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mdotmertenstoday at 12:35 PM4 repliesview on HN

As someone who has recently begun exploring physical media, I find this quite disappointing. The volume on 4K Blu-Rays is often low, prices are high, and Netflix isn't doing much to support physical media.

When you're just unwinding in front of a 65-inch screen, you might not notice the quality loss from compression. However, if you're actively watching on a 110-inch projector with an excellent sound system, every little detail becomes clear.

And that doesn't even address the most frustrating part: owning less and less.

I mean, no one needs to become a physical distributor, but it's disheartening that we lack consumer-friendly ownership of entertainment media when it comes to movies. I would love to see something like Bandcamp, but specifically for studios to release their movies to.


Replies

leeoniyatoday at 12:47 PM

> When you're just unwinding in front of a 65-inch screen, you might not notice the quality loss from compression.

this has little to do with the resolution, though. maybe 4k just gets the benefit of being compressed with better codecs.

for me at least, watching shows/movies at typical viewing distance, a well-encoded 4k->1080p mkv is only very slightly less sharp and is vastly smaller to store on the media server.

komali2today at 12:53 PM

I'm curious, because I've had an interest in physical media, especially videogames, but what I keep coming back to is, "why would I bother when I can just pirate it?"

What's the attraction to the physical media given the availability of these versions online?

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Keyframetoday at 1:12 PM

don't be discouraged. 4k/UHD BR is still alive and well, even though it never can beat price of comparatively worse streaming versions. I just bought a relatively expensive UHD player and there are a lot of movies, and what I've noticed there are also boutique offerings and remasters going on in the market which I haven't noticed before. Going forward though, I'm not sure if there will be future for releases of new movies outside of big productions.

mritstoday at 12:46 PM

I can hardly blame a company for not supporting a product almost nobody wants to go back to.

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