How should I Blu-ray in 2020?

[PersonAndStuff]

So I was high and wanted to watch La La Land and my old xbox one basically acted like I fed it a sandwich. I had to reset it three times just to convince it to give up the disc. So now I'm high and sad. What do I do?

I know I very rarely play my Blu-rays. A sane person might go all digital but that ain't me right now. I like my shelf and I like my special features.

But all the available options for playing Blu-rays seem like they suck. Shell out 200 for a new Xbox one and now I have a console just about to become an old console. Wait six months and pay a couple extra hundred on a new console that I don't want to use over my PC. Buy a Blu-ray drive for my PC. I had one a while and the software is crummy and UHD support is non-existent. Or buy a separate Blu-ray player which have somehow never gone down in price and just take up space and an HDMI port.

 

[jacket]

What price range of blu-ray players are you looking for?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07931LR92/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[Malverde]

A lot of digital movies now days come with the special features, particularly on iTunes and FandangoNow. You can also check ahead of time to make sure there is parity in features between the disk and digital copy before you buy. MoviesAnywhere also allows you to buy in one spot and stream from any app (with a few exceptions). I ended up dumping blu-rays last year because of the space concerns and have gone all digital with new purchases. Feels good. The only reason to still go with discs is if you value the absolute highest quality available. If bonus features are your biggest priority, digital has gotten a lot better about that.

 

[entrydenied]

If you want the highest image and sound quality then bluray and 4k bluray is the way to go. If not then it probably doesn't matter.

I just got myself a 4k blu ray player because my brother got a really nice 4k TV and I have no regrets. Why get a good TV when you only want to stream? But very few people understands me lol.

Next aim would be to at least get a decent sound bar because the TV speakers suck.

 

[ClivePwned]

I use a HDMI switcher and a standalone bluray player for discs.

 

[Mariachi507]

I own a lot but it's more of an enthusiastic thing. I'm very selective and just won't own any movie I like. Instead, I stick to themes and such.

Though it makes sense for me, it may not for you. If digital is good enough, then it's good enough.

 

[Garou]

PC support for Blu-Ray isn't crummy at all these days. PowerDVD got their act together and it works just fine. Also offers many nice-to-have features like Remote-App for phones, etc.

 

[Deleted member 31873]

The real question to me is why do we still need Blu-Rays in 2020? Like, I understand there are people who'll want physical discs no matter what, but why aren't also there options for buying movies digitally in Blu-Ray quality and just downloading them?

 

[Chie Satonaka91]

I got a nice 4k Blu Ray player a couple years ago for just under 70 dollars. They can be had for cheap. Mine is a Magnovox, but it isn't sold new anymore. It's small and plays DVD, Blu Ray , and 4k Blu-ray without issue and minimal noise. It's also quite small so it doesn't take up much room. Just look for a simple dedicated player.

 

[Ashhong]

The real question to me is why do we still need Blu-Rays in 2020? Like, I understand there are people who'll want physical discs no matter what, but why aren't also there options for buying movies digitally in Blu-Ray quality and just downloading them?

Click to shrink...

I assume the market for that is small. Blu-ray quality 4k streams with uncompressed audio would be difficult for many to stream. Probably even less people out there with the setup to play downloaded files like that too.

 

[PurpleMoustache]

The real question to me is why do we still need Blu-Rays in 2020? Like, I understand there are people who'll want physical discs no matter what, but why aren't also there options for buying movies digitally in Blu-Ray quality and just downloading them?

Click to shrink...

The problem with this comes down to bandwith.

I'm gonna use a Criterion Collection Blu-Ray as an example, because they often do as much as possible to get the best possible quality on discs (including splitting movies across two 50GB Blu discs if the film is long enough), and they have their own streaming service.

ALL Criterion releases come on Dual Layer Blu Ray discs, totaling in at 50GB per disc. They are often crammed with bonus features, commentary tracks, documentaries, etc. These bonus features are often not at the same bitrate/resolution of the film, and don't need to be, if it's a talking heads style interview or documentary. To be generous, let's say 8-10 gigs of that 50 GB Blu Ray disc is special features. Leaving 40-42 GB remaining for the film. This means that they can crank the bit rate up for the best possible visual quality for the movie. To put this in comparison, the iTunes 1080p copy of John Wick 3 clocks in at 5.41 GB, meaning that the Blu Ray has roughly 8 times more data than a DOWNLOADED film.

Then we get to streaming. I, like many Americans, am stuck with Comcast. Comcast secretly has a 1 TB datacap. If I were to stream full-fat uncompressed Blu Ray rips, I'd only be able to watch 25 movies a month. I wouldn't be able to do anything else, like look up the news, download an album, or play games online. It would absolutely eat into my data caps. Companies like Netflix, Hulu, and yes, even Criterion with their streaming service know this, and the average movie stream from Netflix at 1080p (base Blu Ray resolution) clocks in at around 2-2.5 GB an hour. Much more reasonable for data caps, yet losing so much bit rate and thus detail.

 

[Deleted member 31873]

The problem with this comes down to bandwith.

I'm gonna use a Criterion Collection Blu-Ray as an example, because they often do as much as possible to get the best possible quality on discs (including splitting movies across two 50GB Blu discs if the film is long enough), and they have their own streaming service.

ALL Criterion releases come on Dual Layer Blu Ray discs, totaling in at 50GB per disc. They are often crammed with bonus features, commentary tracks, documentaries, etc. These bonus features are often not at the same bitrate/resolution of the film, and don't need to be, if it's a talking heads style interview or documentary. To be generous, let's say 8-10 gigs of that 50 GB Blu Ray disc is special features. Leaving 40-42 GB remaining for the film. This means that they can crank the bit rate up for the best possible visual quality for the movie. To put this in comparison, the iTunes 1080p copy of John Wick 3 clocks in at 5.41 GB, meaning that the Blu Ray has roughly 8 times more data than a DOWNLOADED film.

Then we get to streaming. I, like many Americans, am stuck with Comcast. Comcast secretly has a 1 TB datacap. If I were to stream full-fat uncompressed Blu Ray rips, I'd only be able to watch 25 movies a month. I wouldn't be able to do anything else, like look up the news, download an album, or play games online. It would absolutely eat into my data caps. Companies like Netflix, Hulu, and yes, even Criterion with their streaming service know this, and the average movie stream from Netflix at 1080p (base Blu Ray resolution) clocks in at around 2-2.5 GB an hour. Much more reasonable for data caps, yet losing so much bit rate and thus detail.

Click to shrink...

Fair enough, but we already have 100GB+ downloadable games, so I don't see why movies can't also be that big. Alternatively, why can't they offer lower quality options to download for those who need it? As it currently stands, there's literally no option to purchase a movie digitally to download in any format or quality.

 

[TaySan]

The real question to me is why do we still need Blu-Rays in 2020? Like, I understand there are people who'll want physical discs no matter what, but why aren't also there options for buying movies digitally in Blu-Ray quality and just downloading them?

Click to shrink...

Data caps is the number 1 answer right there.
To stream at the same quality of a UHD disk would kill my data cap very fast.

Streaming still is no where near disc quality especially for audio.

 

[entrydenied]

Fair enough, but we already have 100GB+ downloadable games, so I don't see why movies can't also be that big. Alternatively, why can't they offer lower quality options to download for those who need it? As it currently stands, there's literally no option to purchase a movie digitally to download in any format or quality.

Click to shrink...

The main problem is probably demand. Most consumers are ok with the quality offered by iTunes. More bandwidth also means higher costs for companies, which might means they might want to sell the digital copies at a higher cost.

100 gb games also get played for 50 hours or more. Movies only entertain for a few hours

 

[Deleted member 31873]

The main problem is probably demand. Most consumers are ok with the quality offered by iTunes. More bandwidth also means higher costs for companies, which might means they might want to sell the digital copies at a higher cost.

100 gb games also get played for 50 hours or more. Movies only entertain for a few hours

Click to shrink...

I'd be happy with being able to buy digital movies at the quality offered by iTunes if that was actually an option. But I can't even do that.

 

[Ravelle]

When I bought my 4TV I also bought a 4K-Bluray player because I felt like collecting 4K Blurays of movies I really like, I got the Sony UBP-X500. Affordable and works as it should.

 

[entrydenied]

I'd be happy with being able to buy digital movies at the quality offered by iTunes if that was actually an option. But I can't even do that.

Click to shrink...

I would too. I would also like to buy music at lossless quality with quality lossless scans of the booklet that comes with the CDs but not everyone releases at that format. The demand is sadly not there.

 

[Darknight]

UHD support does exist on PCs these days but only if you have an Intel CPU. If you're not interested in getting a next gen console, then it sounds like your PC is the easiest way to go and you can just get a UHD drive. Now if you want to actually invest a little time, the ideal thing to do is buy a UHD friendly drive, have a decent size HDD, and rip all your content to play back in something like Kodi so that you get all the benefits of physical with all the convenience of digital and that includes having your extras available. This is the route I've gone and I have my entire physical disc collection available on demand and distributed through the house with the ability to start a movie in one room and finish it in another.

Fair enough, but we already have 100GB+ downloadable games, so I don't see why movies can't also be that big. Alternatively, why can't they offer lower quality options to download for those who need it? As it currently stands, there's literally no option to purchase a movie digitally to download in any format or quality.

Click to shrink...

A lot of services don't even allow you to download the movie, like iTunes. Apple will only let you stream your content. For many people downloading 100GB+ games will take hours which would mean it wouldn't be able to stream it in real time at that quality. There was one service that did allow you to download movies at full blu ray quality but that service shut down.

 

[HazySaiyan]

Aren't standard blu ray players pretty cheap nowadays? You could always get a refurb to save some cash

 

[CthulhuSars]

Data caps is the number 1 answer right there.
To stream at the same quality of a UHD disk would kill my data cap very fast.

Streaming still is no where near disc quality especially for audio.

Click to shrink...

I tried streaming for one month as my single entertainment delivery. Cox was not friendly to me that month and I was charged for going over my data cap. Data caps are the devil when it come to trying to be all digital.

 

[Deleted member 31873]

A lot of services don't even allow you to download the movie, like iTunes. Apple will only let you stream your content. For many people downloading 100GB+ games will take hours which would mean it wouldn't be able to stream it in real time at that quality. There was one service that did allow you to download movies at full blu ray quality but that service shut down.

Click to shrink...

The bolded is my biggest problem. I have zero interest in streaming services; I just want to purchase media to keep on my media server and play on my my Kodi HTPC that's connected to my TV. I'm really not that fussy about quality. My vision is terrible anyway; I can barely even tell the difference between 4K and 720p on my 55" OLED. Doesn't seem like too much to ask.

I know I can rip Blu-Rays myself, but that involves the additional expense of buying a Blu-Ray drive that I otherwise don't need, as well as the manual effort of figuring out how to rip the movie and actually doing it myself.

 

[CloudWolf]

4k blu-ray players actually aren't that expensive nowadays. I got one for slightly over 100€.

The real question to me is why do we still need Blu-Rays in 2020? Like, I understand there are people who'll want physical discs no matter what, but why aren't also there options for buying movies digitally in Blu-Ray quality and just downloading them?

Click to shrink...

Higher quality and a lot of films (or specific versions of films) that are on Blu-ray aren't available on demand or on digital, especially internationally.

 

[NekoFever]

There are standalone Sony players on Amazon for $65 or thereabouts. I'd just get one of those. Entry level 4K players are like $100-120.

The real question to me is why do we still need Blu-Rays in 2020? Like, I understand there are people who'll want physical discs no matter what, but why aren't also there options for buying movies digitally in Blu-Ray quality and just downloading them?

Click to shrink...

No. The best video quality of the streaming services is probably iTunes/Apple TV, and that's still at bit rates that are a fraction of Blu-ray.

And the digital services are all in the ballpark of DVD quality for audio.

 

[Darknight]

The bolded is my biggest problem. I have zero interest in streaming services; I just want to purchase media to keep on my media server and play on my my Kodi HTPC that's connected to my TV. I'm really not that fussy about quality. My vision is terrible anyway; I can barely even tell the difference between 4K and 720p on my 55" OLED. Doesn't seem like too much to ask.

I know I can rip Blu-Rays myself, but that involves the additional expense of buying a Blu-Ray drive that I otherwise don't need, as well as the manual effort of figuring out how to rip the movie and actually doing it myself.

Click to shrink...

Ripping it yourself is stupidly easy. It's literally pop in the disc, launch MakeMKV and tell it to start. As for the cost of the drive, they're cheap and if you have lots of discs, it's a drop in the bucket in the total cost. It'll likely be faster for you to rip it than download it too.

 

[Deleted member 31873]

Ripping it yourself is stupidly easy. It's literally pop in the disc, launch MakeMKV and tell it to start. As for the cost of the drive, they're cheap and if you have lots of discs, it's a drop in the bucket in the total cost. It'll likely be faster for you to rip it than download it too.

Click to shrink...

MakeMKV doesn't seem to be available on Linux unless I'm missing something? (EDIT: turns out I did miss it!) As for drive cost, I can afford a drive just fine, but it's a matter of principle that I shouldn't need to pay for the failings of the entertainment industry.

 

[Darknight]

As for drive cost, I can afford a drive just fine, but it's a matter of principle that I shouldn't need to pay for the failings of the entertainment industry.

Click to shrink...

Okay... Well, you can stubbornly stand by that principle which won't do much any good while I can enjoy having full quality Blu ray and UHD rips in perfect quality with extras that have all the benefits of digital available on the demand at the touch of a button without the need of a disc swap. On top of which I won't have to worry about some service going out of business, which one did that already did offer the service you were looking for, nor have to worry about a service replacing a version of a movie with another that is out of my control when they decide to remaster the movie in a worse way.

 

[electricblue]

I heard somewhere (can't remember what tech podcast) that 4k blu ray players will be super cheap this winter

 

[mikeamizzle]

There are standalone Sony players on Amazon for $65 or thereabouts. I'd just get one of those. Entry level 4K players are like $100-120.



No. The best video quality of the streaming services is probably iTunes/Apple TV, and that's still at bit rates that are a fraction of Blu-ray.

And the digital services are all in the ballpark of DVD quality for audio.

Click to shrink...

Basically this. Blu-Ray still has the best quality audio experience you can get in consumer media. For people that have home theaters with decent surround sound set ups, uncompressed, losses audio (Dolby true Hd, or DTS HD MA) is simply significantly better than what you get via streaming (compressed Dolby digital +, basically DVD quality audio but often more compressed).

and they do offer these downloads 100+ gigs uncompressed if you can afford a Kaleidescape.

edit: I'd probably go with a Sony ubp X800m2 if you can swing it. They have open box ones for $100 off at bestbuy pretty often.

 

[Transistor]

And the digital services are all in the ballpark of DVD quality for audio.

Click to shrink...

The fact that streaming services still measure their audio in kbps is insulting by itself.

I just take the best of both worlds. I backup my blurays to a plex server with minimal compression. Granted, this doesn't work for 4K for me (yet. I need a hardware upgrade), but I can still also whip out the disc when I need to.

 

[mikeamizzle]

The fact that streaming services still measure their audio in kbps is insulting by itself.

I just take the best of both worlds. I backup my blurays to a plex server with minimal compression. Granted, this doesn't work for 4K for me (yet. I need a hardware upgrade), but I can still also whip out the disc when I need to.

Click to shrink...

It sucks but they can get away with it bc 99% of people don't know what it means or are watching through tv speakers anyway. The other thing that pisses me off is that they have 'Atmos' but it's lossy not true lossless but most people don't realize that either.

edit: as far as ripping my discs to a media server? Nah, not worth the time, money, or effort for me. when I'm home, I play my physical discs in my collection on my physical player in my media room and I use the digital codes with MoviesAnywhere and Vudu to stream my collection when I'm on the go or watching on another tv not hooked up to my surround sound system.

If you're not too lazy to pick out a disc and put it in off the shelf when you want to watch something, can someone else explain why the Kodi thing is that useful?

 

[Deleted member 31873]

Okay... Well, you can stubbornly stand by that principle which won't do much any good while I can enjoy having full quality Blu ray and UHD rips in perfect quality with extras that have all the benefits of digital available on the demand at the touch of a button without the need of a disc swap. On top of which I won't have to worry about some service going out of business, which one did that already did offer the service you were looking for, nor have to worry about a service replacing a version of a movie with another that is out of my control when they decide to remaster the movie in a worse way.

Click to shrink...

Why would I need to worry about such a service going out of business? Like sure I wouldn't be able to continue buying movies, but I'd still get to keep all the movies I've bought on my HDD's even after they went out of business.

 

[captive]

Why would I need to worry about such a service going out of business? Like sure I wouldn't be able to continue buying movies, but I'd still get to keep all the movies I've bought on my HDD's even after they went out of business.

Click to shrink...

because some of these probably make you authenticate with servers before you can play?(someone confirm i buy my blu-rays and rip them) If those servers go down because they're out of business?

 

[Darknight]

It sucks but they can get away with it bc 99% of people don't know what it means or are watching through tv speakers anyway. The other thing that pisses me off is that they have 'Atmos' but it's lossy not true lossless but most people don't realize that either.

edit: as far as ripping my discs to a media server? Nah, not worth the time, money, or effort for me. when I'm home, I play my physical discs in my collection on my physical player in my media room and I use the digital codes with MoviesAnywhere and Vudu to stream my collection when I'm on the go or watching on another tv not hooked up to my surround sound system.

If you're not too lazy to pick out a disc and put it in off the shelf when you want to watch something, can someone else explain why the Kodi thing is that useful?

Click to shrink...

You get to bypass all the non-skipable advertisements, trailers, warnings, etc and jump straight into the movie for starters. It will also keep track of where you are in the movie if for some reason you need to stop and continue later. It also organizes and displays everything with scraped metadata about the movie. Once you've gone this way, it is really hard to go back to popping a disc when you don't need to and the amount of time and effort it takes is extremely minimal. It's literally seconds of your time to rip a movie and the cost is literally pennies on top of the amount you're paying for the disc already.

Why would I need to worry about such a service going out of business? Like sure I wouldn't be able to continue buying movies, but I'd still get to keep all the movies I've bought on my HDD's even after they went out of business.

Click to shrink...

They would still be DRM locked and if you ever needed to re-authenticate them from needing to change computers or however they're stored, you'd be out of luck.

 

[mikeamizzle]

You get to bypass all the non-skipable advertisements, trailers, warnings, etc and jump straight into the movie for starters. It will also keep track of where you are in the movie if for some reason you need to stop and continue later. It also organizes and displays everything with scraped metadata about the movie. Once you've gone this way, it is really hard to go back to popping a disc when you don't need to and the amount of time and effort it takes is extremely minimal. It's literally seconds of your time to rip a movie and the cost is literally pennies on top of the amount you're paying for the disc already.



They would still be DRM locked and if you ever needed to re-authenticate them from needing to change computers or however they're stored, you'd be out of luck.

Click to shrink...

Your first two reasons are pretty good. My Samsung m9500 uhd player gives me that data too when playing anything and has a savestate kinda feature also but fair that's handy.

the bolded I really disagree with however. It takes many computers hours to fully rip Blu-rays at lossless quality and then you're left with 100+ gig files for one movie. What about people that have 100+(or hundreds) of Blu-rays in their collection? We're talking about massive storage requirements and hundreds of hours of time to do that. Plus to run the server/your movies at the touch of a button, you still need to have your Work center PC going 24/7, which isn't pennies either.

 

[mikeamizzle]

because some of these probably make you authenticate with servers before you can play?(someone confirm i buy my blu-rays and rip them) If those servers go down because they're out of business?

Click to shrink...

MoviesAnywhere downloads work on my iPhone when in Airplane mode. Will do some tests later but I think you can count on them if you save them to a hard drive.

edit:99% sure about this.. going to test it again deleted everything I had saved to the phone.

 

[Darknight]

the bolded I really disagree with however. It takes many computers hours to fully rip Blu-rays at lossless quality and then you're left with 100+ gig files for one movie. What about people that have 100+(or hundreds) of Blu-rays in their collection? We're talking about massive storage requirements and hundreds of hours of time to do that. Plus to run the server/your movies at the touch of a button, you still need to have your Work center PC going 24/7, which isn't pennies either.

Click to shrink...

The ripping speed is dependent on the drive and the range of speeds of drives these days isn't too drastically different. We're talking 15 to 20 minutes to rip a full lossless blu ray movie from start to finish. It won't take hours. My literal process is I come home from work, pop in the disc to rip, and then go do some daily household maintenance like go through mail or start dinner. By the time I'm done, the movie is completely ripped. The key thing I said about it taking seconds of your time is true because you literally only need to be involved for seconds and then everything else is done in the background while you do other stuff. Your attention isn't needed at all while it is ripping.

As for the storage, people always say this but they haven't thought it out or done the math. You can store over 300 lossless blu ray movies on an 8TB hard drive, over 375 movies on an 10TB hard drive, and over 450 movies on a 12TB hard drive. You can easily get an external 8TB for $130. I picked up a 12TB for $180. When you do the math, that's around 40 cents per disc that you're paying to store it. If you're talking about having hundreds of movies, the price premium you're paying to do it is literally pennies like I said. So instead of paying $20 for a blu ray, you're paying $20.40 to have it ripped and instantly on demand. A small price to pay for a significant upgrade in accessibility.

You also don't have to run it on a server if you're running it from just your main TV. You just hook that up to whatever device you're using on the TV and that will only turn on when you use it. There's no requirement that it has to be on 24/7. Plus if you have to, there are plenty of low cost ways to run network storage from using your existing router which is already on anyway, to lower power NAS devices or even a Raspberry Pi.

 

[molnizzle]

the bolded I really disagree with however. It takes many computers hours to fully rip Blu-rays at lossless quality and then you're left with 100+ gig files for one movie. What about people that have 100+(or hundreds) of Blu-rays in their collection? We're talking about massive storage requirements and hundreds of hours of time to do that. Plus to run the server/your movies at the touch of a button, you still need to have your Work center PC going 24/7, which isn't pennies either.

Click to shrink...

It's takes 15-20 minutes and the average file size is about 25 GB for 1080p Blu-rays. I rip everything to my Plex server so my entire library is instantly accessible on every screen I own, both within my house and outside it. I have well over 500 movies stored on a couple of Drobos connected to my Mac mini home server. It's like my own personal Netflix.

I don't fuck with 4K because the file size isn't worth it (but even those are generally about 50-60 GB). For most movies you can't tell the difference on my 77" OLED, especially if it was actually shot on film.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

Over the past year I've just ripped them all straight to my external hard drive. I can watch hundreds of movies with visual and audio quality basically indistinguishable from the source Blu-ray. No ads no menus, just loads up in seconds.

 

[NekoFever]

It takes many computers hours to fully rip Blu-rays at lossless quality and then you're left with 100+ gig files for one movie. What about people that have 100+(or hundreds) of Blu-rays in their collection? We're talking about massive storage requirements and hundreds of hours of time to do that. Plus to run the server/your movies at the touch of a button, you still need to have your Work center PC going 24/7, which isn't pennies either.

Click to shrink...

I can't argue about the time commitment but running a media server can be done quite efficiently if you're concerned about leaving your main computer on 24/7. My Plex server is a little Intel NUC that was used and several years old when I bought it. It can handle direct Blu-ray rips, both over my local network and transcoded remotely, and it can serve up 4K stuff if it doesn't require re-encoding — I'm sure a newer model could manage that no problem.

But yeah. I don't want to tell you how long it took to rip several hundred BDs and DVDs, and how many hard drives I have in my NAS 😬

 

[captive]

You get to bypass all the non-skipable advertisements, trailers, warnings, etc and jump straight into the movie for starters. It will also keep track of where you are in the movie if for some reason you need to stop and continue later. It also organizes and displays everything with scraped metadata about the movie. Once you've gone this way, it is really hard to go back to popping a disc when you don't need to and the amount of time and effort it takes is extremely minimal. It's literally seconds of your time to rip a movie and the cost is literally pennies on top of the amount you're paying for the disc already.

Click to shrink...

im quoting this for truth.

its so great. Yes it takes some initial investment to rip movies, but its so worth it.

 

[yongeandcollege]

I bought a bluray player and it's fine.

 

[Wraith]

There are standalone Sony players on Amazon for $65 or thereabouts. I'd just get one of those. Entry level 4K players are like $100-120.

Click to shrink...

What I'm seeing is 4K UHD players start around $150 new (a few options between $150 and $200). There are some "4K Upscaling" options in between the standard blu-ray players and actual UHD players.

 

[mattiewheels]

I've resigned myself to streaming and Vudu for most regular movies, and Criterion blu for everything else. I used to worry I was losing blu ray quality on digital movies but honestly, it's fine. Only a handful of my favorite movies do I really need a hard copy of anymore. I wish Criterion would acquire more Paul Thomas Anderson stuff...

 

[Deleted member 31873]

because some of these probably make you authenticate with servers before you can play?(someone confirm i buy my blu-rays and rip them) If those servers go down because they're out of business?

Click to shrink...

They would still be DRM locked and if you ever needed to re-authenticate them from needing to change computers or however they're stored, you'd be out of luck.

Click to shrink...

I think you misunderstood what I meant when I was talking about buying digital movies to download and keep. My Kodi box ain't authenticating with shit.

 

[mikeamizzle]

Thanks for the replies, to be fair I'm still using a 2015 thinkpad so I've got a blind spot on ripping speeds and hard drive prices.

I guess it's not really that important to me to have access to every single one of my Blus accessible on every tv. Though I think I do have access to them all between spare blu ray players and ~35% of my collection also having a Vudu/itunes backup accessible in the cloud 24/7, especially since lossless audio isn't really as big a deal on lesser speakers.

It's takes 15-20 minutes and the average file size is about 25 GB for 1080p Blu-rays. I rip everything to my Plex server so my entire library is instantly accessible on every screen I own, both within my house and outside it. I have well over 500 movies stored on a couple of Drobos connected to my Mac mini home server. It's like my own personal Netflix.

I don't fuck with 4K because the file size isn't worth it (but even those are generally about 50-60 GB). For most movies you can't tell the difference on my 77" OLED, especially if it was actually shot on film.

Click to shrink...

congrats on the A9G (I'm guessing?). You're doing your self a disservice not watching your movies in 4K UHD with Dolby vision/HDR at least though if you own one. It's worth it. You will absolutely notice the difference especially on many of the new higher quality 4K UHD remasters of older films.

 

[Darknight]

I think you misunderstood what I meant when I was talking about buying digital movies to download and keep.

Click to shrink...

No, I didn't. There would still be drm attached to it which would need to be validated somehow. There is no reality in which we get drm free movies to download.

 

[mikeamizzle]

No, I didn't. There would still be drm attached to it which would need to be validated somehow. There is no reality in which we get drm free movies to download.

Click to shrink...

You can save normal digital copies to view offline via the Movies anywhere app (edit: IPhone*).

 

[Darknight]

Thanks for the replies, to be fair I'm still using a 2015 thinkpad so I've got a blind spot on ripping speeds and hard drive prices.

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Just for information sake, ripping speed has very little to do with your computer and is more about the optical drive. A 2015 computer is well more than capable and a hard drive will be faster than the optical drive so the bottleneck is there. But even then, blu ray read speeds have been more than sufficient for awhile now. It has never been hours to rip or hasn't been at least for a long time. You'd have to have a 1x speed drive for that to be the case. The only way it takes hours is if you're re-encoding/compressing them which you shouldn't do because you then lose one of the main reasons to do this to begin with.

 

[Darknight]

You can save normal digital copies to view offline via the Movies anywhere app (edit: IPhone*).

Click to shrink...

I don't believe this is in perpetuity though as I think there's a periodic check but let's say it was. It would be tied to that device until it dies with no way to migrate to a new device.

 

[Zero315]

You get to bypass all the non-skipable advertisements, trailers, warnings, etc and jump straight into the movie for starters.

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I haven't run into a blu-ray that has this stuff in at least 5 years, and even then the ones I encountered that had it were specifically made for rental services.