Will bluray ever be replaced?

Y

yepimonfire

Audioholic Samurai
I'm specifically talking about as a
physical media format. Obviously streaming has gotten pretty damn , good. But I jumped husband

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j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
4K Blu-ray means BD will still be around for a while. Long term, I think it will be some form of streaming for everything going forward.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
I'm specifically talking about as a
physical media format. Obviously streaming has gotten pretty damn , good. But I jumped husband

Sent from my SM-G360T1 using Tapatalk
Everything gets replaced in the end.
 
S

shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
I think it's safe to say that blu-ray is the end of optical media and won't be replaced by a disc of that sort.
 
William Lemmerhirt

William Lemmerhirt

Audioholic Overlord
I think BD is the end of physical media as far as nothing will replace it in a physical sense. I also think it will be the standard for a long time. And I hope so too. Streaming has certainly come a long way, but it's still got a ways to go.
 
Y

yepimonfire

Audioholic Samurai
I'm specifically talking about as a
physical media format. Obviously streaming has gotten pretty damn , good. But I jumped husband

Sent from my SM-G360T1 using Tapatalk
Wow looks like Tapatalk butchered my post.

What I originally wrote was:

With 4k on bluray, lossless 7.1 audio, and Atmos allowing a ridiculous number of channels and objects, we've pretty much reached the final Frontier so to speak. 4k is already overkill for home theater, so unless someone manages to convince ignorant consumers they need 8k and beyond, we're done as far as video and audio goes. We don't need more space.

The only thing that might replace it is streaming, 4k video via hevc is easily streamable with today's high speed Internet, if someone can figure out how to transmit lossless 7.1 audio with atmos, I'll sell my bluray player.
 
Verdinut

Verdinut

Audioholic Spartan
Wow looks like Tapatalk butchered my post.

What I originally wrote was:

With 4k on bluray, lossless 7.1 audio, and Atmos allowing a ridiculous number of channels and objects, we've pretty much reached the final Frontier so to speak. 4k is already overkill for home theater, so unless someone manages to convince ignorant consumers they need 8k and beyond, we're done as far as video and audio goes. We don't need more space.

The only thing that might replace it is streaming, 4k video via hevc is easily streamable with today's high speed Internet, if someone can figure out how to transmit lossless 7.1 audio with atmos, I'll sell my bluray player.
I believe 8K Video is on its way and would most likely be available in the Blu-ray format in the near future.
 
Y

yepimonfire

Audioholic Samurai
I believe 8K Video is on its way and would most likely be available in the Blu-ray format in the near future.
Will it fit though? Most 4k blurays I've popped in my computer are about 30 to 40gb just for the main feature. 8k is a doubling in resolution.

I have 20/16 vision with glasses and can make out pixels at 1080p on a 50" screen at 7' away but I can't make out 4k on 60" or larger screen even at 4 feet. There's no place for 8k in home theater as far as I'm concerned.
 
Last edited:
Verdinut

Verdinut

Audioholic Spartan
Will it fit though? Most 4k blurays I've popped in my computer are about 30 to 40gb just for the main feature. 8k is a doubling in resolution.

I have 20/16 vision with glasses and can make out pixels at 1080p on a 50" screen at 7' away but I can't make out 4k on 60" or larger screen even at 4 feet. There's no place for 8k in home theater as far as I'm concerned.
Once, I read that the Blu-ray format had the possibility of providing up to eight layers of data on one disc. Then, if that info is exact, I guess there could a possibility.

One of my friends who is in the AV business told me that we could see a definitive improvement with 8K over 4K on a 75 inch screen. Similarly, we can even see a slight image improvement with a 4K Blu-ray player connected to a 1080P display. I also noticed a sharper image on my 50 inch Panasonic Plasma Display when watching last years hockey finals, because cameramen were using 4K cameras.
 
Halon451

Halon451

Audioholic Samurai
I think anyone could sense the demise of physical media once blockbuster video went out of business. In a way it signaled the future. Just this past weekend I packed up a big bag of old movies to get rid of and went to my local Movie Stop to see what I could get for them. Turns out they too went out of business. Then I took it to a local record/movie store as they always buy/sell music and movies and the guy told me no way. He couldn't sell the dvd's and blu-rays he had in stock already. No one is buying.

I tend to believe that 4k blu ray is the last physical media we, at the consumer level, will ever see. They'll continue to make these for a long time of course but I highly doubt anything else will succeed it.

I will continue to buy blu rays as long as they make them. As much as I love the convenience of streaming media, it's audio is a long way from catching up to the quality of its video. Thing is this isn't even a concern for the majority of consumers who play their content through cheap systems or even just their tv speakers. We HT enthusiasts don't represent the norm. So for audio alone I will continue to buy discs. When they are able to step up their audio delivery on steaming networks to match what a blu rat can offer that'll be a different story. At that point I don't think anyone will need to own physical copies any longer unless they just can't let the format go. :)
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
I've wondered if holography in the home is a next step for a while; found this in the blu-ray wiki:

The Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD), described in the ECMA-377 standard, has been in development by The Holography System Development (HSD) Forum using a green writing/reading laser (532 nm) and a red positioning/addressing laser (650 nm). It is to offer MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), HEVC (H.265), and VC-1 encoding, supporting a maximum storage capacity of 6TB.[68] No systems corresponding to the Ecma International HVD standard have been released.[69] Because the Blu-ray Disc format is upgradable it poses challenges to the adoption of the HVD format.
 
S

sterling shoote

Audioholic Field Marshall
I'm specifically talking about as a
physical media format. Obviously streaming has gotten pretty damn , good. But I jumped husband

Sent from my SM-G360T1 using Tapatalk
Blu-ray will get better, and hopefully, we will someday have more channels of audio than we can count, an orchestra full of them. Awesome!
 
BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
I don't think there will be another format war again. Blu-ray was the last.

Understand, if 'Blu-ray gets better' - it is actually another format.

4K UHD Blu-ray discs can't play back in standard BD players. Just like BDs can't play back in DVD players, and DVDs can't play back in CD players. 4K UHD Blu-ray is actually a new disc standard. We may see 8K Blu-ray come along some day, and that will also be an upgrade. It may be based upon the current BD standard with 4 or 8 or 10 layer discs. Or it could be something a fair bit different. But, there is not enough market left for another format war like HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray.

The ridiculous jump for people to 4K on their 40" displays they view from 12' away is a joke as it is. Then they watch their 1080i 13Mbs cable television and rave about what an improvement it is. *sigh*

Streaming is the future, but it's a future of convenience rather than quality. It's the MP3 of the CD. Like it or hate it, those that care about video quality are generally going to be screwed in this entire process. Making TVs that are higher and higher quality in terms of video, while delivering video that actually is of lower and lower quality.

A 4K stream at 25Mbs is slower than what Blu-ray has delivered from day one with their 1080p video. So, the benchmark for video quality will remain Blu-ray. It has already moved to a new format with UHD Blu-ray. It may move forward again in future years with 8K Blu-ray. But, it is the last time there will be a major format war.

HVD doesn't seem to be a likely format to move into the market. It is a heck of a technology in terms of storage, but isn't supported by a Sony or a Panasonic. As well, since computers are ditching optical drives completely, the use in a computer is pretty much meaningless. It would find it's market from gaming consoles and movie players, which are showing no rush towards the UHD format, let alone something beyond that.

Remember the real buzz around Blu-ray? There was quite a bit. Certainly the format war sparked some interesting discussions, and it was all over the pages of the magazines.

How about UHD Blu-ray? Not so much.

Eventually, I expect, all the Blu-ray players will become UHD players. It's just going to become the 'standard player' that people buy. If there is a follow up for 8K, it will likely follow the same path. Slow, trudging, no dazzle or excitement. It will most likely fit right into the round hole that Blu-ray has created as a format and will be the last physical media format that any of us will remember.
 
S

shadyJ

Speaker of the House
Staff member
BMXTRIX, so many good points. Better picture technology to display a worse picture, the market is un-godamn-believable. And with new FCC policies, the adoption of ultra-wide broadband will slow down even more so. I think other countries are moving in the right direction though, so I think your complaints are more relevant for the US than other parts of the world who are adopting true ultra-wide broadbands at a much faster rate. The US takes a step back while developed countries take a step forward. Another thing to keep in mind for other parts of the world is, since their homes tend to be smaller, they sit closer to their television, so high resolutions have more of a return on modest screen sizes.
 
Y

yepimonfire

Audioholic Samurai
I haven't had the chance to view a 4k stream and I have no idea what bitrate provides an artifact free experience using hevc. I do know at 1080p using netflix and Amazon prime I get near bluray quality. I have no clue what bitrate is being used for DD+, I do know I've sometimes noticed some artifacts in the audio.

Comparing 4k bitrates to 1080p bitrates is pointless if hevc is used. An hevc file can be compressed to half the size of an h264 file and retain the same quality.
 
Halon451

Halon451

Audioholic Samurai
I haven't had the chance to view a 4k stream and I have no idea what bitrate provides an artifact free experience using hevc. I do know at 1080p using netflix and Amazon prime I get near bluray quality. I have no clue what bitrate is being used for DD+, I do know I've sometimes noticed some artifacts in the audio.

Comparing 4k bitrates to 1080p bitrates is pointless if hevc is used. An hevc file can be compressed to half the size of an h264 file and retain the same quality.
At least my own eyes can't really detect any differences between 4k streaming content on Netflix and what I see from a 4k BD. However the differences in audio quality are fairly significant. Sometimes it's good, many times (on Netflix) I may as well be watching ultra poor cable tv with its overly compressed sound quality. Sound quality does not match picture quality with streaming sources IME.
 
Halon451

Halon451

Audioholic Samurai
I think they assume the majority of people just stream content using their TV speakers for the audio.. which may actually be the case, I don't know. Even a lot of connectivity options seems to neglect a typical AVR/amp setup. At the most, people may opt for a sound bar fed directly from their TV outputs.

I hate sound bars.
 
Halon451

Halon451

Audioholic Samurai
Oh also since BMX mentioned it above, I find the quality of my 1080i cable content actually looks worse on my 4k TV than it ever did on my old 1080p plasma. It's fairly unforgiving in terms of typical artifacts and pixelation present in cable tv sources.
 
Y

yepimonfire

Audioholic Samurai
At least my own eyes can't really detect any differences between 4k streaming content on Netflix and what I see from a 4k BD. However the differences in audio quality are fairly significant. Sometimes it's good, many times (on Netflix) I may as well be watching ultra poor cable tv with its overly compressed sound quality. Sound quality does not match picture quality with streaming sources IME.
Actually netflix is the better sounding one in my experience. I notice no compression artifacts. Amazon prime is a crap shoot, I've had good experiences with their movies but prime original tv shows show some compression artifacts, it most certainly doesn't sound as bad as regular DD used in cable broadcasts and DVDs. DD+ is far better than regular DD, which is an aging inefficient format. It supports bitrates as high as 1700kbps but I seriously doubt streaming services utilize this bitrate. Unfortunately lossless audio will likely never be streamable, both truehd and dts ma often have bitrates exceeding 7000kbps, if you've got 4k hevc at an average bitrate of 7mbps and lossless audio at 7mbps that's a minimum of 14mbps down. I know my uverse is only about 12mbps, even if you're lucky enough to have fiber at 30mbps you're still pushing the limits. I would like to see the full bitrate utilized in DD+. I assume it should be transparent at around 700kbps for 5.1.

My major gripe with streaming audio is a lack of 7.1 and Atmos, supposedly VUDU offers it but I haven't had the chance to try it out since my firetv doesn't support it. 7.1 isn't entirely necessary since pliix does a fantastic job of adding surround backs.

I don't really watch cable, it's overpriced, poor quality audio and video, and doesn't offer what streaming does.

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