• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Do you think Blu-Ray / 4k BR optical media's days are numbered?

Page 4 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

Do you think Blu-Ray / 4k BR optical media's days are numbered?

  • Only in the sense that some form of physical media will replace them

    Votes: 5 20.0%

  • Yes, 10 years or less left before the medium dies out completely

    Votes: 12 48.0%

  • Yes, but more than 10 years left to go before they do

    Votes: 8 32.0%
  • Total voters
    25
To anyone looking to buy external DVD/BD/UHD drives, I can only recommend Aliexpress.

It may sound iffy to some, but Chinese e-tailers have become mainstream, and their prices are still under control, compared to the usual suspects in the North American space (Amazon, Newegg etc.)

Been buying stuff from them (RAM, CPU, GPU and motherboards) since the pandemic, and I never had a problem.

I just bought a 4K burner for CA$90, and it's a LG BU40N drive. Can't go wrong with that.
 
mikeymikec said:
Given my dependency on being able to read BR discs on my PC, I went ahead and bought a spare internal BR-RW drive just in case.

I don't know whether I'm being ridiculous with my decision to get this drive, I guess only time will truly tell. On one hand I've seen and known of a fair few storage technologies that have been and gone; most of them were superseded by something well and truly better, there's also the fact that well after the era of the floppy disk one can still buy a USB floppy drive, however I think there's also a factor being how popular was the storage medium in its era (rather like how popular versions of Windows are supported by third-party software makers well beyond their EOL date and unpopular versions are often cut off as soon as their EOL arrives). CDs and DVDs were popular, I think it's fair to say that BRs weren't so much.

On the other hand, with the move towards streaming and the younger generation's general preference for the cloud, maybe nothing will supersede 4KBR. Player and drive manufacturers have been shutting down production too. While it's possible that BR may resurface like vinyl records did, I don't like those odds for BR.
Click to expand...
I think it's sensible. It's like insurance; you buy it just in case. If BR ends up lasting long term, you aren't out a ton of money. If not, you can cash in your insurance, and use the discs you've accumulated.
 
Hell, I even have HD-DVDs, along with several computer AND standalone drives to play them... As long as they are still functional (Warner was infamous for defective discs in both HD-DVD and DVD formats!), there's no reason why they can't be enjoyed for many more years...
 
NutBucket said:
I understand your comment about SVHS but how it is relevant beyond recording content from a higher quality source? I don't recall it making regular VHS look any better?

Also recently I've purchased a few laserdisks...just because.
Click to expand...
SVHS recorded broadcast TV a lot better than VHS. You needed SVHS blank tapes to do it. I don't think they made a lot of SVHS movie cassettes. I think I had (still have!) one. Mostly I just made recordings of TV programs to watch later, mostly news or sports.

DVDs are a lot better than SVHS. But they aren't suited to DVR work. That's a whole other ballgame.
 
Last edited:

Do you think Blu-Ray / 4k BR optical media's days are numbered?​


Well, BR is pretty good. 4K BR is better but it's not night and day. Numbered? You mean 8K? I haven't seen 8K viewing equipment but figure you need special viewing circumstances to discern a difference between 4K and 8K and for most people it isn't practical to set that up and utilize it. TBH I'm fine with DVD a lot of the time.
 
AnitaPeterson said:
Hell, I even have HD-DVDs, along with several computer AND standalone drives to play them... As long as they are still functional (Warner was infamous for defective discs in both HD-DVD and DVD formats!), there's no reason why they can't be enjoyed for many more years...
Click to expand...
I had a bunch of WB HD-DVDs, it was a real shock and disappointment when one of them wouldn't play seven years later. Then I found out about this issue, and I don't think any of them were working at that point. Made me wish I'd taken part in that whole Red2Blu thing.
 
nakedfrog said:
I had a bunch of WB HD-DVDs, it was a real shock and disappointment when one of them wouldn't play seven years later. Then I found out about this issue, and I don't think any of them were working at that point. Made me wish I'd taken part in that whole Red2Blu thing.
Click to expand...
This is part of why I make "personal backups" of my media. The other reasons are to be able to skip all the unskippable garbage that comes from playing the disc directly, the mediocre pause/resume (because it never buffers enough so you get some brief skipping), and to be able to just easily browse and access my catalog from the comfort of my couch with a remote.
 
Brainonska511 said:
This is part of why I make "personal backups" of my media. The other reasons are to be able to skip all the unskippable garbage that comes from playing the disc directly, the mediocre pause/resume (because it never buffers enough so you get some brief skipping), and to be able to just easily browse and access my catalog from the comfort of my couch with a remote.
Click to expand...
I did get an Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive somewhere around that time and backed up all of my collection that could still be read. I don't even actually own a dedicated 4K UHD player, just a drive to rip them with after I buy them.
 
Brainonska511 said:
This is part of why I make "personal backups" of my media. The other reasons are to be able to skip all the unskippable garbage that comes from playing the disc directly, the mediocre pause/resume (because it never buffers enough so you get some brief skipping), and to be able to just easily browse and access my catalog from the comfort of my couch with a remote.
Click to expand...
IMO it makes series on discs a lot more accessible too. In the entire time I've had my X-Files season discs (S1-5), I don't think I've watched the entire collection once. The TNG BR complete collection is also a PITA as the discs aren't labelled with the episodes and the episode list is a double-sided sheet that makes up the box set cover.
 
mikeymikec said:
IMO it makes series on discs a lot more accessible too. In the entire time I've had my X-Files season discs (S1-5), I don't think I've watched the entire collection once. The TNG BR complete collection is also a PITA as the discs aren't labelled with the episodes and the episode list is a double-sided sheet that makes up the box set cover.
Click to expand...
I was || close to buying the Angel tv series, but the thought of ripping all those discs was disheartening. I ended up finding a low res copy /out there/, and it was good enough. Better than ripping a shit ton of discs. They'd have had my money if a drm free digital file was on offer. I definitely don't feel like swapping discs in and out just to watch.
 
Yup, after the Warner debacle I ripped all my HD-DVDs to .iso files. I still lost a Planet Earth BBC set, and that hurt, but it was later reissued to BD in a better package.

The most hurtful experience must be the Superman DVD Tin Box, circa 2005. A friend bought it, and it was really expensive at launch, but I was too cheap to buy it and so I made 1:1 copies of it on dual-layer DVDRs... A few years later, my friend discovered that his original discs were affected by DVD rot, which made them unplayable. Now he is super glad I made my own copies, because I was able to return the favor and burn them for him on brand-new blank discs.
 
lxskllr said:
I was || close to buying the Angel tv series, but the thought of ripping all those discs was disheartening. I ended up finding a low res copy /out there/, and it was good enough. Better than ripping a shit ton of discs. They'd have had my money if a drm free digital file was on offer. I definitely don't feel like swapping discs in and out just to watch.
Click to expand...
I legitimately own the Batman TAS BR box set, but I didn't take the time to rip it myself. I did a little cosplay involving a buccaneer with a thirst for the sea. Just saying...
 
The wife got me a record player for Christmas. It was something I had wanted for a while, but never got around to getting. It is the Sony PS-LX310BTand it has been awesome. My dear brother passed away and left me a huge collection of his records from the late 60's and up. One night while the wife was away, I had a few beers and stayed up late going through and listening to some of the records. Something about that needle hitting the record and making that bump and some static noises before it starts playing brought back so many fond memories. I even bought a few new records and every now and again I throw one on while we are making dinner, it's fun. So is turning up a 33 RPM record to 45 RPM 🙂

Anyway, I also started ripping some CD's he and I had to FLAC files for use in my vehicle via a small thumb drive. Apparently Windows no longer allows album and artist information to be gleaned from the internet, so I had to download Exact Audio Copy and figure that program out. My current desktop does not have a spinning disk in it, but my secondary gamer does so I use that. I also have a spare burner in a box in case that dies.

I also got interested in SACD since I was poking around the web looking at new CD's and vinyl. I don't have a disk player for my home theater, so I ordered a Sony UBP-X800M2 and one SACD just to see how it sounds. The moral of this long story is that I wanted to have more physical media around the house. I always keep my CD's stored on a hard drive somewhere, but some of my very old CD's are actually starting to dry and crack and become unusable. I have a few Bluray disks, and no HD-DVD's as they are expensive and I can stream in 4k anyway.

I also have some VHS tapes from as far back as 1986, I don't know if they would work so well any longer. I have a player, and I might try someday.
 
I have an XBox Series X which I stopped playing a few months ago and only play games on PC again. But I'm keeping it around because it has a Blu Ray disc drive plus why not, I may end up getting a game to play with a partner on my big screen tv and it would be useful to have around.

I could probably sell this thing for what I got it for since it is one of the OG Halo Limited Edition ones which I got lucky on and got during Covid from Walmart or Best Buy on one of the many many tries I attempted to buy a regular Series X back then, constantly following twitter accounts for new drops and refreshing the checkout page on various websites over and over again on my phone and pc.

I think Blu-Rays will stick around for a bit in a niche sense.
 
MrSquished said:
I have an XBox Series X which I stopped playing a few months ago and only play games on PC again. But I'm keeping it around because it has a Blu Ray disc drive plus why not, I may end up getting a game to play with a partner on my big screen tv and it would be useful to have around.
Click to expand...
Couch co-op has been a thing my partner and I have done for over a decade 🙂
You can do it on PC too, of course, but it sounds like you aren't doing your PC gaming on the big screen.
 
nakedfrog said:
Couch co-op has been a thing my partner and I have done for over a decade 🙂
You can do it on PC too, of course, but it sounds like you aren't doing your PC gaming on the big screen.
Click to expand...
Exactly it!

I figure why not keep it around vs buying something new because this has all the graphical power I would need for anything like that. When I get a new micro LED tv in a year or two, would love to get some BluRay discs.

What are your favorite games to play together?
 
MrSquished said:
Exactly it!

I figure why not keep it around vs buying something new because this has all the graphical power I would need for anything like that. When I get a new micro LED tv in a year or two, would love to get some BluRay discs.

What are your favorite games to play together?
Click to expand...
We've played so much Divinity: Original Sin 1 & 2 and Baldur's Gate 3. But we had a lot of fun with Double Dragon: Neon and Lost Castle 1 & 2, and Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime. We were on a Diablo kick for a while before Divinity: OS1. The occasional action-adventure-puzzle game, like Trine or Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris.
 
Looks like the players are still being made. My samsung player is on borrowed time. Probably time to look at getting a replacement.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top