The fact is that unlike past 'upgrades and improvements' in tech like from mobile phones to smart phones, the companies with digital libraries have not demonstrated the ability to be trusted so people are returning to what they previously trusted.
It's like how Ubisoft is essentially giving up on its storefront and Steam wins doing nothing.
I was like that until I got a 4k TV and started sitting a proper viewing distance from it. The difference between DVD and blu ray is pretty significant. 4k IMO isn't worth it for the most part if you have a blu ray. Especially for older (30+ years) movies with a lot of film grain (since most of the extra detail you're getting is film grain).
Though I will say my 4k copy of Hackers when they're showing the animations of the "inside" of the Gibson computer looks phenomenal.
I've seen people create their own streaming site. Basically you set up a server at home with terabytes of all the shows/movies you want, and then just log in remotely. Now you can use that to watch all of your content ad free from anywhere.
If I was ever going to go some route, that would be it. I've done the whole stacks and stacks of CD's back in the day, never again.
I had the computer (an 10+ year-old HP Z210 workstation with a 4-core Xeon and 8GB ECC RAM) already. Ebay says they're on the order of $100-$150. It's a workstation-grade system, so it's all server components in a tower form factor which is nice.
It's running TrueNAS Scale, which is free. ZFS has some really nice features, which is why I went with it. Downside is ZFS shits the bed performance-wise if you go above 80% capacity. You start to get alerts if you go over 70% capacity.
Drives are 5x 14TB factory refurbs in a RAIDZ2 (ZFS equivalent to a RAID-6, so 2 drives can fail) configuration. Paid about $130/ea which varies depending on supply, so ~$700 including shipping. 14TB was about the sweet spot for price/size when I built the thing.
The drives run on the warm side, especially the one at the top of the tower. It probably would have been smart to put the drives in a caddy with a big fan.
Performance-wise it's limited by my gigabit ethernet household LAN. It probably could keep up with a 2.5 gig connection.
I hope they're smart enough to disconnect their players from networks before the key-revocation updates come through to turn their discs into coasters.
The key revocation updates get stored on the discs themselves. If you put in a newer disc with a newer version of the revocation list, the drive firmware auto-updates.
To workaround, get yourself a blu ray drive which can be modded with the LibreDrive firmware (I have an ASUS BW-16D1HT) and then just use MakeMKV to rip your discs.
Streaming was always gay. Normies will never learn. You easily can have a toaster sized box with thousands of movies and games, but it requires a modicum of effort. They'd rather be paypigs for "the convenience".
A digital license is indistinguishable from a physical product 99% of the time. It’s basically de facto ownership, and it’s the only reason why digital distribution has succeeded in displacing most physical media.
As publishers pull more shenanigans, and the percentage goes down to 98, 97, 95, 90, etc., people will begin to reject digital and seek out physical once again. Problem is the industry more or less made the switch.
Don’t go just for blue ray. Some of them have timers and counts on who many times it plays before it self-detonates. Some also have online servers for ads that must connect or the movie won’t play. Mix in DVDs too. Quality is less but it doesn’t really matter with older cartoons and movies that weren’t recorded for HD.
Which is what backups are for. In theory, optical media lasts longer, but in practice we don't know how accessible disc drives (which are also made of moving parts) are going to be 10 years from now.
PS3's suddenly get a bump in sales again...
The fact is that unlike past 'upgrades and improvements' in tech like from mobile phones to smart phones, the companies with digital libraries have not demonstrated the ability to be trusted so people are returning to what they previously trusted.
It's like how Ubisoft is essentially giving up on its storefront and Steam wins doing nothing.
My PS3 finally bit the dust earlier this year. Luckily I was between shows when it happened, so I didn't have a disc in there.
What made it such a great Blu-Ray player compared to players since? I keep hearing it beats later ones.
Retrieving a disc is the easy part. The difficult part is getting to the CPU. :')
Had to open mine a while ago, it isn't that hard really.
I dunno about now, but back in 2006, it was cheaper to buy a $599 PS3 than it was to buy a dedicated Blu-Ray player
I will never give up my Xbox
Because Def Jam: Vendetta is the best fighting game to exist.
How retarded is the industry when you keep winning by changing literally nothing?
Advisor: "We need to be more innovative to have more growth!"
CEO: see's advisor's previous client shoot themselves in the head
CEO: "Do we?"
Man and here's me who never bothered to upgrade from DVD's to blu rays.
I was like that until I got a 4k TV and started sitting a proper viewing distance from it. The difference between DVD and blu ray is pretty significant. 4k IMO isn't worth it for the most part if you have a blu ray. Especially for older (30+ years) movies with a lot of film grain (since most of the extra detail you're getting is film grain).
Though I will say my 4k copy of Hackers when they're showing the animations of the "inside" of the Gibson computer looks phenomenal.
HACK THE PLANET!
I've seen people create their own streaming site. Basically you set up a server at home with terabytes of all the shows/movies you want, and then just log in remotely. Now you can use that to watch all of your content ad free from anywhere.
If I was ever going to go some route, that would be it. I've done the whole stacks and stacks of CD's back in the day, never again.
I set up a plex server earlier this year (chose plex because easier to get setup on tablets) and I haven’t looked back. Cannot recommend more.
Jellyfin, Plex or Emby is the way to go.
plex seems like it turned into a streaming svc,
That's what I do. I have a 42 TB NAS that I put everything on with a bunch of Kodi instances connected to it and a central SQL database.
Works pretty much exactly like a streaming site would except the video quality is much higher since most of my movies are just raw disc rips.
How much does that cost? Including disks, server/array, redundancy, everything.
I had the computer (an 10+ year-old HP Z210 workstation with a 4-core Xeon and 8GB ECC RAM) already. Ebay says they're on the order of $100-$150. It's a workstation-grade system, so it's all server components in a tower form factor which is nice.
It's running TrueNAS Scale, which is free. ZFS has some really nice features, which is why I went with it. Downside is ZFS shits the bed performance-wise if you go above 80% capacity. You start to get alerts if you go over 70% capacity.
Drives are 5x 14TB factory refurbs in a RAIDZ2 (ZFS equivalent to a RAID-6, so 2 drives can fail) configuration. Paid about $130/ea which varies depending on supply, so ~$700 including shipping. 14TB was about the sweet spot for price/size when I built the thing.
The drives run on the warm side, especially the one at the top of the tower. It probably would have been smart to put the drives in a caddy with a big fan.
Performance-wise it's limited by my gigabit ethernet household LAN. It probably could keep up with a 2.5 gig connection.
/u/KeeperOfTheGate
Damn, I had no idea how cheap 12tb drives were. That's amazing.
What kind of NAS are you using? Mine is 12tb and I'm out of space. Thinking to upgrade.
basically everything is free somewhere. I don't own, but I don't pay either.
I'm doing the Plex thing too. I don't love Plex, but it's pretty good.
I just download
I hope they're smart enough to disconnect their players from networks before the key-revocation updates come through to turn their discs into coasters.
The key revocation updates get stored on the discs themselves. If you put in a newer disc with a newer version of the revocation list, the drive firmware auto-updates.
To workaround, get yourself a blu ray drive which can be modded with the LibreDrive firmware (I have an ASUS BW-16D1HT) and then just use MakeMKV to rip your discs.
There's a wide array of standards on blue-ray discs. Some will require that you update before they play.
I inherited a blu-ray player from my dad when he died, and unlike the rest of his home theater gear, it was not hopelessly out of date, so I kept it.
I also have several SATA blu-ray drives, so I can rip stuff to H265 MP4 when I get it.
Streaming was always gay. Normies will never learn. You easily can have a toaster sized box with thousands of movies and games, but it requires a modicum of effort. They'd rather be paypigs for "the convenience".
A digital license is indistinguishable from a physical product 99% of the time. It’s basically de facto ownership, and it’s the only reason why digital distribution has succeeded in displacing most physical media.
As publishers pull more shenanigans, and the percentage goes down to 98, 97, 95, 90, etc., people will begin to reject digital and seek out physical once again. Problem is the industry more or less made the switch.
Slow boiling frogs lose again.
Don’t go just for blue ray. Some of them have timers and counts on who many times it plays before it self-detonates. Some also have online servers for ads that must connect or the movie won’t play. Mix in DVDs too. Quality is less but it doesn’t really matter with older cartoons and movies that weren’t recorded for HD.
Fuck discs. Hard drives all the way.
All good until they get knock or fail from old age.
Which is what backups are for. In theory, optical media lasts longer, but in practice we don't know how accessible disc drives (which are also made of moving parts) are going to be 10 years from now.