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

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Vilya

Not for someone who has owned blu-rays for years. Another way of delivering what I already have had for a long time does not excite me any, but I would not deprive you of yours.

Where did you get your BDs of Addams Family Values and Arsenic and Old Lace? I'd love to get those before Halloween.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by octagon

Where did you get your BDs of Addams Family Values and Arsenic and Old Lace? I'd love to get those before Halloween.

No such animals exist that I know of; you must have looked at my DVD collection. Arsenic And Old Lace in particular deserves a high def upgrade, maybe someday?

Time for me to watch some of my library now, so I surrender my

It has been raining all day here and that never bodes well for my craptastic, ever spastic, ISP; sure am glad I have some discs I can watch, namely Leave It To Beaver Season 2 episodes on delectable DVD. I am nostalgic tonight for a time I never knew and likely never existed.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Vilya

No such animals exist that I know of; you must have looked at my DVD collection.

Yeah, I was just being a smartass but in the process also pointing out that even for a disc fan there might be reason to be excited if another avenue for getting a wider variety of titles in BD quality should present itself.

[Chiefy]

I prefer physical media, but I also collect digital. The sheer convenience of having movies on the go when visiting family is really nice.

The quality, while not up to par with Blu-rays is still leaps and bounds better than DVD's.
The most noticeable quality drop are in dark scenes. Well lit scenes on digital are nearly indistinguishable from Blu-rays. Audio, while still very good is also slightly lacking compared to Blu-rays. I have a 7.1 receiver, but only setup as 5.1, so I can't fully give an educated nod one way or the other.

Another advantage of digital is the cost. I can try it out first at rental prices or watch on Netflix, HULU or Amazon and if I like the movie enough, I'll buy the Blu-ray.

[flyry]

Originally Posted by Vilya

Digital has some advantages and I occasionally mention them, but when I get around to buying those two titles on 4K UHD I will have the discs and the codes for both. I am quality motivated, not bargain obsessed. I like a bargain, sure, and I will get these when they are around $15 or so. My blu-rays will suffice until then.

I am not personally worried about what happens to digital libraries because the only digital titles I have came with the disc. I only have the digital titles activated that came with Disney Rewards migrating to the perpetual mess that is MA. Most of my codes are enshrined unused in the disc cases they arrived in. I have no use for them.

The headaches that are posted multiple times daily in the MA thread alone are enough to keep me away. Their titles may not disappear forever, but they take lots of day trips.

The terrible stories of digital customer service, the finger pointing, the "we're not responsible" boiler plate replies to problems are enough to convince me that they do not care about their customers in the slightest.

As for those nasty, unfriendly EULAs that some of you rationalize away, I hope their many clauses are never used to your detriment. I do want everyone to get what they pay for. But the agreements are real, they do exist, they are not to your benefit, and you all agree to them sight unseen. They can enact these terms and you have even agreed to give up your rights to legal recourse. They reserve the right to hurt you, but until you feel any pain, that's okay with you, but it will never be so with me.

I've never experienced any of these MA issues. It seems almost everyone with these issues are Itunes users. I don't use Itunes so I've been fine (432 digital titles currently).

Everything in life has TOS/Eula. Your email has one.. Every app on your phone has one. Your ISP etc. Your paranoia about them is deel like.

And again seems to be limited to Apple's TOS

[Fiffy]

Originally Posted by flyry

I've never experienced any of these MA issues. It seems almost everyone with these issues are Itunes users. I don't use Itunes so I've been fine (432 digital titles currently).

Hm, funny. I'm primarily an iTunes user and haven't experienced the MA issues either (well, except for the temporary reversal of the early SD-to-HD upgrades); I always thought it was primarily UV users who have these issues.

Overall I'm very happy with MA, since it finally made most of my UV-only digital copies accessible via iTunes and upgraded a lot of my old SD movies to HD.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by flyry

I've never experienced any of these MA issues. It seems almost everyone with these issues are Itunes users. I don't use Itunes so I've been fine (432 digital titles currently).

Everything in life has TOS/Eula. Your email has one.. Every app on your phone has one. Your ISP etc. Your paranoia about them is deel like.

And again seems to be limited to Apple's TOS

My discs and my players don't have EULAs, so that is two less than everything right there.

I use very few apps on my phone; believe it or not, I use it mostly as just a phone. It makes a neat sound when I get an email which I then read on my desktop pc. My phone and its apps are so unimportant that I am still using the Note 3.

I have more than one email account from different providers, so if one ticks me off, I readily have the other. It has not happened, though.

Both apps and email are services; I do not consider them tangible purchases; I never felt like I "owned" any of them. I have added very few to my phone and I have rarely spent more than 99 cents on one. I have not paid for any since 2014. Expenditures of that size don't worry me much.

I am not invested in digital, so I am not seriously worried about what may or may not happen with the EULAs that govern it. I dislike EULAs more as a matter of principle because they do not benefit the consumer, only the licensor. I think people should be more aware of what is actually contained in them and not be so eager to agree to them blindly.

As I said before, I want everyone to receive what they pay for, even if it is not something I would buy.

I don't feel I worry much at all. Not about EULAs, fires, or floods. I just have a lot of free time, enough even to read Apple's EULA when I am not an Apple customer of any kind. I found the terms within it to be shameful, but they don't affect me personally and I hope they never bite anyone who is governed by them. It is more the cynicism in me that sparks my interest than anything approaching paranoia.

[stonesfan129]

Always buy the disc. Consistent access, better quality.

[Fiffy]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

If my e-mail is banned, I'll make a new account with a new provider and I won't have lost anything (all the important stuff is backed up).

If I lost my main email addresses (which I've had for many years) that would cause me a lot of trouble since so many other accounts and services depend on them.

But if you lose your iTunes, Vudu, Amazon, etc. account you'll lose hundreds of movies worth thousands of dollars.
And it's likely you won't be able to replace some of them, so those will be completely lost.

At least for the Movies Anywhere movies you could still access them through one of the other participating providers.

[Fiffy]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

That's just foolish on your part.

How many people do you think use custom domains for their personal email?

That depends on how they're lost. If a studio pulls support for an individual movie then it could disappear from all digital providers simultaneously.

Plus you have no guarantee Movies Anywhere will continue to operate the same in the future or if all the digital providers will still be a part of it.

First the account is banned, then some movies are pulled for unknown reasons, then the providers go down. What's next, the Internet goes down due to a zombie apocalypse?

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Fiffy

How many people do you think use custom domains for their personal email?
First the account is banned, then some movies are pulled for unknown reasons, then the providers go down. What's next, the Internet goes down due to a zombie apocalypse?

The zombie apocalypse is not something to take lightly.

But maybe the mindless sheeple who accept EULAs without knowing what's in them will be immune? Zombies prefer brains afterall.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by alchav21

That's why I said 25+Mbps, because it can double depending on the Movie. I also talked about the new Codec H.265 with Adaptive Bit Streaming. So depending on your Bandwidth the Quality of your Streaming will increase. They have matched Blu-ray Disc Quality, and they are now working on UHD Disc Quality.

Originally Posted by stonesfan129

Ha. Matched Blu-ray disc quality. If you say so. I will keep buying my movies on a disc. Cannot get locked out. No buffering. Audio and video quality are better than the equivalent streaming. Please stop comparing 1080p Blu-ray discs to 4K UHD streaming. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison.

Nobody is comparing Blu-ray to 4K Streaming, it's simply Bitrate with the new Codec and adaptive Streaming all you need is Bandwidth 40Mbps or greater which is the max for a Blu-ray Player. So I know Sony Ultra is Streaming their HD with the higher Bitrates making their 1080P Disc Quality. MA and Vudu are also raising their Bitrates, I don't know about iTunes they are always lagging behind. This is just Streaming, Downloads are still highly compressed.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by alchav21

Nobody is comparing Blu-ray to 4K Streaming, it's simply Bitrate with the new Codec and adaptive Streaming all you need is Bandwidth 40Mbps or greater which is the max for a Blu-ray Player. So I know Sony Ultra is Streaming their HD with the higher Bitrates making their 1080P Disc Quality. MA and Vudu are also raising their Bitrates, I don't know about iTunes they are always lagging behind. This is just Streaming, Downloads are still highly compressed.

According to a June 28, 2017 article from Rtings.com, Sony Ultra streams at an average bitrate of just 16 Mbps. The chart in this article compares the bitrates of 4K UHD discs to many of the streaming services. Sony Ultra is the same as most of the others: 16 Mbps. Not better than other streaming sources, nor worse, and definitely not up to a blu-ray disc and nowhere near that of a 4K UHD disc. Even a H.265 codec is not going to elevate a 16 Mbps bitrate enough to equal, yet alone surpass, even just blu-ray disc quality. The article does not say what codecs are used by the different streaming sources. It also says nothing about "adaptive" streaming that magically multiplies Sony Ultra's bitrate into the stratosphere.

https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/wher...es-and-content

Unless you can provide a newer source of information than this article, it looks like you are very wrong and on multiple counts. I could not find anything on the AVS forums to support any of your claims, either, in a brief search on the subject. I did find a post that says Sony Ultra offers 88, count 'em, 88 titles. That's kinda lame, too.

The article also points out that Sony Ultra "movies are available for purchase through the service for around $30." Some bargain there!
And: "Currently, only Sony titles are available." and it only works with: "Sony's Ultra service is a new 4k and HDR streaming option exclusive to its 4k UHD Android TVs."

Sony Ultra does not sound appealing at all unless a lot has changed since this article was published. Please provide supporting citations if you care to refute any or all of what this article has to say. No folksy anecdotes, just some verifiable facts, please.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by octagon

Yeah, I was just being a smartass but in the process also pointing out that even for a disc fan there might be reason to be excited if another avenue for getting a wider variety of titles in BD quality should present itself.

That’s not like you!

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Vilya

According to a June 28, 2017 article from Rtings.com, Sony Ultra streams at an average bitrate of just 16 Mbps. The chart in this article compares the bitrates of 4K UHD discs to many of the streaming services. Sony Ultra is the same as most of the others: 16 Mbps. Not better than other streaming sources, nor worse, and definitely not up to a blu-ray disc and nowhere near that of a 4K UHD disc. Even a H.265 codec is not going to elevate a 16 Mbps bitrate enough to equal, yet alone surpass, even just blu-ray disc quality. The article does not say what codecs are used by the different streaming sources. It also says nothing about "adaptive" streaming that magically multiplies Sony Ultra's bitrate into the stratosphere.

https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/wher...es-and-content

Unless you can provide a newer source of information than this article, it looks like you are very wrong and on multiple counts. I could not find anything on the AVS forums to support any of your claims, either, in a brief search on the subject. I did find a post that says Sony Ultra offers 88, count 'em, 88 titles. That's kinda lame, too.

The article also points out that Sony Ultra "movies are available for purchase through the service for around $30." Some bargain there!
And: "Currently, only Sony titles are available." and it only works with: "Sony's Ultra service is a new 4k and HDR streaming option exclusive to its 4k UHD Android TVs."

Sony Ultra does not sound appealing at all unless a lot has changed since this article was published. Please provide supporting citations if you care to refute any or all of what this article has to say. No folksy anecdotes, just some verifiable facts, please.

The backgrounds are a giveaway as well as darker scenes.

[ilovenola2]

Originally Posted by stonesfan129

Always buy the disc. Consistent access, better quality.

Absolutely correct!

[Fiffy]

Originally Posted by Vilya

According to a June 28, 2017 article from Rtings.com, Sony Ultra streams at an average bitrate of just 16 Mbps. The chart in this article compares the bitrates of 4K UHD discs to many of the streaming services.

Interesting. If that table is accurate, iTunes 4K is now the streaming service with the highest bitrates by a significant margin. Using the developer HUD I typically see average video bitrates around 25-30 Mbps (though admittedly I have only checked a handful of movies so far).

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Fiffy

Interesting. If that table is accurate, iTunes 4K is now the streaming service with the highest bitrates by a significant margin. Using the developer HUD I typically see average video bitrates around 25-30 Mbps (though admittedly I have only checked a handful of movies so far).

I am surprised iTunes 4K was not included in that table as they are a far more significant content provider than Sony Ultra. I bet iTunes 4K offers more than 88 movies and at a far better price than $30, too.

[IronSoldier]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I am surprised iTunes 4K was not included in that table as they are a far more significant content provider than Sony Ultra.

The article is 2015 and last updated June 2017. Apple didn't start streaming 4k until later in 2017 with the arrival of their new Apple TV 4k. Needs to be updated. I've also contacted sony to clarify bit rates they use right now.

[Vilya]

In this youtube video, the reviewer contrasts the Apple TV 4K with 4K UHD disc playback on an Oppo 203. It has been posted on this thread before, but around the 4:55 to 5:45 minute mark, he observes that the Apple 4K TV was averaging a bitrate of 15-16 Mbps with peaks around 30 Mbps.

Apple TV 4K iTunes Movies (Dolby Vision HDR) vs 4K Blu-ray - YouTube

These were the only bitrate numbers I could easily locate. The reviewer shares many more observations in this 28 minute video.