Blu-ray is dying…

[Zorlac]

I have been collecting UHD blu-rays pretty agressively the last year. Also have been buying standard blu-ray or DVD if that is the best format that exists for the movie/show. I believe the high-end Sony player I have was released in 2018. I purchased it in 2019 and it is still their latest and greatest. No remaining company I know of is putting R&D into new players. It is sad. My player seems to hang with long movies. I suspect some sort of memory leak which is corrected after a reboot. Also, I have to manually enable Dolby Vision when a movie supports it. I've heard the best player on the market is from Panasonic, but I don't see a reason to upgrade at this point. I was hoping the spec would get upgraded with features like high frame rate, but I doubt that will happen now.

Discs are still superior when it comes to the quality of audio/video. Plus owning and holding physical media still has a special place in my heart (I am Gen X).

 

[JaccoW]

Next to Samsung and Oppo, now LG announced it will stop making Blu-ray players:

LG stops making Blu-ray players, marking the end of an era — limited units remain while inventory lasts

Digital streaming is displacing the last remnants of physical media.

www.tomshardware.com

The market is pretty much split between Sony and Panasonic anyway and for those still collecting 1080P Blu-Rays, the second-hand market is bursting with options.
LG hasn't been a relevant player for the 4K market for years now.

Collectors go after 4K rescans and releases from Criterion, Arrow Films and Shout Factory to name a few.

The biggest issue is that there haven't been any new models or updates in a while now. The Sony UBP X800M2 for example is from 2019.
A few years ago Reavon came out with their universal disc players, including SACD playback. Something the Panasonics lack for example. But they are very expensive.

On the other hand, since 4K and HDR standards were introduced and slightly standardized there haven't been any notable developments in the 4K Blu-Ray standards and most* 4K discs are region free. There are literally a handful of exceptions.

 

[Graham849]

Dropped frames in streaming lessens visual impact. 4k discs are the ultimate collectors item. Our national hifi chain often has buy 2 get 1 free. Hopefully Disney will reverse their no more physical media. The video landscape has sure changed the past 10 years.

 

[JeffS7444]

For now, disc-based media is still a thing in the game console world:
https://kotaku.com/ps5-5-pro-disc-physical-xbox-series-x-s-sales-digital-1851679873

I have an LG USB drive which can read B-D and 4K media, as well as a modified Sony 4K player which can play all B-D and DVD regions (4K disks don't use region coding).

 

[Power Pop 23]

Hopefully Disney will reverse their no more physical media.

AFAIK, Disney is offering select content on 4K Blu-ray disc like The Mandalorian and Disney has licensed Criterion to offer Wall-E on 4K Blu-ray disc.

 

[delta76]

I have a Panasonic 4K bluray player and while it's a good one (support all popular formats, quiet, reliable), the process of changing the discs, and going to exactly where I left a movie is ... tedious. I'm ripping all my bluray into NAS. once that's done can't say I would miss my player much ...

 

[masterhw]

I have a Panasonic 4K bluray player and while it's a good one, the process of changing the discs, and going to exactly where I left a movie is ... tedious. I'm ripping all my bluray into NAS. once that's done can't say I would miss my player much ...

It can be uniquely challenging to find a media player capable of rendering all the advanced video and audio codecs, particularly over local network stream. You almost always make some kind of tradeoff (like my Google TV Streamer can't do DTS HD MA or True HD).

 

[amirm]

I have hundreds of discs. But finally got tired of sorting through them, putting them in the player, waiting, then selecting a menu, just to watch a movie. So dumped it all and got a Kaleidescape server. It is very expensive (although much cheaper than it used to be) but is so convenient. Over our Gigabit Internet link, I can download a UHD movie in about 10 minutes when I buy it and instantly be able to play it when I want. I shop for bargains in the K store and buy movies in bulk. Then when we get ready to watch something, we have a nice selection of good movies to watch. So if one can afford it, it is the ideal solution of fidelity and convenience.

NOTE: our company is a dealer for Kaleidescape although I don't think we sell many.

 

[beefkabob]

Nowadays, a good stream will beat the quality of a bad bluray, and a good pirate encode will match the quality of a great bluray but at half the size or less. Many of the best encoders are just pirates these days, and their hybrid encodes can even beat the original blurays by correcting color, properly trimming, and using multiple sources to fix problems.

I have two bluray players, and in all these years, we've maybe used them, 50 times. I haven't used one in years.

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

I think Panasonic is the last man standing? I’ve been watching the demise of brands / players for a number of years now.

It’s hard to dismiss comments from @dasdoing and @audio_tony questioning if the format ever really took off. For years the players were hampered with insanely slow loading times that apparently only got worked out to something reasonable at about the time the format started dwindling. I’m sure that turned off lots of people, not to mention the price of discs.

And disc quality: I have one or two movies on both DVD and Blu Ray where the Blu Ray version looks no better than the DVD.

I managed to snag a pair of nice Denon universal players a couple years ago, the 3313 and 1713, I think the last ones they made. Much cheaper used than the blinky (and pricey) Pioneer UDP-LXx00 players and loads faster, even though Pioneers were 6 years newer.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[AudioJester]

Streaming quality is so uneven and generally poor. I recently got an OLED TV and it's really made this fact more obvious than ever. I would happily buy or rent 4k blurays. Time to revive Blockbuster.

Do you think this is a problem with streaming services themselves or
regional network/internet services?

 

[delta76]

It can be uniquely challenging to find a media player capable of rendering all the advanced video and audio codecs, particularly over local network stream. You almost always make some kind of tradeoff (like my Google TV Streamer can't do DTS HD MA or True HD).

plex on Shield seems to do it just fine

 

[masterhw]

plex on Shield seems to do it just fine

Shield is certainly the gold standard in the field, but enthusiasts do wish it had the latest Dolby Vision profile support and AV1. That there is still no hands-down better replacement after 5 years is a testament to it (and perhaps how difficult it is to bring to market a 'do everything' product).

 

[amirm]

Do you think this is a problem with streaming services themselves or
regional network/internet services?

There are often artifacts in low luminance (brightness) scenes that the encoder thinks are invisible, yet the eye is very good at detecting it if it is changing (which it usually is). An OLED display shows such things so it becomes annoying. It takes a lot of hand optimization to dial these out which is harder to do with constant bit rate streaming vs variable in disc media.

 

[delta76]

Shield is certainly the gold standard in the field, but enthusiasts do wish it had the latest Dolby Vision profile support. That there is still no hands-down better replacement after 5 years is a testament to it (and perhaps how difficult it is to bring to market a 'do everything' product).

yeah I'm definitely not an enthusiast in HT. Good enough is good for me

 

[raif71]

I have a few Blu-Rays, but they were never fun to watch. It took several minutes before you could finally start the movie (unskippable copyright notices - as a punishment for having bought the original, trailers, menus...).
Nowadays, I would have to laboriously dig out a drive, connect it to the PC and probably update the player software, or buy it again because maybe the older version refuses to update the copy protection.
If I want to watch a movie, I'd rather wait until Netflix or Disnex have it, even if I have it on the shelf as a BluRay.
On the other hand, providers are also making more and more efforts to ensure that streaming is no longer fun.
Fortunately, most movies are so bad anyway that it doesn't matter what quality you don't watch them in.

I like the distractions before the movie. It's like in a cinema and it will also let the projector's bulb warm up.

 

[beefkabob]

I like the distractions before the movie. It's like in a cinema and it will also let the projector's bulb warm up.

Do you use CLI Linux as a desktop OS?

 

[win]

You'll always be able to get an auxiliary player for a laptop

 

[ThatM1key]

I loved the Blu-ray medium but it does have its flaws. I think it went downhill when 4K was coming heard.

What I like:

1. Good video and audio bitrates that still hold up very well these days (1080p Discs).
2. Good format/value for offline backups of data.
3. Good reliability and more scratch resistant than DVDs.
4. Movie Blu-ray's (1080p) usually costs the same as DVD.

What I don't like:

1. 4K Movies are a hit or miss when it comes to TLC (Ex: 2K Upscaling, Film Grain/Noise Removal, etc..)
2. More Aggressive Region Locking / Optical Drive 4K Lockout
3. M-Discs BDRs has no studies unlike M-Disc DVDs. (I could be wrong).
4. Some 4K Blu-ray Players do not let you turn off HDR (For TV's that have terrible HDR performance).
5. When using a PC, Dolby Atmos & DTS X output can only be enabled from apps from the Windows Store.
6. Usually less feature bonuses then DVD counterparts.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I have hundreds of discs. But finally got tired of sorting through them, putting them in the player, waiting, then selecting a menu, just to watch a movie. So dumped it all and got a Kaleidescape server. It is very expensive (although much cheaper than it used to be) but is so convenient. Over our Gigabit Internet link, I can download a UHD movie in about 10 minutes when I buy it and instantly be able to play it when I want. I shop for bargains in the K store and buy movies in bulk. Then when we get ready to watch something, we have a nice selection of good movies to watch. So if one can afford it, it is the ideal solution of fidelity and convenience.

NOTE: our company is a dealer for Kaleidescape although I don't think we sell many.

I looked at those two years ago. If I remember right you also have to buy their hardware to buy their movies don't you? Seemed to recall movies were usually $30 and the gear started around $4k. A good idea just wish it could reach a size the price could go down.