Jump to content

Switching from DVD to Blu-Ray - is it worth it?


Recommended Posts

Long post coming up, I’ll try to keep this as structured as possible.

My external CD/DVD Drive is slowly giving up the ghost. A few days ago, it nearly damaged my HP3 LLL disc 1, so it’s time for action. I’ve been thinking about buying a Blu-Ray drive, but can’t make up my mind whether it’s worth it at all. (I use a computer for movie-watching, so that's why I need a drive.)

Because I like to be consistent in whatever I do, I would then gradually update my DVD collection to Blu-Ray as well, but don’t know if everything that’s available on DVD right now has also been released on Blu-Ray, though I suppose that’s very easy to check.

Sound is obviously very important to me and I know Blu-Ray is supposed to be better audio-wise, but personally just don’t hear it. I have a surround sound system and the sound on some DVDs has blown me away. Granted, they all suffer from PAL speed-up (minus LOTR), which is kind of annoying, but I’ve done a few comparisons between DVD and Blu-Ray sound and don’t really hear any groundbreaking difference, except maybe for the fact that a motorbike sounds just a little more realistic when it drives from left to right at top speed.

Some movies obviously don’t sound good on DVD, but I don’t know whether Blu-Ray releases necessarily correct those issues. For instance, Hook crackles whenever the music gets too loud, Home Alone 1 and 2 have severe volume correction issues etc. Is a Blu-Ray release automatically an improvement?

I’m also aware that normal people might want to watch what I own on TV one day. I keep hearing ecstatic reactions about how Blu-Ray video quality is so superior to DVD quality, but does that mean that you’d have to be a fool to want to watch a DVD these days? Is it that bad?

Also, what will happen to physical media in the future? I’m never ever going to replace physical media by streaming services and will insist on my right to collect, possess and hold things. What’s more, we’ve given up on paying for streaming services anyway because we never find what we want on them. But which format will disappear first, the DVD or the Blu-Ray? DVD seems to be quite a durable format, perhaps because Blu-Rays are more expensive?

End of today’s musings.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Blu-Rays are in general, absolutely more worth it. Not only is the picture quality greatly improved, but yes, the sound is also greatly improved. And commonly for things released before Blu-Ray on DVD only, then later released on Blu-Ray will have a different transfer. So it's highly possible that sound issues present on DVDs will be absent from their blu-rays.

 

Keep in mind that for computer viewing, most will not play Blu-Rays right out of the box. Many require additional software to PLAY the Blu-Ray (even if you buy a drive)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Blu-rays usually carry a lossless audio track, as opposed to DVD's lossy tracks. And if you live in a country where PAL was the video standard, blu-ray will play films at the correct speed and pitch.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The PAL speed-up is a good reason to upgrade if that bothers you. If it doesnt, and the difference between DVD lossy audio or Blu-ray lossless audio isnt all that noticeable. I wouldnt upgrade.

 

You can actually wonder how long physical media has left anyway?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

DVD is probably fine for your watching method - although DVDs will go away before Blu-rays.  It won't go away as quickly as VHS did when DVD came around, because Blu-ray players also play DVDs, but all TVs that are sold now are hi def widescreen affairs.  Eventually it will be the standard. 

 

Buying a Blu-ray drive is smart - it will also play your DVDs, so spending the slight extra amount now will future-proof you whatever you decide.

 

Your crackling sounds may well be your speakers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

The PAL speed-up is a good reason to upgrade if that bothers you. If it doesnt, and the difference between DVD lossy audio or Blu-ray lossless audio isnt all that noticeable. I wouldnt upgrade.

 

Accuracy and fidelity has always been something I've been fussy about.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, The Original said:

 

Accuracy and fidelity has always been something I've been fussy about.

 

22 hours ago, The Original said:

I prefer the 4:3 version of Titanic to the widescreen version.

 

2680_thinKING.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Switching from DVD to Blu Ray in 2019?


Blu Ray is technology from 2006.  In 2019, you should be either contemplating 4K Ultra HD, or moving beyond physical media and just streaming everything

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4K Ultra HD is technology from 2016.  In 2019, you should be contemplating uploading your brain to the cloud, leaving your corporeal self behind forever and experiencing the movies from within the film itself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Jay said:

Switching from DVD to Blu Ray in 2019?


Blu Ray is technology from 2006.  In 2019, you should be either contemplating 4K Ultra HD, or moving beyond physical media and just streaming everything

 

But you can't stream everything. Not in Australia at least, since we're geolocked on a lot of services. And no, I'm not getting a VPN, which is yet another friggin thing I have to pay for on top of streaming outlets and my internet bill.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think Blu-Rays took off in 2006 where I live. I got my first laptop in 2004 and was on top of the world because it could play DVDs. My last laptop was bought in 2016 and it STILL only plays DVDs, so it's not like they're going out of their way to make Blu-Ray attractive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

39 minutes ago, Jay said:

Switching from DVD to Blu Ray in 2019?


Blu Ray is technology from 2006.  In 2019, you should be either contemplating 4K Ultra HD, or moving beyond physical media and just streaming everything

@Jay has a point, @bollemanneke.

 

I find that, generally, the older the film, the better it's been transferred. For example, recent purchases of IMAGES, THE THIRD MAN and FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD look gorgeous, while I can't tell the difference between a Blu SOLO, and a DVD SOLO (they're both crap! :lol:).

If you can, try to buy from "smaller" companies (Arrow; BFI) who are dedicated to presenting the very best picture sound available.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, The Original said:

 

You gotta learn more about Super 35, Stu!

 

 

From my understanding, it's a format that just holds up particularly well to being cropped to 4:3, but if you were fussy about accuracy, watching Titanic in anamorphic widescreen is most accurate to the filmmakers' intentions, wouldn't you say?

 

Goodbye!  I will-a never forget choo!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

 

 

From my understanding, it's a format that just holds up particularly well to being cropped to 4:3, but if you were fussy about accuracy, watching Titanic in anamorphic widescreen is most accurate to the filmmakers' intentions, wouldn't you say?

 

Goodbye!  I will-a never forget choo!

 

 

That's the beauty of Super 35, it's highly flexible and can be reformatted to any standard screen aspect ratio. Its versatility is a fundamental reason why Cameron prefers it to Panavision anamorphic formats.

 

3 minutes ago, Richard said:

This a just a general guys, but...who, in their right bloody mind wants to watch a film in 4:3?!

 

Why not? Plenty of films were made for 4:3.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Jay said:

Switching from DVD to Blu Ray in 2019?


Blu Ray is technology from 2006.  In 2019, you should be either contemplating 4K Ultra HD, or moving beyond physical media and just streaming everything

This.

 

DVDs have always outsold blu-rays so they’re never going to go away. But I don’t understand why you wouldn’t have purchased blu-rays a long time ago to future proof since most releases include a DVD and digital copy as well. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, perhaps things are different in his part of Belgium than our part of the USA.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Jurassic Shark said:

 

I watch most pre-1953 films in 4:3 format.

 

 

Can't you stretch them to make them fit the whole screen?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, Alexcremers said:

 

Can't you stretch them to make them fit the whole screen?

 

I could, but I won't.

 

35 minutes ago, Koray Savas said:

This.

 

DVDs have always outsold blu-rays so they’re never going to go away. But I don’t understand why you wouldn’t have purchased blu-rays a long time ago to future proof since most releases include a DVD and digital copy as well. 

 

One possible reason is that DVDs are relatively cheap.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, The Original said:

Its versatility is a fundamental reason why Cameron prefers it to Panavision anamorphic formats.

 

Its more to do with the fact that spherical lenses with Super-35mm - while they offers a bit less in the way of fine detail - produce a more naturalistic look. The squeezing of the anamorphic frame means that some artefacts (namely, the bukeh) end up looking unnaturally oblong.

 

Another great way to illustrate the difference is in the recent Star Wars films which were shot on Anamorphic but - for whatever reason - contain lots of rack-focus transitions. Whenever that happens, you can see the frame squeeze as the focal point shifts. Its not so jarring on Super-35mm film.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Jay said:

Well, perhaps things are different in his part of Belgium than our part of the USA.

 

I don't think so. Blu-ray hit The Netherlands not much longer after it hit the US.

 

Blu-ray drives have never been standard for PC's like DVD drives became. I guess Bolleke only watches from a laptop.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It might be better to just downgrade. You can acquire massive quantities of videocasette tapes for next to nothing and have Batman the way it was meant to be seen with the Diet Coke and Warner Brothers catalog ads.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I upgraded to digital copies, because I don't really care about ANY physical media anymore, and would just prefer a universal access key to all of my paid favourite movies. In the near future (in an ideal world), we should be able to open any digital media provider and access our paid for content. Purchase a Jaws licence key on Amazon; it'll also work on iTunes. That's the eventuality. Or some other yet to exist platform that becomes the universally adopted standard.

 

The fidelity of high end digital content these days is easily good enough and comparable to on disc equivalents.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Quintus said:

The fidelity of high end digital content these days is easily good enough and comparable to on disc equivalents.

 

I don't know about Amazon and iTunes, or download platforms in general, but at least for Netflix streaming, the compression quality is a far cry from even a sub par Blu-ray.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why do people think anamorphic widescreen is inherently better anyway?  What does it matter if the black bars are horizontal or vertical?  I think there are probably a lot of movies made over the last 50 years that were made in widescreen but had stories which would have been better served by 4:3 or Academy ratio.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm still stuck on DVD, as I invested in a good number just before Blu-Ray became the next big thing. I have a large collection, and I don't really now how to go about switching. Plus, I rent DVDs still (more like from a local library though) because that just works for me. I have no complaints about visuals or audio because I'm a very content fellow and not at all technical. I will continue to stick to DVD until a) my player blows up or b) I die suddenly, in which case I won't be using much of anything. If all else fails I will cave in, I suppose, reverting back to VHS tapes. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Why do people think anamorphic widescreen is inherently better anyway?  What does it matter if the black bars are horizontal or vertical?  I think there are probably a lot of movies made over the last 50 years that were made in widescreen but had stories which would have been better served by 4:3 or Academy ratio.

 

Well, 16:9 (i.e. 1.78:1, which is very close to 1.85:1) is supposed to be a good match for the typical human field of view, so it makes sense as the default ratio. The perfect ratio for a specific piece of content depends on that content of course. That said, I don't recall ever seeing something that was specifically made in 16:9 but made me think that 4:3 would be a better match. But that doesn't mean that type of content doesn't exist. See also people ranting about other people using their phones to make videos in a portrait ratio. Yes, in at least 90% (probably closer to 98%) of all cases, it's the "wrong" ratio. But a short phone video isn't a movie, and sometimes the upright view is actually ideal to capture what's being filmed. Yet people will raise a shit storm when they see it, just because. I don't recall anyone complaining that people sometimes shoot 3:2 photos in portrait orientation (and have been for decades).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Quintus said:

In the near future (in an ideal world), we should be able to open any digital media provider and access our paid for content. Purchase a Jaws licence key on Amazon; it'll also work on iTunes. That's the eventuality. Or some other yet to exist platform that becomes the universally adopted standard.

 

This actually is the case on movies from MOST of the major studios, at least in the US - just link your accounts through MoviesAnywhere! Amazon/iTunes/Vudu/Fandango are all linked, and my copy of Jaws is accessible on all!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Blu-ray encryption is much stronger, which means that it's actually illegal to decrypt the discs you buy yourself

 

I don't think the law distinguishes between breaking the encryption of DVDs and Blu-rays, at least not where I live.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Like, back in the 2000s, life as a movie fan was all about acquiring a huge movie collection to show off to your mates and to have your own little library inside your home. But now that sort of thing is no longer in-vogue, so now I have to get rid of it all for the sake of space-saving that I'll never use for anything else anyway?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.