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

[gotmule]

Just in case anyone here needs it, here is a good reference of which words get capitalized.

https://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/capital.asp

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by gotmule

Just in case anyone here needs it, here is a good reference of what words get capitalized.

https://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/capital.asp

He thinks that every other word he writes needs to be emphasized and that capitalization is how that is done. Underlining words, using italics, using bold type, and writing something coherent in the first place are beyond his understanding.

[Boccaccio]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

As the images in his memory deteriorate, alchav thinks that every time he streams it looks better than the last.

Poor Alchav. I admire him for his persistence though.
Still thinking he can convince us to make the leap into streaming inferiority.

[bhampton]

Hey,

In my home we certainly do both physical and streaming.

I'm the only one who cares about putting together a home theater type system that gets the most of the media. I like to watch in my dedicated home theater with acoustic treatments and a 2.40:1 screen. I frequently plan ahead for and try to make the best of it. Inspecting a disc, loading a player, cueing the film with the best audio, and then zooming to frame the picture ... these are fun things. Nothing says movie like a projector and an ultra wide screen. Good movies like Jaws should not have black bars.

There's a place for both. My theater for my collection, literally everywhere else for cloud stuff. The discs give the best quality, reliability and true ownership.

If you want free and easy you can settle for inferior playback and ads. But don't pretend the iTunes version is somehow compare-able to UHD BD. The iTunes version can be DV and Atmos but it's highly compressed and the quality of the audio is reduced. Try them both yourself but don't suggest they are the same thing. If they seem the same, you don't have a great audio playback system.

Those who think they "own" online movies will learn in time that they don't or they could just review the Terms and Conditions. In the digital forum, movies that temporarily disappear is just accepted reality now and it's not enough to bother them.

-Brian

[thisis2]

Originally Posted by alchav21

It sounds like you prefer Discs, but with the problems with Disc Players that you have talked about have you tried Streaming? If you have good Bandwidth and a good large 4K Display, you should have source access to Streaming Providers. The Quality of Streaming keeps improving, and with more Streaming Providers you should not deprive yourself with access to their Content.

..i think that blu-ray and 4k discs can give a stronger more accurate film-like representation of movies in terms of the natural grain in film and even audio-wise...which is why i think and hope blu-ray will survive..

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by JohnAV

Historically the internet was free, not this shenanigans of multiple streaming hosts parsing up what you can watch each wanting a pretty penny.

even more than that. I remember a time when the internet was really free.

dial into BBS or other similar local server with free access to the internet. Then they all either closed down or started charging a bit and it became the world of ISPs with BW and prices increasing.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Lee A Stewart

Though I have a large collection of DVDs and BDs I occasionally watch OTA which offers excellent HD where I live. Ad comes on, I either getup and do something or just sit through it. I also watch PBS which only shows ads right before the program starts.

I watch OTA and FTAS as well, but except for Hockey games I just record everything and skip the adds when I go back to watch it.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Vilya

The quality of streaming has been unchanged for years and you know it. Bitrates are unchanged; the codecs are unchanged; and your disinformation is unchanged.

that is not true, with Covid-19 where I live the quality has gone down.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/corona...-use-1.4869993

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

that is not true, with Covid-19 where I live the quality has gone down.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/corona...-use-1.4869993

I am aware that bitrates have been lowered in some areas, but I was being generous as this is not the fault of the streaming services as it is their response to the pandemic. I fault streaming for many things, but I can't pin this upon them.

Seeing as few, if any, streaming customers have noticed, yet alone complained, about the lower bitrates that they are getting, I would not be surprised if these lowered bitrates become permanent. Streaming customers are not a very demanding bunch so long as content is plentiful and cheap.

[JohnAV]

Originally Posted by Vilya

Seeing as few, if any, streaming customers have noticed, yet alone complained, about the lower bitrates that they are getting, I would not be surprised if these lowered bitrates become permanent. Streaming customers are not a very demanding bunch so long as content is plentiful and cheap.

Did you ever read up on how much electricity streaming data centers consume. One article about a YouTube video that hit a record 5 billion views ( it a bit more now) stated the google energy usage for just doing that was equal to 40,000 homes annual electric bill for a year. Given the internet of everything and having billions of devices communicate via data centers, the industry has used various ways to reduce power with renewable energy like huge solar power arrays at these massive data centers, but’s possibility it’s also a little known reason why they did slow the Netflix, and Disney streaming down, to provide more electricity to a grid for people stuck at home. Interesting huh?

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I am aware that bitrates have been lowered in some areas, but I was being generous as this is not the fault of the streaming services as it is their response to the pandemic. I fault streaming for many things, but I can't pin this upon them.

Hope you did not mind that I quoted you. IMHO Correcting Alchav just has no real value except for not letting others believe his BS. As for "some areas" I don't know how true that is. Don't get me wrong, we now the EU asked for it, but I also now Canada did not ask for it here. The reality is more demand is a double edged sword, it is good for a streaming company to have more people watching more hours, but increasing BW to meet that demand increases the companies costs. By lowering the quality you stop the costs from increasing while touting more people hours watching your stuff

Seeing as few, if any, streaming customers have noticed, yet alone complained, about the lower bitrates that they are getting, I would not be surprised if these lowered bitrates become permanent. Streaming customers are not a very demanding bunch so long as content is plentiful and cheap.

well there are complainers https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/tech...rs/ar-BB14alCY

but let's be honest do you ever expect Alchav to ever qualify any stream at anything less then Fantastic? IMHO the vast majority of streamers fall into that same category because they try to justify their choice.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by JohnAV

Did you ever read up on how much electricity streaming data centers consume. One article about a YouTube video that hit a record 5 billion views ( it a bit more now) stated the google energy usage for just doing that was equal to 40,000 homes annual electric bill for a year. Given the internet of everything and having billions of devices communicate via data centers, the industry has used various ways to reduce power with renewable energy like huge solar power arrays at these massive data centers, but’s possibility it’s also a little known reason why they did slow the Netflix, and Disney streaming down, to provide more electricity to a grid for people stuck at home. Interesting huh?

The energy costs to run these enormous server farms are staggering, but a certain someone around here insists that digital distribution has little cost associated with it.

[JohnAV]

Originally Posted by alchav21

The Quality of Streaming keeps improving, and with more Streaming Providers you should not deprive yourself with access to their Content.

As I just commented even though you worked for AT&T, you probably have very little insight to how much energy is needed to run data centers. Back in 2018 they did this.

AT&T has agreed to sell 31 data centers to Brookfield Infrastructure Partners for $1.1 billion • The assets and operations being sold comprise AT&T’s data center colocation business • Brookfield will use the assets to launch a new wholly owned global colocation business • AT&T is the latest telecommunications giant to divest a massive data center portfolio, following similar deals by Verizon, CenturyLink, and others

This is a example of all the telcos getting out of the energy hog data center businesses in the last few years and using those huge third party ones such as Amazon, Microsoft, among others.

So using this info, it’s not like most of these streaming operations can ramp up bit rate speeds at server farms radically without some technology improvements with processing, storage, and networking all working more efficiently against increased power consumption.

[JohnAV]

Originally Posted by Vilya

The energy costs to run these enormous server farms are staggering, but a certain someone around here insists that digital distribution has little cost associated with it.

Just thought I widen the streaming discussion a bit, makes for predictions of streaming taking over everything a bit more real.

Physical media is way more energy efficient!

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

Hope you did not mind that I quoted you. IMHO Correcting Alchav just has no real value except for not letting others believe his BS. As for "some areas" I don't know how true that is. Don't get me wrong, we now the EU asked for it, but I also now Canada did not ask for it here. The reality is more demand is a double edged sword, it is good for a streaming company to have more people watching more hours, but increasing BW to meet that demand increases the companies costs. By lowering the quality you stop the costs from increasing while touting more people hours watching your stuff

well there are complainers https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/tech...rs/ar-BB14alCY

but let's be honest do you ever expect Alchav to ever qualify any stream at anything less then Fantastic? IMHO the vast majority of streamers fall into that same category because they try to justify their choice.

Streaming services certainly enjoy the cost savings that come with lowering their bandwidth, ostensibly to help lessen the demand upon the internet infrastructure during this pandemic when in reality they just care about the money that they are pocketing. It's not like the streaming services lowered their prices to the consumer commensurate with their reduction in streaming quality. Streaming customers get to keep paying the same prices while receiving a reduction in quality; what a great deal!

The member in question would never criticize streaming; it will always be "Fantastic!" and "Amazing!" to his eyes..and ears. He and his ilk might complain about a price hike as they tend to be cheapskates, but that would be the only thing that would upset them.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by Vilya

Streaming services certainly enjoy the cost savings that come with lowering their bandwidth, ostensibly to help lessen the demand upon the internet infrastructure during this pandemic when in reality they just care about the money that they are pocketing.

For many years I have dropped by the Netflix ISP Speed Index from to time and it has always been up to date except for this year. Has not been updated since this past February. No reason given .

[JohnAV]

AT&T's HBO Max Advantage Draws Democratic Senators' Ire - TVTechnologyNews - 6/4/20

Boo! Hiss!

According to a report by The Verge, AT&T is excluding the HBO Max streaming service, which AT&T owns, from traditional data caps and the soft data caps on unlimited plans. Other streaming services, like Netflix and Disney+, are still subject to these data caps.

AT&T says that HBO Max is benefiting from the company’s “sponsored data” system, which enables content companies to pay AT&T for the right to be exempt from data caps. However, the senators note that since HBO Max is owned by AT&T, the company is “essentially paying itself.”

“Although your company has repeatedly stated publicly that it supports legally binding net neutrality rules, this policy appears to run contrary to the essential principle that in a free and open internet, service providers may not favor content in which they have a financial interest over competitor’s content,” the letter reads.

The senators believe that this practice from AT&T would be considered “zero-rating,” which allows end users to access content without the required data usage counting toward the caps on the users’ plans. Prior to what the trio says was efforts to “eviscerate critical rules” by the current FCC, such practices were deemed harmful conduct and discrimination of competitors in favor of their own affiliates.

[zarquon]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

that is not true, with Covid-19 where I live the quality has gone down.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/corona...-use-1.4869993

That article is over two months old; are they still limiting bandwidth now?

[JohnAV]

Not sure but in the EU you had this May 13 article

Look at the recent comments

[flyry]

Just realized all my current open orders/pre-orders are steelbooks. Tigers are Not Afraid, Django, Goonies.

Been binging the studio ghibli films on HBO Max