I have loads of friends who started to cancel their netflix subs and went back to piracy because they grew tired of searching for a way to watch something legally. Now its disney, hbo, prime, whatever. Screw all of this.
Now its mostly just Netflix originals which aren't necessarily bad but maybe not worth it's own subscription every month.
Obviously waiting for DVDs to arrive is a hassle in comparison to watch-at-any-time streaming but that's ok tradeoff for the freedom it gives me to chose a title to watch from its vast DVD and Blue Ray catalog.
https://streamhash.com/how-does-netflix-license-tv-shows-and...
That's a great exaggeration. There was never a time when you could name a film and expect it to be on Netflix to stream.
And many people don't even have DVD players anymore. I don't.
I think film students and the like. It's become a niche product, not a mass-market one.
Many companies fail to adapt and stick with old business models. Netflix did the exact opposite and took their dvd business behind the barn and shot it in the head.
The only reason I do is because gaming consoles double as DVD players now. I assume that's a leading force in why others might have DVD players, too.
The wording here sounded a bit off to me here; I read it as "usually Blu-ray quality is worse or the same as streaming quality but sometimes it's better" while I think what you probably meant (and would make a lot more sense) was "usually streaming is just as good as Blu-ray but sometimes the streaming quality is bad and a Blu-ray is better".
Is the latter what you meant?
Though there is also the possibility that there's a 4K version of a movie available to stream but not released on Blu-ray. Maybe that's what you referred to?
Full HD 1080p bitrates are a similar story, Blu Ray is much higher than streaming (36Mb/s vs around 6Mb/s, respectively)[3][4].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_HD_Blu-ray
[2] https://big-photography.com/guides/what-is-netflix-4k-bitrat...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray#Bit_rate
[4] https://www.howtogeek.com/338983/how-much-data-does-netflix-...
- The perceived streaming quality may match Blu-ray because the bitrate is high enough that humans can't tell the difference anymore. This is especially likely to be the case is the content isn't challenging.
- The perceived quality may be higher than Blu-Ray because 4K is available for streaming but not as a Blu-Ray release. So the comparison isn't 1080p streaming vs. 1080p Blu-ray but 4K streaming vs. 1080p Blu-ray. If you plot perceived quality vs. bitrate against each other for multiple resolutions, you usually find that it makes sense to increase resolution at lower bitrates than you might expect. I'd honestly expect that 16Mb/s 4K would look better to viewers than 40Mb/s 1080p. Plus, 4K is usually encoded using a more modern and efficient codec than the ancient ones we use for 1080p Blu-ray.
But note that I'm talking about perceived quality here. Higher bitrates might lead to higher computed quality metrics like PSNR and SSIM but past a point, those metrics no longer have any correlation to human perception and that point is lower than you might think.
I wonder if the same story will happen with regards to lossy video compression, I mean perhaps, once our tech will be so much better that we will be able to use lossless formats for video, people will look back at the formats we have today and think that they look bad.
Remember VHS? I used to think they looked alright back then :-)
I think that the lower adoption of Blu Ray vs. streaming is purely due to convenience, not quality. Most people don't want to deal with physical media. In the same way that uncompressed audio is better than Spotify and similar services, yet almost no one buys audio CDs any more.
In Audio, there are now services that let you download uncompressed and/or lossless audio (Bandcamp, Beatport etc.), they are not as mainstream as Spotify but they are moderately successful and have their place in the market.
I wonder if the same thing could happen for movies: offering higher quality downloadable movies, without the physical medium. Perhaps cinephiles could be interested. Maybe it will happen when average bandwidth, at least in the developed world, approaches the equivalent of a 4K Blu Ray bitrate: no one wants to wait for a long download to end, people want just-in-time streaming.
(Note: Blu Ray, unlike Audio CD, is not lossless, it's just that it's got much less compression than the typical streaming services).
When it comes to video compression though, industry practice is largely based on the result of user testing. There are well-controlled tests where a bunch of people are put in a specific test environment and shown videos encoded using different parameters and there are larger scale A/B tests where a streaming platform will tweak parameters and see how they affect metrics like time spent consuming content. So I'm confident that the compression of today matches the users and hardware of today.
However hardware can change and I expect that's what will drive increases in video quality. For example the encodes of today are biases to some extent by the fact that people watch videos on tiny screens like phones or tablets, which are likely a bottleneck for quality perception. If people start consuming more content on say VR headsets, streaming platforms may see the need to increase quality. 8K is also a possible driver (especially for very large displays).
Connectivity is also a big deal. Lossless music is possible because the bitrate is relatively low but streaming 4K blu-ray is out of the question for many people at the moment. In the future though it's definitely a possibility.
The library is huge and goes back decades. There are usually good user reviews at the Netflix web site for guidance. I suspect there are thousands of theatrically released movies that Netflix only offers on disc, not streaming.
In the last ten years, I've rented almost 900 movies (including a few TV shows like Breaking Bad) on disc, so that's well below $2/rental. I live about 50 miles from the nearest distribution center, so turnaround is almost always just two days, because the post office scans the returned disk when I post it, so Netflix sends out the new one the next day, even before they receive my return. They did pull a fast one a few years back by silently stopping outgoing shipments on Saturdays, but I live with it.
Discs have great resolution, often have bonus features, and almost always have closed captioning, which I appreciate more and more as I age. And the credits don't get reduced to a thumbnail on screen so the next show can be promoted. And I don't have to log in, or enable wi-fi on my TV.
I use an old PS3 as my blu ray player, works great with a Logitech remote control, supports HDMI output. I also have a blu-ray external disk drive for my laptop if I'm on the road (only about $100 as I recall).
Since Netflix is primarily responsible for putting Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, and various local video stores out of business, I'd be really pissed if they ended the disc rental service.
Don't they get scratched these days? I remember the DVD days of Blockbuster, and also thinking "DVD as a technology is just not ready for rental" every time I got a disc that was scratched and/or had sticky stuff glued to it.
̶A̶l̶s̶o̶,̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶U̶K̶,̶ ̶N̶e̶t̶f̶l̶i̶x̶ ̶n̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶e̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶c̶ ̶r̶e̶n̶t̶a̶l̶ ̶s̶e̶r̶v̶i̶c̶e̶.̶ edit: I'm mistaken, they used to. There's just one provider left here that does (called Cinema Paradiso).
Certainly convenient though if you didn't care much when you saw something.
That's not what your parent comment was suggesting. It was saying that Netflix's streaming collection was the same as Blockbuster's physical DVD collection, which was big but not unlimited (i.e. "every film you can think of")
(Aware of the cuties debacle, but this is a rather overt example, aforementioned are sometimes subtle.)
What does “pro paedophile tendencies” even mean? Can you give concrete examples of this? I’ve never heard this accusation before…
Big Mouth (a cartoon) is about child sex
Emily in Paris, character lead has sex with a 17yo on screen.
There are more, I just can't bring them to mind at the moment. Perhaps I should begin to document them.
Hmm... Black Mirror (the Netflix episodes) had child sex in, End of The Fucking World had child sex in it; although both with negative consequences so poor examples.
Maybe it's coincidental, but it is something I've started to notice more and more.
Keep it in mind next time you watch some shows on Netflix and perhaps it will stand out.
Not quite sure how that's pedophilic. Not any adults being attracted to kids. Just horny teenagers being horny teenagers.
Not seen Emily in Paris so I can't comment.
And you already covered EotfW and Black Mirror showing its a bad thing.
Not sure I'd call that pedophilic either unless simply touching the subject of pedophilia is somehow "promoting" it.
I still haven't seen Game of Thrones.
Was referring to above; Netflix didn't create any of those. But yes, over time they'll have old entries in the Netflix catalog.
Their first original (House of Cards) was only 9 years ago
The biggest problem is finding what you want. Need a TV Guide for streaming, so I can search for say "The Martian", and it would tell me "This is on netflix in your country", or "this isn't available on subscription, but you can rent it on amazon for x.xx or buy it on apple tv for y.yy"
If they are just a content provider to apple, they lost.
Also you can't get most streaming content on cable, or the sports content I get on cable without 4 streaming services (ESPN+, Peacock, Paramount+ & Hulu).
So I've got a cable package w/ sports + a couple streaming services. Sometimes I'll pick one up for a month or 2 and drop it just for something I want to see. Sometimes I rent something from Amazon.
It's just a mess.
But the search is pretty easy. My Rokus, Amazon sticks, or even cable box search fine for me.
Also has a nifty feature where you can list all available episodes of a show across all seasons and it will mix in your live recordings with streaming options. I honestly don't know why Tivo doesn't get a lot more love. Cable when you aren't paying per-TV fees for boxes is pretty great. Just a couple of bucks a month for a cable card in the Tivo and then you hook up Tivo Mini units on all of the other TVs in your house to access the main box.
But it was quite a success for RIAA/MPAA to stick a label of criminal to everyone who downloads free audio-visual content even if it's not true. Though, let's not aid them in their quest by throwing sentences like 'illegal content' too frequently around.
I also find collecting to be satisfying, there's something nice about knowing that Netflix can't just decide to take Arcane away from me
In Australia I can’t get anything better than 1080 for some unknown reason, it’s not because it doesn’t exist in higher quality - torrent sites often list 4K resolution files. Presumably it’s the potato-quality internet in this country.
Now days you can get internet for $50 or $100 (depending on location, speed etc).
Then if you wanted say 5 of the various platforms, that's going to roughly be $50 to $70 more. So that's still a likely savings.
And on top of that, all new movies are basically being PRODUCED by these networks, so for the most part you don't need a theater (or their prices).
And on top of all that, instead of just fully subscribing to all of them, just get one at a time. Want the new Dexter series, get Showtime. Done with that? drop it until season 2 is out.
So it definitely can be a lot cheaper than the old days.
And yes, it definitely can be cheaper if you willing to actively manage what subscriptions you need and don't need one month at a time.
Its significantly better than cable TV still. I also dont get people reminiscing about one streaming service dominating, we shouldnt be wishing for monopolies. Everyone coming out with their own platform should drive up competition and give us better quality services
Having to switch apps is a trivial inconvenience. Seems to me that price-point is what we should be focusing on, and I'm fairly confident things have improved greatly.
More generally, I'm sceptical of any argument that laments the lack of a monopoly.
Certainly myriad streaming services are better than cable- but are they better than pirating? Harder to be confident of that now than a few years ago
Absolutely not. I am absolutely confident of that statement. One box of drives, a small machine to act as a Plex server, and VPN is all you need. Pre-made, high quality tools exist to automate everything. It's almost completely friction-less.
Pirating is easier, better, and faster now than it has ever been. The push to splinter streaming services is only speeding up its adoption, again. Cable is the old cable, streaming services are the new cable, but with more barriers and more difficult setup.
For giggles, I just went ahead and priced this out:
One-time costs:
* Plex Pass: $80
* NZB indexer access: $10 (for 2 or 3)
Ongoing monthly costs:
* File server (three-year deprecation): $55
* IPTV: $15
* Unlimited Usenet account: $3
This took an afternoon of setup, but has just worked since. Heck, the other day I discovered a new season of a show had apparently been released – because it completed downloading and filled Plex overnight.
- Resume does not work reliably
- Subtitles are ugly and un-configurable
I will keep monitoring it from time-to-time, and switch from Plex as soon as these 2 problems are fixed. Thanks for recommending, I have been on the lookout for such an app for a long time.
I picked up Thundernews when there was an "unlimited for $4" sale going on, and have used it ever since. Keep an eye out for their sales, because they don't seem to expire them. They resell UsenetExpress so pick up a block account or two from another provider for fills as always.
Covenant on Kodi was the first and last time I actually felt like TV was in the future.
And don't get me started on Netflix auto-preview (which cannot be disabled on my device).
Also, many of these platforms made the strange decision to not accept subscriptions from locations outside the US in the beginning. I tried to subscribe to Disney+ and HBO max when they started, but was denied due to location.
Probably works now, but I don't care. They had their one chance.
I had Netflix and Prime till recently in an effort to promote the defragmentation of streaming services as a show of unity but, its getting worse. And these guys do not need my money while the service they provide gets worse and worse.