5 ms·

I'm convinced the inability to easily play Blu-Rays and similar on computers is a major contributor as to why the format hasn't had the same traction as DVDs an

by halo 5y ago

I'm convinced the inability to easily play Blu-Rays and similar on computers is a major contributor as to why the format hasn't had the same traction as DVDs and may have accelerated the removal of disc drives from devices. Such a self-defeating move.

jbluepolarbear 5y ago
I only buy Blu-ray that come with a digital code. I activate the code, it shows up in iTunes, and I give or throw away the Blu-ray. Although this is usually around Black Friday where you can get Blu-ray for $5-$10.
ChuckNorris89 5y ago
And I'm convinced the hassle of Blu-Ray DRM or any kind of modern DRM is why I, and many others, still pirate movies and TV shows despite being able to afford to pay for them.
- CraneWorm 5y ago
  DRM and the unskippable ads that make you aware that you payed to've become a product. The pirates offer superior product, every time.
  - ballenf 5y ago
    And Blu-Ray Live which makes your player yet another surveillance tool, if it has internet access. And if it doesn't you lose some of the features of the disc advertised on the box.
  - lowbloodsugar 5y ago
    Well, except for bitrate. I like my audio lossless 7.1 24/96 or better. I'm seriously thinking about a https://www.kaleidescape.com https://www.kaleidescape.com so I don't have to buy disks, but get the full bitrate.
jcpham2 5y ago
I can say that I have never bought into BluRay, I don’t own a BluRay compatible optical drive to play them, and as far as I know we do not own any BluRay discs. I have mountains of DVDs and still prefer it in terms of purchasing movies. Bandwidth and access to other forms of digital media has allowed me to skip BluRay. I understand the resolution is better but it’s not a strong selling point for me. As a side note with the original DeCSS DVD code now considered a virus by many antivirus vendors I basically reject DRM technology everywhere I can. I pay for Netflix, but that’s a recent thing. The kids watch YouTube. That’s it for my household. No local news, no over the air free HD TV. We cut the cord and never looked back. If its not on Netflix I guess we just wait or go to a theater (rarely) or don’t watch it. I ripped my first DVD in college approximately two decades ago. I’m not oblivious to new technology nor am I some type of techno-Luddite; the selling points of BluRay are just weak imho.
- whizzter 5y ago
  Yeah, Blu-Ray is pretty much PS3-PS5 and XboxOne/Series or you're old/"untechnical" enough to think that you need a standalone disc player to watch movies (but heck I've overheard grannies talk about Netflix,etc so even the old gen is starting to catch on). That said, I'm not entirely sure that cord-cutting overall is a good thing. For my kids we've practically always had Netflix (and Youtube) and almost ignored regular channels with me consuming news mostly via online newspaper articles. This really hit me when I separated and ended up living at my brothers for a short while a couple of years ago. Their family had a far bigger presence of news in their house due to watching linear TV news every day. See here in Sweden we have fairly decent tax-funded public broadcast news (even if it's under attack and hated on by some parties), while much of it is fluff (and most of which I'd personally grasp with reading a couple of articles far quicker) it did strike me as something that I might leave as a dis-service to my kids in not providing an environment of learning about the outside world.
  - nightski 5y ago
    Sort of. Xbox One X has Dolby Atmos/Vision but the PS5 does not. The highest quality players are still stand alone and have all the features if you are into that. But for most people you are absolutely right.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
KennyBlanken 5y ago
No? Most people don't watch TV or movies on their computers. They watch them on big-screen TVs with streaming built-in (or attached to streaming devices like Rokus, Fire Sticks, or Apple TVs) in their living rooms, or on mobile devices like tablets and phones. My guess is that the movie industry is purposefully killing off PC viewing. Bluray players and TVs are much easier to assure content control on. I'd also guess that in general they don't care about bluray, period. They want everyone to stream, where there's no "ownership."
- atrus 5y ago
  It's difficult to even play on your TV at times. I had rented a Blu-Ray from the library, popped it into my standalone player, connected to my TV, and recieved a message that my player wouldn't play it because it was out of date. What.
dTal 5y ago
It's same reason you don't see DVD-A or SACD discs around. Who would buy such things when you need an expensive standalone player, especially in the age of streaming? They didn't learn.
- relaxing 5y ago
  Audiophiles would, and they still do, and the discs and players are still being produced.
  - dpark 5y ago
    I thought audiophiles were all buying vinyl and pretending they can “hear” the digitization of non-analog formats.
    - relaxing 5y ago
      That too, but there’s an overlapping set of people that do believe that high enough sample rates do lead to a higher fidelity listening experience.
skhr0680 5y ago
In 2003 I had a 40GB hard drive and dialup. The 4GB of a DVD was nothing to sneeze at. In 2010 I had several 1TB HDDs, fast broadband, and a 32GB USB stick. Getting a blue ray drive for my PC wasn’t worth the hassle.
- wldcordeiro 5y ago
  They were also stupidly priced in 2010 still. The cheapest drives that could do blu-ray were still $100+ and a CD/DVD was maybe $30.
clintonb 5y ago
I disagree. Streaming killed the disc. High speed internet facilitating digital downloads, alongside a desire to make laptops smaller and lighter, killed the disc drive. I own a 3D Blu-ray player. I haven’t used it in about two years, since the nearest Redbox went away. I only used Redbox because it was cheap and more convenient than waiting for streaming releases. Now that many movies are released in theaters and on streaming at the same time, I don’t know if I’ll ever use it again. Physical media is on the way out. Records continue to be manufactured for nostalgia (and better audio quality, for those that care), but that’s about it.
- dehrmann 5y ago
  Back during the HDDVD/Bluray battle, I remember it being called the battle for the last physical medium.
petee 5y ago
I can agree with this. I got a bluray burner and I could rarely get blurays to actually play properly or at all. Somewhere between software, licensing and drm , I now have basically a paperweight. An old ps3 does the trick though

by halo 5y ago

jbluepolarbear 5y ago

I only buy Blu-ray that come with a digital code. I activate the code, it shows up in iTunes, and I give or throw away the Blu-ray. Although this is usually around Black Friday where you can get Blu-ray for $5-$10.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago

And I'm convinced the hassle of Blu-Ray DRM or any kind of modern DRM is why I, and many others, still pirate movies and TV shows despite being able to afford to pay for them.

CraneWorm 5y ago
DRM and the unskippable ads that make you aware that you payed to've become a product. The pirates offer superior product, every time.
- ballenf 5y ago
  And Blu-Ray Live which makes your player yet another surveillance tool, if it has internet access. And if it doesn't you lose some of the features of the disc advertised on the box.
- lowbloodsugar 5y ago
  Well, except for bitrate. I like my audio lossless 7.1 24/96 or better. I'm seriously thinking about a https://www.kaleidescape.com https://www.kaleidescape.com so I don't have to buy disks, but get the full bitrate.

jcpham2 5y ago

I can say that I have never bought into BluRay, I don’t own a BluRay compatible optical drive to play them, and as far as I know we do not own any BluRay discs. I have mountains of DVDs and still prefer it in terms of purchasing movies. Bandwidth and access to other forms of digital media has allowed me to skip BluRay. I understand the resolution is better but it’s not a strong selling point for me. As a side note with the original DeCSS DVD code now considered a virus by many antivirus vendors I basically reject DRM technology everywhere I can. I pay for Netflix, but that’s a recent thing. The kids watch YouTube. That’s it for my household. No local news, no over the air free HD TV. We cut the cord and never looked back. If its not on Netflix I guess we just wait or go to a theater (rarely) or don’t watch it. I ripped my first DVD in college approximately two decades ago. I’m not oblivious to new technology nor am I some type of techno-Luddite; the selling points of BluRay are just weak imho.

whizzter 5y ago
Yeah, Blu-Ray is pretty much PS3-PS5 and XboxOne/Series or you're old/"untechnical" enough to think that you need a standalone disc player to watch movies (but heck I've overheard grannies talk about Netflix,etc so even the old gen is starting to catch on). That said, I'm not entirely sure that cord-cutting overall is a good thing. For my kids we've practically always had Netflix (and Youtube) and almost ignored regular channels with me consuming news mostly via online newspaper articles. This really hit me when I separated and ended up living at my brothers for a short while a couple of years ago. Their family had a far bigger presence of news in their house due to watching linear TV news every day. See here in Sweden we have fairly decent tax-funded public broadcast news (even if it's under attack and hated on by some parties), while much of it is fluff (and most of which I'd personally grasp with reading a couple of articles far quicker) it did strike me as something that I might leave as a dis-service to my kids in not providing an environment of learning about the outside world.
- nightski 5y ago
  Sort of. Xbox One X has Dolby Atmos/Vision but the PS5 does not. The highest quality players are still stand alone and have all the features if you are into that. But for most people you are absolutely right.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

KennyBlanken 5y ago

No? Most people don't watch TV or movies on their computers. They watch them on big-screen TVs with streaming built-in (or attached to streaming devices like Rokus, Fire Sticks, or Apple TVs) in their living rooms, or on mobile devices like tablets and phones. My guess is that the movie industry is purposefully killing off PC viewing. Bluray players and TVs are much easier to assure content control on. I'd also guess that in general they don't care about bluray, period. They want everyone to stream, where there's no "ownership."

atrus 5y ago
It's difficult to even play on your TV at times. I had rented a Blu-Ray from the library, popped it into my standalone player, connected to my TV, and recieved a message that my player wouldn't play it because it was out of date. What.

dTal 5y ago

It's same reason you don't see DVD-A or SACD discs around. Who would buy such things when you need an expensive standalone player, especially in the age of streaming? They didn't learn.

relaxing 5y ago
Audiophiles would, and they still do, and the discs and players are still being produced.
- dpark 5y ago
  I thought audiophiles were all buying vinyl and pretending they can “hear” the digitization of non-analog formats.
  - relaxing 5y ago
    That too, but there’s an overlapping set of people that do believe that high enough sample rates do lead to a higher fidelity listening experience.

skhr0680 5y ago

In 2003 I had a 40GB hard drive and dialup. The 4GB of a DVD was nothing to sneeze at. In 2010 I had several 1TB HDDs, fast broadband, and a 32GB USB stick. Getting a blue ray drive for my PC wasn’t worth the hassle.

wldcordeiro 5y ago
They were also stupidly priced in 2010 still. The cheapest drives that could do blu-ray were still $100+ and a CD/DVD was maybe $30.

clintonb 5y ago

I disagree. Streaming killed the disc. High speed internet facilitating digital downloads, alongside a desire to make laptops smaller and lighter, killed the disc drive. I own a 3D Blu-ray player. I haven’t used it in about two years, since the nearest Redbox went away. I only used Redbox because it was cheap and more convenient than waiting for streaming releases. Now that many movies are released in theaters and on streaming at the same time, I don’t know if I’ll ever use it again. Physical media is on the way out. Records continue to be manufactured for nostalgia (and better audio quality, for those that care), but that’s about it.

dehrmann 5y ago
Back during the HDDVD/Bluray battle, I remember it being called the battle for the last physical medium.

petee 5y ago

I can agree with this. I got a bluray burner and I could rarely get blurays to actually play properly or at all. Somewhere between software, licensing and drm , I now have basically a paperweight. An old ps3 does the trick though