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

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by JohnAV

Its a weak argument. The amount of time you are down is minuscule compared to uptime. I think you just need to realize that any utility can fail. Natural Gas, Water, Sewer, Garbage pickup, Internet, Cell service and so on. Plan on alternatives when something happens not think of the worse. Even if you have a streaming outage (host, ISP, network), it's not broadcast, you can go right back to what you were watching when it failed, afterwards. Worry about your power going out and your fridge more and what you can eat to stay alive!

Internet outages here can last for several hours and some have lasted for days. Internet reliability varies greatly from one market to another; urban dwellers like you too often assume that everyone has the same quality network; we don't. Repair crews here have to cover large geographic areas to restore service to everyone.

Yes, those other services can go down, too, but they seldom do compared with the frequency that my ISP does. Personally, I have never had garbage pick-up fail.

I always have alternatives. I have my mobile internet for all online activities besides streaming. I have portable battery powered devices with disc drives. Some of my neighbors have their own power generators; I may get one myself being that I live on the borders of Tornado Alley. I have the ability to purify contaminated water. I have non-perishable foods and a camping stove. Here in the boonies we can even burn our own trash should we have to do so; we can even relieve ourselves in the great outdoors if we must.

[JohnAV]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I have never had garbage pick-up fail.

The actual garbage trucks break down, same with street cleaners. While not as frequent as brief internet service disruptions, stuff happens.

[Lee A Stewart]

Originally Posted by mdo7

You never have had a love-hate relationship, have you?

Absolutely! My ex-wife. First I loved her with all my heart. Then I hated her ****in' guts.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by JohnAV

The actual garbage trucks break down, same with street cleaners. I had some instances. While not as frequent as brief internet service disruptions.

As I said, we can burn our own trash here if we need to and a lot of us have trucks capable of hauling our own garbage to the landfill if we wanna be more eco-friendly. We don't have or need street cleaners because we don't litter our streets like you see in cities; we know where to throw away our trash.

Nothing "brief" about an internet outage that lasts for days. We don't all live in cities; is that so hard to understand? Repairs here often take a lot of time and require that a lot of ground be covered. Rural areas have fewer crews tasked with covering vast territories.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by JohnAV

One should be more concerned in the winter with power going dead in a house!

Why, cause in California you guys can't light a fire without burning the whole damn state down?

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by JohnAV

Its a weak argument.

The amount of time you are down is minuscule compared to uptime. I think you just need to realize that any utility can fail. Natural Gas, Water, Sewer, Garbage pickup, Internet, Cell service and so on.

Plan on alternatives when something happens not think of the worse. Even if you have a streaming outage (host, ISP, network), it's not broadcast, you can go right back to what you were watching when it failed, afterwards.

One should be more concerned in the winter with power going dead in a house!

Try telling that to PlayStation fans. We got locked out of online gaming for the best part of a month a few years ago.

[Vilya]

It's time to watch a blu-ray; I think Unbroken will be my Atmos choice this time. I don't care what happens with my ISP tonight because my entertainment doesn't depend upon it. Have fun however you choose to amuse yourselves this evening.

[Vilya]

Internet service slowdowns and over taxed servers are another far more frequent aggravation with internet dependence for one's entertainment. I'm sure glad that it is a problem that I can easily avoid with my physical media collection.

[gotmule]

Originally Posted by Vilya

It's time to watch a blu-ray; I think Unbroken will be my Atmos choice this time. I don't care what happens with my ISP tonight because my entertainment doesn't depend upon it. Have fun however you choose to amuse yourselves this evening.

Unbroken was the first movie I watched after installing Atmos back in the day. The opening bombing run is still something I demo to visitors. Pretty good movie too.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by Vilya

Internet service slowdowns and over taxed servers are another far more frequent aggravation with internet dependence for one's entertainment. I'm sure glad that it is a problem that I can easily avoid with my physical media collection.

Enjoy your Movie, I hope your Power doesn't go down and your Player and Disc keep working. From what I have read from Postings, Players and Discs are starting to have some problems. Now the Power is fairly consistent, but like Internet if it comes in on Poles weather and wind can have a big impact...Underground Utilities are the only way to go!

Oh, I got my first Covid shot with no problems......I'm half way there, let's beat this Pandemic!

[Dollar Colonel]

I've had seemingly more power outages within the past year. In all those instances I couldn't watch my discs even if I wanted to, unless I wanted to tax my portable generator which was already powering a sump pump, a heater, and maybe the fridge. Not to mention it usually happened in the middle of the night with a UPS alarm alerting me to the outage. Luckily the utility company is fairly good about restoring power the same day.

My dream is to one day build an off-grid cabin with solar power and all the time to catch up on my book and movie backlog. Folks here need to chill---there's a difference between discussing the future of home media and attacking collectors. You'd think this thread would be the one place on their entire forum that would understand that.

Since we're talking about the future of media---do you think studios will invest in VR? Specifically, feature length narrative experiences. It's still a format I've yet to explore.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by alchav21

Enjoy your Movie, I hope your Power doesn't go down and your Player and Disc keep working. From what I have read from Postings, Players and Discs are starting to have some problems. Now the Power is fairly consistent, but like Internet if it comes in on Poles weather and wind can have a big impact...Underground Utilities are the only way to go!

Oh, I got my first Covid shot with no problems......I'm half way there, let's beat this Pandemic!

If my ISP was as reliable as my power I would have one less thing to beech about.

People come to forums looking for solutions when they have a problem, and/or to vent their frustration, so of course you will read about such things here. Did you expect people to post that their players and discs were working properly on a daily basis? Similarly, people post when they have streaming issues and problems with digital copies; they don't post when everything is working as it should. People discussing their problems does not necessarily mean that there are widespread issues; someone somewhere just needs help with something.

Do my frequent ISP problems mean that most people have such troubles? Of course not. Do you expect daily reports from me when my ISP is performing well?

I watched a blu-ray tonight. The disc and my oppo 203 worked fine. So did my AVR, speakers, TV, power utility, furnace, ice maker, microwave, and even my ISP. Are these the riveting reports that you want to read here every day to get a feeling for how many of us have working discs and players?

Congratulations on getting your first vaccine shot; make sure to get the second one on time.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Dollar Colonel

I've had seemingly more power outages within the past year. In all those instances I couldn't watch my discs even if I wanted to, unless I wanted to tax my portable generator which was already powering a sump pump, a heater, and maybe the fridge. Not to mention it usually happened in the middle of the night with a UPS alarm alerting me to the outage. Luckily the utility company is fairly good about restoring power the same day.

My dream is to one day build an off-grid cabin with solar power and all the time to catch up on my book and movie backlog. Folks here need to chill---there's a difference between discussing the future of home media and attacking collectors. You'd think this thread would be the one place on their entire forum that would understand that.

Since we're talking about the future of media---do you think studios will invest in VR? Specifically, feature length narrative experiences. It's still a format I've yet to explore.

I’m a early adopter of VR (this is my fifth year) and it needs a resolution boost first. I can ignore that with games because the immersion is so engulfing. However, with 360% 3D films, it needs to be either true 1080p per eye or better. I think 8K will do a lot for the format. My favourite 360% experience so far is a short named ‘Allumette’. It’s a animated work that plays out on a floating village with a 3D bridge edging towards the viewer, clouds all around and a crowd of people hundreds of feet below. The character animation is charming and as a first VR experience, it knocked my socks off. A full feature film would need that boost I mentioned but if done right, the potential is staggering. The experience would be closer to a live theatre/movie hybrid.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by gotmule

Unbroken was the first movie I watched after installing Atmos back in the day. The opening bombing run is still something I demo to visitors. Pretty good movie too.

Have it on BD as well. Thought Jolie did a good job with this movie and another feather for Deakins as DP. There is an excerpt from the first part of this movie on my Dolby Atmos Demo Disc 2015 so it must have impressed the folks at Dolby.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by Vilya

People come to forums looking for solutions when they have a problem, and/or to vent their frustration, so of course you will read about such things here.

Have a Sony BDP-S6700, UBP-X800 and UBP-X1000 and the only time I have a problem with them is when I am using a streaming app. They will sometimes lock up and have to be un-pluged to restore operation. I remember my Pioneer CLD-900 (very expensive) had issues early on switching between LD and CD operation, just required changing out a small spring to fix. I had a local glass company special order me two pieces of ½ x 12 x12 inch glass that I used to flatten warped LD.

It appears people with real simple setups will never relate to or understand the problems that can be involved with a complex setup.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

I’m a early adopter of VR (this is my fifth year) and it needs a resolution boost first. I can ignore that with games because the immersion is so engulfing. However, with 360% 3D films, it needs to be either true 1080p per eye or better. I think 8K will do a lot for the format. My favourite 360% experience so far is a short named ‘Allumette’. It’s a animated work that plays out on a floating village with a 3D bridge edging towards the viewer, clouds all around and a crowd of people hundreds of feet below. The character animation is charming and as a first VR experience, it knocked my socks off. A full feature film would need that boost I mentioned but if done right, the potential is staggering. The experience would be closer to a live theatre/movie hybrid.

VR headsets are still way too clunky for me to endure them for any length of time. When they become as light as my titanium framed driving glasses or as lightweight as a pair of passive 3D glasses, let me know.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Vilya

VR headsets are still way too clunky for me to endure them for any length of time. When they become as light as my titanium framed driving glasses or as lightweight as a pair of passive 3D glasses, let me know.

Despite issues with glasses and reflections, I managed 4 hours at the weekend with several two minute breaks. The PSVR headset is very light. We are still at least 7-8 years away from getting that tech into glasses imo. About the same time that true AR glasses will become a reality. I expect crossover, but I’m hoping for tech that can automatically adjust for a users eyes. It’s very Sci-Fi but Apple are working hard on that stuff. If I can lose the glasses, that would be huge.

[mdo7]

Originally Posted by Lee A Stewart

Absolutely! My ex-wife. First I loved her with all my heart. Then I hated her ****in' guts.

So you never have a love-hate relationship with streaming, nor social media? Because as I said, I have a lot of reason why I have a love-hate relationship when it comes to streaming.

Also, the fact that you never updated your BD.com profile to tell me how many BD collection you have makes me suspicious that if you're lying about having a BD collection, and you have a vendetta against physical media.

Originally Posted by JohnAV

Its a weak argument.

The amount of time you are down is minuscule compared to uptime. I think you just need to realize that any utility can fail. Natural Gas, Water, Sewer, Garbage pickup, Internet, Cell service and so on.

Plan on alternatives when something happens not think of the worse. Even if you have a streaming outage (host, ISP, network), it's not broadcast, you can go right back to what you were watching when it failed, afterwards.

One should be more concerned in the winter with power going dead in a house!

Originally Posted by Vilya

Internet outages here can last for several hours and some have lasted for days. Internet reliability varies greatly from one market to another; urban dwellers like you too often assume that everyone has the same quality network; we don't. Repair crews here have to cover large geographic areas to restore service to everyone.

Yes, those other services can go down, too, but they seldom do compared with the frequency that my ISP does. Personally, I have never had garbage pick-up fail.

I always have alternatives. I have my mobile internet for all online activities besides streaming. I have portable battery powered devices with disc drives. Some of my neighbors have their own power generators; I may get one myself being that I live on the borders of Tornado Alley. I have the ability to purify contaminated water. I have non-perishable foods and a camping stove. Here in the boonies we can even burn our own trash should we have to do so; we can even relieve ourselves in the great outdoors if we must.

JohnAV, Vilya is correct. Internet and cell phone service can face outages, and so can streaming provider. Remember last year in March, Netflix had a outage in the US and Europe. I guarantee that this will happen to Netflix again in the near future. And it won't be them alone. I know Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, Paramount+, and other streaming providers aren't immune from their own future service outage.

My biggest concern if you're a streaming subscriber. Hackers can probably take down and disrupt streaming sites via distributed DDOS in the same manner like the PSN outage in 2011 (And I know because I owned a PS3 at that time). That is the scenario I get scared of for streaming provider like Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, etc.... A scenario similar to the 2011 PSN outage where Netflix, and other streaming service providers were shut down for 2 months.

And I believe that scenario could happened in the near future. No matter how good their cybersecurity are, it can still be penetrated and overpowered.

[Lee A Stewart]

Originally Posted by mdo7

So you never have a love-hate relationship with streaming, nor social media? Because as I said, I have a lot of reason why I have a love-hate relationship when it comes to streaming.

I enjoy streaming for what it is: content on demand at a very reasonable price. I don't subscribe to any social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc. Never have, never will.

Also, the fact that you never updated your BD.com profile to tell me how many BD collection you have makes me suspicious that if you're lying about having a BD collection, and you have a vendetta against physical media.

You are calling me a liar because I chose not to list the number of BDs I own? I wasn't aware that was a requirement at BD.com.

No - I have no vendetta against physical media.

[Vilya]

It has only been a day since this was posted here by a moderator:

Originally Posted by quirkmanly

[Show spoiler]Since you raised it, Wendell, here are some observations below. None of this is specific to you though and your post was simply a convenient segue.

Bearing in mind the title of this topic, I don't see someone posting links to market data specific to player sales, subscriber counts, etc. as being something that is in contravention of that particular rule. However, if that information is accompanied by commentary along the lines of, "Disc sales are down and I'm bloody ecstatic about it", that's obviously a different kettle of fish. Likewise, use of the emoji when discussing the decline of disc sales will also be sanctioned.

Name calling, harassment and too much off-topic chatter should be avoided obviously.

[Show spoiler]Finally, someone is not a troll simply because they present facts or have an opinion that you dislike or disagree with.

Ol' Steed might be right about attention spans after all.