Ditching Blu-ray And DVDs To Go Digital

rocky928 said:
I don't have time to wait 60 damn seconds for my stupid POS blu ray player to boot up and I am sure as hell not wasting more money on a newer one. Digital plz. Discs are pointless for me.
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Um...it actually takes less time for me to get a Blu-Ray playing on my PS3 than it takes me to get into the Netflix app, wait for it to check for updates, wait for it to load my selection menu, find the movie or show I'm looking for(can be difficult on the days Netflix won't load my "Recently Watched" category for whatever reason), and start it up...and get past the first 10-20 seconds where the quality is crap while it buffers the high-def content.

Maybe you shouldn't have bought a POS blu ray player.
 
Stiletto said:
You're on a tech enthusiast forum saying how people would be silly to be angry at their tech being inoperable. You should go to an auto forum and tell people that they're silly to get upset if their car doesn't start.
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Nerds should, of all people, understand the fact that there are outages and have the coping skills to deal with them moreso than the average person who simply can't fathom the nature of the collective systems that deliver data from a data center not geographically co-located.
 
roaf85 said:
I really don't have time to be rewatching movies.
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Then why do you care about the topic at all? That's like someone in the gaming forum talking about how they don't have time for games that take more than two hours to complete.
 
SkribbelKat said:
Very true...even I can't tell much difference between SD and HD. If I do notice, it's a "so what" kinda thing and my eyes work just fine (mostly).
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I really don't understand this. I have terrible eyes, but I wear glasses and I can even tell the differences between a movie theater screen, my HD tv, and imax. I sure as hell can't watch SD anymore. Unless its on a 20 inch tv or something.
 
SkribbelKat said:
Nerds should, of all people, understand the fact that there are outages and have the coping skills to deal with them moreso than the average person who simply can't fathom the nature of the collective systems that deliver data from a data center not geographically co-located.
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Oh, okay. So nerds, the people who consume the most tech, should be the most patient when it's not available. Meanwhile, the people who don't care about computers or blu-rays or whatever are justified in getting super upset over what they don't really care about. Makes total sense.
 
SkribbelKat said:
Very true...even I can't tell much difference between SD and HD. If I do notice, it's a "so what" kinda thing and my eyes work just fine (mostly).
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I can't tell much difference between 30FPS and 60FPS. Nobody needs high-performance video cards. It's silly to make a big deal about it.
 
ChedWick said:
I really don't understand this. I have terrible eyes, but I wear glasses and I can even tell the differences between a movie theater screen, my HD tv, and imax. I sure as hell can't watch SD anymore. Unless its on a 20 inch tv or something.
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Beats me. To me the differences aren't a big deal. I don't think that, just because I saw a HD something or other, I'm now not able to see a SD broadcast. I think intentionally throwing up psychological limitations like that are a human self-protective measure used to justify some sort of expenditure by reasoning out that everything else just isn't as good anymore. It's sort of like switching from smoking cigarettes to a cigar. The cigar is a bazillion times more expensive, but you have to tell youself that it's "so much better" so you can reason out making the change. And then, atop that, it becomes important to tell others who will agree with the change to provide positive reinforcement of the decision.
 
Stiletto said:
Oh, okay. So nerds, the people who consume the most tech, should be the most patient when it's not available. Meanwhile, the people who don't care about computers or blu-rays or whatever are justified in getting super upset over what they don't really care about. Makes total sense.
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I said nerds should be more patient, not that "non-nerds" are now, just because they don't understand what's happening behind the scenes, freaking out. That was merely a counter-point to your argument that technical people are more prone to losing their minds over an outage.

Stiletto said:
I can't tell much difference between 30FPS and 60FPS. Nobody needs high-performance video cards. It's silly to make a big deal about it.
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I think so, yeah. Who cares past 30 FPS? Go look in my profile thingey for a post about my "gaming" computer.
 
I was a huge BD proponent during the HDDVD wars and even after that against Digital Distribution. Honestly, my laziness caught up with me and I prefer to digitally watch almost everything now.
 
SkribbelKat said:
I said nerds should be more patient, not that "non-nerds" are now, just because they don't understand what's happening behind the scenes, freaking out. That was merely a counter-point to your argument that technical people are more prone to losing their minds over an outage.
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Nerds thank you for your lecture. Please convey our salutations to the Dalai Lama.

I think so, yeah. Who cares past 30 FPS? Go look in my profile thingey for a post about my "gaming" computer.
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Who cares? Do you even know where you are? :confused:
 
SkribbelKat said:
The biggest resistance to this is going to come from a small group of vocal people who dropped a lot of money into what they try to call a "home theater" that basically is just a bunch of large speakers and a big flat panel TV without the sort of science necessary to actually set the thing up so that it sounds good. They sort of cobble together $20,000 of AV junk in a room without taking any real measurements of their environment and say, "ZOMG it sounds and looks so amazing!" then get upset when there might be a loss of quality between a disc and a file (which doesn't have to be the case) that only they can notice because of the stuff they bought. For the rest of the world that's streaming NetFlix from their Wii, losing discs is no big deal and will happen with an apathetic shrug over the fact that there's no optical media around.
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Uhh...wow. Projecting much?

I don't know a single person with high-end home theater equipment who didn't have it A) Installed by a professional and calibrated, or B) Did the research needed to optimize their setup for their environment. Even the wealthiest and laziest of douchebags wouldn't attempt to install their own home theater system if they just dropped $500 per speaker.

However, I deal with people on a daily basis who want to drop $2000 on a "Smart" TV -- sans external sound system -- to hook their Wii up to so they can stream Netflix over their neighbor's wifi.
 
Well someone has to stay with the actual media, there's gotta be one person making those 50 GB rips, so that the rest of us can reencode it down to all our digital fancies.

I don't have a blu-ray player, but watch plenty of 1080p movies and shows in various formats
 
Stiletto said:
I can't tell much difference between 30FPS and 60FPS. Nobody needs high-performance video cards. It's silly to make a big deal about it.
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Gah, I wish I was more like that in some ways. I don't really like gaming on IPS panels as much as TN, because they always make it feel all sluggish...it's only 5-15ms but still. It's not terrible in a "I find it unbearable" (like everyone says about everything) and I have and use an IPS because of media work, it's not the best thing for games (although "monitorphiles will find that shocking/heretical). :D
 
krotch said:
I think the biggest resistance is going to be the fact that majority of the US population isn't able to get high speed broadband that will allow them to download movies in a timely manner.
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Hmmm yeah I'd rather get a Blu-Ray disc and be able to watch a movie in the highest quality available in a matter of minutes and enjoy the experience rather than stream something from Netflix and having it pause intermittently to buffer...of course, I don't own a Blu-ray player nor do I own a Netflix account. :p

Hell, my 14mb cable connection pauses to buffer way too frequently during peak neighborhood usage (6 PM - 11 PM) even on short youtube videos...very annoying. :mad:
 
I am in the "If I can keep a copy" crowd. I hate the fact that I can buy something then lose access to it either because my chosen platform for playback does not support it, or because the company goes out of business.

Because of DRM the supported platform has a tendency to be limited to those support. Some companies are better than others. Amazon for has a wider range of platform support than Microsoft, Apple or Google, and for obvious reasons. If the DRM was removed, and they encoded it in something either common or something that I could convert it to something playable, then I could chose my platform as I wish. If I was all Apple, and then all of a suddenly I bought an Android/MS phone or tablet, then I'd be S.O.L.

I also hate the fact that if said company goes under or shitcans said service, I basically lose everything I paid for through that service. If you spend years building up a library through said service, that is a shitload of money.
 
I rip it from blu ray with zero compression keeping the HD audio intact and store them on my server and watch them on XBMC.
 
I do have a Netflix account. I use it to watch movies not worth buying. But good movies - stuff where I really care about PQ or know I will watch again - I get on BD and rip to the server.
 
zacrobmer said:
Once I can get Blu-Ray picture quality and sound sure. I could give a shit about the extras.
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I agree on picture and sound but I LOVE extra features.

Our internet infrastructure couldn't possibly hope to deal with Blu Ray sized downloads so its safe for the time being.

I'll always prefer quality of picture and sound over lousy 2-3Mbps streams from Netflix.
 
The whole streaming thing works for me because if I see something that "OMG like totally blows my mind man that I have to have a physical copy to keep under my pillow to watch at all times" I can just walk down the road and buy a copy.

I have to say since I have been using streaming and watching a lot more movies that hasn't happened yet.

It's not like all copies of The Matrix will disappear overnight. I sleep safe knowing I can probably see it by some means if I have to. It's a movie, not like it's insulin or something like that.
 
SkribbelKat said:
The biggest resistance to this is going to come from a small group of vocal people who dropped a lot of money into what they try to call a "home theater" that basically is just a bunch of large speakers and a big flat panel TV without the sort of science necessary to actually set the thing up so that it sounds good. They sort of cobble together $20,000 of AV junk in a room without taking any real measurements of their environment and say, "ZOMG it sounds and looks so amazing!" then get upset when there might be a loss of quality between a disc and a file (which doesn't have to be the case) that only they can notice because of the stuff they bought. For the rest of the world that's streaming NetFlix from their Wii, losing discs is no big deal and will happen with an apathetic shrug over the fact that there's no optical media around.
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Nowadays many AVRs come with a microphone and room correction software that automates the process of optimizing audio output for the space it is being played back in. It's not perfect, but it is usually much better than doing nothing and only takes a few minutes. Also many who aren't technically inclined actually pay an installer to optimize the video/audio for their home theater.
 
Raffin said:
Nowadays many AVRs come with a microphone and room correction software that automates the process of optimizing audio output for the space it is being played back in. It's not perfect, but it is usually much better than doing nothing and only takes a few minutes. Also many who aren't technically inclined actually pay an installer to optimize the video/audio for their home theater.
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Indeed. It takes about 2-3 minutes to calibrate and your done. For most people this is more than enough. Home Theater setups are still pretty popular and streaming 640k Dolby Digital sounds nowhere near as good as the higher end formats on Blu Ray.

I'm sure for a good portion of people an iTunes movie download is fine but there are many who prefer higher end picture and audio plus extra's over paying too much for a movie through iTunes.

I can often find a Blu Ray cheaper on Amazon with free shipping than I can pay to download a movie through iTunes.
 
Will public libraries eventually have Blu-Ray discs?

Some classics can be rewatched from time to time, or just used for PQ reference, like Baraka. And it's so simple to reinsert the disc.
 
Raffin said:
Nowadays many AVRs come with a microphone and room correction software that automates the process of optimizing audio output for the space it is being played back in. It's not perfect, but it is usually much better than doing nothing and only takes a few minutes. Also many who aren't technically inclined actually pay an installer to optimize the video/audio for their home theater.
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That's completely awesome that you don't have to worry about it (as much) with on-board calibration. I retract parts of my complaining and bemoaning of home theaters. :)
 
Stiletto said:
...and then when their internet connection goes down, or Netflix goes down(as has happened multiple times in the last month), they're going to realize not only how valuable optical media can be, but how flawed "cloud computing" is.
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True,

But maybe broadband is better around here than it is where you live, but my connection hasn't gone down (other than requiring a quick router restart) in almost 10 years.

Or if it did, it was when the power was out anyway, and I couldn't use it :p
 
yeah I was on the streaming only bandwagon when Netflix decided to isolate a big chunk of their user base. I learned after a big snowstorm that streaming sucks whenever you need it the most. During bad weather when you don't feel like going outside and the internet goes down.
 
kumquat said:
And many people LIKE films.

Surely someone who is such a computer enthusiast that his desktop is mega-overkill mode and runs a personal VMWare host can understand that people who "LIKE" film might have rather nice audio and video setups and appreciate the improved quality that comes from them.

Looking at your gear, you can appreciate an extra 10 FPS in RO2. There are those among us who can appreciate a 60" plasma or 102" projector, and who can appreciate high quality 7.1 audio as opposed to TV speakers.
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Never said there weren't people who appreciated it.

What I did say was that I didn't.

We are all here providing our own opinions on our own stuff, right?

The only part I don't get is the need to own films. I don't understand th eappeal of re-watching films you've already seen the ending of.
 
Zarathustra[H];1039540100 said:
The only part I don't get is the need to own films. I don't understand th eappeal of re-watching films you've already seen the ending of.
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I rewatch movies all the time. Each time you typically notice something you didnt before. Hell I've probably seen the dark knight trilogy a solid 50 times(collectively that is).To each his own I guess.
 
Zarathustra[H];1039539653 said:
Good point too.

I have never owned (or even really seen) a TV larger than 42". I don't understand the need for one either, as my 42" screen was more than large enough for my living room. Any larger, and it might just have filled too much of my field of view and been too big.

I had no idea people were using huge 12' projectors...

When I first heard about 4k, I thought "well that's a silly waste, you'll never tell the difference between 4k and 1080p on normal screens at normal viewing distances". But if you have a 12' screen, I guess you could... I certainly will never have anything like that in my home though.
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Zarathustra[H];1039540100 said:
Never said there weren't people who appreciated it.

What I did say was that I didn't.

We are all here providing our own opinions on our own stuff, right?

The only part I don't get is the need to own films. I don't understand th eappeal of re-watching films you've already seen the ending of.
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You also said you "didn't understand" why anyone would want a TV larger than 42", which is mind-boggling considering you understand why someone would want to overclock their CPU or run a second graphics card as a physics processor.
 
krotch said:
You're on HardOCP. A lot of us have terabytes of storage by the dozens. If I combine all my storage together, I think I have around 15 TBs and I don't have nearly as much as others. I do plan to upgrade though, as I'm running out of space.

I do compress though. I bought Futurama Season 7 on bluray and I compressed it down to 16 GBs total for both discs.
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Exactly.

I have more storage than I know what to do with right now...
 
Zarathustra[H];1039540100 said:
The only part I don't get is the need to own films. I don't understand th eappeal of re-watching films you've already seen the ending of.
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Did you only watch Star Wars once?
 
SkribbelKat said:
That's completely awesome that you don't have to worry about it (as much) with on-board calibration. I retract parts of my complaining and bemoaning of home theaters. :)
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To be fair, if you're spending $20,000 on a home theater system and not spending any of that money on room treatments you're stupid beyond belief.

Auto-calibration can only get you so far. Every room has its own modes, reflections, etc that really mess with the sound and cannot be calibrated out. Putting a portion of that investment into simple treatments like acoustic panels and bass traps pays off huge dividends.
 
kumquat said:
You also said you "didn't understand" why anyone would want a TV larger than 42", which is mind-boggling considering you understand why someone would want to overclock their CPU or run a second graphics card as a physics processor.
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True, but I was speaking from my experience. I didn't say "hahah u stupid, big TV" or anything like that.

I also don't understand the people who sped $5k on a road bike. Every bicycle I've owned cost me significantly less than $200.

That doesn't mean I belittle their choices, or call them names. There's obviously just some appeal that I don't (yet) understand.
 
kumquat said:
To be fair, if you're spending $20,000 on a home theater system and not spending any of that money on room treatments you're stupid beyond belief.

Auto-calibration can only get you so far. Every room has its own modes, reflections, etc that really mess with the sound and cannot be calibrated out. Putting a portion of that investment into simple treatments like acoustic panels and bass traps pays off huge dividends.
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Give me $20,000 to set up a HT and you'll never go to a commecrial theater again. You possibly might not leave your house again, either.
 
kumquat said:
You also said you "didn't understand" why anyone would want a TV larger than 42"...
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confused0050.gif
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Did you only watch Star Wars once?
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I had to watch them all once. Well, I didn't have to, but I thought I was being nice by humoring someone who wanted to watch them all over a weekend. Worst weekend ever.

Usually, once is enough for most movies. Most of them are predictable/boring/rely on special effects and not acting talent/etc and aren't worth the price of admission. TCM has some good stuff occasionally and pretty much anything the BBC makes is awesome. I never get bored (though I have no idea why) with watching Lady Such-and-Such plot to poison Duke Blah-Dee-Dah over his affiar with the scullery maid that invariably ends in tragic suicide by leaping off the walls of the castle or manor house.

kumquat said:
To be fair, if you're spending $20,000 on a home theater system and not spending any of that money on room treatments you're stupid beyond belief.

Auto-calibration can only get you so far. Every room has its own modes, reflections, etc that really mess with the sound and cannot be calibrated out. Putting a portion of that investment into simple treatments like acoustic panels and bass traps pays off huge dividends.
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And, all that paneling makes it easy to convert that room into a padded one for local crazies you want to keep safe from themselves. :)
 
My $5000 desktop with six 30" screens is so awesome.

...but people who spend money on big TVs and blu-rays are just incomprehensible.

Also I accidentally a fleshlight.
 
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