Luke James is a freelance writer and journalist.\u00a0 Although his background is in legal, he has a personal interest in all things tech, especially hardware and microelectronics, and anything regulatory.\u00a0 ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-20/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Luke James Social Links Navigation Contributor Luke James is a freelance writer and journalist. Although his background is in legal, he has a personal interest in all things tech, especially hardware and microelectronics, and anything regulatory.
bit_user Good news, but… At this point, what I think we really need is higher-density formats. I don't use multi-layer BD-R, both for cost reasons and philosophical concerns about its reliability. So, I'm effectively limited to 25 GB. Higher-density layers would also translate into faster burn speeds, BTW. For stuff like documents and photos, 25 GB is still plenty. However, phones with 1 TB of storage aren't new (although they might become a bit less common, for the next few years), and people who film a lot of videos on their phones will quickly find BD-R to be inadequate as a backup media. And if I ever wanted to burn a copy of all my CD rips, I'd definitely want to do it in greater than 25 GB increments. Reply
mccainm While I don't use Blu-ray for data storage, I have to admit that I have yet to find a streaming service that can compare to the quality (video and audio) of Blu-Ray…more specifically UHD/4K. I still think there's a market but only Sony (for now) and Panasonic actively manufacture and sell players. I hope there is some future realization that it is superior to streaming and the "market" improves. Reply
Daniel15 mccainm said: I have to admit that I have yet to find a streaming service that can compare to the quality (video and audio) of Blu-Ray The only services I've seen do this are "questionable" services like Real Debrid and Premiumize that can steam Blu-ray rips. I'm not sure why legit streaming services don't do it. Seems like a missed opportunity. Reply
Simonhayteruk Daniel15 said: The only services I've seen do this are "questionable" services like Real Debrid and Premiumize that can steam Blu-ray rips. I'm not sure why legit streaming services don't do it. Seems like a missed opportunity. They don't do it because most ISPs can't handle lower compressions. Even through most ISPs are given free servers from the likes of Netflix, Google and Facebook, those servers will be limited by their port speeds, bigger ports, more costs. But let's throw away the port speeds arguement, and assume it's unlimited, you are faced with a new problem, street speed. Most FTTP/FTTH with one gig speeds operate with 1:64, meaning it's shared with 64 people at the cabinet. Generally these cabs are 10 Gbit per 64 users, if everyone was to watch uncompressed movies you're looking at 64, it averages out at 4.8 Gbits average and peaks 8.4 Gbits. This means even without the overhead, you have only 1.6 Gbits left. Take me example, I have 2.5 Gbit intenet, I get those speeds because things are compressed, if they weren't, I wouldn't get those speeds. It only takes 4 heavy users on a 1:64 to max out the 10 Gbit cabinet speed. In other words, pretty much all broadband oversell their product, wether it be FTTC or FTTP, we are all using shared bandwidth. The only exemption to this is some business connections will often be shared with fewer users, it's leased line with no sharing for you cut off the pie. We won't see lossy movies for several years to come, until ISPs roll out 100 Gbit between 64. The next upgrades will likely be 25 Gbit, the other issue is, peering, these internet providers simply don't have the enough peering to provide true speed, that's why companies like netflix Facebook, and Google throw hardware at them, because they simply don't have external infrastructure and peering agreements in place to support the speeds they sell you, they're banking on you to use internal traffic, and even encourage speedtests to places like speedtest which often they host on their own internal network 🫢 Reply
Daniel15 Simonhayteruk said: if everyone was to watch uncompressed movies you're looking at 64, it averages out at 4.8 Gbits average and peaks 8.4 Gbits. You don't need uncompressed video, just higher quality video. Blu-rays are compressed, but the quality is more than sufficient for most people. 4K Blu-ray is 70-100Mbps, compared to around 15Mbps for Netflix 4K. Practically all developed countries have a median broadband speed over 100Mbps (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_connection_speeds). In the USA, 9/10 people have internet speeds faster than 100Mbps. I'm in the USA with 10Gbps for $50/month, and even though bandwidth is shared, I don't have any trouble hitting max speeds even during peak times. Using <2% of the max bandwidth to stream a movie isn't an issue. Simonhayteruk said: The next upgrades will likely be 25 Gbit, Residential 25Gbps already exists – you can get it in Belgium, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Japan, and probably other countries. Data centers are already using 40Gbps and 100Gbps connections per server. Reply
derekullo A 50 gigabyte blu-ray disc can be downloaded in 6 minutes using gigabit speed. An absolute worst case scenario for streaming a blu-ray would be like this. A very short 1 hour movie that takes up the entire 50 gigabyte blu-ray disc. 50 gigabytes*1000 = 50,000 megabytes * 8 = 400,000 megabits 1 hour = 60 minutes = 3600 seconds 400,000 megabits / 3600 seconds = 111 megabits per second A much more realistic number would be a 35 gigabyte image containing a 2 hour movie. 35 gigabytes*1000 = 35,000 megabytes * 8 = 280,000 megabits 2 hours = 120 minutes = 7200 seconds 280,000 megabits / 7200 seconds = 38.8 megabits per second Most 4k movies that I've seen "get backed up" into a 20-30 gigabyte mkv/mp4. This is due to compression and not the full 50 gigabytes being used on disc. Reply
usertests bit_user said: For $3k ?? Nope. Not even if it supported 3D. Honestly, I don't mind the UHD streams I get from Amazon and others. One thing that does bug me about streaming is the lack of "extras". Sometimes, there'll be a version of a movie that does include some extras, but that's a very outside occurrence. I guess it's for the rich people who can buy the $15,000 TV, don't want the overly compressed streams on >100 inches, and may care a lot more about "the director's intent" if they happen to work in Hollywood. I read an article about one of these services years ago, and I think Kaleidascape is it, but I'm not 100% confident. So maybe there is something else out there but the general idea is the same. One detail I vaguely remember about the service is that they might be downloading copies that exceed the size of any UHD Blu-ray disc, e.g. 170 GB instead of the 50-100 GB discs defined by the standard. Maybe they are using digital cinema package (DCP) containers. But again, I read about this years ago so I don't remember. Reply
dimar Honestly, I'm only interested in M-Disc recordable discs for a long term file archives. I only buy movies in 4K I grew up with. Streaming is enough for everything else. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/verbatim-and-i-o-data-extend-blu-ray-supply-pledge-as-manufacturers-exit-the-market#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
- Original Apollo 11 code open-sourced by NASA — original Command Module and Lunar Module code repos are now public domain resources
- Benchmarking Nvidia's RTX Neural Texture Compression tech that can reduce VRAM usage by over 80%
- After jumping 2,200% over the last twelve months, DDR4 spot prices fall 5%, the first decline in nearly a year — DDR5 pricing sees some relief in China channel
- Anthropic's Claude Mythos isn't a sentient super-hacker, it's a sales pitch — claims of 'thousands' of severe zero-days rely on just 198 manual reviews
- Silverstone IceMyst Pro 360 Pro Review: Designed for RAM overclocking
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.