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

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by alchav21

You guys know about Best Buy and Target, they are cutting back on their Discs. No CD's, and they are changing their Inventories on DVD's and BD to only pay the Distributor for the Discs that sell. Like Groot said, people don't really think about preserving. They watch Movies and TV Shows to be entertained, and if they like it enough they might buy it. The Movie Format moves on, DVD, BD, and now Digital HD. The best we can hope for is that Physical and Digital can coexits, but you have to wonder what comes after UHD Disc.....I say Mass Storage Device or on a Server!

Best Buy, Target, and Walmart in my area have not reduced their movie section and they all still sell CDs. Maybe they will reduce these sections someday, but they have not done so yet where I shop. They likely make these decisions based on how things sell in a given region.

I buy almost all of my discs online. Better selection by far, similar pricing, and the convenience of home delivery. For items like these, I do not need brick and mortar stores at all.

Movie formats have progressed from DVD to blu-ray to the new standard bearer of quality: 4K UHD. Digital HD is still stuck with paltry 16 Mbps bitrate averages and disc still outsells Digital HD by 2 to 1, according to the sales data for the year ending 2017. I know you dismiss facts that don't support your beliefs, so feel free to keep ignoring them- facts don't need your consent.

We know you dream of owning nothing and relying on access to servers over a non-existent fantasy of a perfected internet, but that dream of yours is a nightmare to those of us who want to really own our content in the highest quality possible and have it in our possession. Not everyone wants to be reliant upon the ever more expensive ISPs to watch movies. Heavier reliance on the internet means more data usage and that means greater cost to the consumer. You're welcome to it, but no thank you here.

Many of us live in areas where ISPs can't reliably deliver HD content, yet alone anything beyond it, and that is true now in the year 2018. When exactly will everyone have this magical internet you go on about? Or are we all supposed to up and move to areas that have wondrous fiber infrastructure so we can stream content at 16 Mbps consistently, alongside you perhaps? Cue Mr. Rogers singing "Won't you be my neighbor?" here.

Most people will not purchase "mass storage devices", i.e.: hard drives, for their movie and TV content. They won't want to maintain them and they will hate how often they have to replace them. They are not as reliable long term; optical media lasts for decades with some projections predicting over a century. Conventional hard drives average a mere 3-5 year life span. Consumers will not go for that.

Solid state hard drives are projected to last vastly longer despite the persistent myths to the contrary, but they remain more expensive than what the typical person will want to pay. The Samsung 850 Pro SSD has an estimated lifespan of 343 years! And that is not even the newest model. The Samsung 860 Pro is available and it is priced at $428 for 1 TB of storage. Consumers will love paying that price, each, for their "mass storage devices."

https://www.compuram.de/blog/en/the-...-to-take-care/

^ This article was updated March 15, 2018.

The next new state of the art format will be some type of physical media, as it has been every single time before. Streaming providers have not even caught up with blu-ray bitrates and they are not even close to 4K UHD, so just how and when are they going to surpass it? If streaming providers ever do catch up with 4K UHD, physical media will already have moved on to 8K or beyond.

Physical media leads the technology; streaming just panders to the "good enough" convenience obsessed bargain hunter crowd and it always lags behind the quality that only physical media delivers.

[CV19]

Originally Posted by alchav21

I also started doing Back-up DVD's around 2004, and I don't know what DVD+R I started to use but when they failed I did some research. I found out that Verbatim were highly recommended, and started to use them with no failures since. Even my Back-up BD were on Verbatim. Then when I went Digital HD I stopped doing Back-ups. That's another reason I like Digital, I used DVDFab to take all that Junk off the Discs and just watch the Movie right away. So I preferred watching my Back-ups more than the Commercial Disc.

I don't know if there's any truth in it, but an AV forum I used to frequent a few years ago suggested to check the country of manufacture with regards to Verbatim discs. I did notice the ones I used to buy were always labelled as either 'Made in Japan' or 'Made in Taiwan'. It so happens that discs which were made in either of these two countries were the best in terms of quality and reliability according to other members.

More recently, Verbatim started to manufacture them in India and China. The general concensus was that these were of inferior quality and were more prone to errors. Never having used these myself, I can't vouch for that.

The Taiyo Yuden discs I used to use as well were all made in Japan and were really outstanding. They were generally regarded as the best for both DVD's and CD's, but since about 2008/9, they merged with JVC and marketed their discs as Victor Media (or something like that). However my understanding is that they manufactured some of these newly-labelled discs in other countries too. Now only about 2 or maybe 3 years ago they announced they were no longer manufacturing recording media.

[tob]

Originally Posted by CV19

I don't know if there's any truth in it, but an AV forum I used to frequent a few years ago suggested to check the country of manufacture with regards to Verbatim discs. I did notice the ones I used to buy were always labelled as either 'Made in Japan' or 'Made in Taiwan'. It so happens that discs which were made in either of these two countries were the best in terms of quality and reliability according to other members.

More recently, Verbatim started to manufacture them in India and China. The general concensus was that these were of inferior quality and were more prone to errors. Never having used these myself, I can't vouch for that.

The Taiyo Yuden discs I used to use as well were all made in Japan and were really outstanding. They were generally regarded as the best for both DVD's and CD's, but since about 2008/9, they merged with JVC and marketed their discs as Victor Media (or something like that). However my understanding is that they manufactured some of these newly-labelled discs in other countries too. Now only about 2 or maybe 3 years ago they announced they were no longer manufacturing recording media.

I wish that i kept my DVD Recorder player with the World Cup coming up i would have recorded the games while i watch them and play the match again that night which i did with the past World Cups.
I have my Sky HD box downstairs but i would have liked to have them on dvd and watch them again on my Laptop.

[CV19]

Originally Posted by tob

I wish that i kept my DVD Recorder player with the World Cup coming up i would have recorded the games while i watch them and play the match again that night which i did with the past World Cups.
I have my Sky HD box downstairs but i would have liked to have them on dvd and watch them again on my Laptop.

The recorder I have is a Sony model which has a built-in hard drive. So what I used to do was to record everything onto the hard drive, and then edit out what I didn't want, for example the adverts, and then transfer it onto a DVD.

Although the hard drive part of the machine still works fine and I can record and play back on that with no problems, it doesn't always transfer onto a disc successfully. Once you select 'dubb onto disc', it starts off OK but after anything between 5 and say 30 minutes, it will just switch itself off partway through.

It's a shame, as I did manage to record stuff such as rare films and documentaries which you can't get hold of on a commercial DVD, and as you say, with the World Cup coming up it was great to record matches you may wish to keep.

I don't think modern recorders have connections to allow external equipment to plug into it. Panasonic I think make a similar machine to my Sony but this has a built-in Freeview receiver and will not allow a Sky box for instance to connect to it, if I'm not mistaken.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by CV19

I don't know if there's any truth in it, but an AV forum I used to frequent a few years ago suggested to check the country of manufacture with regards to Verbatim discs. I did notice the ones I used to buy were always labelled as either 'Made in Japan' or 'Made in Taiwan'. It so happens that discs which were made in either of these two countries were the best in terms of quality and reliability according to other members.

More recently, Verbatim started to manufacture them in India and China. The general concensus was that these were of inferior quality and were more prone to errors. Never having used these myself, I can't vouch for that.

The Taiyo Yuden discs I used to use as well were all made in Japan and were really outstanding. They were generally regarded as the best for both DVD's and CD's, but since about 2008/9, they merged with JVC and marketed their discs as Victor Media (or something like that). However my understanding is that they manufactured some of these newly-labelled discs in other countries too. Now only about 2 or maybe 3 years ago they announced they were no longer manufacturing recording media.

I'll have to watch for that country of manufacture going forward.

Btw, is that a new avatar you're sporting? I think I noticed it yesterday, but forgot to comment about it. It's nicely menacing.

[CV19]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I'll have to watch for that country of manufacture going forward.

Btw, is that a new avatar you're sporting? I think I noticed it yesterday, but forgot to comment about it. It's nicely menacing.

Thank you, it's Christopher Lee playing Scaramanga in The Man With The Golden Gun. I came close to using a shot from the Wicker Man, but I think that's more widely used, so I settled for this in the end.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by CV19

Thank you, it's Christopher Lee playing Scaramanga in The Man With The Golden Gun. I came close to using a shot from the Wicker Man, but I think that's more widely used, so I settled for this in the end.

You can't go wrong with the incomparable Christopher Lee.

[CV19]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I'll have to watch for that country of manufacture going forward.

I haven't bought blank discs for a few years, so I don't know where they're manufactured now. I'm willing to guess China, seeing as they seem to make just about everything else. I'm assuming Blu-rays will be made in the same factory as DVD's.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Vilya

You can't go wrong with the incomparable Christopher Lee.

Mind you, I put Vincent Price right up there with him.

[CV19]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Mind you, I put Vincent Price right up there with him.

Me too, without doubt my favourite American actor. My other favourite British horror actor is Peter Cushing, with Boris Karloff not that far behind.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by CV19

Me too, without doubt my favourite American actor. My other favourite British horror actor is Peter Cushing, with Boris Karloff not that far behind.

Great choices.

[Vilya]

I just added my 3,500th title to my blu-ray collection! It was 1953's Inferno 3D from Twilight Time.



https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Infer...lu-ray/174325/

That makes 34 titles on disc purchased this month; it might be time to apply the brakes until June. I feel movie

[CV19]

Originally Posted by Vilya

That makes 34 titles on disc purchased this month; it might be time to apply the brakes until June. I feel movie

Well either that, or you may need to consider having an extension built on your house.......like what I may have to do.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I just added my 3,500th title to my blu-ray collection! It was 1953's Inferno 3D from Twilight Time.



https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Infer...lu-ray/174325/

That makes 34 titles on disc purchased this month; it might be time to apply the brakes until June. I feel movie

Enjoy. Can you give a review of the 3D whenever you get around to watching it please?

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Enjoy. Can you give a review of the 3D whenever you get around to watching it please?

Sure thing; I probably won't get to it until tomorrow night. I am finishing up The Maze Runner trilogy tonight.

[gotmule]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I just added my 3,500th title to my blu-ray collection! It was 1953's Inferno 3D from Twilight Time.



https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Infer...lu-ray/174325/

That makes 34 titles on disc purchased this month; it might be time to apply the brakes until June. I feel movie

That is a helluva collection for sure. Fed Ex and UPS must stop by your house daily.

[stonesfan129]

All I'm going to say is if you buy physical discs, skip VUDU Disc+Digital. I've got two orders that have been processing since 5/10. VUDU and Walmart both give me the runaround, cannot give a definitive answer as to if something will ship soon, just tell you what you already know. After this experience, will never buy anything through them again.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by stonesfan129

All I'm going to say is if you buy physical discs, skip VUDU Disc+Digital. I've got two orders that have been processing since 5/10. VUDU and Walmart both give me the runaround, cannot give a definitive answer as to if something will ship soon, just tell you what you already know. After this experience, will never buy anything through them again.

You're not telling us everything, I've used Walmart/Vudu Disc+Digital with no problems. They won't charge you until the Discs ship, while giving you Digital Early Release. What Movies are you talking about, and do you have an established Account?

[Vilya]

I just finished watching Maze Runner The Death Cure on 4K UHD and I had the disc info displayed during the credit roll and I was surprised to find that even while the credits were going by, the bitrate hit a high of 45.5 Mbps- just for a screen full of white text against a black background.

That credit roll bitrate peak was nearly three times what most streaming services average (16 Mbps) and it was also much higher than what the best 4K streams average (25 Mbps).

Streaming has a long way to go just to match the bitrate of a 4K UHD disc credit roll!

[stonesfan129]

Originally Posted by alchav21

You're not telling us everything, I've used Walmart/Vudu Disc+Digital with no problems. They won't charge you until the Discs ship, while giving you Digital Early Release. What Movies are you talking about, and do you have an established Account?

I have an established account. I have used the service in the past and had no issues with it. The two movies I got were Superbad (Unrated) and From Dusk Til Dawn. I ordered these on 5/10 and after multiple emails back and forth between VUDU and Walmart, they are still "processing." VUDU and Walmart cannot seem to figure out who is responsible for getting these shipped and are just giving me the runaround. I told them in my last email that if they can't ship them today or tomorrow, cancel these and I'll get them from Amazon instead.