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

[Fiffy]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

None of the removed content will be arbitrary. It's the profit motive that will cause titles to be removed. Titles that aren't making a profit anymore (and haven't for many years) will likely be removed.

Yet in practice this is very rare (and of course it doesn't mean that the titles will be removed from the libraries of existing owners). Keeping a title in a digital store costs next to nothing. It doesn't involve production and inventory costs.

Regardless of what happens to my collection all of my titles can be replaced because what happened to my collection didn't happen to all the other copies of the titles in my collection. I can buy replacements from the thousands of other people who still own physical copies of each title.

If it is an OOP title (which is the disc equivalent of titles being removed from the digital stores) it is often very expensive or impossible to replace the disc.

[Fiffy]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

You are lucky. A few get downgraded.

I don't think so. I think almost all cases reported have to do with teething issues of the MA system, which will doubtlessly be resolved. Before MA things like this were essentially unheard of.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Fiffy

I don't think so. I think almost all cases reported have to do with teething issues of the MA system, which will doubtlessly be resolved. Before MA things like this were essentially unheard of.

It doesn’t matter if it’s sorted or not. If you decide to watch a certain film on movie night and that movie is only in SD on a 4K screen? That’s just beyond rank. The damage is done.

[Fiffy]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

I don't ever expect it to be common with popular titles. But there are more than ten thousand new titles released every year and only a few hundred popular ones.

Yes, and many are only released on digital these days because printing a batch of discs often isn't economically feasible for this kind of "long tail" content.

The best way to avoid that is for everyone to buy more discs so there are more copies of everything in circulation.

By the same logic you could say people should buy more digital movies to provide more incentive for the providers to offer them in their stores.

[Fiffy]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

It doesn’t matter if it’s sorted or not. If you decide to watch a certain film on movie night and that movie is only in SD on a 4K screen? That’s just beyond rank. The damage is done.

How will we ever survive. Now imagine you are settling down to watch a movie and discover that your player has croaked. It's the end of the world as we know it.

[Fiffy]

Originally Posted by PenguinInfinity

The difference is digital content needs to continue to have sales to remain available. Drops in popularity are bad because they mean titles may stop being available especially if there are any copyright or licensing issues to deal with.

I have seen no evidence of less popular titles being removed from digital stores. In my experience titles being removed from stores is rare, and usually temporary (mostly when the distribution rights change).

With physical copies a drop in popularity for any individual title is a good thing. It means supply is higher than demand.

Huh?

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Fiffy

BTW, the "warranty" for our discs doesn't help if we lose them or our house is flooded or goes up in flames. I think this is much more likely than Apple taking away my collection.
Sure, but in many cases you pay a higher price for it (and you have to find room for all the discs, which has become a problem for me).
I have contacted iTunes customer service exactly once in my life. I've had more trouble getting some defective discs replaced (although that is rare too).
Well, my resolutions do occasionally change: they get upgraded.

I have never been the victim of a fire or a flood, for which I am very thankful, but I can find multiple daily posts on these forums about digital movies disappearing, reverting to lower resolutions, and other annoying problems that take considerable effort with recalcitrant customer service to get resolved. The different players in the digital marketplace seem to prefer to blame each other than to actually fix issues; just visit these threads and read of the hoops digital customers have to jump through. I don't want to contact customer service routinely to protect my collection from their incompetence or their "profit motive."

As for your fire and flood scenario, your hard drives with all of your downloaded content would not fare so well, either. Sure, they can be replaced, but so can most of our possessions. Insurance is available to manage such risks.

I pay a higher price for 4K discs and that is fine because I am receiving more: I get the 4K disc, the blu-ray (usually), and that more strings attached than you can count digital code.

EULA agreements contain nothing in them that benefits the consumer. Nothing. At. All. Everything in them is for the sole benefit of the licensor. Of course, virtually no one reads the things, so they don't know any of this- ignorance being bliss and all.

The digital content providers may never exercise some of the rights they reserve, but they would not have included them if they did not foresee a situation where they might want them. I, for one, do not want to be at their mercy; that's another something these EULAs deprive you of: no warranties and no legal recourse.

I am glad your experience with Apple has been so positive; I hope it stays that way. Many of your fellow digital collectors have had less rosy experiences with their digital providers as evidenced by the numerous complaints posted daily. I would rather write a simple email to a single entity to get a rare bad disc replaced than to have to play phone tag and hot potato with the different players in the digital market until one of them reluctantly takes any optional on their part responsibility.

Take another look at forum member veritas and tobz's experiences with the customer service that Digital customers contend with; I have never experienced anything remotely that frustrating with a disc exchange.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=7618

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Fiffy

How will we ever survive. Now imagine you are settling down to watch a movie and discover that your player has croaked. It's the end of the world as we know it.

Sarcasm works well behind the confines of a sceeen doesn’t it?

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Fiffy

How will we ever survive. Now imagine you are settling down to watch a movie and discover that your player has croaked. It's the end of the world as we know it.

Your Internet service is more likely to have a service interruption than for any one of my multiple disc players failing.

None of my disc players have ever failed, actually. My 25 year old laserdisc/ DVD combo player still works even. Maybe I am exceptionally lucky, but that is not evidenced with the lottery tickets I buy occasionally. Such luck should be transferable.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

It’s just a long term rental.

In the long run, everything's a rental.

[Show spoiler]

Originally Posted by Vilya

My disc resolutions never change, the movie version never reverts to a shorter cut, and titles in my library never go AWOL.

Originally Posted by Petra_Kalbrain

With 500+ discs I never have to do any of that. If something is going to change, it will have been at MY discretion and I will 100% know exactly what has happened.

You guys have never lost any discs to rot or pitting or anything like that? That's pretty lucky. I've haven't lost that many (not that I know of anyway, it's not like I pop all my discs in on a regular basis to make sure they all still play) but you accumulate enough discs over a long enough time and having a few crap out almost seems inevitable.

[Steedeel]

Changing the subject, have you guys considered the risk of the very popular (for social video) vertical format taking off in the movie and tv world? Right there, we have a format that only really lends itself to mobile watching. If that sounds outrageous to you, consider the fact a feature film has just been shot on a IPhone (Unsane). I put to you guys that it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing a push for vertical video outside of social media. It would only take one director to do this. If more directors start shooting on phones, it is inevitable that the vertical format will gain traction. Soderbergh has stated he wants to shoot all his films via a phone. . I guarantee one director will turn his phone to portrait mode and decide to release a feature film directly to mobiles in this manner therefore shutting off home cinema fans. Like someone said, they always chase the 18-30 age groups.

[WestMan]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Changing the subject, have you guys considered the risk of the very popular (for social video) vertical format taking off in the movie and tv world? Right there, we have a format that only really lends itself to mobile watching. If that sounds outrageous to you, consider the fact a feature film has just been shot on a IPhone (Unsane). I put to you guys that it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing a push for vertical video outside of social media. It would only take one director to do this. If more directors start shooting on phones, it is inevitable that the vertical format will gain traction. Soderbergh has stated he wants to shoot all his films via a phone. . I guarantee one director will turn his phone to portrait mode and decide to release a feature film directly to mobiles in this manner therefore shutting off home cinema fans. Like someone said, they always chase the 18-30 age groups.

People mock video taken vertically. Vertical video is for WorldStar.

[tobz]

Originally Posted by Petra_Kalbrain

How does anyone with 100+ titles in a digital collection even notice any changes to their content? Do they have their entire library of titles memorized? Do they review the list every day to ensure nothing has disappear or has had high quality access revoked? Is there a statute of limitations on reporting problems? “Hi. I just discovered that my copy of Jumanji is now SD, but 2 years ago I had access to an HD copy. What happened?” “I’m sorry sir, but there is nothing we can do. You should have called us at the time that your access was changed. It has been too long for us to verify what you are claiming. Have a nice day.” Given that many of us can’t watch EVERY title in our collection even once a year, how the hell can any collection of any significant size be manageable in those regards?!?!

With 500+ discs I never have to do any of that. If something is going to change, it will have been at MY discretion and I will 100% know exactly what has happened. I don’t have the time or patience to deal with babysitting a digital collection closely enough to ensure that I’m not being jerked around by studios/distributors. There are far more important things in life.

If your referring to what I said then no actually. I went to watch a movie and noticed it was SD on my Apple TV, so I opened iTunes on my computer and confirmed it. I then had a look through my purchase history to see if anything else had changed.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by WestMan

People mock video taken vertically. Vertical video is for WorldStar.

Yet Facebook, Youtube, instagram, Snapchat and BBC news have all adopted that format now. In other words, all the major social media sites and those sites are all carrying video and plan to expand their video offerings. It’s the way most young people access the video on those services according to stats from those services.

Once again though, people will just dismiss it on here. It’s not a threat etc..

[stonesfan129]

Always buy the disc. The quality is better and you actually have control over it.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by stonesfan129

Always buy the disc. The quality is better and you actually have control over it.

Let's not start knocking Digital HD for Quality, because for Blu-ray all that is needed are 40Mbps max and for UHD 128Mbps. These Speeds are easily attainable by any high end Streaming Provider. So the only thing you have left are the perceived Disc Control.

[stonesfan129]

Originally Posted by alchav21

Let's not start knocking Digital HD for Quality, because for Blu-ray all that is needed is 40Mbps max and for UHD 128Mbps. These Speeds are easily attainable by any high end Streaming Provider. So the only thing you have left are the perceived Disc Control.

Show me a digital/streaming provider that matches the equivalent disc quality. No, comparing UHD streams to 1080p Blu-ray is not an apples-to-apples comparison.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by stonesfan129

Show me a digital/streaming provider that matches the equivalent disc quality. No, comparing UHD streams to 1080p Blu-ray is not an apples-to-apples comparison.

That's easy, Sony Ultra they Stream in 4K and HD+HDR. Their Video Quality is Fantastic. Disc Quality is here, buying Discs is a thing of the past! Their Bitrate is 25+Mbps for HD+HDR and 4K+HDR.

[zarquon]

Originally Posted by alchav21

Let's not start knocking Digital HD for Quality, because for Blu-ray all that is needed are 40Mbps max and for UHD 128Mbps. These Speeds are easily attainable by any high end Streaming Provider. So the only thing you have left are the perceived Disc Control.

Attainable, maybe, but no provider actually streams at those speeds, regardless of available bandwidth. And no provider streams lossless audio codecs, either.

[alchav21]

Originally Posted by zarquon

Attainable, maybe, but no provider actually streams at those speeds, regardless of available bandwidth. And no provider streams lossless audio codecs, either.

Like I said, Sony Ultra does, and they Stream at HD+HDR and 4K+HDR. So what else do you need, and for Blu-ray Quality all you need is a constant average of 20Mbps. Very easily attainable by Sony Ultra, their HD+HDR is Fantastic......Give it a try!