Are we best going back to physical media

Nope. May see people on these sites or AV specific forums talk about physical media as the users are likely more skewed towards being more critical, but the general public could not care. Most my friends my age, late 20's early 30's, none I recall own a blu-ray player or similar outside of consoles. Most pretty content and used to netflix / prime etc, myself largely included tbh.
 
No, streaming will only get better as Internet speeds increase as well as improvements to the codecs used for the streams. The streaming companies already hold all of their content with uncompressed audio and near lossless video so just need consumers Internet speeds to increase enough before they can up the bit rates.
 
I do have a collection of UHD Blu-ray's.

But streaming is easy.

Plus an example: Marvel's IMAX movies on Disney+ are actually better than watching the UHD Blu-ray's.

They have the expanded aspect ratio, plus they are in Dolby Vision whereas the UHD Blu-ray's are only HDR10
 
I can totally get this observation. Being in a rural location, streaming and downloads in general are something to pay attention to for me, however I am due to get fiber soon so that might become slightly less of a nark.

When I view stuff compressed or the platform decides what 'best' for me the quality for sure suffers and if I had a large telly trying to maximise the experience for example watching a recent blockbuster with the wife one evening I can relate to this inferior streaming potential and have too thought about what home setup would compensate (particularly if inflation drives everything higher, I can see many people ditching the netflix etc. so would be nice to have content saved locally even if it was to detox from it for a year).
 
Sirrel Squirrel said:
No, streaming will only get better as Internet speeds increase as well as improvements to the codecs used for the streams. The streaming companies already hold all of their content with uncompressed audio and near lossless video so just need consumers Internet speeds to increase enough before they can up the bit rates.
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The way this country rolls out broadband, we could be waiting a while
 
ethan said:
Are we best going back to physical media
...whether it be USB or 4/8k players.
Just wondering about the advantages of blu ray 4k media etc over streaming services-which, let's face it, are pretty awful.
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It's not going to happen, or at least not unless there's some major problem like the Internet breaking or all the streaming services going bust.

History shows us the message very clearly; consumers will take convenience over quality nearly all the time.
  • Tape cassette outsold vinyl at one point because people were listening on the move more than sitting at home
  • CD replaced vinyl because it took less effort to keep it clean
  • DVD replaced VHS because of convenience as much as for quality
  • MP3 replaced CD for the younger generations because of the convenience of burning 3 hours of crappy quality compressed music on to a CD
  • ...and then when solid state memory got cheap-enough CD storage for MP3 got dumped too
  • P2P file sharing threatened all physical media products
  • when streaming got its act together then P2P went out the window because it's a PITA compared to the convenience of streaming at an acceptable price
  • home cinema surround systems are being replaced by sound bars partly because of streaming
Of the times when an improved version of a physical media format was launched, how many occasions can you recall when the market embraced it fully?
  • SACD and DVD-Audio as the better quality versions of CD...... sure, but the public didn't care
  • Blu-ray to replace DVD..... that didn't happen
  • UHD BD....... even more niche than BD

It pains me to say it as an ardent physical media fan, but the consumer market as a whole doesn't give a rats knacker about physical media. It was a stepping stone; a means to an end. I remember the hoo-ha around 4K content distribution before UHD disc and UHD streaming got launched. Sony wanted to sell consumers a giant round coaster media player preloaded(!) with about a dozen films. From memory it was all pretty vague about how the content could be changed.

(2) Sony 4K Media Player - CES 2013 - YouTube

I'd be very surprised if we see another physical media format for 8K. My gut feeling is that the future is going to be streaming, and yes, that's going to suck if you live in some Welsh valley or in a rural community out in the sticks with an internet service running at half the speed of smell.

I was a bleeding edge adopter for DVD. The UK mags were still trying to decide whether it was a goer when I got a US imported Region 1 player and was buying DVD discs in batches of 20 and personally importing them from a seller in New York. I'm also the guy for whom vinyl never went away. I had cassette, mini-disc, SACD as well as CD. I also got in to HD-DVD and Blu-ray when they were still trading punches, and I've got UHD BD. I'm pretty invested. But despite all that I watch more content via Prime, Disney+ and Netflix than I buy in physical formats. I just don't see the need to throw cash at buying eleventeen series of some drama on disc that I'm likely to only ever watch once. Feature films is a different case, but I still sample first via streaming.
 
How long is it going to take to stream decent quality at 8K etc?
TBh I'll buy physical as much as I can and rip to USB or store on a NAS so I don't have to completely rely on the internet having to play catch-up. Luckily there is still a second hand market for movies.
 
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ethan said:
How long is it going to take to stream decent quality at 8K etc?
TBh I'll buy physical as much as I can and rip to USB or store on a NAS so I don't have to completely rely on the internet having to play catch-up. Luckily there is still a second hand market for movies.
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There aren't any mainstream movies or TV shows available in 8K yet and that isn't going to change any time soon, the cost to produce them is currently too high.

As for streaming, with each resolution jump there's a new codec, which typically offers a 50% bit rate saving in a like for like comparison. As a rough guide for a decent looking stream, take HD using H.264 at 16Mbps. The jump to 4K uses the H.265 codec at 24Mbps. Then 8K using H.266 would be 36Mbps.

That's just a rough example but shows how with new codecs efficiencies can be made with the amount of bandwidth required to deliver a decent looking stream. Obviously the higher the bit rate the better the quality so as Internet speeds increase it'll only get better.
 
No chance, seen my old man spend £3k on a TV to show me a (at best) a 480p rip from some dodgy streaming box telling me how amazing the quality is. People really don't care or notice.
 
Agreed with the observations above.
How about this for an example.
A couple of years ago bought an OLED TV. As our “old” AV processor is not HDMI 2 compatible, the only audio connection solution for streamed movies was therefore limited by SPDIF, and as such DD or DTS at best.
I’ve recently bought a HDMI audio extractor, which can be plugged into the ARC output from my TV and send uncompressed audio via HDMI into our processor.
The only downside is that the volume control doesn’t work with the TV, ie you need to also use the remote for the processor. Despite the benefits, o get a bunch of ear ache from the missus ref the remote, who’s insisted that she only uses the SPDIF connection
 
VincentHanna said:
I do have a collection of UHD Blu-ray's.

But streaming is easy.

Plus an example: Marvel's IMAX movies on Disney+ are actually better than watching the UHD Blu-ray's.

They have the expanded aspect ratio, plus they are in Dolby Vision whereas the UHD Blu-ray's are only HDR10
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That's an exception to the rule and sound is always better on disc.

And to the OP, the majority don't care for the best possible AV experience. It's a niche.

Internet with be enough to stream 8k for those not in the sticks. .

I see 8k as serious overkill. We are already at the thick end of the laws of diminishing returns. For myself, 4K HDR is endgame quality. Also a decent sound system is a must, without it you're missing out on half the experience.
 
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My possibly irrational fear is the extreme price increases of streaming, and then the limitations of bitrate available as UK fibre is either expensive or not available.

I'm still happy building my dvd and BR collections for the reasons above.
 
Mr_Sukebe said:
Agreed with the observations above.
How about this for an example.
A couple of years ago bought an OLED TV. As our “old” AV processor is not HDMI 2 compatible, the only audio connection solution for streamed movies was therefore limited by SPDIF, and as such DD or DTS at best.
I’ve recently bought a HDMI audio extractor, which can be plugged into the ARC output from my TV and send uncompressed audio via HDMI into our processor.
The only downside is that the volume control doesn’t work with the TV, ie you need to also use the remote for the processor. Despite the benefits, o get a bunch of ear ache from the missus ref the remote, who’s insisted that she only uses the SPDIF connection
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Surely you're only gaining atmosphere here, or does you player go straight into your TV (in which case why not the amp first)?

I'm happy to stream as its much cheaper, however it's annoying that there's seems to be a million streaming services, and they chop and change what's on them, with some stuff just plain not (legally) available in this country. That's why me and others turn to piracy, its a joke imo.
 
theone8181 said:
Surely you're only gaining atmosphere here, or does you player go straight into your TV (in which case why not the amp first)?

I'm happy to stream as its much cheaper, however it's annoying that there's seems to be a million streaming services, and they chop and change what's on them, with some stuff just plain not (legally) available in this country. That's why me and others turn to piracy, its a joke imo.
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If you are turning to "piracy", there's a a good chance you are using a VPN ? If you are, a VPN on any of the main streaming services will find most films that are not available in the UK.
To give you an example, on Sunday i wanted to watch "Fury" because i last watched it a few years ago. Not available on Netflix UK now. It is available on Netflix Japan though, a simple case of swapping servers on my VPN to Japan.

As it happens i am one of those peeps that actually prefers physical media, be that Vinyl, CD or Blu Ray. Like @lucid, i am heavily invested in all 3 media formats. That said, streaming also has it's place and in my case streaming has a very handy spur of the moment watching or listening use case.
 
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