Owned physical media and/or downloaded music vs streaming services.

Done. I see why Gene is your hero.

 

Hero? Gene is someone that has been very successful and I found him inspiring, but hero is a bit of a stretch.

 

Yup, that's the beauty of digital data, you can do with it as you will. I can still remember the days when I first ripped my CD collection to hard disk, a couple of decades ago or so, and the sense if freedom I experienced being able to play the files with a minimum of fuss any time I wanted in any context. Same with video files.

 

Huh? Playing a CD is a fuss? Never found it that difficult. Put optical media in, press play. Done. Bluray audio done correctly even easier. Can play for days without stopping. Man, if pressing a few buttons is so hard, I can't imagine what dishes must feel like.

 

By a quick count, as of today, I have 505 full length movies, and 2100 TV episodes. Ripping from Blu-rays, that would be about 35TB. More than I care to manage locally.

Regarding sacrificing quality - you may not know: there are several hundred movies that are only available in 4K via streaming, not disc. And they look great. Personally, I'm a video enthusiast with LG OLED, CalMAN professional calibration software, Dolby Vision pattern generators, colorimeters, etc. Streaming via Apple TV 4K gives up very little quality. If it's a title where I'm expecting the best, I buy the disc. Do I really need to shell out $10 for a copy of "Daddy's Home" on Blu-ray, when I can own the 4K version for $2?

There's a difference between "not having enough space" and not wanting an entire room in my house devoted to media. Some people like that, and I have no problem with it. Just not my preferred use of space.

After the local download license period timeout, the app (e.g. iTunes) would need to ping the activation servers to ensure you have a valid transaction of ownership. Even if that title is no longer available to purchase and/or download, the record of your purchase remains. I've never heard of Apple (or insert your digital retailer here) losing a purchase/transaction record, rendering a title you downloaded unable to play back.

 

My one and only heir, who does not like music, would LOVE to know how she will “sell/trade at a later date” my 15,000 to 20,000 album collection.

 

Which comes back to...why rip. Just keep on the more stable disc anyway.

4K is merely a pixel count. There are DVD's that are better quality than a 1080p stream because of bit rate. What good is 1080 if you have a bit rate that is on average less than 7 mbps nationwide (that is provider from the streaming company, not the cable network which is substantially more).

Because Daddy's Home 4K bluray will wipe the stream version completely out. The same is likely true about the 1080p bluray which has a bit rate of 25 to 35 mbps.

A collection of 4000 blurays for instance...takes up a wall at best. That would last several lifetimes. Each to his own, but I don't see the big deal.

Storing on a hard drive is better than a trusting a cloud service, but only marginally better, because there isn't a peer reviewed save state that is published PHYSICALLY. In other words, who is to say that the version you download today is the same as the one they claim tomorrow? Apple doesn't exactly have a track record of getting it all right. If that were true, you wouldn't see some of the horrendous tagging on digital files, let alone the cluster f of release date changes and studios and all that jazz.

Apple is a place marker for the companies that allow them to rent the content. I don't give them any credibility and never will. That is just me. I see your reasoning on all if it, but I just don't agree.

Just like comparing pixel count on the stream to pixel count on a physical disc that has waaaaaayyy better quality. I understand budget, but let us not mix it up. You are paying for a cut in quality, and in some cases, it is astronomically worse.

I don't mean this in any personal way, but if it is too much trouble to sell it right, I would leave the option of just giving it away.

There are all kinds of ways to sell physical products and make darn good money, but it takes effort. If only I could be so lucky.

Give me the 15,000 to 20,000. I'll figure it out. lol

 

Absolutely.

Yeah it's a fuss. I fell asleep during the last 20 minutes of the Amazon show "Jack Ryan" the other night. Had 20 minutes to kill on the train ride the next morning, so I just downloaded it to my iPhone while eating breakfast and finished it up on the ride. A disc would have done me no good.

 

Keep them on the more stable disc means I can't watch on my iPad, while traveling, easily at a friend's house, etc.

I'm very aware of what 4K is. And I can tell you from experience that all of my 4K streaming titles look better than their Blu-ray disc counterparts. Do you have examples you'd like to share, I'd be happy to compare on my setup.

You know this because how? Just last week I compared the new Criterion Blu-ray Silence of the Lambs to the 4K stream I own on both VUDU and iTunes. The 4K beat the Blu-ray, every time, in terms of color and clarity.

 

I rip a CD, and play it on a digital device if I MUST listen to something on the go (which is rare for me, I would rather listen in a car with better speakers). Though I gotta admit that if I eat...I eat. I don't need to hear music at every waking moment of the day. I would rather eat with someone else. Talk to a person around me, or just take in the sights...and call me a freak, I love listening/eaves drop on chatter because it gives me inspiration. Call it rude, or whatever, but I think it is free information. I can't help what I hear. lol

I guess quality takes planning, and my plan is ear buds not in my ears as much as possible. Quality speakers or nothing in most cases.

 

The fact that Apple recently removed a whole series of "purchased" movies from their customers with no compensation (well evidently they did offer a free rental LOL), is all one needs to say about buying online vs. physical product backing up your files.

 

Got it, you like convenience over quality. I don't. I often wait, and feel rewarded for it. If I have to cut quality, then it isn't worth it to me. Rather wait for a steak dinner than a fast food meal on the go.

I understand you know what 4K is, but do you understand that there is more to the picture than that pixel count???

What you think is better is subjective. What is actually streamed in information is not. People always want to take opinions over tangible evidence. Sorry, I don't play that game. While I have my opinions based on what I have seen, I don't argue that way mostly.

It is through my own experience with 4K! While I am hardly a Criterion or nothing kind of guy, comparing a 2K to 4K is funny to me.

By the way, from what I have read, the 4K Silence of the Lambs isn't actually that good. But I admit I haven't seen it because I refuse to watch Vuduu or Itunes if I can avoid it. Want to revisit this when there is actually a 4K bluray released? The Criterion bluray looks fantastic to me, and is in a physical save state which beats the ass of a cloud version every single time for the pure factor that one is not a slave to a host sight.

*update*

Wait never-mind, forget that stupid link. I found his comments pretty wrong actually. lol. Bad example.

This one:

 

Are those of you who took this and ran with it ready for some facts? The user in question changed his region from Australia to Canada which resulted in the movies disappearing.

Apple responds in case of missing iTunes movies - FlatpanelsHD

The Apple iTunes case
Twitter lit up this week after Anders da Silva, an iTunes customer, shared two emails from Apple customer support, documenting how iTunes had deleted three of his movies and refused to refund him.

Apple has not yet responded to FlatpanelsHD’s request for comment but it has issued a statement to CNET. The company strongly hints that the movies vanished as a result of the customer changing his iTunes region from Australia to Canada. Apple also emphasized that it does not delete customers’ movies – at least not downloaded versions of movies.

- "Any movies you've already downloaded can be enjoyed at any time and will not be deleted unless you've chosen to do so. If you change your country setting, some movies may not be available to re-download from the movie store if the version you purchased isn't also available in the new country. If needed, you can change your country setting back to your prior country to re-download those movies," Apple said in a statement to CNET.

Anders da Silva confirms to CNET that he did in fact move from Australia to Canada and that he therefore updated his region, billing information and home address on iTunes. The missing titles are Cars, Cars 2, and The Grand Budapest Hotel, and while all three are available in both the Australian and Canadian iTunes store, apparently the versions differ. He added that all of his other movies remain available after he changed region.

So why does the iTunes region play a role? That has to do with content rights and the fact that studios offer different versions of the same movies, depending on the region (due to PG rating, censorship etc.).

- "I have other purchases made while in Australia, and using the same Australian iTunes account, that are working perfectly fine," Anders da Silva told CNET. "I fell into a licensing crack, it seems."

As FlatpanelsHD explained in our previous article, bought movies from iTunes generally remain available in the buyer’s library – for streaming and download – even after iTunes stops selling the title. For example: In parts of Europe, Apple has stopped selling the extended versions of The Lords of the Rings but these movies remain available in users’ libraries. The missing link here was that Anders da Silva had changed his iTunes region.




...all this over ONE user's region change. This is a far cry from "Apple is deleting purchased films from user accounts". Crazy.

 

I personally didn't run with anything, but if true, this guy is an idiot.

 

Not a surprise then. This guy didn’t think it through.

 

What is the tangible evidence that you're referring to?

 

Bit rate.

I don't disagree that there are streaming situations that are better than bluray (Breaking Bad season 4 comes to mind with the DNR issue), but on the whole? Not even close.

You using 4K when there is no 4K bluray counterpart is just silly to me, and the Criterion having great extras is another selling point.

The meat of the argument is apples to apples. In 99% of the cases, the bluray is going to beat streaming, and not by just a little bit. My point was that DVD can and does beat out regular stream options because of the horrendous bitrate throttles. It is only going to get worse as quality goes up and up and up. Compression only goes so far.

In almost every case, you have crapy audio to with the streaming because again, the fight for good bandwidth is a major issue. I don't like lossy Dolby Digital + and other such garbage. Why pay for good speakers if you aren't going to utilize something at more than Mp3 quality (and Dolby Digital is exactly that in many many case).

psssst... we had this argument before:

Owned physical media and/or downloaded music vs streaming services.

When I say not for long, since Criterion missed the boat, I am sure it will come to 4K bluray eventually. I can wait until then, because Criterion looks fantastic.

 

True, true. This would be the wise approach for sure. With further evidence that this guy changed his region coding and that’s the reason he lost his purchases, it increasingly looks like making a mountain out of a nonexistent mole hill.

 

Sorry but bit rate is not tangible evidence, because it's never apples-t0-apples.

I have professional experience with this, and recently spoke in person to the head engineer in charge of this stuff for FandangoNOW. It's a similar story at Apple, etc., so here goes:

The studios deliver a "better than 4K disc or HD Blu-ray" (depending on what's available from the studios) digital master file to the digital retailers (e.g. Apple). Apple then takes that 200GB+ file, and uses their proprietary codec to compress it for over a dozen different resolutions and device compatibility options. They load those different version to various CDN platforms, so depending on the device and internet bandwidth you have available, you get a certain version of such file.

So, if Apple takes a huge 4K file, compresses it with a proprietary (HEVC-based) codec, and streams it with an average bit-rate of 25Mbps, you cannot compare that to a 25Mbps AVC-encoded Blu-ray and make any blanket judgements on image quality. So once again, subjectivity comes into play here. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Never have I argued that a 4K stream would beat a 4K disc (or standard 1080p HD disc vs stream). But a 4K stream does beat an HD disc, in every personal experience of mine. Yours may be different. And, I don't feel like buying Daddy's Home on Blu-ray or 4K UHD. So I'll use my $2, watch it once or twice and forget about it. Now a movie like 2001: A Space Odyssey, I'm buying that one release day on 4K UHD

Also, Silence of the Lambs on iTunes 4K has the same extras as the Criterion (I'm going by memory here, but someone can correct me).

 

The first rule of collecting digital media is... well, we all know that, right? There are countless stories of horrible things happening to people who accumulate digital media without taking the most basic care.

Imagine if we were just as careless with physical media: Leaving records out of their sleeves, DVD discs left out randomly, getting all scratched, lost, misfiled...

 

Back ups...back ups

 

Of course it is tangible evidence on the bluray side. You play the disc, and it plays an average bit rate straight to the TV. As for any STREAM, then you are a slave to the weather, slave to the cables, slave to the cable company, slave to the server, slave to the traffic....etc. You are right that the tangible factor is harder to tell on the STREAM side. It is hard to know just how crappy it will get.

The same is true for any kind of transfer. I think everyone that has even did a sliver of studying about the archiving process knows that the files have to be dumbed down for consumer use. That is true with most any company like...ever!

Apples codecs are not superior to the movie studios. Not at all. They don't own the work, they rent it, and they get what the studios give them. PERIOD. Now that said, early blurays had crappy compression. Yeah I understand that. Not really an issue now. Of course that isn't a fair competition is it? Fair is comparing Apple to when they were released, not what they have now.

I would argue that a crap ton of new files are riddled with compression artifacts, and the DNR war is also full on. You can see in the comparison that there are lots of instances of issues. I would be curious to see it if I had the files for free, but I am not that curious. The Criterion looks very good to me (and no I don't always love them either). I will happily upgrade (or just keep the Criterion discs) if it ever comes out on 4K.

Oh and for the record, I am not always crazy about all HDR either.

If we are taking a digital file that is downloaded then we are arguing two different things. I am not making an argument for 4K vs 2K, but I am saying that it isn't cut and dry either. Your experience may be one thing, but there are others that disagree with you, and Apple files and especially Vuduu have been shown to in head to head studies to not only be inferior, but it many cases painfully so. Just google that. The quality is less than 85%, and for a full upscale bluray at 2K at full bit rate, yes I imagine that there are 2K blurays that can compete.

If done right, this should never be the case, but guess what, you and I both know this isn't what happens.

Regardless, I will never support Apple or their proprietary crap anyway.

I like Daddy's Home and will likely buy it on 4K (since I got rid of the 2K version) when the price drops to rock bottom. Not sweating that one at all. But hey, I understand it isn't as important to you.

Couldn't be more in agreement there!

I seriously doubt that. Please confirm it and get back to me please. I am very curious about that one. Please a pleasure having a civilized debate. I appreciate that. I see your point, and I agree that Apple can and has beat some blurays. The grand scheme...as Bender says from the Breakfast Club..not even close bud!

 

Honestly you're pretty far off base with a lot of your conclusions, and I can say that because it doesn't appear you have the same amount of references points that I do. You're not watching/buying these 4K streams, not even sure you have a 4K display? Either way, you're set in your opinions.

Regarding SOTL, I do own this on Criterion Blu-ray, iTunes 4K (screen shots attached) and VUDU 4K, so I have some pretty good reference points. As best I can tell, all extras from the Criterion are included in the iTunes version.

 

Great. You won the argument that ONE 4K digital copy looks better than the HD Criterion copy....because you said so.

Again, we will revisit this when the 4K bluray comes out so it becomes a fair comparison.

Not sure how I can be "far off base" when I never stated that the Criterion bluray was better or worse. It is like you are picking a fight where there isn't one. Heck I even conceded (which I didn't need to for obvious reasons) because I clearly said I didn't own it.

But rest assured, I am not letting this one go. I will be posting screenshots eventually and when I do, you better be right. I choose to speak in analytical terms not just what I feel looks better.

I suggest you do the same. If it truly looks so much better, zoom in on the computer file and let us get a true challenge. I only have a youtube clip and from what I see there are artifacts without question. But hey..again before you say "far off base". That is just a very surface observation from what I see. Not a proclamation...not a gospel truth...and certainly not an analytical conclusion!

P.s. I don't see the interview with the critic, interview with Jodi, inside the labrynth, scoring the silence, page to screen, ... not on screen shot? It looks like the 2009 extras hence the stupid pop up track Breaking the Silence??

 

You are taking this thread off topic, and being abusive to anyone you disagree with. Why can't you let someone have a different opinion without trying to prove how wrong they are?

If you want to argue about video, start a new thread in the video section.