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We all took the DVD boom era for granted

filmstories.co.uk

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Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#171

Post by mattl »

BeetleB wrote: post #167
theandrewbailey wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have to go all the way back to VHS to be free of that particular corporate "innovation." Try watching a European VHS cassette in North America (or vice versa).

> Try watching a European VHS cassette in North America (or vice versa). That's not a georestriction, but a difference in media protocols. You could easily buy a compatible VCR. Heck, in some countries, Japan marketed VCRs that supported both PAL and NTSC (I had one of those) because those countries would have a significant influx of VHSs from both Europe and America. It's like saying the choice of 110 vs 220V (or 12…

You could easily buy a region-free DVD player too.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#172

Post by KETHERCORTEX »

bombcar wrote: post #156
retrac wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a generation of people is growing who got used to watching digitally compressed audio and video It is unfortunate how today phone calls are often heavily compressed. Back in the 80s, 90s, 00s the digital phone network would stream uncompressed PCM audio at 64 kbps and the rest was analog; calls often sounded better back then than they do today. Once we accepted the heavy compression necessary to make early digital…

A significant percentage of people alive today have never made an analog phone call, or know just how good (and low latency!) it was to literally have two copper wires connecting two phones thousands of miles apart. Direct at the speed of light (almost)!

As a side effect, they didn't see the trick with dialing a number just by quickly hitting the "receiver rest" lever.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#173

Post by stevenAthompson »

Miraste wrote: post #109
codedokode wrote: post #94

The problems with streaming services: - they do not allow anonymous usage (you need to provide a visa application worth amount of personal information) - stupid geographical restrictions - they tend to limit quality, both for copyright and traffic saving purposes As an intermediate result, a generation of people is growing who got used to watching digitally compressed audio and video (social media, especially for mob…

DVDs and Blu-rays also have stupid geographical restrictions. They come marked with region codes, and DVD players will only play discs from their home region. You have to go all the way back to VHS to be free of that particular corporate "innovation."

This is no longer the case with 4k UHD Blu-ray. They CAN be region locked in a technical sense, but I believe that there have only been two ever released that utilized that functionality. For the most part you can just buy one without worry.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#174

Post by ndileas »

tmm wrote: post #158

I wish Kaleidescape[1] was more affordable. It's a download rather than streaming service, with a comprehensive movie library (12,000+ titles) and you buy movies individually rather than a monthly subscription. But then you can watch the movies as many times as you want and they don't disappear from your library if Kaleidescape stops carrying them. I don't know if they include the extra content typically available on…

That's really cool that it exists / is possible. Maybe someone will create a similar service that undercuts them - but I would imagine the licensing agreements somewhat require them to do drm with the player / media server. 9k entry cost is going to keep essentially everyone out of the market - and much of that sounds like total bs costs, in no way related to the cost of the components.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#175

Post by gspencley »

fidotron wrote: post #108

Not mentioning the non-skippable anti piracy noise that ironically made the legit product worse than the pirated one poisoned the well for interactive features later on Blu Ray. Who cares about getting extras if they are hidden behind obnoxious menus and abusive junk when the Internet will tell you anyway? That said I remember that era fondly because of things like the Tartan output. In the UK if you had a multi regi…

It's funny ... I'm old enough to have a HUGE collection of DVDs and BluRays (many still in their original shrink-wrap lol).

But these days, if I feel like watching a movie that I own physically... sometimes I still look to see if it's on a streaming service that I'm subscribed to, or will even pirate it ... just because it's more convenient than having to turn on the BluRay player and then navigate those awful menus with un-skippable ads (you forgot those) and copyright screens.

The copyright notices were especially egregious and annoying to me BECAUSE I PAID FOR IT! Don't punish your paying customers because of the people you don't like... people that are not reading your annoying message.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#176

Post by kbolino »

retrac wrote: post #136
codedokode wrote: post #94

The problems with streaming services: - they do not allow anonymous usage (you need to provide a visa application worth amount of personal information) - stupid geographical restrictions - they tend to limit quality, both for copyright and traffic saving purposes As an intermediate result, a generation of people is growing who got used to watching digitally compressed audio and video (social media, especially for mob…

> a generation of people is growing who got used to watching digitally compressed audio and video It is unfortunate how today phone calls are often heavily compressed. Back in the 80s, 90s, 00s the digital phone network would stream uncompressed PCM audio at 64 kbps and the rest was analog; calls often sounded better back then than they do today. Once we accepted the heavy compression necessary to make early digital…

Digital phone audio, which was μ-law [1] rather than linear PCM, was not exactly uncompressed. However, the compression involved was very simple, and was designed to offer the 8-bit samples a higher dynamic range than linear PCM would be capable of at the same bitrate (linear PCM would need 14 bits to represent the full dynamic range of 8-bit μ-law). It resulted, by design, in quite clear audio for human voice, as compared to the more aggressive compression used today, but couldn't handle non-voice audio like music as well.

[1] μ-law was used in North America and Japan, but a similar encoding called A-law was used elsewhere

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#177

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

alt227 wrote: post #123
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish there were ready-made hosted Plex servers that could accept a file transfer. Buy a movie online and give them your server "address" and they send the movie to your Plex server. We have been robbed of so many possibilities by copyright bullshit.

If you want your server to stay secure, then that is not really an option. Copyright is not the thing that is stopping your suggestion from happening.

Implementation details. At checkout put in a public key or something similar, at the receiving end accept a dialog to accept film from movie buying site.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#178

Post by mikedelfino »

doublerabbit wrote: post #154
anentropic wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just plan ahead and download it before you want to watch it

But that just ruins the spontaneous movie watching experience you get with DVDs.

Surely you mean the spontaneity after you have actually bought the DVD.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#179

Post by giantrobot »

nyarlathotep_ wrote: post #144
retrac wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a generation of people is growing who got used to watching digitally compressed audio and video It is unfortunate how today phone calls are often heavily compressed. Back in the 80s, 90s, 00s the digital phone network would stream uncompressed PCM audio at 64 kbps and the rest was analog; calls often sounded better back then than they do today. Once we accepted the heavy compression necessary to make early digital…

I know effectively nothing about these topics but I recall having that thought the other day. With Apple users FaceTime audio has far higher audio quality than a "typical" phone call Wondering what accounts for the difference. I assumed, if anything, audio compression would be more "aggressive" on web-service based calling than "traditional" calling.

FaceTime's audio quality is both higher data rate and better audio codecs. FaceTime uses AAC audio and samples at close to the full audible audio band. It also uses a relatively high data rate compared to typical voice calls.

LTE and 5G has the option of higher quality voice codecs (EVS) than older cellular networks when using VoLTE or VoNR. They support wider band sampling and higher data rates for better quality audio. Why most voice calls sound bad is inter-carrier compatibility still sucks. Typically calls will downgrade to AMR-WB or AMR-NB (8KHz and 4kHz sampling respectively).

FaceTime calls, or any other pure IP voice services, don't need to downgrade codecs to interoperate. They might have to change encoded bitrates based on network conditions but never go with some lowest common denominator codec because another user is on a different network.

Re: We all took the DVD boom era for granted

#180

Post by lazystar »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #157
blitzar wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I pay for the content and get unskipable ads before, durring and after the movie. Oh how I long for the You wouldn't download a car days

When will we be able to download 3D-printable and drivable cars?

your question appears facetious in nature, but it's interesting to think about what the answer might be. I'd guesstimate 30 - 50 years before manufacturing technology reaches that point, but once it does, how long will it take to clear the regulatory hurdles? i bet it would take at least as long as the time from viable drone deliveries -> legal drone deliveries.
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