4K stream vs Blu-Ray disc

[mdo7]

Originally Posted by Lee A Stewart

I would hope so. You're paying $15 to $20 for a single movie versus $7 to $15 for a whole month's worth of streaming content.

Yeah well good luck finding One Missed Call on streaming (I can't find any of the 3 films on Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc...)

And how the hell am I supposed to watch Gatchaman if it's not available on Netflix, or Amazon Prime. And you expect me to pay $48 per year on HiDive just so I can watch Gatchaman, the one anime I adored so much.

Sorry, I'm not going to waste $48 per year since I already have a subscription for Disney+, and other stuff.

[SillyG]

I am not subscribed to any streaming services, but when comparing my native 4K footage from a professional camera (cropped to UHD 3840x2160 for YouTube) with the same footage encoded for standard Blu-ray, I have noticed a subtle uptick in fine detail at times, but the compression artefacts in the UHD stream are definitely noticeable, and I imagine that such artefacts would be significantly worse in streaming (the footage I uploaded was encoded in XAVC-I format, which is identical to the format that the camera records at).

The raw footage contains no discernible artefacts, nor does the edited footage upon encoding at XAVC-I.

Mileage will vary of course, and with so many "4K" UHDs being comprised of 2K DIs, I would be interested to hear from those who have compared such releases with their UHD streams.

[Lee A Stewart]

Originally Posted by SillyG

I am not subscribed to any streaming services, but when comparing my native 4K footage from a professional camera (cropped to UHD 3840x2160 for YouTube) with the same footage encoded for standard Blu-ray, I have noticed a subtle uptick in fine detail at times, but the compression artefacts in the UHD stream are definitely noticeable, and I imagine that such artefacts would be significantly worse in streaming (the footage I uploaded was encoded in XAVC-I format, which is identical to the format that the camera records at).

The raw footage contains no discernible artefacts, nor does the edited footage upon encoding at XAVC-I.

Mileage will vary of course, and with so many "4K" UHDs being comprised of 2K DIs, I would be interested to hear from those who have compared such releases with their UHD streams.

Here's an idea, pay the $7 + tax and subscribe to Disney+ for one month. Plenty of 4K HDR content for you to compare. Then you can make comparisons with your own equipment and your own eyes. Call it an experiment. Look how much knowledge you will gain fist hand.

[SillyG]

Originally Posted by Lee A Stewart

Here's an idea, pay the $7 + tax and subscribe to Disney+ for one month. Plenty of 4K HDR content for you to compare. Then you can make comparisons with your own equipment and your own eyes. Call it an experiment. Look how much knowledge you will gain fist hand.

I have watched streaming at the homes of friends/family so I have an idea of what to expect.

I am in no hurry to subscribe to any such services at the moment as I already have a large volume of unwatched Blu-rays and DVDs. It's a great value proposition, but I just can't curb the preservationist/archivist in me.

[mdo7]

Disclaimer: I have a love-hate relationship when it comes to streaming media. What you're about to see is another reason why I hate streaming...

Yesterday, I was looking around on my PS4 Pro and I was shocked to see The Dark Knight (yes as in the 2008 Batman movie from Christopher Nolan) appearing not on HBO Max, but on Peacock TV which I find it unbelievable because The Dark Knight and other Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight/Batman trilogy are owned by Warner Bros and by default should be on HBO Max, but seeing a DC Comic/WB property on Peacock TV (which is owned by NBCUniversal) really blew my mind. It's not only Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, but all the Harry Potter films (also owned by WB) are on Peacock TV too instead of HBO Max. That's like putting Mickey Mouse TV series on HBO Max, or putting Looney Tunes on Disney+.

So yes, if you're a HBO Max subscriber and you don't have Peacock TV subscription and you've been wanting to watch The Dark Knight trilogy or all the Harry Potter films on HBO Max, you're out of luck. Turns out WB and NBCUniversal did some sort of deal that caused this fiasco. And yeah...

Article from The Verge: HBO Max and Peacock are losing some of their biggest titles just after launching

The Verge article: The Harry Potter films are headed to Peacock, in a perfect example of how confusing streaming is

Vanity Fair's article: Harry Potter Movies Are Apparating from HBO Max to Peacock

NBC News Think article: 'Harry Potter' on HBO Max? Not anymore. Welcome to the new streamer chaos.

And now Harry Potter is now MIA on Peacock TV, it's not on HBO Max. I don't know where people can stream Harry Potter collection since it's not on any of the streaming site. This is why streaming is so frustrating for me and probably for a lot of people.

It's another reason why people should buy the Dark Knight trilogy and the Harry Potter collection on blu-ray.

[s2mikey]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

Why are you comparing pay TV to ownership?

Get used to it. He hates physical media and doesn’t care about image quality or presentation. Just saying it like it is. He also doesn’t get that owning something isn’t the same as a glorified rental. And don’t forget the other positives of ownership. They can’t remove it, they can’t edit it, they can’t mess with it at all. It’s yours. Forever. Best quality presentation possible. Period. And the post above mine is yet another reason discs are great: some great content just isn’t available to be streamed and might never be. Then what?

Anyways, streaming overall is decent but you MUST have a crackin' internet connection and even then it still doesn’t measure up to discs. No way it can. Has streaming quality improved? Yes, but I also attribute that to our faster and faster internet connections as much as anything. The masses don’t care about quality so Netflix, Disney, whoever are only going to provide the bare minimum regarding presentation bandwidth. Most consumers won’t notice or just live with it. And remember, the average "Joe" has a middle-tier or worse LCD with bad picture quality anyways. Then they mount it over the fireplace and leave it on torch mode out of the box. You could watch VHS on that setup and won’t see any difference between that and 4K. Sorry, just being realistic.

[Lee A Stewart]

Streaming is not a replacement for physical media. That's where all of you are getting it wrong. It's a replacement for Pay-TV: CBL, SAT and TELCO.



https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/re...in-single-year

[JohnAV]

Originally Posted by Lee A Stewart

Streaming is not a replacement for physical media. That's where all of you are getting it wrong. It's a replacement for Pay-TV: CBL, SAT and TELCO

The problem is most of the broadcast providers, FX, ABC, CW, etc. all utilize some licensed content provider authentication to access by streaming app what is free OTA or you receive with your pay TV subscription. Its why those YouTube TV and other stuff isn't cheap anymore. Granted some internet hosts allow you to watch a lot of recent broadcast content like Hulu.

[mdo7]

Originally Posted by s2mikey

Get used to it. He hates physical media and doesn’t care about image quality or presentation. Just saying it like it is. He also doesn’t get that owning something isn’t the same as a glorified rental. And don’t forget the other positives of ownership. They can’t remove it, they can’t edit it, they can’t mess with it at all. It’s yours. Forever. Best quality presentation possible. Period. And the post above mine is yet another reason discs are great: some great content just isn’t available to be streamed and might never be. Then what?

Anyways, streaming overall is decent but you MUST have a crackin' internet connection and even then it still doesn’t measure up to discs. No way it can. Has streaming quality improved? Yes, but I also attribute that to our faster and faster internet connections as much as anything. The masses don’t care about quality so Netflix, Disney, whoever are only going to provide the bare minimum regarding presentation bandwidth. Most consumers won’t notice or just live with it. And remember, the average "Joe" has a middle-tier or worse LCD with bad picture quality anyways. Then they mount it over the fireplace and leave it on torch mode out of the box. You could watch VHS on that setup and won’t see any difference between that and 4K. Sorry, just being realistic.

Originally Posted by Lee A Stewart

Streaming is not a replacement for physical media. That's where all of you are getting it wrong. It's a replacement for Pay-TV: CBL, SAT and TELCO.

As I said, this is why I have a love-hate relationship with streaming. Because of the problems s2mikey pointed out. Even if I have Disney+, I would still want to buy Disney blu-rays/4K UHD blu-rays because I know the picture quality on Disney+ can't be 100% close to the blu-ray. Also I know the audio is not on par with blu-ray. Also there are exclusive special features on blu-ray you can't find on Disney+, or Netflix. s2mikey also pointed out that not everybody has a robust internet connection, and that could be a big problem for I don't know how many users that take their picture and audio quality seriously. Also you can have internet outage or the streaming media provider have an outage, and you won't have access to any streaming content if there's a internet outage or that streaming provider is down. So that's why having blu-ray is handy for, it act as a back-up in case if the internet and streaming provider went down. Also not every content that is available on blu-ray will be available on streaming (it's also true that there are old content that has not seen a DVD or blu-ray release but gotten a streaming media release). Like for example, Netflix or Amazon Prime doesn't have Casshan (the 1973 classic) or Gatchaman (another classic anime), and I can't find that series on HiDive at all. And which legal streaming provider in the US can give me Mazinger Z since it's been released on DVD, but no blu-ray (let alone a SD-BD release) and no current streaming sites have the series.

Originally Posted by JohnAV

The problem is most of the broadcast providers, FX, ABC, CW, etc. all utilize some licensed content provider authentication to access by streaming app what is free OTA or you receive with your pay TV subscription. Its why those YouTube TV and other stuff isn't cheap anymore. Granted some internet hosts allow you to watch a lot of recent broadcast content like Hulu.

That's true, you got to have a subscription with a TV provider (ie: AT&T, Verizon Fios, Dish, etc...) in order to watch something liked ABC World News Tonight.

[SmittysGelato]

Upgraded my TV to 4K recently, will be upgrading to a 4K player in a few months when my funds replenish. Stuck with streaming at the moment and I gotta admit so far Standard Blu-rays look more impressive than streamed 4K content.

Long live physical media.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by SmittysGelato

Upgraded my TV to 4K recently, will be upgrading to a 4K player in a few months when my funds replenish. Stuck with streaming at the moment and I gotta admit so far Standard Blu-rays look more impressive than streamed 4K content.

Long live physical media.

You didn't say what 4KTV and Streaming setup you have with Bandwidth Speed, because with the proper setup and equipment HD Streams should be as good as BD!

[JohnAV]

Originally Posted by alchav21

You didn't say what 4KTV and Streaming setup you have with Bandwidth Speed, because with the proper setup and equipment HD Streams should be as good as BD!

Don't you think someone wouldn't be able to watch 4K streaming if he didn't have fast enough internet connection? (Save your fiber pitch too)

On your setup you couldn't tell the difference between 4K stream and HD stream so you admitted, so why would we trust you to claim HD streams look as good as blu-rays?

[s2mikey]

Originally Posted by SmittysGelato

Upgraded my TV to 4K recently, will be upgrading to a 4K player in a few months when my funds replenish. Stuck with streaming at the moment and I gotta admit so far Standard Blu-rays look more impressive than streamed 4K content.

Long live physical media.

Yes, long live physical media! Of course, that doesn’t mean discs and streaming can’t and shouldn’t coexist. They do and should stay that way. Streaming is great for TV shows, older films and sort of a rental system per se. But, for your favorite content that you will watch over and over? Gotta have the best presentation possible. No debate. Gimme a disc.

[s2mikey]

Originally Posted by mdo7

As I said, this is why I have a love-hate relationship with streaming. Because of the problems s2mikey pointed out. Even if I have Disney+, I would still want to buy Disney blu-rays/4K UHD blu-rays because I know the picture quality on Disney+ can't be 100% close to the blu-ray. Also I know the audio is not on par with blu-ray. Also there are exclusive special features on blu-ray you can't find on Disney+, or Netflix. s2mikey also pointed out that not everybody has a robust internet connection, and that could be a big problem for I don't know how many users that take their picture and audio quality seriously. Also you can have internet outage or the streaming media provider have an outage, and you won't have access to any streaming content if there's a internet outage or that streaming provider is down. So that's why having blu-ray is handy for, it act as a back-up in case if the internet and streaming provider went down. Also not every content that is available on blu-ray will be available on streaming (it's also true that there are old content that has not seen a DVD or blu-ray release but gotten a streaming media release). Like for example, Netflix or Amazon Prime doesn't have Casshan (the 1973 classic) or Gatchaman (another classic anime), and I can't find that series on HiDive at all. And which legal streaming provider in the US can give me Mazinger Z since it's been released on DVD, but no blu-ray (let alone a SD-BD release) and no current streaming sites have the series.

That's true, you got to have a subscription with a TV provider (ie: AT&T, Verizon Fios, Dish, etc...) in order to watch something liked ABC World News Tonight.

There is quite a lot that’s NOT available via streaming which is a good point you bring up. And even if it does show up many times it disappears after a short stint. Then what? There is so much crap too. Some of the films on Netflix for example look like they were made in a dudes backyard with a phone.

[bhampton]

Originally Posted by alchav21

You didn't say what 4KTV and Streaming setup you have with Bandwidth Speed, because with the proper setup and equipment HD Streams should be as good as BD!

The problem with this statement is it's false.

HD streams are inferior to BD
4K streams are inferior to UHD BD

[mdo7]

Originally Posted by SmittysGelato

Upgraded my TV to 4K recently, will be upgrading to a 4K player in a few months when my funds replenish. Stuck with streaming at the moment and I gotta admit so far Standard Blu-rays look more impressive than streamed 4K content.

Long live physical media.

Of course blu-ray will look probably a lot better then streaming. One time, I did a comparison of Tomorrow Never Dies on my blu-ray and Netflix side by side. Beside the audio, I saw that the image/video quality on Netflix is not 100% close to blu-ray. I mean on Netflix, it looks good superficially compared to blu-ray but on closer inspection, I noticed loss of details on the Netflix version compared on my blu-ray version. Not only that, when I looked at the transfer bit rate of blu-ray and Netflix. The Netflix one made my eyes open because I noticed the transfer bit rate is much smaller then the blu-ray. On Netflix, I saw according to the stat info, the bit rate transfer is 4.28 Mbps and it never seem to fluctuate or increase or decrease. While my blu-ray version of the movie the bit rate transfer always varies 19.9 to 37 Mbps. I'll say this again:

Tomorrow Never die video transfer bit rate data comparison

Blu-ray: range from 19.3 to 37 Mbps according to my Sony blu-ray player when reading the information

Netflix: 4.28 Mbps (the number never change throughout the movie when viewed on Netflix)

So there's a big gap in video quality between streaming and physical media if you compare carefully. I believe if I do more comparison between some of my blu-ray version of my movie and the version on Netflix or any streaming sites. I believe I'll reached the same conclusion.

Originally Posted by alchav21

You didn't say what 4KTV and Streaming setup you have with Bandwidth Speed, because with the proper setup and equipment HD Streams should be as good as BD!

Originally Posted by bhampton

The problem with this statement is it's false.

HD streams are inferior to BD
4K streams are inferior to UHD BD

Of course, I just did a comparison between the 2 Tomorrow Never dies on Netflix and blu-ray. In the end, blu-ray came out on top when it comes to audio and video quality. It doesn't matter how good your internet speed is, the bit rate transfer on your streaming cannot match blu-ray. Superficially, on Netflix it might look just as good as blu-ray, but if you examine both the Netflix and the blu-ray version of your movie with a keen detail with your eyes, you will start to see noticeable difference in video quality and Netflix (and streaming) always fall behind blu-ray when it comes to details.

Originally Posted by s2mikey

There is quite a lot that’s NOT available via streaming which is a good point you bring up. And even if it does show up many times it disappears after a short stint. Then what? There is so much crap too. Some of the films on Netflix for example look like they were made in a dudes backyard with a phone.

Just to be fair, there's a lot of movies that hasn't seen a BD (let alone a DVD) release but I can find them on streaming sites. On Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video, I would find a lot of obscure TV movies that never got a DVD release or the DVD copy would be out of print for many years. I mean on Disney+, there were a lot of TV movies that they have on there where it's hard to find a DVD version or that TV movie never got a DVD release. On Amazon Prime Video, I was surprised to see old TV movies from the 70's, 80's, and 90's that never got a DVD or BD release get a 4K restoration and it looks good even if it has not seen blu-ray (or 4K UHD BD) release in the US.

So yeah, when it comes to streaming, that's why I have a love-hate relationship with it.

Oh and regarding what you said about Netflix, I find more of those "backyard with a phone" films on Amazon Prime Video then on Netflix. Trust me, I've played around on both of them and I've seen more of these on Prime video then on Netflix.

[SmittysGelato]

My setup for the curious:

Sony x950h
I've been streaming 4K content on Amazon and Disney+
I did a speed test and my Internet downloads at an average of 89mbps. So I'm thinking that is plenty fast enough.

[JohnAV]

Originally Posted by SmittysGelato

My setup for the curious:

Sony x950h
I've been streaming 4K content on Amazon and Disney+
I did a speed test and my Internet downloads at an average of 89mbps. So I'm thinking that is plenty fast enough.

Its faster then someone's 75 Mbps fiber. I'm 200+ and there comes a point that the latency and buffering of streaming content during times of high usage can't be overcome by download speed.

[mdo7]

Originally Posted by SmittysGelato

My setup for the curious:

Sony x950h
I've been streaming 4K content on Amazon and Disney+
I did a speed test and my Internet downloads at an average of 89mbps. So I'm thinking that is plenty fast enough.

Originally Posted by JohnAV

Its faster then someone's 75 Mbps fiber. I'm 200+ and there comes a point that the latency and buffering of streaming content during times of high usage can't be overcome by download speed.

If it helps, I have a strong internet connection, my connection is above 200 Mbps. Despite that, it doesn't solve the problem of streaming not being able to match the quality of blu-ray.

From Netflix's help center about recommended internet connection:

Below are the internet download speed recommendations per stream for playing TV shows and movies through Netflix.

• 0.5 Megabits per second - Required broadband connection speed
  
• 1.5 Megabits per second - Recommended broadband connection speed
  
• 3.0 Megabits per second - Recommended for SD quality
  
• 5.0 Megabits per second - Recommended for HD quality
  
• 25 Megabits per second - Recommended for Ultra HD quality

And from Disney+ Help center about recommended internet connection:

We want you to have the best possible experience watching all your favorites on Disney+ so for consistent, high-quality streaming, we recommend the following speeds:

• 5.0 Mbps for High Definition content
• 25.0 Mbps for 4K UHD content

On streaming like Netflix and Disney+, you need about 5 Mbps for HD picture quality which is below what I get from blu-ray (which has transfer rate that can hit 40 Mbps). And it's unbelievable that for 4K UHD, you need about 25 Mbps on Netflix and Disney+ when on a 4K UHD BD, you can get up to 100-120 to 140 Mbps (yes depend on what type of 4K UHD BD you're using). So you're getting an inferior product when you're streaming HD and UHD titles when compared to that same titles on blu-ray.

[Lee A Stewart]

You get what you pay for: $25 for a single 4K UHD BD movie versus say Disney+ at $6.99 per month with 120 4K HDR movies to choose from. It's like the difference between going to a Ruth Chris Steakhouse versus a all-you-can-eat Golden Corral which offers steak as one of the choices.