News LG stops making Blu-ray players, marking the end of an era — limited units remain while inventory lasts

[usertests]

There is, it's called "Archival Disc".
Sony & Panasonic both STUBBORNLY refuse to release it to the mass consumers and try to limit it as a Enterprise solution ONLY, that FAILED miserably.

I knew about Archival Disc and ODA. It was definite proof that there could have been at least a 300 GB Blu-ray for 8K content. Instead, even these enterprise products are discontinued AFAICT.

1 TB was promised multiple times as far back as the mid-2000s:
https://phys.org/news/2005-02-companies-holographic-versatile-disc-hvd.html

New DVD-sized disc to hold 1 to 5 terabytes of data

Mempile claims to be close to releasing a new type of optical media that can …

arstechnica.com

https://www.techpowerup.com/132610/tdk-develops-new-optical-disc-that-holds-1-terabyte-of-data

Fujifilm will introduce 1TB optical disc in 2015

(Phys.org)—Fujifilm is working on a new recording method for optical discs. It has developed the new method through the use of two-photon absorption in order to generate heat, and the report in TechOn! notes that this two-photon method is suited for multilayer discs. As the reaction caused by...

phys.org

Recently there was hype about a "petabit" disc, i.e. >100 TB:

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-com...optical-disk-format-with-up-to-125tb-capacity

That is what I'm interested in seeing now, but it would never be pitched to consumers. We could only hope that drives and discs could become cheap enough to beat out other forms of bulk storage, and easier to use than tape. Wouldn't it be nice if an optical disc delivered 100x the storage per dollar than HDDs?

 

[thesyndrome]

I can't be the only one who thinks that relying on streaming services is tantamount to idiocy??? Are none of you guys paying attention to the media landscape? Every day movies are slapped with trigger warnings and ominous notes regarding the "outdated norms" or "racist culture" the movies contain. How long until movies are just removed from streaming altogether because they "offend" someone?

I buy physical media not because of the quality, but because I want to be able to watch the movie I want to see WHEN I want to see it. Ever get an itch to watch a movie, spend an hour searching all your streaming services for it, only to find out nobody has it available? No, I won't ever switch to streaming as my sole source of visual entertainment because I don't trust "Hollyweird" or the "government".

I guess it's time to stock up on bluRay players.

Whilst I don't have the space to store physical copies of everything, I completely agree with the sentiment, and this is why I'm very thankful for "archive" sites where people have made digital copies of almost every version of a film so you can still watch the original "culturally outdated" version without needing to hold onto a dying VHS tape

 

[LegoTekFan486]

Lobbyists will drive this proposal down the gutter.

What if it was a voucher for another movie via the same service? If not that, what would you suggest instead?

 

[emike09]

This is a sad day indeed. We're growing closer and closer to losing access to lifelong ownership of films we love. Keep the medium alive with your wallet! Buy your favorite films on Blu-ray! A decade ago, I was all about streaming in general, but as the years have progressed, it's become obvious that the only way to legally guarantee access to a film or series is to buy it on Blu-ray.

As a 4K OLED TV and surround sound owner, and lover of high-quality video and audio, currently the only way to have the best experience is in theater or on disc. As one who abhorred massive video libraries in the past, I now find myself buying all my absolute favorite films on disc, and am proud to be collecting a library of everything I love to watch.

Pirating via Torrent is becoming more rampant, and I don't blame those who publish and pirate. The legal method of obtaining your favorite flick is far too convoluted, and at times, impossible. But I reach out to those who pirate to actually purchase what you're looking for on physical media. Years down the road, your disc may be worth something when it can't be found online because it's such a s**t show trying to find your film on uvwxyz platform.

 

[Kondamin]

Physical media’s death is going to make it hard for the movie industry as the world falls apart in to closed off regions that don’t accept foreign services.
And just forget about hdr high framerate content for vr.

 

[bit_user]

It’s sad that people see the smart TV as their media portal. Unless the software is updated it all too soon fails to be compatible with the server and again the access to the stream is lost. Buy a new TV, Apple TV, Roku device, firestick?

Last I checked (earlier this year), Amazon Prime Video still worked on my PS3, however other streaming services dropped it years earlier (except for Youtube, which still seems to work pretty much everywhere).

Last year, I replaced my PS3 with a PS5. All streaming services support it, plus it plays games and UHD (4k) blu-rays. Okay, it's more expensive than those other streaming boxes, but I usually spend several times as much on my TV. I think how well a streaming device is supported has a lot to do with how many customers are using it, and I expect PS4/PS5 to be one of the most popular platforms. This matters not only for the UI quality, but also support for features like HDR and Atmos.

 

[bit_user]

the only way to legally guarantee access to a film or series is to buy it on Blu-ray.

Even this has a theoretical problem. Blu-ray discs are encrypted with keys that can be revoked, in the event that they're leaked. So, it could happen that newer blu-ray players might one day be unable to play some older discs. I don't know if that ever has or would realistically happen, but it's absolutely possible. Unlike DVD, the actual encryption algorithm used on blu-rays has not been broken (to my knowledge).

Still, I have to agree with you with blu-ray being the best option, as I don't regard piracy as a valid alternative.

One thing I worry about, with so much practical and cultural IP being locked up in the cloud, is that it makes society even more vulnerable to catastrophic events that undermine the technology supply chain. If a cloud provider is knocked offline or starved of more hardware components, the clock starts ticking on all the information they storing for their customers.

Also, imagine a billing problem happens with one of the big studios, or they go bankrupt, and their content library in the cloud gets deleted as a result! All of that content could just be gone, if they haven't taken care to retain physical archival copies. Okay, so maybe this wouldn't tend to be a very high risk for feature films, but what about TV show or news archives?

 

[Kondamin]

Even this has a theoretical problem. Blu-ray discs are encrypted with keys that can be revoked, in the event that they're leaked. So, it could happen that newer blu-ray players might one day be unable to play some older discs. I don't know if that ever has or would realistically happen, but it's absolutely possible. Unlike DVD, the actual encryption algorithm used on blu-rays has not been broken (to my knowledge).

Still, I have to agree with you with blu-ray being the best option, as I don't regard piracy as a valid alternative.

One thing I worry about, with so much practical and cultural IP being locked up in the cloud, is that it makes society even more vulnerable to catastrophic events that undermine the technology supply chain. If a cloud provider is knocked offline or starved of more hardware components, the clock starts ticking on all the information they storing for their customers.

Also, imagine a billing problem happens with one of the big studios, or they go bankrupt, and their content library in the cloud gets deleted as a result! All of that content could just be gone, if they haven't taken care to retain physical archival copies. Okay, so maybe this wouldn't tend to be a very high risk for feature films, but what about TV show or news archives?

Legal takedown orders like the archive gets constantly, state directed censorship. Dilution of information because of AI generated content….

Plenty of reasons why we need cheap archival storage, plenty of reasons to think it’s actually to late for many things

 

[stuff and nonesense]

Last I checked (earlier this year), Amazon Prime Video still worked on my PS3, however other streaming services dropped it years earlier (except for Youtube, which still seems to work pretty much everywhere).

Last year, I replaced my PS3 with a PS5. All streaming services support it, plus it plays games and UHD (4k) blu-rays. Okay, it's more expensive than those other streaming boxes, but I usually spend several times as much on my TV. I think how well a streaming device is supported has a lot to do with how many customers are using it, and I expect PS4/PS5 to be one of the most popular platforms. This matters not only for the UI quality, but also support for features like HDR and Atmos.

I have lost access to some services through Apple TV, old model and through Samsung TV… ran out of updates. Currently I’ve got a S95B, all services functional .. for now.

Support for hardware is dropped through time, applications eventually stop being updated. Yes I can replace and log in through the new hardware but owning the disks means I don’t have to. I just slip a disk into a player and press the right facing triangle.

 

[newtechldtech]

You mean like SD cards or USB thumb drives? NAND flash has terrible shelf life, though. Games will have to include a "sell by" date, to be sure the data doesn't go corrupt by the time you actually try to use it.

SD cards with the ability to back them ups . like old days of games on floppies when we were able to make backups..

 

[stuff and nonesense]

Okay, so maybe this wouldn't tend to be a very high risk for feature films, but what about TV show

Some 1960s Dr Who!

 

[bit_user]

Support for hardware is dropped through time, applications eventually stop being updated.

Yes, I get that. My point was that the length of support has a lot to do with how popular the platform is. With the PS5 being backward compatible with the PS4, I expect their combined userbase is quite large, and thus likely to be supported for a long time. PS5 supports HDMI 2.1, 120 Hz, and VRR, so it could even theoretically go above 60 Hz.

I'm still shocked how long many streaming services worked on the PS3, well past its 15th birthday! It's like 18 years old now and for Amazon Prime Video to still work on it is slightly amazing to me. Don't forget that it runs a custom OS and has a POWER ISA that practical no other streaming box uses, so the developers of those apps had to use a completely different toolchain and maybe even a different codebase. Also, it had only 256 MB of main memory, so there's that limitation they had to work around, too.

Yes I can replace and log in through the new hardware but owning the disks means I don’t have to. I just slip a disk into a player and press the right facing triangle.

Heh, what's funny is that my Oppo player had a continual stream of firmware updates where most of the release notes would cite bugs in various blu-ray titles the updates would fix. Since Oppo got out of that business, the firmware updates stopped. So, if you hit a bug in a blu-ray disc and have an old, unsupported player, you're just out of luck.

Blu-ray is orders of magnitude more complex than DVD. The discs can even use Java for various things, though I'm not sure quite the extent of how many features you can use it to customize. As we all know, Java is neither the most stable nor the most secure thing in the world.

 

[thestryker]

I'm still shocked how long many streaming services worked on the PS3, well past its 15th birthday!

The PS3 is the only first generation blu-ray player that still works for most titles because it was the only one with upgradeable firmware. While I've not been a fan of Sony's business practices since the rootkit nonsense it opened my eyes to how toxic blu-ray playback was likely to be. Rather than getting a standalone UHD player I picked up an Xbox One S when it was about $35 more than the standalone. At the end of the day an update for BR playback isn't going to brick a game console whereas it has definitely happened to standalone players. Now that barely anyone is releasing new standalone players I feel like a game console is still the best bet even if they tend to not be as good as high end players.

 

[bit_user]

The PS3 is the only first generation blu-ray player that still works for most titles because it was the only one with upgradeable firmware.

Yeah, but I was talking about streaming services, just then. A PC is the only other thing that comes to mind which streaming services might support for that long, but maybe not, if they start requiring Windows 11 with TPM support enabled.

Now that barely anyone is releasing new standalone players I feel like a game console is still the best bet even if they tend to not be as good as high end players.

Yeah, with the notable exception that PS5 doesn't support blu-ray 3D. It's also louder and burns more power than purpose-built blu-ray players.

BTW, the PS3 was my only way to watch the one xvYCC blu-ray title I had, because Oppo players don't support that feature. Also, I tried watching a 4k blu-ray UHD title on a 1080p TV with my Oppo player and it badly botched the colorspace conversion. This is definitely something a PS4 or PS5 wouldn't mess up.

 

[Priscus]

Would a two tier market help? Tier 1, as the current situation were you acquire licence to use the digital content, and Tier 2, which I guess you would have to pay more for, to acquire irrevocable ownership.

I guess there are also emergent problems with any such solution.

Being able to replicate across hardware options, no doubt raises fears of digital piracy.

There must be a good business opportunity lurking here, for someone who could negotiate the access with the rights owners, and sell to users irrevocable ability to use the content along with anti piracy protection.

 

[bit_user]

Would a two tier market help? Tier 1, as the current situation were you acquire licence to use the digital content, and Tier 2, which I guess you would have to pay more for, to acquire irrevocable ownership.

I think there's not a big enough market for #2, at least in movies. I mean, there's that weird "ultraviolet" standard that lets you download a movie to your device, for offline watching, but I don't know if that ever caught on, outside of blu-ray.

Some digital assets you can still download, like ebooks and MP3s. These don't require digital keys to use (at least, for some ebook formats), so you get control.

There must be a good business opportunity lurking here, for someone who could negotiate the access with the rights owners, and sell to users irrevocable ability to use the content along with anti piracy protection.

At a time when I think even 4k/UHD blu-ray on PCs is being restricted(?), it's hard for me to see the industry embracing this. I think they're always worried about piracy and generally pretty content with the streaming business.

 

[thestryker]

At a time when I think even 4k/UHD blu-ray on PCs is being restricted(?), it's hard for me to see the industry embracing this. I think they're always worried about piracy and generally pretty content with the streaming business.

Technically you can still playback UHD BR on PC. You just have to have a 7-10th Gen Intel based PC with SGX support and a depreciated version of PowerDVD that still has UHD support. For all intents and purposes it's dead which is why anyone who wants to do HTPC UHD blu-ray playback uses something which will decrypt on the fly. It's an exceedingly dumb situation which doesn't actually help with piracy.