I for one dopn't particularly welcome this. Not because I've anything against Arrow and I wish them all the best, but because it is an indication that physical media is on its way out. The introduction of such services simply serves to erode the rather tenuous grip disc based media still has.
Disc based physical media is still superior in quality to what you'd get via any streaming service, yet it is slowly being replaced with such services.
I for one don't particularly welcome this. Not because I've anything against Arrow and I wish them all the best, but because it is an indication that physical media is on its way out. The introduction of such services simply serves to erode the rather tenuous grip disc based media still has.
Disc based physical media is still superior in quality to what you'd get via any streaming service, yet physical media is slowly being replaced with such services.
One of the biggest issues I have with these Boutique label Streaming sites, and this applies to Curzon, Mubi, BFI etc, is that they are targeted for the laptop user and not the Home Cinema lover with large screens and Surround sound amps.
In most cases the audio is dumb downed or down mixed, often to 2.0, and for the horror genre this can have a massive reduction in how the film is received and indeed perceived.
Surely 99% of Arrow's horror collection is most likely original, which at best would be 2.0.One of the biggest issues I have with these Boutique label Streaming sites, and this applies to Curzon, Mubi, BFI etc, is that they are targeted for the laptop user and not the Home Cinema lover with large screens and Surround sound amps.
In most cases the audio is dumb downed or down mixed, often to 2.0, and for the horror genre this can have a massive reduction in how the film is received and indeed perceived.
A couple of titles on their Amazon and now defunct Apple Channels did have 4K (possibly an advantage of someone carrying the service for them) so I suspect right now, it's probably a trade off to get the platform going and reach scale. Also it may also stand to reason they may not have many 4K masters within their SVOD catalogue...Strange decision from Arrow on this. Their customer base are likely to be a more discerning crowd who appreciate picture and audio quality - lets face it, this is why we buy their Blu-rays/UHDs...etc. So why would they only go with 1080p (capped bandwidth) and 2 channel stereo sound.
\\A couple of titles on their Amazon and now defunct Apple Channels did have 4K (possibly an advantage of someone carrying the service for them) so I suspect right now, it's probably a trade off to get the platform going and reach scale. Also it may also stand to reason they may not have many 4K masters within their SVOD catalogue...
Your guess is as good as mine! I can only assume it’s strategic and/or maybe just to ensure overall consistency across the platform?\\
So why would this prevent them still streaming the 4K content at 4K? Doing so wouldn't prevent them also streaming lower resolution content alongside it.
I tweeted them and they said it’s currently a technical limitation that they will be looking to sort out in the future.They say they're hoping to go 4K in the future, so if it's a good solid 1080p stream, then I could live with that (for a while). But the lack of 5.1 and only very compressed Stereo is really poor.
Nope I just cancelled it, the content is a bit limited and what I want from them I buy on discOut of interest does anyone know if this service has improved at all? I like Arrow as a company and I usually buy their stuff from iTunes, which is increasingly in 4K Dolby Vision.