Comment by mdotmertens

7 hours ago

As someone who has recently begun exploring physical media, I find this quite disappointing. The volume on 4K Blu-Rays is often low, prices are high, and Netflix isn't doing much to support physical media.

When you're just unwinding in front of a 65-inch screen, you might not notice the quality loss from compression. However, if you're actively watching on a 110-inch projector with an excellent sound system, every little detail becomes clear.

And that doesn't even address the most frustrating part: owning less and less.

I mean, no one needs to become a physical distributor, but it's disheartening that we lack consumer-friendly ownership of entertainment media when it comes to movies. I would love to see something like Bandcamp, but specifically for studios to release their movies to.

13 comments

mdotmertens

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leeoniya  7 hours ago

> When you're just unwinding in front of a 65-inch screen, you might not notice the quality loss from compression.

this has little to do with the resolution, though. maybe 4k just gets the benefit of being compressed with better codecs.

for me at least, watching shows/movies at typical viewing distance, a well-encoded 4k->1080p mkv is only very slightly less sharp and is vastly smaller to store on the media server.

komali2  6 hours ago

I'm curious, because I've had an interest in physical media, especially videogames, but what I keep coming back to is, "why would I bother when I can just pirate it?"

What's the attraction to the physical media given the availability of these versions online?

  • Springtime  6 hours ago

    Pirating doesn't help sustain the very thing being pirated, if you want a tangible rather than moralistic reason.

    4K (Ultra HD) Blu-Ray is likely the last physical home video media generation to be produced. Disney has pulled physical out of the Asian market, Best Buy stopped releasing any physical media beside games, Target stopped selling them beside certain DVDs.

    If you want any chance of actually having high quality releases continue it needs to be supported. An issue though is certain less mainstream releases in Ultra HD Blu-Ray can be rather pricey (if they get a release at all). However I still buy those I'm interested in since I don't want lower quality streaming-tier video to be the only option available in the future, apart from concerns about the volatile nature of online-only libraries (various of which have been wholly removed in the past when licensing/ownership changes).

  • wiseowise  6 hours ago

    > What's the attraction to the physical media given the availability of these versions online?

    Where do you think they've got the version that circulates the net?

Keyframe  6 hours ago

don't be discouraged. 4k/UHD BR is still alive and well, even though it never can beat price of comparatively worse streaming versions. I just bought a relatively expensive UHD player and there are a lot of movies, and what I've noticed there are also boutique offerings and remasters going on in the market which I haven't noticed before. Going forward though, I'm not sure if there will be future for releases of new movies outside of big productions.

mrits  7 hours ago

I can hardly blame a company for not supporting a product almost nobody wants to go back to.

  • mathgeek  6 hours ago

    There are a whole bunch of choice quotes from 1984 that apply to this situation, but my favorite is still this one: “The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.”