I enjoy having a DVD player for the kids, it makes curating their options so much easier.
Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead
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Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead
#142Not a lawyer but... if you have the DVD its legal to make a backup digital copy. I am thinking the same thing. Most recent movies are available for under $20 per DVD - and there are tons of deals. You can get the 4 lego movies for $5 on DVD on Amazon right now. A "Tom Cruise 10-Movie Collection" is $12. You get the idea. Get the DVD. Make a legal backup. Keep the physical DVD in storage. You now "own" the movie (or T…
Also with this approach, you actually have a real collection and it's fun to collect things. My son has autism and viewed his Netflix homepage as his personal curated collection. But then, of course, Netflix renegotiates licensing deals and entire seasons or shows just go away. And it really crushes him because it's like they were stolen from his personal collection. So now when I hear him play, the super villain try…
> So now when I hear him play, the super villain trying to destroy the world is always named Reed Hastings.
That is absolutely hilarious and it totally sounds like a villain's name
Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
The vertical resolution of a DVD is either 480 (NTSC) or 576 (PAL). This usually matched the visible vertical resolution of the TV you were using. A 1080p screen has 6 times as many pixels as an NTSC DVD. A 4k screen has 24 times as many pixels as an NTSC DVD.
Most movies and tv shows are available for similar prices on blue rays, often in 4k versions. While the resolution may be higher on streaming, the bitrate is often significantly worse. Beyond that Netflix has done upscaling in the past with middling success. Nevermind the horrendous AI upscaling they tried last year. https://futurism.com/netflix-ai-upscaling-old-shows-horrific
I’ve noticed that a lot of newer releases, particularly TV shows, are not getting Blu-ray releases.
Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead
#144How do you get around the terrible fbi screens? :( That's the only thing preventing me from starting a collection.
My cousin's friend used to rip DVDs with DVD Shrink back in the day. It would automatically remove the "Prohibited User Operation" flags or whatever that told the DVD player to ignore your skip commands.
Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead
#145There is so so little to watch.
Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's ok if you don't care about sound much. Apple prevents local playback apps from playing back Atmos audio. It's fine if you only want 5.1 though. There used to be some limitations with Dolby Vision as well, but I think those have mostly been straightened out now.
wait. If I use VLC (for example) on AppleTV to play something from my network using SMB or DLNA, I cannot get Dolby Atmos?
Right. I'm under the impression that it's a licensing thing. It also can't do TrueHD Atmos in general. Just lossy Dolby DD+ for audio. It also doesn't do Dolby Vision properly, only supporting the profiles meant for streaming that use less data.
Similarly, It CAN do Atmos for E-AC3 audio, but E-AC3 is meant for streaming, so it's really rare to have that in a file you're playing back locally.
Basically, it just falls back to whatever the next best thing it can support is at the hardware level.
This is one area where Android wins. The Nvidia Shield, despite being ancient, is your best bet for local playback. It's still limited on the supported Dolby Vision profiles, but can just pass the audio through to your receiver without mucking with it. So you get all the bells and whistles.
Other than the shield your only alternatives are weird dedicated devices that are literally built for playing back UHD blu-ray rips (Dune HD, etc).
https://community.firecore.com/t/help-get-more-dolby-atmos-o...
Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead
#147It just dawned on me the other day that if I add up what I've already spent on apple music/Spotify over the years, it's very likely well above the amount it would have taken to buy a physical copy of all the music I listen to (I'm an album guy, as opposed to playlist people).
Certainly there's some convenience advantages for discovering new music, but it turns out I don't really do that often.
Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
The vertical resolution of a DVD is either 480 (NTSC) or 576 (PAL). This usually matched the visible vertical resolution of the TV you were using. A 1080p screen has 6 times as many pixels as an NTSC DVD. A 4k screen has 24 times as many pixels as an NTSC DVD.
I don’t think DVDs look bad on a 1080p TV, others that assume they will may be surprised!
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Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead
#149The "right to copy" is a made up concept. Just sayin'...
Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if you have the DVD its legal to make a backup digital copy. Is this actually true? I thought there was inherent illegality to cracking the DRM on DVDs. Granted, I doubt anyone is going to come after you for making a backup of a legitimate copy, but I think strictly speaking it's still illegal. I am also not a lawyer.
Possibly in some countries... But at least in the US, it is a DMCA violation. DMCA gets a little weird; Basically unless you're distributing it is a civil penalty (which, I could be wrong but would mean you'd get a Jury trial, even assuming it ever came up) and I doubt you would ever run into legal issues so long as you were only backing up for personal use. It's where you get into distribution that anyone starts to…
I am not a lawyer, but yeah I think there seems to be like a distinction in the United States between copying a "protected DVD" versus an unprotected one.
It's still sort of confusing to me because would that mean then that if you are making a personal backup in the United States, would it technically be allowed if you pointed a video camera at your own TV screen?