Thanks for mentioning that. I wasn't aware it had been released.I think there will be a niche market for universal players for some time yet.
I received Pink Floyd - Delicate Sound of Thunder Blu-ray today and the quality of the disc is amazing.
Even if streaming can match the quality many people will want to own a physical disc that they can play anytime in the future.
Streaming is also a future threat to all AV equipment when all you need is a TV. As TV gets larger it is easier to incorporate decent performing speakers that can satisfy most peoples needs.
Others may opt to have a sound bar only.
I've got three disc spinners in my system. At one point I had a Pioneer LX58 connected by HDMI to a Denon X6200 receiver, also connected to the Denon by analogue was a Marantz cd6006. The CD performance from the LX58 was very poor, the analogue performance from the Marantz was better, more open. I tried the analogue connection from the LX58 to the Denon and used the direct function on the Pioneer player, the sound was similar in scope to that produced by the Marantz. Not an A/B test but an improvement overall bringing the Pioneer closer to the performance of the Marantz.
The weakness in the system was a digital connection (although even analogue is subjected to some digital interference on Denons) to the Denon receiver. That receiver itself was quite a poor performer for stereo music. If you use HDMI for CD playback then, unless your have a stereo receiver or a more capable receiver for music such as the Arcam range then HDMI is always going to compromise audio performance.
Now I have three disc spinners in use at the moment. A Pioneer LX500 connected to a Denon X6500 via HDMI only, not only for film and TV but multi channel SACD playback. Now, thankfully, I don't have to play stereo music through the Denon and a Rega stereo amp has those duties for the last three years.
Why HDMI is poor is because of what is needed by the majority of people using multi disc spinners is a receiver's inability to portray stereo music adequately. Analogue improves on that performance but is still hampered by the receiver's overall performance. I've not tried optical or coax, little point with a Denon receiver.
Crap on terrestrial TV this Christmas day and like you it's been disc playing since early this morning from CDs and SACD and finally blu ray films. My wife is happy sitting watching to Tom Jones live from the Sound Stage as a finale. I do have a subscription to both Netflix and Prime but even the 4K presentations can't get near the quality of an upscaled HD blue ray on a 65'' OLED.Some up to date figures on sales here. Headline quote...”the US market for DVD/Blu-ray discs has been decimated from more than $10 billion in annual sales in 2014, contracting by double digits every year”.
The direction things are going in has been clear for a number of years with few manufacturers left in the segment. For me personally this week I’ve listened to SACD, DVD-A, watched a Blu-ray, watched a UHD and not logged onto Netflix since I don’t have a subscription. But I’m part of a dying breed who congregate on forums such as this and I’d wager that not one in a thousand people could tell you what an SACD is.
Digital movie sales soar past DVD/Blu-ray in 2020
Pandemic accelerated the shift but it was bound to happen soon or laterwww.flatpanelshd.com
Data centres could relatively easily become close to carbon neutral by switching to renewable energy and there is always room for refining how efficient the servers are.The writing does seem to be on the wall for physical media , but the situation May actually get reversed.
first, with regards to music, the streaming sites have never posted a profit, this cannot continue indefiniitely and a bubble is set to burst here.
The major issue however is that climate change has turned the spotlight on wasteful power usage, and massive server farms burning gigawatts of energy so we can all have access to 24/7 light entertainment is not justifiable.
I expect to see server farms being forced to scale back to critical data only, and for the general population to start minding their own light entertainment data again in a way that is not so wasteful of energy.
Yes, absolutely.I bought my first Bluray player this year, it's a Panasonic DP-UB450, so 4k UHD, the Bluray format came out in officially in 2008 after the format war with HD-DVD ended buts over a decade on I have only just done an overall upgrade of my existing dvd library, I'm not a collector, I simply only bought titles I wanted to own on DVD and prior to DVD, I had many of the same titles on VHS recorded off the TV. It's mostly just format shifting/upgrading for better quality, VHS, then DVD then Bluray.
Samsung quit the Bluray/DVD player market so surely that's going to push Sony, LG and Panasonic the other main 3 companies to follow suit. I use streaming services like Netflix, Prime etc but like with Sky movies on cable or satellite packages, you view the content, you don't own it, Netflix same, on demand to stream but not own.
I personally don't want to buy movies which aren't in my secure possession like with physical media, google movies, amazon etc they could easily be removed at anytime due to disputes with copyright holders etc, being cloud based in my eyes you don't own them, you just pay a fee to always stream them as long as their there.
I just hope people out there will keep physical media ownership to a fair demand, obviously it'll disappear one day and without a doubt their won't be a 4K bluray successor.
VHS fans are the worst. I was born in '81 and worked in a Blockbuster video so I should be nostalgic for the format, but it's truly horrendous. To think that seeing a film in pan and scan in poor quality would actually improve it is the sign of a deranged mind.I was involved in a conversation today in a Facebook movie group, and another member tried to tell me how crap Blu-ray is for films made prior to 2000, and that true film fanatics watch movies on VHS:
"I don't agree with you, Pre 2000's films look like crap on Blu-ray and hi-def. If you like films looking bad, all the power to you, but have you ever stopped to consider why true film fanatics prefer old films on VHS? I wish I could still have a huge VHS collection, classic horror and sci-fi look the best on VHS. You are also probably a person that prefers high tech CGI effects too, since you are such a fanboy of digital high def and Blu-ray."
This come after them saying that DVD is better than Blu-ray, because supposedly the majority of Blu-ray's bring out the limitations of the special effects in older horror and sci-fi films (they mentioned Star Wars as an example), and make them look like poorly made sci-fi channel productions, and the magic that was captured is lost.
The sad thing is, that plenty of members in this group think a long the same lines, many think VHS is the ultimate, and DVD is better than Blu-ray... If this is the general consensus, then I can definitely see why Blu-ray and 4K UHD Blu-ray hasn't been embraced by the masses, and as a Blu-ray collector, it truly is sad, because they don't realise how incorrect they are, which also means less support for the Blu-ray format.
Agreed, but only on a 19 inch CRT at >12feet viewing distance....I was involved in a conversation today in a Facebook movie group, and another member tried to tell me how crap Blu-ray is for films made prior to 2000, and that true film fanatics watch movies on VHS:
In a lot of those deals, I cannot find enough movies that I want.How can you say that with a straight face when 3 for £30, 3 for £36, 2 for £30 and 2 for £25 deals always seem to be running. And the Star Wars UHDs going so quickly down to £12 in the 3 for £36 deal was unexpected. What all of that may be showing though is poor sales at full price as many people are waiting for the titles they want to come into the deals.
The problem as I see it is that too many people in the UK don't give a darn about quality. DVD needs to go and so do SD TV channels. The UK has way way too many TV channels in SD only. Also, why the F do we have SD and HD channels when there is no need for SD channels? There are no TVs sold now that do not do HD.The biggest factor in sales of physical media is cost. DVD still had the biggest sales not because of the quality, but because it's cheap. Now we have millions of consoles out there that are UHD capable there is a bigger potential audience for 4K discs. The issue is price. I try to spend no more than £10 on a 4K disc and I'm more interested than average and have a reasonable amount of disposable income.
I suspect we'll see a resurgence with lower prices, more access to players and more people with large screens. I don't think it will ever be mass market, but large enough to continue existing.