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

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by alchav21

Hey guys don't get your feathers all a mess.....Chill! I guess this is what I was missing, this banter. Just because I don't like to be a follower, and more on the trending side doesn't mean I look at different aspects. I did look at Netflix, but to me Amazon was better. I won't drop Amazon if everyone jumps on their wagon. I was just saying that everyone has their priorities, needs, and justifications. I just don't like to pick something just because everyone else is doing it.

And that's otherwise fine, but when you go around saying and assuming that people who don't do things the way that you do are by default "limiting" themselves, then you are going to get reactions akin to these recent ones.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by The_Donster

I watched what looked like a vhs copy of Navy Seals on Encore via my cable.

[The_Donster]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

If only!

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by veritas

we should have a biggest fails the members on this thread have posted

top 6 for alchav21 paraphrased
Digital is the future. Doesn't know how Netflix works.

Digital has surpassed blu ray. only owns a tv that cant do above 1080i

physical is dead I cant buy a movie for 20 break shrink wrap take out part of the product and still sell it for 20. ( I mean its like buying a car taking the floor mats and then saying the car market is dead because he cant sell his now used car for new car prices.)

Physical is dead I know because I talked to a Walmart minimum wage employee.

You gotta move for fiber its that important.

"these Sound Systems are Fantastic but they get outdated very fast" (Sound systems honestly change very little overtime compared to almost any other electronic medium. an amazing 20 year old speaker can still be amazing)

Sorry for taking so long, but I didn't have time to answer. You also don't have all your facts straight. I have always said it's all Digital and Discs are just a Storage Device. Streaming from a Player or Server are the same, the only difference is Bitrate. The maximum Bitrate on a Blu-ray Player is 40Mbps, with the average around 20Mbps easily achieved by any Major Streaming Provider for their HD Video.

Digital is here now, it's not the Future and not knowing Netflix doesn't sell is only because all my Providers, including Subscription Amazon, sells.

Digital Streaming has achieved BD Quality, like I stated above. I've had a 65" Sony UHD TV now for a year, so I can tell the difference in PQ.

As for Discs being Dead, maybe a better statement is they are outdated. The Tech I talked to was at Best Buy, and they are knowledgeable. Walmart has a good Disc Section, also Digital Section.

I say Copper is Obsolete and Fiber is The Future, but everyone has their own priorities. Digital Streaming and Cloud Services need that Fat Pipe only Fiber can provide. So if you live in an area that won't be upgraded, you'll have some choices. Live with what you have, get active in your Community and bring in the ISP's you want, wait for Wireless 5G, or as a last resort Move.

As for Sound Systems, I have a Fantastic System but it's 50 years old. So yes they will last, but if you want the latest and best they are expensive and should be set up properly.

So Disc or Digital, they can coexist but I don't use them anymore. The access will all be from Streaming Provider Servers.

[Vilya]

Digital is simply binary code that is in turn stored on something like a hard drive, a server, or an optical disc.

Players do not stream when reading a disc. They read the data on the disc, decompress it, and then transfer that decompressed data over an HDMI cable to a display.

Streaming data from a server requires the internet. That streamed data is more compressed than the data on a disc. Disc players in no way, shape, or form require the internet to perform their primary function. When things are different, they are not the same.

Digital streaming has NOT achieved BD quality. The audio differences alone make that clear. The picture quality is close until you get dark scenes where the streamed image shows clear degradation.

Discs are not outdated as they still provide the state of the art performance that comes only from a 4K uhd disc. They also made up 22.9% of the entire home entertainment spending for 2017. They remain relevant and only they provide cutting edge performance.

You like being fully reliant on the internet for viewing content and you do not mind the reliability issues, the buffering, over stressed servers, or the inevitable price increases for your service. That's wonderful for you.

I refuse to be dependent on the internet for my movie viewing. I will not pay $100+ per month for a gigabit plan with unlimited data. The nearest area to me that offers that level of service charges $140 per month after the promotion period ends. No thanks. And it is still as unreliable as my low priced plan.

No one is going to uproot their lives to move to a zip code with faster internet. You can't refrain from making this absurd suggestion. Lobbying my village board is in no way going to lure in internet infrastructure investment. Your former beloved employer, AT&T, has no interest in my village of 1600 people.

Sound systems come in many price ranges and the fact that they last for so long is further justification for investing in a great one. All technology should be set-up properly.

All you have done here is repeat your favorite fallacies, all of which have been debunked time and again and by multiple people. Nonsense is nonsense on the first telling and on the 1000th.

The only concession you have made is not pronouncing disc dead. Shocking as that is, your mind still evolves slower than a mountain erodes.

[Vilya]

And another thing: your second hand accounts of what retail employees allegedly tell you mean exactly, positively, resoundingly NOTHING.

I once worked at Best Buy as a senior audio specialist. I wasn't one. I was hired because I was available, irresistibly charming , and willing to work for near minimum wage at that time.

That is all it takes to be "knowledgeable" at Best Buy.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by Vilya

Digital is simply binary code that is in turn stored on something like a hard drive, a server, or an optical disc.

Players do not stream when reading a disc. They read the data on the disc, decompress it, and then transfer that decompressed data over an HDMI cable to a display.

Streaming data from a server requires the internet. That streamed data is more compressed than the data on a disc. Disc players in no way, shape, or form require the internet to perform their primary function. When things are different, they are not the same.

Digital streaming has NOT achieved BD quality. The audio differences alone make that clear. The picture quality is close until you get dark scenes where the streamed image shows clear degradation.

Do you ever listen to yourself, what do you think Bit Streaming does. Read Video Data and Bit Stream it to your Monitor. So you don't consider a Blu-ray Disc or 4K Disc an Optical Disc? The Player is an Optical Drive. The term Streaming stems from Bit Streaming, from a Storage Device. The Internet is just a collection of Computers or Servers on the Big Internet Network. I should know, I set a lot of these up working in the Silicon Valley. The Codec for Disc or Digital Streaming is H.265 which includes Sound, the same for Disc or Streaming. Now there are differences in Downloads and Streaming, Downloads are highly compressed for efficiency.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Well look at that...

Originally Posted by alchav21

Sorry for taking so long, but I didn't have time to answer. You also don't have all your facts straight. I have always said it's all Digital and Discs are just a Storage Device. Streaming from a Player or Server are the same, the only difference is Bitrate. The maximum Bitrate on a Blu-ray Player is 40Mbps, with the average around 20Mbps easily achieved by any Major Streaming Provider for their HD Video.

Digital is here now, it's not the Future and not knowing Netflix doesn't sell is only because all my Providers, including Subscription Amazon, sells.

Digital Streaming has achieved BD Quality, like I stated above. I've had a 65" Sony UHD TV now for a year, so I can tell the difference in PQ.

As for Discs being Dead, maybe a better statement is they are outdated. The Tech I talked to was at Best Buy, and they are knowledgeable. Walmart has a good Disc Section, also Digital Section.

I say Copper is Obsolete and Fiber is The Future, but everyone has their own priorities. Digital Streaming and Cloud Services need that Fat Pipe only Fiber can provide. So if you live in an area that won't be upgraded, you'll have some choices. Live with what you have, get active in your Community and bring in the ISP's you want, wait for Wireless 5G, or as a last resort Move.

As for Sound Systems, I have a Fantastic System but it's 50 years old. So yes they will last, but if you want the latest and best they are expensive and should be set up properly.

So Disc or Digital, they can coexist but I don't use them anymore. The access will all be from Streaming Provider Servers.

You did EXACTLY what I said you would...

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

And when he is backed into a logical corner like he is now with this current argument, he will just stop posting for a page or two, hope everyone mysteriously forgets about the previous conversation, and he will start posting the same crap again as if his arguments were never defeated in the first place.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by alchav21

Do you ever listen to yourself, what do you think Bit Streaming does. Read Video Data and Bit Stream it to your Monitor. So you don't consider a Blu-ray Disc or 4K Disc an Optical Disc? The Player is an Optical Drive. The term Streaming stems from Bit Streaming, from a Storage Device. The Internet is just a collection of Computers or Servers on the Big Internet Network. I should know, I set a lot of these up working in the Silicon Valley. The Codec for Disc or Digital Streaming is H.265 which includes Sound, the same for Disc or Streaming. Now there are differences in Downloads and Streaming, Downloads are highly compressed for efficiency.

Bit-streaming is simply data transfer and is a more inclusive term. It is a different term than "streaming" and that is why it has a different dictionary definition. They are not interchangeable; they mean different things.

All methods of data transfer can be labelled as bit-streaming, but not all methods of data transfer are the same. Streaming, by dictionary definition, is the streaming of data over a computer network (internet). Why you can not see this distinction, especially considering your work experience, is confounding.

Streaming: "A method of transmitting or receiving data (especially video and audio material) over a computer network as a steady, continuous flow, allowing playback to start while the rest of the data is still being received."

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/streaming

vs. the definition for bit streaming: "a simple contiguous sequence of binary digits transmitted continuously over a communications path."

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/bitstream

Even with these definitions side by side, you probably can tell no difference between them, can you?

With an optical disc the data is stored locally on a 5" diameter disc that you have in your possession. You have the data; the player reads that data, decompresses it, and transfers the decompressed data over an hdmi cable to a display. You have zero need for an internet connection, zero need for a modem, zero need for a router, and zero need for a high speed, high data cap internet service plan. No need for a copper or a fiber network because you are not using one.

Data on a server is remotely located. You do not possess it and you can not access it at all unless you are connected to the internet. You are dependent upon a vast infrastructure to obtain that data and you need all of it to work correctly in order to receive it. Having high speed, high data cap internet service is an additional expense that disc playback does not at all require. The data streamed over the internet is more compressed than that found on an optical disc, also.

These differences in compression affect the quality of the video and audio playback. A 4K UHD disc with a H.265 codec still outperforms a 4K stream with an H.265 codec. The latter, the 4K stream, is more compressed than the former, 4K UHD disc.

Knowing how to plug an Ethernet cable into the back of a modem does not make you a networking expert. If you were one, I would not have to keep explaining these distinctions to you. I am sure glad you never set-up my network.

I personally know a software engineer who works as the C.I.O. at his place of employment, shall I ask him to try and explain these differences to you? Do you know what a C.I.O. even is? You make it very hard not to ridicule you when you never learn anything and all while obstinately repeating the same falsehoods. Explaining things to you is like trying to hammer a nail with a wet noodle.

[The_Donster]

Seriously, bring something new to the table alchav21. Because listening to you tell me how digital works is like hearing my parents tell me and my wife that there really was a Iron Chef

[alchav21]

You're as hard headed as I am, and don't want to be wrong. I Retired from
AT&T as a Service Manager, and set up a lot of these Company Networks. AT&T controls the Fiber Internet Backbone, so I should know something about it. You like facts so here is a Link to The Origins of The Internet, and Internet comes from Inter-Networking:

https://www.google.com/search?source....0.v8PI59g09X0

Okay by definition Streaming and Bitstreaming are different, but the concept is the same. Like I said, I use to make Back-up Discs and that same File I would put on the Disc or Server. All I'm saying is with the new Codec and Adaptive Streaming, you can have Disc Quality. Talk to that Engineer, I'm sure he will back me up.

[The_Donster]

Originally Posted by alchav21

You're as hard headed as I am, and don't want to be wrong. I Retired from
AT&T as a Service Manager, and set up a lot of these Company Networks. AT&T controls the Fiber Internet Backbone, so I should know something about it. You like facts so here is a Link to The Origins of The Internet, and Internet comes from Inter-Networking:

https://www.google.com/search?source....0.v8PI59g09X0

Okay by definition Streaming and Bitstreaming are different, but the concept is the same. Like I said, I use to make Back-up Discs and that same File I would put on the Disc or Server. All I'm saying is with the new Codec and Adaptive Streaming, you can have Disc Quality. Talk to that Engineer, I'm sure he will back me up.

Yes, but you are equally being hard headed in your pro digital stance. Because not all streaming experiences or devices are created equal. It is all dependent on where you live.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by alchav21

I Retired from
AT&T as a Service Manager, and set up a lot of these Company Networks. AT&T controls the Fiber Internet Backbone, so I should know something about it.

Your job experience in no way justifies your constant misuse of terms like "streaming," you declaring discs to be "dead" just because they arent quite as popular as they once were (based on this logic, any fast food chain that isn't getting the same level of sales as McDonalds should just close down all of their restaurants), you constantly insisting that the quality of streaming has matched that of disc in all respects when it objectively has not, you ignoring the ownership/control issues that digital distribution has that physical does not, or the other constant inaccurate crap that you constantly regurgitate over and over again.

Your logic isn't even consistent within itself.

When we say "digital," we are referring to the method of distribution, not the nature of the data. But you like to just keep sayings "it's all digital and all the same" over and over again, despite this.

But you simultaneously say this while also declaring disc to be dead. By way of your argument, we are just "streaming from a disc" instead of "streaming from the internet," but it's otherwise "all the same." Well, if it's "all the same," then anyone who buys and watches discs (regardless of whether it's their exclusive means of consuming content besides traditional television, or in addition to using various streaming/digital services) is fundamentally "doing the same thing" as you, and therefore for you to say they are doing it wrong, or that their method is "dead" is inaccurate with regards to your core argument and flat out contradicts it.

You can't go and say that "it's all the same" and then decry the method that many others use, which you claim to be "the same," as being wrong, outdated, or dead, as that implies a difference, which you argue there is none.

You are not only trying to have your cake and eat it, too, but you are also trying to simultaneously have all of the individual ingredients that went into making the cake all of which are incompatible with each other. You can have the individual ingredients, but once you combine them into the cake, they no longer exist individually. Then once you eat the cake, it's gone, and you therefore no longer have it. But you effectively keep going on and on about how you have all three of those things all at once and how anyone who argues otherwise is wrong.

Your lack of even the most basic reasoning skills when it comes to the subjects being discussed here (as your recently revealed ignorance on even the most basic of aspects of Netflix streaming has shown) is astounding to say the least.

And your work experience really doesn't make up for any of that. You might be an expert on how company networks were set up in 1994 (and if time travel is ever discovered, then you can probably put your expertise to good use once again), but you clearly don't know what the hell you are talking about with a lot of what is discussed in this thread.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by alchav21

You're as hard headed as I am, and don't want to be wrong. I Retired from
AT&T as a Service Manager, and set up a lot of these Company Networks. AT&T controls the Fiber Internet Backbone, so I should know something about it. You like facts so here is a Link to The Origins of The Internet, and Internet comes from Inter-Networking:

https://www.google.com/search?source....0.v8PI59g09X0

Okay by definition Streaming and Bitstreaming are different, but the concept is the same. Like I said, I use to make Back-up Discs and that same File I would put on the Disc or Server. All I'm saying is with the new Codec and Adaptive Streaming, you can have Disc Quality. Talk to that Engineer, I'm sure he will back me up.

I was a railroad conductor. It does not mean I built the railroad network.

The topic was not the history of the internet or how it works. You stated that accessing data from a server was identical to accessing data off of an optical disc. You have stated this many times before. And you are wrong now as you were then.

For it to be the same, there can be no differences between them. And there are several.

The location of the data is different; one is local while the other is remote.

How the data is stored is different, optical disc versus a remote server.

Compression levels are different. Data streamed from a server is more compressed than the data encoded on the disc.

Hardware requirements to access and utilize the data are different. A disc player needs a disc, electricity, a display, and a communication path between them, namely a HDMI cable. It has no need for the internet and all of the associated hardware that goes along with internet access. Which leads to...

Network requirements are different. Disc playback requires no network at all and no internet hardware; streaming from a server requires high speed and high data cap internet service and the entire internet infrastructure that runs it. It requires all of the associated hardware that home internet access mandates, such as a modem, router, or those cheap gateways that AT&T U-verse was fond of using.

That makes five major differences right there. The only essential similarity is that data is being accessed in both cases. With so many differences, the two processes can not be equated. Disc playback is not identical to streaming from a server.

If "all" you were saying was that internet streaming has unrealized potential, I doubt anyone would be arguing with you.

Even when, and if, streaming services ever provide a viewing and listening experience that truly equals disc playback, it still will not be the same process. As it stands, streaming equaling disc quality remains a someday maybe and not a today reality.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Vilya

As it stands, streaming equaling disc quality remains a someday maybe and not a today reality.

Per ardua ad astra

Loosely translated - stay thirsty, my friends.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by octagon

Per ardua ad astra

Loosely translated - stay thirsty, my friends.

I have been online not even 10 minutes and I have already learned something; a good start to a new day.

The Royal Air Force Motto: "Through adversity to the stars."

That will save others the trouble of looking it up.

[The_Donster]

I was in another thread and a member had just learned that Zorro was Spanish for fox. Having grown up on repeats of the Guy Williams Disney Zorro I knew that, but the kid inside me died just a little knowing they didn't know that

[The_Donster]

Originally Posted by octagon

Per ardua ad astra

Loosely translated - stay thirsty, my friends.

What's "Stay salty, my friends." sound like?

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by The_Donster

I was in another thread and a member had just learned that Zorro was Spanish for fox. Having grown up on repeats of the Guy Williams Disney Zorro I knew that, but the kid inside me died just a little knowing they didn't know that

I know the feeling.

In the early 90s I worked in a music store and I was restocking some Beatles cds and some young kids asked me: "The Beatles? Who are they?"

It was probably the first time I ever felt old.

[veritas]

So I am pro physical but has 2018 been absolutely terrible for movie deals? I bought like 3 three dollar movies at frys and fanastic beasts and john wick 2 on 4k for ten dollars each but everything else I bought this year so far was used (excluding one tv show I bought day one for retail that i should have waited to buy).

It just seems like this year has had a terribly low number of deals which is good for my pocket book but also a little bit sad. If they keep it up it will also seriously hurt physical sales this year.