I find this deeply amusing. I see how this could have worked in the DVD era, but these days with all of the options we have it's no surprise why most people don't have bluray players. It is kinda sad though because as much as streaming gives us options, the quality is always terrible.
When I sometimes buy BDs (mostly foreign titles from my native country, not available for streaming from usual sources), I'll rip them raw with MakeMKV[0] decrypting the video TS files in the process. Then I use MKVtoolnix[1] to wrap original video/audio/subtitles to MKV. Generated .mkv goes to a local NAS from where I can play them with Xbox using Kodi or VLC (storage requirement is ~10GB and up / movie - you're essentially grabbing the movie as is from the BD).
This has the benefit that they are now available without having to find the disc, and also this process gets rid of annoying menus and extras and just gets you to the movie. This will also prevent kids from using your BD discs as frisbees.. ;-)
Only downsides I can think of are that last time I checked, VLC/Kodi didn't support Dolby Atmos soundtracks on Xbox and some amount of time that goes into extracting them.
I haven't tried archiving any UHD titles yet, so don't know if this would work for them. I'll hazard it would. Only take more storage.
"Most people I know have bluray players and streaming services, but almost always stream now.
I prefer Blu-ray for quality reasons, and also I find some comfort in owning a physical disc"
Many years ago it was accepted wisdom that the very best blu-ray player you could buy was actually the PS3.
I am mildy interested in a blu-ray player and I wonder if, in 2018, the PS4 is the best option - in the same way that the PS3 was at that earlier time ?
The PS4/PS4 Pro isn't quite as good a bluray player as the PS3 AFAIK, but it's fine. The main issue is that it doesn't play 4k bluray. The Xbox One S & Xbox One X do, though, and the S is one of the most affordable 4k bluray players.
I don’t understand how a 4K Blu-ray movie with 4x the pixel data can fit on a disc that’s only 2x a 1080 Blu-ray. They must compromise the bitrate? HDR must add overhead also?
The codec moved from h.264 to h.265, which is a big boost in efficiency, plus the extra pixels don't require as much information to describe as the original ones. 128mbit seems pretty good given that
All Blu-ray players have the same problem because there is only a single source for the transports. The transports are all really loud! Kinda ruins the experience for me.
Theoretically, UHD (4k) blu-rays can go from 80 mb/s to 120 mb/s depending on the authoring of the disc, compared to Netflix's maximum of 25 mb/s that's a massive difference.
However... unless you have a UHD projector, or VERY large TV (60"+) then you are unlikely to see the difference under normal viewing.
Where I feel streaming typically fails, is in the audio. They may 'say' it's a 5.1 surround sound mix, but if so, why does it sound _so_ flat compared to the same film on blu-ray ? All I can think is that the audio is compression is also 4x as compressed which to our ears is quite significant.
It's not the size of the TV, but the quality of the TV. I run a 65" OLED so it's top of the line, but I can clearly see color banding from Netflix on pretty much any TV and it looks terrible. Overall it's just a lower bitrate and compression artifacts on both audio and video make the experience suffer.
Actually even at 1080p, Netflix streams are visibly worse quality than blu-ray. Particularly in the compression of dark colors. I'll occasionally see color-banding, which you never see in Blu-ray.
Oh don't get me wrong, I'm 100% in the Blu-ray camp; Netflix is for casual viewing, but proper viewing such as big hitter movies are on blu-ray always (I'm yet to get a 4k projector).
A 4k stream on Netflix isn't even close in quality to a 1080p BluRay - the bitrate is lower. IIRC they stream 4k HDR at just 25mbit/s. Even the superior codec can't compensate.
Comcast’s gigabyte internet still has a 1TB data cap. So while the bandwidth might be available, you’ll quickly cap out and the overage charges can get as high as $200 a month. the ‘unlimited’ data plan is very expensive as well
That's ridiculous to offer Gigabit/second Internet with 1 TB data cap.
I.e. using that bandwidth, you can consume it in 2.22 hours. So you that's how long they expect you to use Internet in a month? Comcast are smoking something very unhealthy.
This is not news, sadly, and is pretty common for telcom oligopolies around the world. Consumer apathy is a real problem: people know Comcast and have 'no reason' to switch, so Comcast can do what they like and people perceive it as normal.
How can it be consumer apathy when there is only one supplier of internet for the vast majority of households? Very few people have fiber as an option, and even then, it's probably from Verizon or Comcast or ATT, and still only 1 option. DSL and wireless options are not comparable options.
The only solution is for voters to get their act together and demand taxpayer funded network infrastructure and treat it like a utility. It makes no sense for 10 different companies to run fiber to every residence.
I don't think it's consumer apathy so much as lack of alternatives. My only choice for internet (other than dial-up) is Comcast. There's a DSL provider in town, but even if I was ok with DSL speeds, they don't serve my neighborhood.
When I lived in Silicon Valley, it was barely better, I could chose from Comcast or Sonic Fusion DSL. I tried Sonic for a while, but my distance from the CO limited my speed (and maybe line quality) to around 8mbit/sec.
