our lives? I don't get why you need to spread that message to people like me at all. When I encounter problems with other providers in the future; I would really be very underwhelmed & quite wary with the amount of positive attention this digital stuff is getting from people who prefer it to keep them happy. More power to them I'd say but it is not my future in watching my whole collection.

[Vilya]

^ What a headache! I'm sorry you had to go through all of that.

I'm glad you had the blu-ray disc, though. They are reliable and simple to play right out of the case.

[flyry]

Sounds like a system issue. And your choice to choose Google Play Movies as your player is a bit baffling as well.

Sign up for movies anywhere and watch it on a better provider. And not on a freaking PC

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by flyry

Sounds like a system issue. And your choice to choose Google Play Movies as your player is a bit baffling as well.

Sign up for movies anywhere and watch it on a better provider. And not on a freaking PC

I know you could be more helpful than that.

If you are going to tell someone to get a "better provider" then offer them a recommendation. Is it that hard to offer some concrete advice?

And isn't one of the wonderful advantages of digital supposed to be the ability to play your movies on all of your devices, including *gasp* a "freaking" pc?

A lot of people own those "freaking" pcs and they probably would like to be able to watch their "Movies Anywhere" movies on them.

Watching movies should be a simple task. It is with disc and it is even easy with subscription streaming, but these digital multi-provider partnerships cause loads of headaches for lots of people. New and continuing problems are reported here daily across many threads and from many forum members- the stories of the terrible customer service they receive are quite alarming, also . "Keep it simple, stupid" needs to apply to all of these methods of watching content.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by dublinbluray108

I had encountered a problem when I tried to play a digital copy of The Greatest Showman via the Google Play Movies & TV app on my Windows 10 laptop.

And there are people in today's world, some of those people do post in this thread of all places, who say to us wholeheartedly that we should be playing our collections completely on digital servers for the rest of our lives? I don't get why you need to spread that message to people like me at all. When I encounter problems with other providers in the future; I would really be very underwhelmed & quite wary with the amount of positive attention this digital stuff is getting from people who prefer it to keep them happy. More power to them I'd say but it is not my future in watching my whole collection.

I guess you are talking about me, when I say Movies are going to Servers. Sorry to hear about your problems, but I haven't used Google Play or view Movies on my computer. All my Movie watching is to my Sony UHD TV, and last night I watched Annihilation on Vudu. A very good Movie with lots of colors and graphics, and dark scenes that looked fantastic. No degradation, because I had a Solid Bitstream over my Wired connection. For a Laptop you have to go Wireless, but to your Home Theater I say Wired for Quality Streaming, Wireless is for convenience and good enough Video. Granted you need a good ISP that will give you Solid Constant Bandwidth over Stable Facilities.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by alchav21

I guess you are talking about me, when I say Movies are going to Servers. Sorry to hear about your problems, but I haven't used Google Play or view Movies on my computer. All my Movie watching is to my Sony UHD TV, and last night I watched Annihilation on Vudu. A very good Movie with lots of colors and graphics, and dark scenes that looked fantastic. No degradation, because I had a Solid Bitstream over my Wired connection. For a Laptop you have to go Wireless, but to your Home Theater I say Wired for Quality Streaming, Wireless is for convenience and good enough Video. Granted you need a good ISP that will give you Solid Constant Bandwidth over Stable Facilities.

Digital and streaming are both for "convenience and good enough video."

You do not need to have a wired connection to watch digital or subscription streaming content; wireless networks are perfectly capable of performing this function- it is why most of us have and use them. Our experiences with wireless home networks validate our decision to use them. I, and others, have been over this with you in great detail, but you almost never learn anything.

The credit for your successful viewing of Annihilation belongs to your ISP and to your content provider, nothing more. A wireless network would have delivered the same results.

I even asked the software engineer and CIO that I know and he confirms that a wireless network is more than sufficient for 4K streaming, both in quality and in stability. He uses a wireless network in his own home for this purpose among others. I'll take his advice over yours anytime.

[flyry]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I know you could be more helpful than that.

If you are going to tell someone to get a "better provider" then offer them a recommendation. Is it that hard to offer some concrete advice?

And isn't one of the wonderful advantages of digital supposed to be the ability to play your movies on all of your devices, including *gasp* a "freaking" pc?

A lot of people own those "freaking" pcs and they probably would like being able to watch their "Movies Anywhere" movies on them.

Watching movies should be a simple task. It is with disc and it is even easy with subscription streaming, but these digital multi-provider partnerships cause loads of headaches for lots of people. New and continuing problems are reported here daily across many threads and from many forum members- the stories of the terrible customer service they receive are quite alarming, also . "Keep it simple, stupid" needs to apply to all of these methods of watching content.

I have very limited experience with google play ( i think I watched a free rental on there once via roku and had no issues), but if he's getting the blue screen of death it's most likely his pc and not GPM. I'd probably recommend literarlly every other provider that's part of Movies Anywhere over GPM. (and even Movies anywhere's app or website itself

I'm also against watching movies on a computer in this day and age of smart tv's and STB and portable sticks though.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by flyry

I have very limited experience with google play ( i think I watched a free rental on there once via roku and had no issues), but if he's getting the blue screen of death it's most likely his pc and not GPM. I'd probably recommend literarlly every other provider that's part of Movies Anywhere over GPM. (and even Movies anywhere's app or website itself

I'm also against watching movies on a computer in this day and age of smart tv's and STB and portable sticks though.

See? That was easy. You recommend any Movies Anywhere partner other than Google Play and the Movies Anywhere app/ website itself. Good to know as I had randomly selected Google Play myself just because I own an Android phone and tablet. I still need to watch that free copy of Ghostbusters 2016 that they gave me for signing up and thus test this Movies Anywhere multi-provider partnership.

But I have to ask: if you have had little experience with Google Play and if what experience you did have resulted in "no issues", why do you not recommend them? What is wrong with Google Play? I am curious as to why you don't like them.

I don't like watching movies on computer monitors, either, and certainly not on tiny little portable device screens. Yuk! But many people travel far more than I do and they want to be able to watch their movies on whatever they have with them and wherever they are at a given moment. That is, after all, one of the biggest selling points that Movies Anywhere touts in its advertising.