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

[CV19]

Originally Posted by Vilya

That would be it. Glad the U.K. price is still reasonable.

Here is the blu-ray.com review of the U.S. edition:

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-W.../14243/#Review

The Amazon.uk listing shows a 56 minute longer running time than what blu-ray.com shows; I am not sure why that is. Sometimes with a series of this length, they do the arithmetic differently, such as including episode recaps in the total run time and other times omitting such recaps. Not sure why there is a discrepancy here.

When you add in all of the extras, this set is well over 30 hours.

It'll give you a taste of what it has to offer. And it does offer a lot.

That's great, many thanks for the link, and a fantastic review. I was interested to read about what you mentioned earlier regarding the ratios, but I'd be happy with the 16:9 version.

As for Amazon showing 56 minutes more than the review, to tell you the truth, Amazon UK aren't always known for their accuracy when listing Blu-ray features and specifications, so it's probably an error on their part.

[CV19]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

You can get it slightly cheaper via third party sellers. Only a couple of pounds though.

Thanks mate, but I'd probably get it from Amazon anyway, at least their packaging is good I've always found. I've had stuff from third party sellers with such lousy packaging that I was amazed it ever arrived at all.

[Vilya]

My internet is due to fail within the hour as it has done every night for the last week. I guess I will have to console myself by watching one of those discs I go on about so much.

Another great documentary you might like is: The First World War narrated by Jonathan Lewis. It devotes 8 hours and 23 minutes to its subject. It is only on DVD as far as I know. It was a "Channel Four" series originally- one of those British TV channels we hear about occasionally here in the States.

There are not very many documentaries about WW1, especially compared with WW2, and this is one of the best. I refer to this one:

https://www.amazon.com/First-World-W...irst+world+war

It is expensive as I think it is OOP here, too, but it may still be available in the U.K. for a good price.

Goodnight until the internet demons permit my return.

[The_Donster]

Originally Posted by Vilya

My internet is due to fail within the hour as it has done every night for the last week. I guess I will have to console myself by watching one of those discs I go on about so much.

Goodnight until the internet demons permit my return.

I've heard you mention this a couple of times Vilya and I thought I'd ask a few questions if you don't mind? Who's your provider, are you using your router or theirs, wireless or hard wired, when was the last time you rebooted your router and what is your provider saying? Are there any outages in your area or is just a peak time for your plan? I ask this because I was pulling in some of the slowest speeds a few nights ago when I was testing my network on Netflix. I ended up rebooting my router the next day and my speeds have returned. *Knock on wood, it is Comcast after all

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by The_Donster

I've heard you mention this a couple of times Vilya and I thought I'd ask a few questions if you don't mind? Who's your provider, are you using your router or theirs, wireless or hard wired, when was the last time you rebooted your router and what is your provider saying? Are there any outages in your area or is just a peak time for your plan? I ask this because I was pulling in some of the slowest speeds a few nights ago when I was testing my network on Netflix. I ended up rebooting my router the next day and my speeds have returned. *Knock on wood, it is Comcast after all

My provider is Mediacom. I use my own router, a Netgear model, and my own modem, a Motorola Surfboard 6141. My desktop is hard wired to the router. I have also hard wired directly to the modem and that makes no difference.

I have rebooted both my modem and my router nearly every single day over the past week. Every time I call in to my ISP, that is part of the drill they have me complete.

My third tech visit in 8 days is scheduled for this morning. Each time I have contacted my ISP, they give me a somewhat different explanation.

During the first call, the phone rep. noticed a lot of noise on the line to my modem. The phone rep. noted that there were outages very near to me and they could be "draining" my signal. The first tech who visited decided that my inside coax cable was being pinched, so he replaced it and slightly rerouted it. He also said there was some unspecified outside maintenance that needed to be scheduled. His efforts solved nothing, my service went out again that Saturday afternoon and again that evening around 8 PM, just as it had every night before his visit.

I called my ISP again and this time I was told that a "cable card" in the "node" was showing a bad signal to noise ratio; a ratio that became 100% noise. The second tech arrived Tuesday morning and he said that my signal was too strong, coming in at 7.8 db. He then went outside and lowered it to 3.8 db while saying that a "perfect" signal should be 0 db. He said that temperature fluctuations between day and night were causing my signal to become too strong and therefore it would become "distorted" or "noisy." His adjustments accomplished nothing. My service went out again that evening at about 8 PM.

On my latest call, the phone rep. reviewed all of the previous notes and would not hazard much of a guess, just repeating that there was a lot of noise in the signal to my modem. She made notes and escalated the problem for a service manager's review and scheduled this morning's third tech visit.

Each night since Thursday, May 11, I have lost service around 8 PM each night and it stayed out until about 10 PM. Oddly, tonight is the only night that my service did not fail out of the last 7 evenings.

My normal speed test results are 80 Mbps down, 10.5 Mbps up, ping 18 ms, and jitter 4 ms. Just before the outages my upload would drop to 2 Mbps and my jitter would skyrocket to 267 ms. The other values stayed about the same.

It has been a very frustrating week with my ISP. It should not take 8 days and three tech visits to fix my internet service. I am lucky if I get three good months before having problems with Mediacom's service. They are the only broadband provider in my area, so there are no real alternatives unless I want 18 Mbps DSL service.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Vilya

My internet is due to fail within the hour as it has done every night for the last week. I guess I will have to console myself by watching one of those discs I go on about so much.

Another great documentary you might like is: The First World War narrated by Jonathan Lewis. It devotes 8 hours and 23 minutes to its subject. It is only on DVD as far as I know. It was a "Channel Four" series originally- one of those British TV channels we hear about occasionally here in the States.

There are not very many documentaries about WW1, especially compared with WW2, and this is one of the best. I refer to this one:

https://www.amazon.com/First-World-W...irst+world+war

It is expensive as I think it is OOP here, too, but it may still be available in the U.K. for a good price.

Goodnight until the internet demons permit my return.

Yep, just DVD here as well. Shame.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Vilya

My provider is Mediacom. I use my own router, a Netgear model, and my own modem, a Motorola Surfboard 6141. My desktop is hard wired to the router. I have also hard wired directly to the modem and that makes no difference.

I have rebooted both my modem and my router nearly every single day over the past week. Every time I call in to my ISP, that is part of the drill they have me complete.

My third tech visit in 8 days is scheduled for this morning. Each time I have contacted my ISP, they give me a somewhat different explanation.

During the first call, the phone rep. noticed a lot of noise on the line to my modem. The phone rep. noted that there were outages very near to me and they could be "draining" my signal. The first tech who visited decided that my inside coax cable was being pinched, so he replaced it and slightly rerouted it. He also said there was some unspecified outside maintenance that needed to be scheduled. His efforts solved nothing, my service went out again that Saturday afternoon and again that evening around 8 PM, just as it had every night before his visit.

I called my ISP again and this time I was told that a "cable card" in the "node" was showing a bad signal to noise ratio; a ratio that became 100% noise. The second tech arrived Tuesday morning and he said that my signal was too strong, coming in at 7.8 db. He then went outside and lowered it to 3.8 db while saying that a "perfect" signal should be 0 db. He said that temperature fluctuations between day and night were causing my signal to become too strong and therefore it would become "distorted" or "noisy." His adjustments accomplished nothing. My service went out again that evening at about 8 PM.

On my latest call, the phone rep. reviewed all of the previous notes and would not hazard much of a guess, just repeating that there was a lot of noise in the signal to my modem. She made notes and escalated the problem for a service manager's review and scheduled this morning's third tech visit.

Each night since Thursday, May 11, I have lost service around 8 PM each night and it stayed out until about 10 PM. Oddly, tonight is the only night that my service did not fail out of the last 7 evenings.

My normal speed test results are 80 Mbps down, 10.5 Mbps up, ping 18 ms, and jitter 4 ms. Just before the outages my upload would drop to 2 Mbps and my jitter would skyrocket to 267 ms. The other values stayed about the same.

It has been a very frustrating week with my ISP. It should not take 8 days and three tech visits to fix my internet service. I am lucky if I get three good months before having problems with Mediacom's service. They are the only broadband provider in my area, so there are no real alternatives unless I want 18 Mbps DSL service.

Like I mentioned earlier, as of 2020, we will get compensated for every hour we don’t have service OR (as I understand it) we will be given a fixed 5G wireless router with unlimited bandwidth until the problem is solved. Hopefully you guys will also get this compensation ruling.
I know the 5G fixed router might be flaky for HQ entertainment but at least if you rely on a connection for work or whatever, you can still get online without using your data allowance.

[CV19]

Originally Posted by Vilya

There are not very many documentaries about WW1, especially compared with WW2, and this is one of the best. I refer to this one:

https://www.amazon.com/First-World-W...irst+world+war

Thanks for the link and recommendation Vilya. Sadly, it would appear to be out of print here in the UK too, although there are used copies available from various sellers. There are other selections, but you're right, there's not as many to choose from as there are for World War 2.

By the way, that's a great avatar you have there.

[stonesfan129]

Originally Posted by Vilya

My provider is Mediacom. I use my own router, a Netgear model, and my own modem, a Motorola Surfboard 6141. My desktop is hard wired to the router. I have also hard wired directly to the modem and that makes no difference.

I have rebooted both my modem and my router nearly every single day over the past week. Every time I call in to my ISP, that is part of the drill they have me complete.

My third tech visit in 8 days is scheduled for this morning. Each time I have contacted my ISP, they give me a somewhat different explanation.

During the first call, the phone rep. noticed a lot of noise on the line to my modem. The phone rep. noted that there were outages very near to me and they could be "draining" my signal. The first tech who visited decided that my inside coax cable was being pinched, so he replaced it and slightly rerouted it. He also said there was some unspecified outside maintenance that needed to be scheduled. His efforts solved nothing, my service went out again that Saturday afternoon and again that evening around 8 PM, just as it had every night before his visit.

I called my ISP again and this time I was told that a "cable card" in the "node" was showing a bad signal to noise ratio; a ratio that became 100% noise. The second tech arrived Tuesday morning and he said that my signal was too strong, coming in at 7.8 db. He then went outside and lowered it to 3.8 db while saying that a "perfect" signal should be 0 db. He said that temperature fluctuations between day and night were causing my signal to become too strong and therefore it would become "distorted" or "noisy." His adjustments accomplished nothing. My service went out again that evening at about 8 PM.

On my latest call, the phone rep. reviewed all of the previous notes and would not hazard much of a guess, just repeating that there was a lot of noise in the signal to my modem. She made notes and escalated the problem for a service manager's review and scheduled this morning's third tech visit.

Each night since Thursday, May 11, I have lost service around 8 PM each night and it stayed out until about 10 PM. Oddly, tonight is the only night that my service did not fail out of the last 7 evenings.

My normal speed test results are 80 Mbps down, 10.5 Mbps up, ping 18 ms, and jitter 4 ms. Just before the outages my upload would drop to 2 Mbps and my jitter would skyrocket to 267 ms. The other values stayed about the same.

It has been a very frustrating week with my ISP. It should not take 8 days and three tech visits to fix my internet service. I am lucky if I get three good months before having problems with Mediacom's service. They are the only broadband provider in my area, so there are no real alternatives unless I want 18 Mbps DSL service.

I used to get the same thing with Charter every night. What I found was happening is DNS would fail for about 15-20 minutes. Try changing your DNS IP in your router to Google 8.8.8.8 and OpenDNS 208.67.222.222. This fixed the issue for me.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by stonesfan129

I used to get the same thing with Charter every night. What I found was happening is DNS would fail for about 15-20 minutes. Try changing your DNS IP in your router to Google 8.8.8.8 and OpenDNS 208.67.222.222. This fixed the issue for me.

Thank you for your recommendation; I will look into that, but first I am going to see what the results of my third tech visit are before I make any changes.

My router is pretty old, about 6 years old I'm guessing; I have debated whether or not I should replace it altogether, but it seems to work just fine. Have routers improved enough to justify getting a new one?

Edit: The Mediacom tech phoned me to say that he believes the problem has been fixed; he said the issue involved a newly buried cable that a contracted crew placed incorrectly. We shall see; they tell me the problem has been fixed after each and every service call.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by CV19

By the way, that's a great avatar you have there.

My new avatar, like the previous one, are from drawings made by my late brother. Of course, I have to crop the original drawing a great deal to settle on an avatar.

In the full drawing, a dragon has removed the "outhouse" exposing our hero at a disadvantage.

[stonesfan129]

Originally Posted by Vilya

Thank you for your recommendation; I will look into that, but first I am going to see what the results of my third tech visit are before I make any changes.

My router is pretty old, about 6 years old I'm guessing; I have debated whether or not I should replace it altogether, but it seems to work just fine. Have routers improved enough to justify getting a new one?

Yes, in terms of what speeds they are capable of for wireless. Other than that, if your current one works fine, probably not much reason to upgrade.

[CV19]

Originally Posted by Vilya

My new avatar, like the previous one, are from drawings made by my late brother. Of course, I have to crop the original drawing a great deal to settle on an avatar.

In the full drawing, a dragon has removed the "outhouse" exposing our hero at a disadvantage.

Yes I liked your previous one too Vilya, they are both excellent drawings so credit to your late brother for producing them.

Sadly, I'm totally useless at drawing. Even at school, I'm sure my teacher used to laugh at my feeble attempt at it.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by CV19

Yes I liked your previous one too Vilya, they are both excellent drawings so credit to your late brother for producing them.

Sadly, I'm totally useless at drawing. Even at school, I'm sure my teacher used to laugh at my feeble attempt at it.

I only took art as a option because I had a crush on my teacher. She was sweet!

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Vilya

My new avatar, like the previous one, are from drawings made by my late brother. Of course, I have to crop the original drawing a great deal to settle on an avatar.

In the full drawing, a dragon has removed the "outhouse" exposing our hero at a disadvantage.

They are very good.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by CV19

Yes I liked your previous one too Vilya, they are both excellent drawings so credit to your late brother for producing them.

Sadly, I'm totally useless at drawing. Even at school, I'm sure my teacher used to laugh at my feeble attempt at it.

I can barely draw a good circle with a compass. My late brother got all of the artistic talent in my family.

I tried to match him at drawing when we were in school and the results were just pathetic. He passed away at the untimely age of just 38.

I have kept as many of his drawings, even just his outlines, as I could find.

His premature death was one of the reasons for my early retirement. Out of a family with four kids, only two of us remain- we don't seem to have a long life span.

[CV19]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

I only took art as a option because I had a crush on my teacher. She was sweet!

Luckily I opted out of art after my first year at high school. However, had she been a nice looking teacher rather than a middle-aged guy, I may well have persevered.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by CV19

Luckily I opted out of art after my first year at high school. However, had she been a nice looking teacher rather than a middle-aged guy, I may well have persevered.

She was just really cool apart from being very nice looking. She cared about her students and sadly that was not always a given back in the 80’s (or probably now even)

[CV19]

Originally Posted by Vilya

He passed away at the untimely age of just 38.

I have kept as many of his drawings, even just his outlines, as I could find.

I'm very sorry to hear that - far too young for anyone to pass away. Indeed, his drawings will be very special to you.

[Vilya]

It will be interesting to see if my internet service is actually fixed. I want to stream a really old show, Father Knows Best, to see if it is something I want to own. It is only available on DVD.

Amazon Prime lets you watch the first season, but it then wants you to subscribe to a "channel" to watch the subsequent seasons. Amazon Prime does this with a lot of TV shows, offering up the first season for free and then demanding a recurring fee to watch beyond that.

I say "no thanks" to subscribing to these "channels." I am hoping that viewing one season is enough to base a possible purchase decision upon.