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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

#171

Post by anonymousab »

dev_l1x_be wrote: post #153

My problem is not the price but the amount of garbage you get. Instead of getting access to a vast amount of mediocre at best content I would like to have access to a small amount of good content. Netflix is just not that.

I have found that the vast supermajority of the content that Netflix provided themselves is wretched to my tastes, so I would just automatically scroll past and mentally blot out anything with that red N.

Unfortunately, it is so omnipresent throughout the application these days that it really does make it obvious how little good content they have - or are willing to let you know they have.

Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

#172

Post by simpaticoder »

MrDOS wrote: post #161
rahimnathwani wrote: post #64

Earlier 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.

Resolution isn't the only problem. SD resolution (particularly PAL) is quite tolerable, if it's well-encoded from a good source. DVDs are not well-encoded, and the sources are typically poorer, too. DVDs store MPEG-2 Part 2 (H.262) video streams. It's an extremely old, inefficient codec. (It was published in 1996! Next month, it'll be 30 years old!) It looks best when the encoder is given a bitrate limit north of 20…

I have both Blu-ray and DVDs and I've found its the content that determines which is good enough. Kids in care not one bit about image quality. Obviously: people still like retro games, too. But then other movies, like anything by Villenueve or Nolan, or Baraka, really want to be on 4K Blu-ray. But kids movies on DVD are perfectly fine, and sitcoms like Community. (Personally I'd pay extra to NOT see Pierce in 4k).

I recently purchased the Firefly Blu-ray and it was an interesting case because it's image quality isn't that much better than the DVD (but definitely better) however it's sound quality was astonishingly better than the DVD. I imagine this has a lot to do with the source material, how it was mastered, etc. I still stream, but I like that I have a core collection that will never disappear without warning, or be edited behind my back (which happens all the time, without notice, especially on YouTube and on Amazon Prime).

Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

#173

Post by mapontosevenths »

KK7NIL wrote: post #167
mapontosevenths wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would think so, but the prices keep going up and the bitrate keeps going down. Some of that is up to codec and encoding improvements, but I think a lot of it is just that they know they can get away with it. If you'd have asked me 20 years to bet on whether streaming or shiny disks would be producing better quality audio/video in 20 years my money would NOT have been on disks but here we are. Ye Olden Plastic Dis…

Prices keep going up and bitrates down because most streaming services (except for Netflix and YouTube) have been basically break-even or money losing for years now, and the appetite for that is cooling. Also, display resolution is not scaling like it used to. The move up from 4k to 8k is far more expensive and less worthwhile than the previous jumps. So, I think your assumptions about the business side of streaming…

You're probably right, sadly. The best case we could reasonably expect would be better quality streams, but I don't seriously believe that will happen either.

There are some niche services like the one that you can only get on Sony TV's that stream at like 50% of UHD bluray's bitrate - and that might be as good as it gets for the foreseeable future unless these services are forced to compete on quality or people decide to care about 8k or something.

Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

#174

Post by bombcar »

benoliver999 wrote: post #35
donohoe wrote: post #21

Not 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…

I run jellyfin and on iOS infuse is the only player that seems to work with all codecs

I've had some luck with Swiftfin though the UI is no where near as polished as Infuse.

Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

#175

Post by lelandbatey »

adamors wrote: post #63

I cancelled all my streaming, and replaced it with a €20 seed box w/ Plex + radarr/sonarr etc. Have everything I want (and nothing else) and movies/shows don't get pulled without me doing it. Won't be turning back anytime soon. Physical still has the downside of needing space. I have space for books, but not much else.

Do note that there's a ton of media that is not very available via sailing the seas. For example, reality TV has very low availability, typically only currently airing seasons at best. Thus if you're trying to convince a family to cancel all the big streaming platforms, you may have a hard time when they learn that they can't watch old episodes of "The Real Housewives of the middle of nowhere" from 2012.

Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

#176

Post by bombcar »

fortyseven wrote: post #118
binsquare wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also have video games now

Just recently beat Super Mario Wonder thanks to my local library lending Switch titles.

They also often have a huge backlog of older titles and consoles, I'm going to check out a Wii soon.

Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

#177

Post by bombcar »

solfox wrote: post #37
bko wrote: post #20

I was wondering if there is a DVD service similar to Netflix when it first came out. And of course there is, but pricing seems high! DVD Inbox and Cafe DVD is $20/mo for 2 discs at a time, with unlimited discs and a 5 day guarantee. 5 days to get your DVD doesn't seem great. They have cheaper plans but limit the number of DVDs you can take out. Netflix was revolutionary because they shipped very eagerly and they char…

> I think their shipping took 2 days Yeah, it was fast. And yet, for it to work financially, they were still using plain old USPS. The trick (which required the levels of volume they had at the time) was to have a bunch of distribution centers positioned all throughout their service area. For a modern day service trying to do the same with significantly less volume, they won't be able to afford the extra distribution…

They also had an agreement with the post office to register the disk as returned the moment USPS scanned it.

Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

#178

Post by apparent »

triceratops wrote: post #108
apparent wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the services end up being very expensive, like ebook lending. Some publishers basically charge libraries per loan ($X for an ebook that lasts Y loans), so while it is nice for residents it's not clear that it's a good value, or that it's a good use of tax money. I once heard from a knowledgeable source that most of library lending is bodice rippers. These are available from Amazon/etc. pretty cheaply, which u…

> And of course, there's practically no social value of providing the public with free bodice rippers... Why not? > Some of the services end up being very expensive, like ebook lending We need something like a first-sale doctrine for electronic media. Blockchains would be ideal for tracking ownership.

If most of lending were made up of educational texts, there would be a social value. Some people describe bodice rippers as porn for women, and people get addicted to them in the same way they get addicted to porn.

Would a library ever lend porn out? I'm guessing no, because of the lack of social value. To the extent that bodice rippers are like porn, the same rationale would apply.

Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

#179

Post by bombcar »

jerlam wrote: post #105
whycome wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay I have dvd players that work fine even still. DVDs need care - scratches and fingerprints are bad (though the error correction on a good player will make it less noticeable). I think the lifespan of a dvd player may be in its design (where dust may get to the laser?) or the environment (humidity or temp may play a role?)

It's possible that DVD players are extremely low quality now, since there are very few people still buying them.

They are, after the second Walmart cheapass dvd player died, I bit the bullet and got an Xbox Series ProMax X 360 Copilot whatever.

It's a glorified blurry player, and it works fine as such.

Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

#180

Post by bethekind »

_Turk_ wrote: post #121
adamors wrote: post #63

I cancelled all my streaming, and replaced it with a €20 seed box w/ Plex + radarr/sonarr etc. Have everything I want (and nothing else) and movies/shows don't get pulled without me doing it. Won't be turning back anytime soon. Physical still has the downside of needing space. I have space for books, but not much else.

I've seen a few guides to setting this up but maybe you can refer to what you used to set your own system up? Right now I'm utilizing streamio plus debridio but I've read the plex + radarr/sonarr is much superior... I"m not too tech savvy so kind of hestiant to set up

Me too
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