Do you still buy physical media?

[priitv8]

Eh? Are you saying Blu-Ray is not higher quality than streamed HD?

It is. I am just saying, that people still buy DVD-s, instead of BD-s, Especially here, in my homeland.
I think BD never came as widespread or popular as DVD. Streaming cuts into that market as well.
PS my intention was to list superior products quality-wise that had to surrender to other, cheaper standards.

 

[Th3odor3]

physical media is losing its grip with streaming services. I use iTunes for everything now days.

 

[Ryand123]

Less of all of this crazy bandwidth/bitrate talk. How does look to YOUR eyes!!!!!!!!!
Remember when we were told that Betamax was the best picture ever? DVD the ultimate in picture? I bet you agreed and you were using the same pair of eyes!

Judge the quality yourself. As Brexit in the UK proved, there's a lot of people that believe anything. Always judge for yourself. I have the LG OLED B7 and my gosh, 4K Dolby Vision iTunes films look simply outstanding on it. Plus they are all on my Apple I.D. that I can use anywhere in the world. Now, that is incredible!
[doublepost=1545829620][/doublepost]

Being honest, my friends and I agreed on this in 2010 when the iPad was launched. It was then that we agreed that iTunes was now! And that was nearly nine years ago Here in the UK & Europe, DVDs are really BAD NEWS as they are speeded up by 4% in their audio to create a dodgy 25fps rate. It's crazy that in 2018 people are buying these inaccurate things.

I stream from an Apple TV 4K and watch Blu Rays. My eyes tell me Blu Rays look and sound much better. Even 1080p Blu Rays are better than most 4K streaming! Bitrate really matters more than resolution, I've come to realize. It's the reason a 4K movie on a giant movie theater screen usually looks great instead of a blurry pixellated mess. Movies in the theater are at a much higher bitrate than even 4K Blu Ry.

 

[zen]

It is. I am just saying, that people still buy DVD-s, instead of BD-s, Especially here, in my homeland.
I think BD never came as widespread or popular as DVD. Streaming cuts into that market as well.
PS my intention was to list superior products quality-wise that had to surrender to other, cheaper standards.

Ah, got it.

There's an added convenience factor here, too. Betamax or VHS, you had tapes no matter what you chose. Now, streaming versus Blu-ray is quite a different thing.
[doublepost=1545911280][/doublepost]

I stream from an Apple TV 4K and watch Blu Rays. My eyes tell me Blu Rays look and sound much better. Even 1080p Blu Rays are better than most 4K streaming! Bitrate really matters more than resolution, I've come to realize. It's the reason a 4K movie on a giant movie theater screen usually looks great instead of a blurry pixellated mess. Movies in the theater are at a much higher bitrate than even 4K Blu Ry.

That's true, but it also depends on whether the projector is correctly calibrated and serviced - I've seen the same movie shown at a 4k cinema, and it looked great in one showing and terrible in the other as the projector clearly needed adjusting.

 

[BODYBUILDERPAUL]

Ah, got it.

There's an added convenience factor here, too. Betamax or VHS, you had tapes no matter what you chose. Now, streaming versus Blu-ray is quite a different thing.
[doublepost=1545911280][/doublepost]
That's true, but it also depends on whether the projector is correctly calibrated and serviced - I've seen the same movie shown at a 4k cinema, and it looked great in one showing and terrible in the other as the projector clearly needed adjusting.

Me too! I went to a beautiful independent cinema in York, UK to see a film and the frame rate was incorrect through the whole film. It was hideous to watch.
I later bought it from iTunes and guess what, it was perfect! Got to admit that i'm really not a fan of going to the cinema, I maybe go once every two years at the most - just not my thing!

 

[Tech198]

physical media is losing its grip with streaming services. I use iTunes for everything now days.

Mac mini is out.. iTunes (streaming) is in, for me. I was thinking "Why am a wasting my time converting movies, when i can just rent them and be done"

 

[Ideanj]

I still don't see the problem with purchasing the Blu-Rays that contain a Digital Copy. You get the best of both worlds and often times you can find the Blu-Rays cheaper then the iTunes copy.. Granted some Blu-Rays won't include a Digital Copy, but more often than not they do. Want the best possible quality? Pop the Blu-Ray in. Feeling lazy/traveling and want to just push play and be done with it? iTunes it is.

Works for me anyways.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I do - I rip my own copies of most all of it so I then have the physical media as a backup but the ease of streaming things as I like with Plex.

I'm just not interested in playing the streaming only game, as I prefer to just be able to watch and do what I want with media, when and how I want to.

 

[HDFan]

For those in the U.S. who want all 3 formats (4K, Blu-Ray, and Digital) I've found this site

https://www.blu-ray.com/deals/?sortby=time&category=4kbluray

to be very useful. Check it daily for specials. The great wall (a visual treat) is down to $10, it's lowest price ever.

 

[KPandian1]

For music only, yes.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Very curious to see who still buys dvds and blu-rays and why? Or why did you stop?

Most Blu-Rays come with a digital copy so it's a no-brainer at the same price point to buy the physical media as you are basically getting the physical copy for free. Until recently, digital copies only had 5.1 sound (vast majority with a few with 7.1 using Dolby Digital Plus). More recently, ATV got Atmos support added and they do seem to be doing a very good job adding/converting titles to Atmos (which even if you don't have an Atmos receiver can still be played with 7.1 sound, the same as a physical disc).

However, streaming titles use Dolby Digital Plus, which is compressed/lossy sound. I don't believe there is a 'huge' difference in sound quality (most of the time you won't be able to tell, possibly all of the time; it's hard to compare A/B directly without both synced and level matched and a switch-box to quickly switch. Conjecture runs wild, however). There's also the question about video quality and compression. ATV's video looks good at 1080p, but I think some titles show some limits at 4K compared to the disc. The nice thing about the physical discs is you typically get the digital copy too with most newer titles (i.e. I can watch 1/3 of my library while on-the-go without taking anything with me but a display device of some kind linked to iTunes or Movies Anywhere).

Beyond that, for me, it comes down to price and how often I'm likely to watch the movie. I end up dumping most/all titles to a hard drive anyway and recompress the video to not take up dozens of Terabytes (I have close to 1000 movies, let alone TV Shows and music) and this probably equates the video quality to streaming in that regard so the absolute quality is less of concern, but rather the price and the audio soundtrack available comes into play most.

If both have Atmos now and the iTunes version is $10 cheaper than the Blu-Ray, for example and it's not a personal favorite, I might very well buy the iTunes version (I've bought a lot of titles on sale for $5-8 for example). If the Blu-Ray has DTS:X and the iTunes version is 5.1, I typically buy the disc every time (I have a 11.1.6 system that can play Dolby Atmos, DTS:X and Auro-3D). MOST of the DTS:X titles only have 5.1 on iTunes (Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom is the only title I know off-hand that has Atmos on iTunes and DTS:X on the disc. Most, if not all of the rest have 5.1 while DTS:X supports directly 7.1.4, with more possible using external extraction similar to how Neural X works, namely by using Pro Logic decoding to create a channel between channels. I've created front wides, rear wides and top middle this way here and they work with DTS:X despite its current 11-channel limit and with Auro-3D as well.)

There's also the question of 3D discs (I have over 140). Some sites like Vudu support a limited 3D selection, but for the most part, if you want 3D you have to buy the disc. Increasingly, this means buying the disc from Europe or Asia as the studios have been systematically killing off home 3D in the USA. I've purchased dozens from the UK (and Auro-3D audio discs from Germany and even Australia as well).

In short, I want immersive sound and 3D video when available (I combine the two to play on my Zidoo where the titles don't have Atmos or X on the 3D version) and that overrides any other price/convenience factor for a given movie. When the features are similar, it comes down to price and whether I think quality should override convenience for a movie I really like a lot (particularly if I'm going to get the digital copy anyway, although sometimes the digital copy isn't 4K when it's Movies Anywhere only and/or not from a 4K disc). Finally, some regular Blu-Rays net you a 4K version on iTunes when you can register the digital copy directly with iTunes. I've bought some movies for $5 on 1080p Blu-Ray only to get the 4K iTunes digital copy that would have cost $10-20 purchased directly. A bargain is a bargain.

 

[priitv8]

In short, I want immersive sound and 3D video when available (I combine the two to play on my Zidoo where the titles don't have Atmos or X on the 3D version) and that overrides any other price/convenience factor for a given movie.

How do you practically go about that?
I am asking because I do not have a MVC file player, so I have to ts-mux a BD image (iso) and burn it to BD-R to achieve that,
But the Ready Player one is visually best in 3D and sonically in Atmos, So I had to combine them myself,

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

How do you practically go about that?
I am asking because I do not have a MVC file player, so I have to ts-mux a BD image (iso) and burn it to BD-R to achieve that,
But the Ready Player one is visually best in 3D and sonically in Atmos, So I had to combine them myself,

It sounds like you already know how to do with with a BD-R. The only real trick is that sometimes the soundtracks don't line up exactly and you have to add delay (sometimes negative) to align them. I typically preview the MKV file in VLC (in 2D) to make sure the new soundtrack aligns. If I were going to burn it next, I'd then use those values (with an ISO if need be). With something like a Zidoo media player you just use something like MKVToolnix to add the Atmos soundtrack to the MKV files ripped with something like MakeMKV. It has a delay box in it to adjust if need be. It then combined the two together into a new MKV file that has the Atmos or X or Auro-3D track in it. The zidoo can play this directly and even switch between multiple tracks (e.g. I put the Auro-3D and Atmos tracks into Pixels 3D which had only a 5.1 track to begin with. Now I can select either immersive soundtrack in the Zidoo player by pressing the MENU button while it's playing and clicking on Audio and selecting Surround for the Atmos track or DTS for the Auro-3D track. Two immersive formats. One MKV file (doubt they'd both fit on a single BD). The only one I've had any trouble with so far is Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. I had the 3D disc from India and it had a 14 second delay in the video due to an extra Indian intro. I've had this one hiccup after a few minutes sometimes for unknown reasons (I switched back to the Nuplayer it has instead of native and will try it again; it could have been a glitch. I only tried it last night right before I was about to go to bed, so I'll have to try it again). I've already watched Jurassic Park 3D with DTS:X added. It worked fine with no issues.

 

[LCC0256]

It seems to me that there is a clearly discernible visual difference between a movie UHD hard copy played on a decent quality UHD player and the same movie streamed over - say an Apple TV 4K purchased from the iTunes Store...Is that a fair statement? And the reason for the visual inferiority of the streamed UHD movie is due to compression. Is that also a correct/fair statement?

I base these statements on articles I have read by those whom I believe to be more knowledgeable than me on this site and other sites. I also base this assumption on the fact that over the air broadcasts (college football games in particular) are superior in picture quality to the same events over my ATV 4K (on a 4K/Dolby Digital capable TV). I was told the reason was because the OTA games were not compressed.

I do not own a UHD player so I have never seen a UHD movie played on a UHD player on my 4K TV so I am not sure if in fact there is a picture quality difference between those and streamed selections.

Getting back to the original question on this thread - purchasing physical media - I would in fact purchase classic movies when and if they are ever converted to UHD. As I understand it one also receives a "digital" copy in addition to the physical disks. Now I am assuming that the "digital copies" are in fact NOT compressed. So can I assume that the picture quality of the "digital copy" of the movie would be exactly the same as the physical copy played on said decent quality UHD player? If so could I then add the digital copies to my iTunes library and keep the physical copy for a back up - and not lose any picture quality.
I would greatly appreciate it if some of you more knowledgeable posters can explain this all to me. I find this subject fascinating and will use comments and opinions to help me configure my future video library.

 

[BODYBUILDERPAUL]

It seems to me that there is a clearly discernible visual difference between a movie UHD hard copy played on a decent quality UHD player and the same movie streamed over - say an Apple TV 4K purchased from the iTunes Store...Is that a fair statement? And the reason for the visual inferiority of the streamed UHD movie is due to compression. Is that also a correct/fair statement?

I base these statements on articles I have read by those whom I believe to be more knowledgeable than me on this site and other sites. I also base this assumption on the fact that over the air broadcasts (college football games in particular) are superior in picture quality to the same events over my ATV 4K (on a 4K/Dolby Digital capable TV). I was told the reason was because the OTA games were not compressed.

I do not own a UHD player so I have never seen a UHD movie played on a UHD player on my 4K TV so I am not sure if in fact there is a picture quality difference between those and streamed selections.

Getting back to the original question on this thread - purchasing physical media - I would in fact purchase classic movies when and if they are ever converted to UHD. As I understand it one also receives a "digital" copy in addition to the physical disks. Now I am assuming that the "digital copies" are in fact NOT compressed. So can I assume that the picture quality of the "digital copy" of the movie would be exactly the same as the physical copy played on said decent quality UHD player? If so could I then add the digital copies to my iTunes library and keep the physical copy for a back up - and not lose any picture quality.
I would greatly appreciate it if some of you more knowledgeable posters can explain this all to me. I find this subject fascinating and will use comments and opinions to help me configure my future video library.

I wouldn't worry. Something better always comes along and you can rely on Apple over and above the others to do a great job. Remember when Betamax was the best or LaserDisc or DVD or HD DVD? And then BluRay was the best. Enjoy what works for you. I love my iPhone, MacBook and Apple TV and the Apple experience of buying film work the best for me. The user interface, the reliability, the content availability, the lovely layout of the iTunes Store.

Picture wise, it depends on the size of your TV. Maybe 77" upwards, you'll 'maybe' see a difference in picture quality between an iTunes 4K Dolby Vision stream and a 4K BluRay - that is providing you can buy the film on a 4K BluRay which outside of the US is nearly impossible. But who would want a 77" or upwards TV. To me, that's vulgar. (Even our 55" TV looks damn horrible when it's switched off for 23 hours a day).
Certainly with our 55" LG OLED, the iTunes picture is simply outstanding. It would take a very strange character to want to find fault with it when let's be honest, once the film looks great, you really should be sat with great friends, eating, having fun and simply enjoying the film!
AV guys could argue all day about compression, picture, devices, settings etc but they really are missing the whole - to enjoy the film.

Personally, I question how long 4K BluRay will be around. It accounts for 2% of the film purchase market worldwide. With HMV now in administration here in the UK, physical disc days are well... But then, I knew that when the iPad launched in 2010 without a disc drive.

Over Christmas we've had family & friends staying over and have watched many films and I've come to the conclusion, that watching films is not for me. I can't sit still looking at a TV for long periods - I want to be creating things, outdoors, playing sports. For me, the weekly film is just great. But these guys who argue over AV really are missing out on... life!

Have a look at this video. Here he is comparing the ATV with a £630+ Oppo disc player...

 

[bruinsrme]

Yes on buying media.
Only purchase physical media if it includes the digital format.
That way I can enjoy the film on iTunes and through the full hone theater experience

Here is what I do.

Digital movies - (through ATV) rugged case for iPad mini and the remote app for ATV.

The ATV is hidden and the iPad is protected.
Essentially no moving parts, no device that can be fed cookies and no chew toys for a visiting 4 legged.

Since my niece is on my phone account and family iCloud she can enjoy my media and purchases

 

[CPTmom2wp]

(Even our 55" TV looks damn horrible when it's switched off for 23 hours a day).

One Suggestion: Use Gallery app when not watching video. I have the same 55" LG OLED and really enjoy 3D realism of looking at fine art replication on this screen. The family members who visited over the holidays used the word "stunning" to describe it. We leave it on when we're at home and not watching video.

 

[BODYBUILDERPAUL]

One Suggestion: Use Gallery app when not watching video. I have the same 55" LG OLED and really enjoy 3D realism of looking at fine art replication on this screen. The family members who visited over the holidays used the word "stunning" to describe it. We leave it on when we're at home and not watching video.

AWESOME! Thank you buddy. What a great idea. I'd love the incredible artist/illustrator Jason Brooks to produce some modern art for this!!!

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Absolutely. I wait for the dvd or bluray to come down on eBay. Usually I can get them for between five or ten dollars. Then I rip them and put them on my plex server. Now I have the best of both worlds. The main problem is I am cheap and I live in a rural area so while my internet is decent enough, it isn’t exactly fiber.

 

[CPTmom2wp]

We still have slower internet in my area with the concomitant occasional buffering or occasional outages. This reminds me that the internet and subsequent streaming video is not necessarily permanent and can certainly be subject to security concerns. For these reasons, I prefer to keep a hard copy of our movies, TV seasons and then rip those to an external hard drive for convenience.I also like watching new movies on our OPPO 4K Blu-Ray player. Purchasing a physical disc is about the same price or less than purchasing one from iTunes and significantly less than taking everyone to the movies. However, I have noticed that some of the TV Seasons, in particular are no longer being produced in disc form, so that may be coming to an end. Still, I'm glad to have a library I can access in the event of an Apocalypse Maybe I can become the first movie house using a solar battery hooked up to a blu-ray player with physical discs to barter with
[doublepost=1546264111][/doublepost]

AWESOME! Thank you buddy. What a great idea. I'd love the incredible artist/illustrator Jason Brooks to produce some modern art for this!!!

YW! I would think this could be a great way for artists to earn some income, e.g., maybe a subscription art catalog, like Apple Music??

 

[priitv8]

Thank you for this thorough explanation! I can see that your approach is generally the same as mine. Except for one more thing...

With something like a Zidoo media player you just use something like MKVToolnix to add the Atmos soundtrack to the MKV files ripped with something like MakeMKV.

And that is the 3D encapsulation and playback.
Would Zidoo play directly from iso images?
How does MakeMKV handle 3D in MKV container? This is the crucial one - the BD filesystem uses some sort of voodoo with those ssif files. They do not occupy double the movie space (otherwise the movie would not fit onto a 50GB media). So with TSMuxeR the only way to get a burnable 3D image is to create it in iso format. As soon as you try to mux into BDMV folder, you materially get double size of data and it won't fit.
How does MakeMKV handle that?

 

[LCC0256]

I wouldn't worry. Something better always comes along and you can rely on Apple over and above the others to do a great job. Remember when Betamax was the best or LaserDisc or DVD or HD DVD? And then BluRay was the best. Enjoy what works for you. I love my iPhone, MacBook and Apple TV and the Apple experience of buying film work the best for me. The user interface, the reliability, the content availability, the lovely layout of the iTunes Store.

Picture wise, it depends on the size of your TV. Maybe 77" upwards, you'll 'maybe' see a difference in picture quality between an iTunes 4K Dolby Vision stream and a 4K BluRay - that is providing you can buy the film on a 4K BluRay which outside of the US is nearly impossible. But who would want a 77" or upwards TV. To me, that's vulgar. (Even our 55" TV looks damn horrible when it's switched off for 23 hours a day).
Certainly with our 55" LG OLED, the iTunes picture is simply outstanding. It would take a very strange character to want to find fault with it when let's be honest, once the film looks great, you really should be sat with great friends, eating, having fun and simply enjoying the film!
AV guys could argue all day about compression, picture, devices, settings etc but they really are missing the whole - to enjoy the film.

Personally, I question how long 4K BluRay will be around. It accounts for 2% of the film purchase market worldwide. With HMV now in administration here in the UK, physical disc days are well... But then, I knew that when the iPad launched in 2010 without a disc drive.

Over Christmas we've had family & friends staying over and have watched many films and I've come to the conclusion, that watching films is not for me. I can't sit still looking at a TV for long periods - I want to be creating things, outdoors, playing sports. For me, the weekly film is just great. But these guys who argue over AV really are missing out on... life!

Have a look at this video. Here he is comparing the ATV with a £630+ Oppo disc player...

As USUAL Paul your advice is not only logical but also interesting/challenging as well. Thank you for taking time to share your thoughts. You are one of my favorite posters on this site. And thanks to CPT mom for excellent advice. I am searching for that app next!!!

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Thank you for this thorough explanation! I can see that your approach is generally the same as mine. Except for one more thing...
And that is the 3D encapsulation and playback.
Would Zidoo play directly from iso images?
How does MakeMKV handle 3D in MKV container? This is the crucial one - the BD filesystem uses some sort of voodoo with those ssif files. They do not occupy double the movie space (otherwise the movie would not fit onto a 50GB media). So with TSMuxeR the only way to get a burnable 3D image is to create it in iso format. As soon as you try to mux into BDMV folder, you materially get double size of data and it won't fit.
How does MakeMKV handle that?

I think you'd have to ask the guy that made it the technical details, but the file size is definitely not doubled. It behaves the same as if it were an ISO with the Zidoo player. I think Zidoo can do ISO but I haven't tried it (I have no program to extract ISO at the moment on my Mac). I tried the trial DVDFab which could do it, but they wanted too much for the entire package and since Zidoo can use MKV 3D dumps, I don't see any need for it at this point for just that purpose (I'd need more than just the ripper to burn my own discs).

I watched the rest of Valerian in 3D with Atmos after switching the player back to "nuplayer" (instead of "native") and doing a reboot. It never glitched again. Hopefully, that's the only hiccup. I noticed my external 5TB drive with the 3D movies on it kept spinning idle as long as the player was on, but fortunately, setting it to 'sleep' after a timer of inactivity turned the drive off too. The only other problem I have is that it doesn't play nice with the Mac's SMB at all. In fact, it can't even see it. You have to use something like SMBUp instead or NFS. I've also been unable to find the location of the KODI database files (the drive it's on doesn't appear to show up with the networked drives in the setup). This makes it impractical here to maintain my entire library (non-3D) with just one device. It looks like I'll need the NVidia Shield still, after all (for now anyways).

 

[BODYBUILDERPAUL]

As USUAL Paul your advice is not only logical but also interesting/challenging as well. Thank you for taking time to share your thoughts. You are one of my favorite posters on this site. And thanks to CPT mom for excellent advice. I am searching for that app next!!!

Thank you for your kind comments I guess that through my career and working in a HiFi shop in my mid teens whilst at 6th form college, I've been able to experience all formats over the years I learnt a VERY expensive lesson investing in DAT tape, still have old video tapes full of MTV's The Real World and have managed to rid myself of DVDs / BluRays. For me, it's really nice seeing music or a film or TV episode that I bought in 2008 and finding it still there in my library I've still saved a few hundred CDs which I keep in a cupboard at my Aunt's house. Don't ask me why as I never use them and have ripped some to my iTunes but seldom play them.

As i've said a few times before, the iPhone is to me, the best electrical invention of all time. It allows me to travel the world and that one thing allows me to continue with my digital marketing business, watch film in Dolby Vision, play music, FaceTime, take pro quality photos and 4K 60 fps video and i allows me full access to my iTunes library AND it's so much smaller in size than 1 VHS video tape. Plus, I'm happy knowing that when i'm streaming, it's coming from Apple's servers which are running on 100% renewables along with Tim Cook's liberal views on life - that's high up there to me

 

[priitv8]

I think Zidoo can do ISO but I haven't tried it (I have no program to extract ISO at the moment on my Mac).

You take your trusted MakeMKV, select File > Backup... and make sure to tick the "decrypt video" box! Voila!
Works wonders even on UHD, if you have the key, that is.
And a drive to read BD-XL media in UHD movie disc format.
My portable LG drive, for example, seems to be blind to UHD movie discs, although it does triple-layer BD-XLs.