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

[Steedeel]

I noticed Disney’s standard tariff with or without ads only offers full HD, has that always been the case? I was getting 4K but I can’t remember it being the premier subscription.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

I noticed Disney’s standard tariff with or without ads only offers full HD, has that always been the case? I was getting 4K but I can’t remember it being the premier subscription.

AFAIK Disney has never offered UHD-SDR. In the early days they did not offer HD with Atmos but that finally changed. OTOH, Movies Anywhere (Disney) has always had UHD-SDR and Atmos, I ranted about this quite sometime back.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

Physical optical disc media like Audio CD’s, DVD’s, Blu-ray discs, Blu-ray 3D, and 4K Blu-ray discs are still alive. But if in several years the world switched to 100% streaming then that would be bad for companies that review optical disc media like Widescreen Review magazine, Sound and Vision magazine, Digital Bits, and Blu-ray.com website.

I am not convinced that physical media is going anywhere. As fior those things probably before that happens they will need to adapt or will disappear. many of those mentioned reviewed DVDs, then moved to BD then moved to UHD BD, what ever the future holds they will be reviewing what they are watching if they still exist.

Hopefully Kaleidescape that offers bit for bit 4K Blu-ray image downloads to a hard drive server will still be around. Sound and Vision Magazine has reviewed many of the movies on that system as physical media slowly decreases in demand.

no they are not "bit for bit 4K Blu-ray image" they are UHD BD equivalent some of the bits will most likely be different and some titles might be slightly better on UHD BD while others might be better on K.

K does not take a UHD BD and rip it to their server to sell as a digital copy.

[cheez avenger]

Since I cannot support Disney's unreasonable price increase, I have decided to downgrade my bundled tier to the ads version. I do watch Hulu more than Disney and ESPN+ is also thrown into the mix, for $12.99. This is a $7 per month savings, which is equal to $84 a year.

Since P+ and MAX are also increasing prices, and I use those a lot, I'll move the savings over those services instead.

[PenguinInfinity]

Originally Posted by cheez avenger

Since I cannot support Disney's unreasonable price increase, I have decided to downgrade my bundled tier to the ads version. I do watch Hulu more than Disney and ESPN+ is also thrown into the mix, for $12.99. This is a $7 per month savings, which is equal to $84 a year.

Since P+ and MAX are also increasing prices, and I use those a lot, I'll move the savings over those services instead.

How many hours of ads will you be watching in order to save $84 per year?

[cheez avenger]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

How many hours of ads will you be watching in order to save $84 per year?

Don't know. I have my laptop nearby, or I'll take a piss break. I'll find a way to be productive while the ads play as opposed to "wasting time" sitting there waiting for the ads to end.

It's sort of like watching YouTube clips. YouTube is super expensive if you want the ad free experience.

[PenguinInfinity]

Originally Posted by cheez avenger

It's sort of like watching YouTube clips. YouTube is super expensive if you want the ad free experience.

There are plenty of free programs that allow you to download YouTube videos.

[cheez avenger]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

There are plenty of free programs that allow you to download YouTube videos.

I usually watch YT videos on my HT set-up. I don't watch media on my phone or computers. Too small.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

Some at AVS has made the claim some Kaleidescape titles were not as good as the Blu-ray or UHD Blu-ray counterpart. I have watched several Kaleidescape demos and thought they were very good.

don't forget compression is an "art". there are limits they need to respect but even if the limits are exactly the same the individuality of the person doing the work will mean that the outcome will be different. Joe could decide to trim more at one place while Bob decides a different place and then when Fred sees it he prefers one over the other.

[PenguinInfinity]

Originally Posted by cheez avenger

Don't know. I have my laptop nearby, or I'll take a piss break. I'll find a way to be productive while the ads play as opposed to "wasting time" sitting there waiting for the ads to end.

Whether you're productive or not it still sounds horrible to have constant interruptions.

[PenguinInfinity]

Originally Posted by cheez avenger

I usually watch YT videos on my HT set-up. I don't watch media on my phone or computers. Too small.

You can easily hook up a computer to your home theater.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Just curious, how many here have a A/V server connected to their LAN? A server can be in several forms like a Synology NAS, a Windows share (UPnP [DLNA]) and/or SMB, a DIY computer based NAS, etc. If you have a server what media player do you use?

For me, this started in the early 2000's with the MIT MDP-100 ATSC tuner card and Twinhan DVB-S (Ku band satellite) tuner card.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by veritas

I feel like a good example of why ads are not a very lucarative market for streaming companies is crunchyroll. They used to have a free plan with ads and a paid version to skip ads and a few other things. They basically phased out the free with ads version that was 95% of their customers so they could hopefully sell more people on the 7 dollar a month plan. That sort of maneuver doesn't make sense if they made even 1 dollar a month per ad subscriber.


I just cant see netflix making much with ads either. it probably takes 2 to 4 guys with standard ad plans to be worth 1 guy with a standard plan. And that's assuming the cost to service one guy is basically the same as the cost to service those 4 guys which it probably isn't.

For me streaming is like IT.

one guy will come in and says "way too expensive in salaries...." and will decide to outsource to save costs.
Next guy comes in and says " we are paying way to much to outsourcing companies, we will higher our own guys for much less"
....

and very briefly it always appears to be working.


same here " look if we add a ad tear we can convince -people that want to pay less" and they add the ad tear, ads are solid with way too grandiose a promise, there are a few people that decide to join because it is cheaper now, it looks like it might help. But then some people that were paying now decide to go to the cheaper ad tear and so it becomes cannibalisms and the people paying for ads become more stingy and that goes down.

"look if we remove the ad tear people will be forced to pay more" and the people want to continue to watch the series they were watching and now pay more to stick with it and the revenue goes up a bit and it looks like it is a good idea, but then the people end up seeing what they wanted and decide to curt the service and the revenue goes back down.


so the ones that have A go with B and the ones with B go with A and they all looking like they are doing something but nothing much changes form a profitability point of view.

[Vilya]

A pair of 4Ks arrived:



I got it for free with my Disney Rewards points.

and

I let this one go OOP before I bought it, but thankfully I did not have to pay too much of a penalty to get it.

Still second day in a row.

[cheez avenger]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

Whether you're productive or not it still sounds horrible to have constant interruptions.

I'll make it work.

[bhampton]

I can't even imagine paying for ad based service.

Thanks to my mute button, I can use ad supported services on occasion but there's way too much available to me for me to even be "ok" with paying for an ad based subscription service.

Some series are made with commercial breaks but an actual movie - no way, I would rather wait until I can enjoy it.

[cheez avenger]

Originally Posted by bhampton

I can't even imagine paying for ad based service.

Thanks to my mute button, I can use ad supported services on occasion but there's way too much available to me for me to even be "ok" with paying for an ad based subscription service.

Some series are made with commercial breaks but an actual movie - no way, I would rather wait until I can enjoy it.

I have to vote with my wallet and since I'm not ready to cancel it outright, this will do for now.

Physical media is still #1 for me, though. If the studios keep on nickel and diming me, I will eventually just cut the stream off for sure.

[PenguinInfinity]

Originally Posted by cheez avenger

I have to vote with my wallet and since I'm not ready to cancel it outright, this will do for now.

Voting in favor of commercials is a terrible vote.

[cheez avenger]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

Voting in favor of commercials is a terrible vote.

It is what it is.

[SammymeBlu]

Paying for a streaming service with commercials or ads is just um wrong. If i want to watch those two things ,i will just watch regular over the air tv which is free. Why would you PAY to watch commercials and ads? Are they paying you to do so? You know what you do, you cancel your subscription along with everyone else and than lets see if they still make you pay for that crap service. I bet they change there way real quick when the cancelations and complaints roll in.