Comment by everdrive
21 hours ago
I think blu-ray will live for quite a while, but will be a bit like vinyl; there will be a consistent, niche market.
21 hours ago
I think blu-ray will live for quite a while, but will be a bit like vinyl; there will be a consistent, niche market.
Hilariously, DVD production could potentially outlive Blu-Ray discs, since DVDs are still popular enough 30 years later, and surpass the sales of Blu-Ray movies.
unfortunately mpeg2 is still standard for them so i guess people have to stick to 480i on double layer i guess, unless stars align and someone decide to make av1/opus standard for them lol
A surprising amount of newer-ish DVD players will play H.264 off a DVD just fine and AVCHD is essentially Bluray formats and file structs on a DVD.
That will last only as long as boomers are still around watching movies.
I'm Gen Z and I buy DVDs (though mostly second hand). You're probably right on the whole, though I've only observed the opposite.
3 replies →
Why is that? Vinyl has some unique characteristics. But as far as I’m aware, blu-ray is just a storage format for bits, so other than the box art, what is compelling about a blu-ray pressing?
The movie itself is generally encoded at a higher bitrate than what you can find in streaming or torrents.
The media includes bonus features that generally aren't available in streaming or torrents.
The media will not suddenly stop existing if some server breaks down, some company goes under or some contract expires.
The movie will not suddenly get "patched" with an AI-upscale or censored scene one day while watching it.
You can lend the media to someone else to watch without having to ask for permission to anyone else.
Also, you can import blu-rays from other countries when streaming releases have geo restrictions.
Technically blueray has a 'update mechanism' that newer films will require players to update to.
AVGN complained about it here: https://youtu.be/tetXKdi9U3c?t=400
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Ever compare a Blu-ray to the same content over streaming? It's not even close. Unlike vinyl records, Blu-ray is vastly superior in quality to alternatives.
In case you're asking "why", it's because your "4K" stream is compressed to hell and back. Your home internet connection doesn't even have the bandwidth to stream the quality of a BR.
A UHD Bluray tops out at about 150Mbps, most home internet is capable of that. It would just cost too much for the streaming services to support it.
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> Your home internet connection doesn't even have the bandwidth to stream the quality of a BR.
This has not been true for most people for a while now. Even the high end of 4K blue rays tops out around 100 Mbps, which is achievable on pretty much any broadband connection.
5 replies →
Many of vinyl's unique characteristics are severe drawbacks compared to digital disks. I see a lot of kids collecting CDs instead—cheaper, lighter, easier to maintain, you can find cars that play them pretty easily, you can rip them losslessly, more hardware to play them, etc. Plus you can a lot of the same benefits of album art, lyrics, etc.
Blu-Rays also have special features, which most streaming platforms don't offer (I think largely except for iTunes).
Having it, physically. It’s harder for companies to play silly games like put the media into a vault, take it off their streaming platforms for tax reasons, etc… I started collected physical blu rays when HBO randomly took a million things off its platform so that it could do accounting tricks.
I want to support artists who make content I like, but I also want control over my media library. Physical media is the best way to do this.