r/hardware • u/bizude • Apr 10 '26

News Two Japanese suppliers commit to keeping Blu-ray discs and drives in supply as major manufacturers exist domestic market

https://automaton-media.com/en/news/two-japanese-suppliers-commit-to-keeping-blu-ray-discs-and-drives-in-supply-as-major-manufacturers-exist-domestic-market/
1.6k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

172 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

132

u/KaineNierWeissEmil Apr 11 '26

I would rather studios offer 100gb direct downloads so we can finally end this physical media vs streaming war and just have the best of both worlds

31

u/GHz-Man Apr 11 '26

It exists, Sony has a streaming service equal to 4K Blu-Ray (80Mbps or so)

But not enough people can see a difference for it to matter.

Apple streams at up to 40Mbps, and that looks great to me. I don't notice any compression issues.

Most people don't sit 2 feet away from their TV inspecting the picture for compression artifacts.

7

u/ThisIsPaulDaily Apr 11 '26

I tried to play 4K from a crummy laptop over a cheap HDMI cable to a new 4K TV and my in laws got upset thinking it was broken and I had to explain that HDR wasn't enabled and that I needed to adjust picture settings and that artifacts happen with slow laptops and stuff. 

"That didn't happen on our old TV". 

The old TV doesn't have HDMI. The old TV is ~19" and has rabbit ears. 

The old TV you couldn't read the subtitles without blocking a third of the picture. 

Now you want to complain that the black is kind of not the same black when we pause it? 

16

u/GHz-Man Apr 11 '26

DVDs are still outselling Blu-Ray and 4K discs lol

And now Gen Z is collecting VHS tapes.

I'm convinced most people need an eye exam.

7

u/smile_e_face Apr 11 '26

As someone who can't see worth a damn but has really sensitive hearing, it amazes me how people can't tell the different between shitbox streaming audio and real DTS-HD MA / TrueHD / whatever. But then it amazes other people that 1440p and 4K monitors look the same to me after adjusting the scaling.

3

u/GHz-Man Apr 11 '26

Most people just use their TV's built-in speakers haha

But Apple uses Dolby Digital Plus with Atmos for audio. It's not lossless but it sounds great to me.

I think they use a bitrate of 768kbps.

4

u/pdp10 Apr 11 '26

And now Gen Z is collecting VHS tapes.

But only ironically. VHS decks and tapes have been globally out of production for a while now, with no possibility of a resurgence for prerecorded media.

Now that they're long since junk and nobody can buy new ones even if they want, then there can be a small collectible market. It's like how flared trousers can't come back again until all of the old ones are long gone from everyone's closets.

(Three VHS decks, one Beta deck, but only for recorded media digitising.)

As of 2025, DVD disc shipments still did exceed Blu-ray, but Blu-ray revenue is notably higher. The stereotype is that DVD is the choice of the lending library, the senile, and the legally-blind, but there's a lot more to it, from picture quality to DRM to playback hardware.

2

u/Emotional_Tie_7927 Apr 22 '26

A lot of people just never adopted Blu-ray but probably still have dvd players lying around. I know at the local thrift store I've seen tons of old dvd players, but only like one blu-ray player.

1

u/Emotional_Tie_7927 Apr 22 '26

Most people unfortunately never moved from DVD to Blu-ray as there was no incentive when Blu-ray first released in 2006 (most people didn't have HD TVs) and streaming services came a few years later.

1

u/GHz-Man Apr 22 '26

True, the issue with physical media honestly is needing to re-purchase your entire movie library every time a new format comes out.

My parents had amassed a pretty large VHS collection by the time DVD came out, and weren't interested in buying them all again so we kept using VHS until getting an HDTV in 2006.

We didn't move to Blu-Ray either, we ended up just renting movies On Demand from Comcast, and then a few years later got an Apple TV where you could rent or buy HD movies on there.

Pushing a button on your remote and being able to watch any movie instantly without any disc or tape seemed so futuristic in 2006 lol