Although I self-calibrated my Samsung QLED TV with a BluRay calibration disc, I was unimpressed with the difference between 4K and BluRay. I expected something amazing compared to BluRay, but it just wasn't there. It looks good, but not a lot better than 1080p to me. Maybe my calibration is off? I'm playing them on an Oppo BD203.
I've talked to millennials at my office, who know I'm a video geek, but the conversation usually goes like this: Them: I hear you know about 4K. I want to get into that! Me: There's 4K streaming, but that's compressed and not as good as having a real 4K player and 4K discs. Them: Okay, I hear ya! How can I hook a 4K player up to my laptop? Me: What do you mean laptop? Them: Yeah, that's what I use to watch movies and TV shows. Me: [Facepalm] One of them bought a 4K capable flatscreen TV this year (after not owning any TV for years). They asked me for tips on how to make the best of it and set it up. I gave three very simple tips to start: use the "cinema" or equivalent mode for a more natural looking picture, turn the sharpness down to zero, and definitely turn off the motion smoothing/judder reduction! Even sent the Tom Cruise twitter PSA beggin people to turn off motion smoothing. They said "Great, my brother is coming by this weekend to help me set up my new TV." After the weekend, I asked how setting up the TV went. I was expecting to hear, "Well, damn, that motion smoothing is messed up. Thanks for telling me about that." Nope, they said, "We decided the screen was a little too high on the wall, so we rehung it a few inches lower. Now it's perfect!"
Every time we visit the in-laws I'm tempted to switch their TV over to "cinema" mode, at the minimum. For a while they had their TV configured with the most horrific settings possible (they're big fans of "sports" or '"vivid" settings because its so bright!), but they've tweaked it a little so its bearable. At least they didn't hang it over the fireplace.
I know exactly what you mean! Am I the only person who finds himself in a hotel room, googling how to hack the hotel's TV/remote model to access the menu so I can turn off the "vivid" mode?
You don't have to go out and buy all your Blu-rays again. Just buy the hardware, which will make the blu's look better, and just buy new releases on 4K.
Frankly I wouldn't mind replacing all my blu-rays with 4K. I've done a bit of that, but I don't think I'll have the opportunity before streaming tanks the entire physical media business. Get 'em while you can.
I don't think physical media will ever go away completely. It's becoming more and more niche, but I think there will always be enough people who want a physical copy to keep it around...
It might take another generation before it's gone completely, but even my brother who's 9 years younger than me got rid of all his media and disc machines and streams everything now. He also talks to his Alexa speaker like it's a member of his household. His kids are growing up thinking this is normal. They look at troglodytes like us and think we're crazy. The tech goliaths are hugely motivated to get rid of physical media altogether and the writing is on the wall. I sure hope I'm wrong and hope we see lots of 4K releases and niche companies like Criterion hanging on for many years to come. But it's not a sure thing by any stretch.
My first grandkid was born just before COVID hit and I realized that he'll likely grow up in a world where all media is streamed or, at best, "rented" digitally as when you "buy" it on iTunes. Physical releases are turning into collectibles (how many millennials actually play their vinyl instead of streaming it?) and those will gradually dry up as the people who are used to vast physical collections of video games, books, music, and movies die off or downsize. My advice is that if you want something in 4K or any other physical format, buy it while you can, because they'll become more and more limited as time goes on. It's going to be a different world in 20 years. I've got a storage area filled with CDs, books, vinyl, comics, video games, DVDs, VHS, and laserdiscs and I sometimes wonder if I should start getting rid of some of it NOW because I'm not sure anyone in my family will want it when I'm gone or if I want to saddle my family with finding buyers that are into collecting these things. I don't see my 4K collection growing too much because I'm happy streaming much of it online or the Blu-rays I have are fine.
I know someone who saved all his many books he's collected over his lifetime, thinking he could pass them down to his kids when they need to read the same books for school or personal interest. By the time his kids were grown, though, they preferred Kindle and e-books, and would rather buy an e-book that dig up dad's physical book of the same. So he wound up throwing most of his books away. I realize books vs ebooks does not necessarily map over the the difference between streaming vs disc. But there was some discussion earlier in this thread about how this thread title says "investing". I don't think it makes sense to think of physical media as investments anymore, but if you got the money and it's your passion, buy and enjoy them like you would a good bottle of wine, a good dinner or a concert. We've had a few threads on this forum about "estate planning" and what to do with our collections once we pass. *** Pretty much all new TVs these days are 4K capable. It costs about $200 to buy a 4K blu-ray player, and the media isn't like $100 a movie in the old VHS days. Whether that's a lot or a little depends on one's personal financial situation. But people on this forum probably have a certain passion that they will get more enjoyment out of the player than spending the money on a weekend trip hotel rental. But if your TV is an older one, then it's a more significant investment overall to upgrade your whole system to do 4K. In that situation, I would probably recommend upgrading the TV first, and even on your blu-rays, you will pull plenty of new enjoyment out of a current TV than your old one. Deal with the 4K content, whether streaming or a player, down the road.
I think they're "investments" in that far too frequently nowadays, if you don't jump on them when they're released they're gone and you have to pay inflated eBay prices to get them even a few months later. Time will tell if the prices hold up. I quit buying from some Blu-ray labels because their releases came and went so quick that I could never get a copy before the window closed and some of the Arrow 4K releases are already getting hard to find. I've got a large shelf of graphic novels that are mostly unopened because I'd rather read them on an iPad. Some of them are now selling for 2-3x what I paid even though most are less than 15 years old.
I totally get the idea of buying stuff before they go OOP, else you have to overpay on eBay. But I got off that when I realized I was buying, say, 10 things for that very reason, when I didn't really make use of half of them: lots of stuff in my music and movie collection I've still never opened that I bought just because. Nowadays, if I have to overpay, say, 3X for the one thing I missed out on but will really enjoy and use, that is still less money than I would have spent buying 10 things immediately, and forgetting about 7 of those things. The Arrow releases are a good example of that: lots of their titles that ones I think maybe I would ultimately only watch once, if ever at all. Most of the things I missed out on, I later realized I was fine not having it anyway. And had they been unlimited titles that would be available forever, I probably never would have really wanted to buy them. Of course, psychologically, overpaying 3X on that one thing will stay in your head for a very long time, whereas spending 10 times that on those 10 things you didn't need never bothers you. I have a friend with a large and awesome comic book collection that he's carefully put together over decades. But he's known for a long time that his kids will never care about inheriting them, or use them, or want to be bothered with sorting through them to sell off. So he's stopped buying physical comics, new or old, and changed himself over to reading comics digitally. But his kids will never know his joys as a tangible comic book collector: going to a total stranger's house to buy a comic book collection, and the guy saying, "Yeah, they're all in my basement. Just go on down through that door and down those steps, and I'll be right behind you ... [creak]."
I used to pick up every Arrow release, but about 2/3 are still sitting there opened. They lost me when they started putting them up on iTunes to buy for $2.99, less than even the cost of a rental. Most of them I only watch once. I’m still buying the 4K titles and any Japanese kaiju they put out, but that’s it. it’s going to be difficult in the future for kids invite friends over to see their music/movie/comic collection because all you can do is hand them an iPad to browse through. With music services, everyone can have the same collection; no rarities, imports, or bootlegs.
I think with streaming services, these companies are going to phase out discs. I don’t think they will totally go away until manufacturers stop making players. They are trying to force pay to watch for sure and that’s what the streaming services want. Get paid every month for streaming or get paid once for a physical disc. I never thought I would switch over totally to digital. I always purchased the disc and added the free code to vudu for the convenience of streaming and own over 600 digital movies. At this point in my life I have to start downsizing and I just don’t have the room for hardware and physical media anymore. It was a choice between music or video. I stopped buying Blu-ray/4K and rent or buy everything in UHD digital now. I sold all my hardware except for a main front stage in one room, I got rid of three other rooms of equipment that was setup. Bye bye projector, surround sound and subs. My wife is happy but she knows it will never go away totally. Once I got rid of my stuff she bought a new tv stand with some openings. I filled the center with an unused amp and bought two bookshelves for the left and right openings. She just shook her head that I just got rid of stuff. I have done some considerable downsizing though and donated a lot of stuff to friends and Salvation Army.
Upscaling 1080p to 4K is not the same as native 4K. More importantly, the HDR/Dolby Vision color grading on (most) native 4K content will look much better than 1080p, even when upscaled.
The question of DVD to Blu-ray / Blu-ray to 4K UHD upgrade differences has be hashed over a lot, but the avreage opinion is/was you should see a much greater picture quality upgrade from DVD to Blu-ray than you will from Blu-ray to 4K UHD, depending on different sources of course. So your observations seem very much in line,
Dependent not just on source but also display. HDR being the biggest improvement in UHD, how well a display handles HDR is critical in appreciating the difference. And size is a factor too. You can sit much closer to a 4K picture and/or get a bigger display and therefore have a more cinematic experience. IMO the differences are more subtle (like going from 80 to 90% vs 90 to 99%), but they are still significant- esp. on a high-end display.
I don't know how many times I've heard someone complain, "OMG! Netflix is pulling my favorite show next month! How will I watch it now?" I bought a friend the entire 30 Rock box set (her favorite show) for her birthday and I don't think she even opened it.
