Physical Media must be finished surely?

DONOHUE07 · 24 Jan 2017 at 14:44

Not at all, in some rural areas even streaming Netflix is a tough ask whilst someone else is browsing the Internet

jpaul · 24 Jan 2017 at 14:46

How about the archival of your music/photos/data that remains 50% of my motivation to engage with blu-ray physical (50GB r) media, and I thought exobyte tapes were still the reliable commericial solution, even used on some of the cloud services.

(however with the decliniing physical movie blu-ray sales there does inevitably seem less investment in good quality/reliable blu-ray drives by the traditional manufacturers.)

Nick1881 · 24 Jan 2017 at 16:25

I have found streaming to be OK, Grand Tour on Amazon looks pretty good in 4k HDR, where it lacks though is sound, will they ever be able to stream HD audio?

Until streaming can match Blu-ray for sound and picture, I'll be sticking with physical media.

Music however, I don't have any CD's now, if I end up with any I rip them to FLAC and store them away.

TheVoice · 24 Jan 2017 at 18:43

Hedge said:
This might be true, but the market for discs must be tiny.

Not at all. DVDs, CDs and Blu-rays still sell very well. There's more competition for physical media too.

Armageus · 24 Jan 2017 at 18:51

Gimpymoo said:
The gaming industry has gone through a similar shift. I would say it took a decade for it to become accepted by the mainstream.

Outside of PC I don't think it has been accepted - personally physical discs are still king for PS4. Prices are much more competitive than the ridiculous psn store pricing, and I can still lend games to friends/family if I choose.

I don't think the PC digital market is entirely healthy either - otherwise there wouldn't be such a demand for "grey" keys from 3rd party sites.

stoofa · 24 Jan 2017 at 19:12

Agree on PS4 front. Cheaper to buy physical copies and once I've finished with them I can trade them in, sell them etc.
I recently sold my PS3 - it had a load of games with it, selling an old console with no games is no easy task.

Bassmansam · 24 Jan 2017 at 19:21

I mainly watch films via itunes/netflix/amazon nowadays. The quality is good enough for me.

Vertigo · 24 Jan 2017 at 19:22

Gimpymoo said:
The gaming industry has gone through a similar shift. I would say it took a decade for it to become accepted by the mainstream.

Gaming is a totally different demographic and a poor comparison when it comes to delivery methods.

As I said above, a far better comparison is music and, despite downloads and streaming being commonplace and even the preferred method of delivery, CDs are still made and sold in large quantities.

h4rm0ny · 24 Jan 2017 at 20:27

Compression.

Something can be HD or UHD and still poor quality. Something can play at 1080p and you still see blotchy rectangles in any area of similar colour like a grey sky or shadowy corner. I read a review a while back of Netflix's 4K streaming. They rated 4K streaming by them as roughly equivalent to a Blu-ray with poorer sound.

It will replace physical media. But hopefully not before people learn to look at actual quality rather than at numbers.

Englander91 · 24 Jan 2017 at 20:32

Equally with books, there is something about having a physical copy of something that people seem to like.

Maybe a bit like money. If I have a crisp £50 note in my wallet (I don't, so don't bother trying to pinch it), I get a certain feeling of wealth and prosperity. However, if I see £50 in my bank account displayed digitally on my screen, it doesn't carry the same je ne sais quoi.

I think the point is just physical possessing something seems a bit more rewarding than owning a sequence of bits stored on a harddrive.

Richeh · 25 Jan 2017 at 07:20

Physical media will have its place for a long time in the UK at least unless there is massive improvement of broadband speeds to rural areas.

Howard · 25 Jan 2017 at 08:26

Streaming = convenience. Bluray = quality.

Streaming video is heavily compressed and doesn't offer DTS HD MA or TrueHD audio. For that reason, Bluray isn't going anywhere for me any time soon.

FrankJH · 25 Jan 2017 at 10:14

Gimpymoo said:
The gaming industry has gone through a similar shift. I would say it took a decade for it to become accepted by the mainstream.
.

Gaming is a lot easier to distribute now however

Compression for instance can be widely used in distribution of games which would not work for video files as easily, and as is widely being used in the gaming industry now they can do partial installation (lets say base game + 1st level) with the rest left to be distributed while the user is playing / over night etc etc

I dont know for sure but surely BR / 4K BR would be using better compression if they possibly could , which probably means the 60-100GB of a 4k BR is the minimum it can be currently ......thats not really going to work for majority of people (current storage limits to start with - let alone the time to actually download that amount)

Plainsong · 25 Jan 2017 at 15:07

Englander91 said:
Equally with books, there is something about having a physical copy of something that people seem to like.

Have to admit that I've been solely digital for books for some years now - and I read a lot. I used to love buying books but now I don't know if I will ever buy another.

Streaming is fine if I want to watch something I don't have or which is not on On Demand. I still buy Bluray for the films that I want to own and watch with the highest visual and sound quality that I can.

EYEREX · 26 Jan 2017 at 10:36

Even these bad boys are making a comeback

HEADRAT · 26 Jan 2017 at 11:19

Gimpymoo said:
The gaming industry has gone through a similar shift. I would say it took a decade for it to become accepted by the mainstream.

But playing a game which has been downloaded isn't inferior to the game which has been loaded off a disc, the same isn't true for media.

JasonM · 28 Jan 2017 at 05:48

Vinal, quality metal cassette tape, Blueray movies all very good!

My problem however is I like a minimalist life, and all the media just gets in your way of living, its far easier just to stream something and save time.

HEADRAT · 28 Jan 2017 at 07:35

Then you do what I do, buy the media and then rip it to a NAS and then use PLEX or similar to distribute.

TheVoice · 28 Jan 2017 at 10:26

HEADRAT said:
Then you do what I do, buy the media and then rip it to a NAS and then use PLEX or similar to distribute.

Yep, I've probably bought more CDs in the past year or two than I have in the 27 years before those. I don't actually listen to the CDs themselves very often but I like knowing I have them and building a small collection from artists and labels I like. Bandcamp is great for this, you can buy the CD and they'll give you the album to stream via their app and the FLAC download. It's a great way to support artists too.

Spotify etc are great but too often I'll go through my playlists and suddenly find tracks or albums have been removed. If I own the CD, it's mine forever.

Vertigo · 28 Jan 2017 at 10:53

JasonM said:
Vinal, quality metal cassette tape, Blueray movies all very good!

My problem however is I like a minimalist life, and all the media just gets in your way of living, its far easier just to stream something and save time.

There's a place for both convenience and quality. If you value convenience over quality when it comes to movies and TV content then fair enough but it does make me laugh when people spend a fortune on the latest 4K uber-TV and then watch potato quality video through it.

(*Vinyl, *Bluray)