The deception of “buying” digital movies • Hacker News Board

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#561

Post by account42 » Mon, Oct 10, 2022, 1:33 PM UTC

rthomas6 wrote: post #500

cgrealy wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>4k Blu-Rays' bitrates are around 128 Mb/s. For comparison, Netflix tops out around 17 Mb/s. Surely, this is just a current business decision of Netflix. As internet speeds increase, the bit rate is almost inevitably going to catch up (most likely if Netlix et al decide to charge a premium for it!)

I doubt it. All streaming services are around this bitrate or a little higher, like around 30 Mb/s or so. This bitrate is good enough for most people and is likely to remain so. People watch on their 50" bargain TVs with a soundbar, or even just on a laptop/tablet. Most people wouldn't even be able to tell a difference. It's just not worth the cost of the almost 10x bandwidth for Netflix to stream losslessly encoded…

You also can't always just 100% directly compare bitrates because Netflix can more easily adopt efficient new codecs while e.g. for 1080p Blu Rays a lot of them are still VC-1.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#562

Post by account42 » Mon, Oct 10, 2022, 1:41 PM UTC

Rudism wrote: post #507

moffkalast wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you do you. If you ask me, DVD quality (480p) is not really watchable anymore these days. Looks like what VHS looked like when DVDs were new now that we have full HD and 4K to compare it to. Just going full on pirate with an HDD full of instantly accessible files seems way more practical, especially living in a country where it's de facto legal.

I think calling DVDs and 480p "unwatchable" is a pretty extreme take. Sure you might not be able to count an actor's eyelashes, but a well-shot film on anamorphic DVD properly upscaled can still look pretty fantastic. If watching on a tablet or phone (as more and more people seem to do nowadays) it would probably be hard for your average consumer to even tell the difference unless you were running them side by side.…

If only DVDs were 480p. Its much much much worse: 480i (or something a bit higher but still interlaced)

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#563

Post by astorsnk » Thu, Oct 13, 2022, 9:08 AM UTC

denton-scratch wrote: post #318

astorsnk wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Last year I was in the UK visiting family and was unable to watch races there, despite havng already paid for them, as the geo restrictions were different. Yep, thank sucks. You can thank brexit for that. AFAIK services offered in one EU country have to work throughout the EU (so if you were in Germany it would have worked). This meant that on holiday (coming from UK to Spain) a few years back I was able to watch…

Nothing to do with Brexit.

The British government disagrees with you.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/cross-border-portability-of-onli...

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#564

Post by ycombinete » Fri, Oct 14, 2022, 12:38 PM UTC

rthomas6 wrote: post #47

I have started a modest Blu-Ray/4k Blu-Ray collection. For me, it is by far the best movie experience I've had with any format. It takes maybe 90 vs 20 seconds to get the movie playing, but in return I get noticeably better quality. 4k Blu-Rays' bitrates are around 128 Mb/s. For comparison, Netflix tops out around 17 Mb/s. It really does look and sound noticeably better if you have the TV and surround setup to take a…

Where do you buy them from to ensure their authenticity?

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#565

Post by PeterisP » Sat, Oct 15, 2022, 4:21 PM UTC

Plasmoid wrote: post #490

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the topic of artificial scarcity, once food becomes quickly and easily synthesisable on consumer premises, does anyone think that will not be incredibly heavily gate-kept by roles similar, or even identical, to copyright as it is now?

We already do that. Regional appellations limit what food can be called. It's not champagne if it's not from a specific part of France.

It limits only the marketing - you're free to make sparkling wine that's exactly like champagne.