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

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I am neutral towards Amazon's UI. I can find what I'm looking for with no great effort. My issue is that streaming from them has been unstable with vast swings in image quality, even pauses for buffering, that I only rarely experience with other providers. Amazon streams are flaky even when my ISP is cooperating fully and no matter if I stream over a wired or a wireless network. They are the most amateur of the streaming services that I have used to date.

Well here you go, Verizon has solved your problems just get their 1Gig Service and all your problems are gone. Oh if you are not in the Verizon FootPrint, I guess you are out of Luck!

https://www.lightreading.com/service..._mc=RSS_LR_EDT

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by alchav21

Well here you go, Verizon has solved your problems just get their 1Gig Service and all your problems are gone.

https://www.lightreading.com/service..._mc=RSS_LR_EDT

Verizon FIOS internet is not available here.

I live in a small village of 1600 people and my choices are Mediacom, Frontier (DSL), and Hughes Net (satellite).

I did up my plan and I now get 135 Mbps down, 16 Mbps up, and 1TB of data per month.

I have yet to revisit Amazon Prime streaming since my last less than satisfactory experience. Vudu, after streaming 5 titles, has been stable each time.

I was looking at buying a new 802.11ac or ad router because my current N router is now 8 years old and I noticed that my 5 Ghz signal is kind of weak, the 2.4 Ghz signal is strong, but the new routers that I like cost between $300-$500.

So, I decided to spend $18 on some more Cat7 cable and I am going to just hard wire my TV to the internet. It is simply more economical for me to do this than to buy a new premium router. I thought you'd get a laugh out of this decision.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

That doesn’t make any sense. You could rent something on Amazon to see if you wanted to purchase, if available via Prime - why purchase? If available via Netflix - why purchase?

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

I've had Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming since DAY ONE. Had a VUDU account sometime before it was sold to Walmart. I won't bore folks with a long list but I can assure you I have been at the forefront of technology, both personal and professional. For example, by the summer of 1972 I had a 4 speaker setup using ambience extraction for quasi 4 channel sound (now have 7.2.4). Another, we went on the air November 1998 with 1080 ATSC broadcast. And one more, in 1983 I started on the design then built a Dolby Surround system to use with LaserDisc and Beta Hi-Fi. I could not afford the Fosgate-Tate system of the day.

So you may want to think twice before you make statements like that about me because I have been WAY ahead of you all the way.

Well if you have Amazon Prime and Netflix you would know that their Movies don't stay on there unless you own them, at least on Amazon. Netflix doesn't have your Collection available like Amazon. I know you have the latest equipment for Video and Sound, but the Average Person does not. If DVD is good enough, then HD 1080P is good for them. You asked for Network readings, now we need Bitrates for 4K and if connected Wireless or Wired.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

I realize that, but you are still arguing against others on the basis of quality, including the scenario where my wife and I watched a DVD that she brought home from the library. And in Vilya's case, while he did spend $1 on a Vudu rental, he then bought the movie physically in 4K.

You are still getting upset over things that do not impact you. Plain and simple.

Well, maybe they do impact me eventually. Even with 4K tv sales doing well, why do some tech sites and nearly ALL analysts still insist mobile is the future? Forget my views for a moment, just answer that.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by alchav21

Well if you had Amazon Prime and Netflix you would know that their Movies don't stay on there unless you own them, at least on Amazon. Netflix doesn't have your Collection available like Amazon. I know you have the latest equipment for Video and Sound, but the Average Person does not. If DVD is good enough, then HD 1080P is good for them.

What do you mean by, “if you had Amazon Prime and Netflix”? I just told you I’ve had both since they became available, Netflix > 12 years, don’t remember Amazon Prime.

I do have quite a few UV/MA and DVD2HDX titles available via Amazon Video and VUDU but why anyone would watch via streaming when they have a superior BD or UHD BD sitting on a shelf is beyond me.

You asked for Network readings, now we need Bitrates for 4K and if connected Wireless or Wired.

The maximum bit rates for streaming 4K content have been posted numerous times, what good would it do to post again?

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Well, maybe they do impact me eventually. Even with 4K tv sales doing well, why do some tech sites and nearly ALL analysts still insist mobile is the future? Forget my views for a moment, just answer that.

Is that even accurate, or just your perception of things? You take every little statement in favor of mobile to mean a MUCH larger "take over" than it really does.

Let's just say you haven't given me or anyone else here even the slightest reason to trust your judgement when assessing these things. You make the "boy who cried wolf" look honest and trustworthy.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Well, maybe they do impact me eventually. Even with 4K tv sales doing well, why do some tech sites and nearly ALL analysts still insist mobile is the future? Forget my views for a moment, just answer that.

Mobile has a past, a present, and a future. As do TVs and movies.

The fact that mobile has a future, however, does not mean that TVs and movies do not have one. They ALL have a future.

You always have to equate growth in one area as a sign of doom for others. Movies and TVs are showing growth as well, but you dismiss all of that and instead fixate on what you imagine to be the "mobile menace."

I now own Hostiles on 4K disc after having watched it first on Vudu. Naturally, it went on sale the day after I bought it.

I have 16 more titles on order; Vudu hasn't slowed my disc purchases one iota.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

why do some tech sites and nearly ALL analysts still insist mobile is the future?

Because they see it as the potential next BBD. Cable and satellite Pay TV, disc and streaming is old news. Analysts and media outlets has to justify their jobs somehow and old news doesn't cut it. For years Home Media Magazine (now Media Play News) had something about Netflix almost everyday. Now they (Netflix) are rarely mentioned. The same was true of DVD and Blu-ray.

[kfbkfb]

Video Codecs:

This may be a little OT, however:

What's on the horizon for Video Codec efficiency
(Data Rate/Picture Quality tradeoff)?

Kirk Bayne

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Well, maybe they do impact me eventually. Even with 4K tv sales doing well, why do some tech sites and nearly ALL analysts still insist mobile is the future?

Insist mobile is the future of what? TV viewing or movie watching?

They don't.

None of the articles you've posted or analysts you've cited have predicted anything even remotely close to the death of Hollywood or the extinction of televisions.

For that matter, forget extinction, you'd be very hard pressed to find a single analyst or tech site predicting that TV screens will be getting smaller.

I would be willing to wager that ALL tech sites and ALL analysts believe that TVs will keep getting bigger.

Cause, you know, they will.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

True but data is still stored based on methodology created many years ago.

And the USS Ronald Reagan is a boat with a steam engine.

What's our point?

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

Data densities continue to advance but its still the same old electric motor, magnetic platters and recording/playback heads.

Unless of course we're looking at solid state storage. SSDs are less reliable and more costly than magnetic or optical alternatives but they've made some pretty impressive strides over just the past several years.

Could movies and TV shows on discs be replaced by some solid state media?
I dunno, maybe.

I'd actually kind of like to see that if only to see my nieces and nephews kids blowing into a movie cartridge before putting it in the player

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

You may find this article on HAMR HDD’s interesting.

That was pretty interesting, thanks.

This is not a rhetorical question, I honestly don't know, is optical storage getting anywhere near its saturation levels?

I was thinking about this last night when I popped in a rented BD (HBO's Westworld, in case anybody's wondering). BDs are far more durable than CDs or DVDs but ironically far fussier about the slightest smudge. There was small fingerprint sized smudge and the disc wouldn't even load until I cleaned it.

Is there still a lot more theoretical headroom for optical discs?

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by octagon

Unless of course we're looking at solid state storage. SSDs are less reliable and more costly than magnetic or optical alternatives but they've made some pretty impressive strides over just the past several years.

SSDs are vastly more reliable than a conventional hard drive. The myth to the contrary has been debunked several times.

"The 1TB model of the Samsung 850 EVO series, which is equipped with the low-priced TLC storage type, can expect a life span of 114 years."

Life span formula for a SSD drive:



"The life span of a Samsung 850 PRO with 1TB...This SSD will probably last an incredible 343 years.":




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

Conventional hard drives have a vastly shorter lifespan:

"Generally speaking, you can rely on your [conventional] hard drive for three to five years on average."

Conventional hard drive survival rates:



https://www.prosofteng.com/blog/how-...d-drives-last/

Compare the warranties: A Western Digital Black 1 TB conventional hard drive has a 2 year warranty. A Samsung 860 Pro 1 TB SSD has a 5 year warranty.

Anecdotally, my friends who are professionals in various computing fields all swear by SSD drives. The three SSDs in my computer are all over 5 years old now and they are all running flawlessly; if these were conventional hard drives they would be at the end of their average lifespan.

See Also: How Long Do SSDs Really Last

[Show spoiler]"Can SSDs last even longer than promised?

The good news is: These figures are even lower than the real TBWs detected in a long-term test conducted by Germany´s most respected IT and Computer magazine c´t and the Heise publishing company. In the magazine´s test, they bought two SSDs from the 12 most popular products available in 2016 and tested each product for one year until the end of June 2017. The SSDs that were conducted were OCZ TR150, Crucial BX 200, Samsung 750 Evo, Samsung 850 Pro, SanDisk Extreme Pro and SanDisk Ultra II.

The experts from the magazine wrote bits of data on the SSD’s using a special tool programmed to both analyse the performance as well as to constantly fill the disks with data.

The outcome of the test conducted was astonishing: All of the disks tested were able to write more data onto their disks then was promised by the producer. Even cheaper disks were able to write more data than promised: The Crucial BX 200 disks were able to write 187 TB and 280 TB – that is more than 2.5 times the figure promised.

One of the Samsung SSD 850 PRO disk achieved a figure of 9.1 Petabyte of data written! That´s 60 times the TBW figure Samsung promises on its data sheets. The cheaper Samsung product – Samsung SSD 750 Evo was able to write 1.2 Petabyte of data, which equals in theory to more than 80 years of constant disk writing. However, the pro models showed why their price is higher: None of them wrote less than 2.2 Petabyte of data."

"The cheaper Samsung product – Samsung SSD 750 Evo was able to write 1.2 Petabyte of data, which equals in theory to more than 80 years of constant disk writing."

"the pro models showed why their price is higher: None of them wrote less than 2.2 Petabyte of data".

https://www.ontrack.com/au/blog/2018...really-last-2/

[alchav21]

So what are you guys trying to say, that Storage and Servers are The Future, I agree 100%. Add Networks and now you're talking about the Future I envision, with Streaming Providers and Cloud Services. Like I have always said, Discs are just a Storage Device and Entertainment will be put on SSD's. Put these SSD's on Servers located anywhere on the Network, and you have the ideal 1:1 Streaming!

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by alchav21

So what are you guys trying to say, that Storage and Servers are The Future, I agree 100%. Add Networks and now you're talking about the Future I envision, with Streaming Providers and Cloud Services. Like I have always said, Discs are just a Storage Device and Entertainment will be put on SSD's. Put these SSD's on Servers located anywhere on the Network, and you have the ideal 1:1 Streaming!

The storage device is not the limiting factor here. The much greater compression currently used by the streaming providers is the problem along with the limitations of the internet itself.

Streaming 1:1 with what discs offer today would require much more bandwidth than many people even receive from their ISP, especially in households with multiple users. It would also explode through the data caps that are imposed on many internet customers.

A 4K stream from Netflix at its current bitrate of 16 Mbps equates to about 7 gb per hour. The bitrate of a 4K disc can be 6-8 times higher, which would be 42-56 gb per hour. It would be like trying to stream 6-8 Netflix 4K movies simultaneously. Many people can't even stream a single 4K movie from Netflix. The internet in its current form and the data caps that customers must endure do not allow for that much bandwidth. Streaming 1:1 equivalency with a 4K disc is just not feasible at present and it will likely remain unfeasible for a very long time.

Even 1:1 streaming at the blu-ray level would increase bandwidth and data usage by 2-2.5 times over what a 4K stream uses now. Many people in this country can not stream even one 4K title at current streaming bitrate levels. The internet as it stands now is not ready for such an increase in usage.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by octagon

What's our point?

Spinning magnetic disc is very old technology, seems like we should have something cheaper and more efficient by now but we don’t.

Could movies and TV shows on discs be replaced by some solid state media?

Yes, they could but it but it would not be cost effective. Stamped disc (78's, 33⅓’s, CD’s, DVD’s, BD’s UHD BD’s) are real cheap to produce because the material cost is real low and the production cycle is very short for each unit.

The cost of solid state media is much higher and would take a period of time to write many gigabytes of data to it. Longevity: at some point in time that electric charge on the gates of those FET’s will dissipate and when it does you movie will be gone.

This is not a rhetorical question, I honestly don't know, is optical storage getting anywhere near its saturation levels?

Not my field but I do know it is based on wave length, the shorter the wave length the higher the data density. I do know there seems to be more complaints about playback issues with UHD BD than standard BD. So far I’ve not had any except for a few mishandled BD rental disc. It would appear we are approaching the practical limits of the 120mm optical disc.

Is there still a lot more theoretical headroom for optical discs?

Should be possible with < 405nm (as used by BD) lasers. I believe 350nm lasers are available, don’t know if they are planed for optical disc use.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by octagon

What's our point?

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

Spinning magnetic disc is very old technology, seems like we should have something cheaper and more efficient by now but we don’t.

In the early 70's we procured a Ampex HS-100/200 recorder/controller known in the industry as the “Slow-Mo machine”. It could record 30 seconds of NTSC video and play forward, backward and at various speeds. It stood about 5' and the HS-200 controller was about the size of a small office desk. In the photo below you can see the two large magnetic platters and the control arms for the record/play heads. Today's HDD’s is very similar, just much smaller.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

Spinning magnetic disc is very old technology, seems like we should have something cheaper and more efficient by now but we don’t.

Yes, they could but it but it would not be cost effective. Stamped disc (78's, 33⅓’s, CD’s, DVD’s, BD’s UHD BD’s) are real cheap to produce because the material cost is real low and the production cycle is very short for each unit.

The cost of solid state media is much higher and would take a period of time to write many gigabytes of data to it. Longevity: at some point in time that electric charge on the gates of those FET’s will dissipate and when it does you movie will be gone.

Not my field but I do know it is based on wave length, the shorter the wave length the higher the data density. I do know there seems to be more complaints about playback issues with UHD BD than standard BD. So far I’ve not had any except for a few mishandled BD rental disc. It would appear we are approaching the practical limits of the 120mm optical disc.

Should be possible with < 405nm (as used by BD) lasers. I believe 350nm lasers are available, don’t know if they are planed for optical disc use.

In some of the articles that I cited in my nerdformation piece on SSD drives, the read function of an SSD is preserved even after the write function fails (if the controller chip fails, then recovery is much more difficult, but still possible). My computer and software engineer friends have told me that reading data from an SSD is possible long after you can no longer write to them.

"However, in comparison to conventional HDDs, the mechanics of SSD don’t degrade when only reading data."

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

As that writing lifetime is estimated to be 80+ years by actual stress testing and theoretically as high as 343 years, then I doubt SSD failure is of any practical concern as that longevity approximates the human lifespan at the lower end of that range and certainly exceeds it many times over at the upper end of that range. You have to write petabytes of data to approach the end of life for a SSD and consumers will NEVER use an SSD that heavily. 1 petabyte=1000 terabyte. I'd love to live long enough to see if my discs still play once they are 80 years old- industry estimates suggest that they will.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by Vilya

In some of the articles that I cited in my nerdformation piece on SSD drives, the read function of an SSD is preserved even after the write function fails (if the controller chip fails, then recovery is much more difficult, but still possible).

Since the poster asked about media distribution on solid state media I just assumed flash drives would be used since they are much cheaper than similar SSD technology.

A new PC build is planed for next year and I plan to do some more research into SSD's. I have been impressed with my HP Envy i7 since I installed a Samsung SSD a year or two back.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

Since the poster asked about media distribution on solid state media I just assumed flash drives would be used since they are much cheaper than similar SSD technology.

A new PC build is planed for next year and I plan to do some more research into SSD's. I have been impressed with my HP Envy i7 since I installed a Samsung SSD a year or two back.

SSD prices dropped sharply recently, especially the Samsungs. Samsung even offers a 4TB SSD now, but it costs about $1200. The 512 gb models are about $148. Five years ago when I bought my three Samsung 512 gb SSD drives they cost about $500 each! Do I know when to buy or what?

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by kfbkfb

Video Codecs:

This may be a little OT, however:

What's on the horizon for Video Codec efficiency
(Data Rate/Picture Quality tradeoff)?

Kirk Bayne

Originally Posted by octagon

Could movies and TV shows on discs be replaced by some solid state media?

Is there still a lot more theoretical headroom for optical discs?

Originally Posted by Vilya

The storage device is not the limiting factor here. The much greater compression currently used by the streaming providers is the problem along with the limitations of the internet itself.

Streaming 1:1 with what discs offer today would require much more bandwidth than many people even receive from their ISP, especially in households with multiple users. It would also explode through the data caps that are imposed on many internet customers.

A 4K stream from Netflix at its current bitrate of 16 Mbps equates to about 7 gb per hour. The bitrate of a 4K disc can be 6-8 times higher, which would be 42-56 gb per hour. It would be like trying to stream 6-8 Netflix 4K movies simultaneously. Many people can't even stream a single 4K movie from Netflix. The internet in its current form and the data caps that customers must endure do not allow for that much bandwidth. Streaming 1:1 equivalency with a 4K disc is just not feasible at present and it will likely remain unfeasible for a very long time.

Even 1:1 streaming at the blu-ray level would increase bandwidth and data usage by 2-2.5 times over what a 4K stream uses now. Many people in this country can not stream even one 4K title at current streaming bitrate levels. The internet as it stands now is not ready for such an increase in usage.

To answer some of these questions, I think Codec has gotten a lot more efficient and will continue to get better. This will make the Quality of Streaming go up with less Bitrates. What do you Disc guys envision for 8K, I say they will have to put it on the same size UHD Disc. That probably means the Codec for the Disc will have to be more efficient to fit. So Codec getting more efficient with Bitrates coming down, making the Quality of Streaming similar to Disc will appeal to the Average Person. Telco's and Cableco's recognize that Gigabit Broadband is needed, are expanding their offerings. What all this means, Streaming will rely on Bandwidth, Networks, and Servers!