With over 18 years of history, Blu-ray technology was designed to take CDs and DVDs to the next level. Not only can they hold significantly more data than their predecessors, but Blu-ray discs even let you view high-quality (and 3D content) that often are closer to the experience of watching in theaters than the compressed versions you’ll find elsewhere. Not to be confused with DVDs, Blu-ray discs use a different kind of laser technology, which eventually became the industry standard for film and movies by 2008. In part, this is due to the fact that its players could be backwards-compatible with DVDs, but not the other way around.
…
Although some things can (and have) lasted the test of time, the natural progression of most technology is that something becomes obsolete when a newer, better, or more efficient model comes along. In terms of the Blu-ray discs, there are several things that have pushed them to obsoletion.
Honestly I’m always shocked by how much they cost. Who’s paying $30+ for these? Who even owns a blu-ray player that isn’t a ps5?
I actually own like 4 set top blu-ray players. As for drives that can read blu-ray disks…at least 20(not including the set tops)? I’d honestly need to count but I use 16 drives basically daily. Working through backing up my massive physical collection.
As for cost. A movie that’s $30 one place might be $10 in another country. I buy a lot of foreign movies (not bootlegs just foreign). I remember the Harry Potter set(all films) in the US was like $150…it was $45 shipped from the UK. HP was a weird one because the books and movies were a touch different in those two markets as well. So you got the UK audio track which was fine by me. They won’t play in your standard player sometimes but region free players are a thing. Also a lot of stuff on Blu-ray just isn’t region coded at all.
I’ve also found that some TV series that are dvd only here are released on Blu-ray else where…so I import those as well. I’ve been playing around with AI upscaling so honestly dvd’s can look damn good after that as well and they’re cheaper still. Just a lot of time/energy consumption which offsets the cost saving.
I got a cheap visio from a thrift store, so I was lucky. The only problem is I have about a million ways to play DVDs, but don’t use it that much because I only got it for one movie. Came with DVD and Blu-ray, but my setup is old enough that Blu-ray makes little difference quality wise for me. Still cool to have since I have a dedicated distraction free DVD player, though.
I run a watcher on all the disks I want to buy.
I get a notification when the price goes down and I nab them for 50% off usually.
If you don’t mind me asking: Are you using camelcamelcamel, blueray.com,or something else?
Asking for a friend that is starting to buy/collect 4k movies 😉
This one: https://changedetection.io/
I self-host it and it’s been pretty reliable at auto detecting prices on random webshops
Thank you for sharing!
Hi. It’s me.
Well that’s probably a bit predictable given what community this is. But I really think the pricing is way out of line with what your average person is willing to pay and it only serves to make the physical media more niche.
I fully agree with this. I’m sure the prices are so high to get people to use streaming services or online rentals like Amazon does. At $30/disk though, that’s enough that there isn’t a single piece of media I care enough about to preserve physically. The ones I care the most about are also television shows, so that’s even more expensive. I have nothing but gratitude for the people that are out here buying these disks, and saving them for the rest of us.
I mostly consider physical media to be merch when I buy it
That’s fair. My wife let me have this win. It was expensive though.
I will say I love watching movies on our blu ray but my toddler also likes the moves anywhere codes that let’s him watch Moana on any device.
Its the best of both worlds if you aren’t comfortable with ripping.
I do. But I’m old. No PS5. In fact I have an X box 360. That’s the NEW console. My old one is a SNES. Still love my Mario! I know.
The server I just bought has one.