[sylario]

I am incredibly out of the loop in the world of blu-ray. Do you still need to buy a terrible video player to read them legally on windows ? I give so little attention to physical media that I do not even know if 4k blu-ray use the same blu-ray storage format or if it is some sort of upgraded blu-ray with more storage.

[chocochunks]

Officially? Yes, unfortunately. 4K is even more complicated. Technically 4K is the same discs, but sometimes they use the rare BD-XL 100GB discs that not all drives can read. There's also a bunch of extra DRM junk, so for 4K you need a new drive, new software and an Intel CPU from a specific time period as new ones don't include the bits for 4K Blu-ray DRM.

Unofficially you use MakeMKV and just rip the disc.

EDIT: Oh, apparently PowerDVD no longer supports UHD Blu-ray either so even the official way is dead now.

[keanebean86]

Some drives have modified firmware that helps when ripping.

https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=19

[toomuchtodo]

Any specific drives you’d recommend for ripping?

[dangus]

Anything on their list is fine. I have some random LG slim thing and it works.

The custom firmware allows them to rip 4K blu-rays.

I’m really glad I discovered this because I really didn’t want to spend on a 4K player or a PS5, knowing that this format is really on the way out.

[keanebean86]

I have a LG WP50NB40 but it might be scarce these days. I wanted an external drive. Took about five mins to flash. I've ripped a few recent UHD blurays like the Barbie movie and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness without issues.

[toomuchtodo]

I was able to source from Best Buy, thank you!

[dangus]

Don’t bother with trying to use a player on a computer. Use MakeMKV and a blu-ray drive. Use modified firmware to rip 4K titles. Details can be found on MakeMKV forums.

After you rip them you can re-encode them to save storage space using Handbrake.

Either that or buy a 4K player designed for a TV, like a PS5 or the two most popular Sony and Panasonic players on the market.

- PS5 is a good choice if you need a vertically mounted behind-TV type of setup.

- Sony UBP-X700U is value 4K, just get the updated version which fixes some annoyances of the previous model (I think U is the updated US model)

- Panasonic UB820-K, widely considered to be the best one without spending a thousand bucks.

Overall though, as much as I want blu-ray to be a thing, the market is just dire. I tried to get into it and it’s frustrating.

New release titles often skip blu-ray entirely, especially for demographics that don’t care for the format like kids content. Either that or new titles will skip 4K so you’ll be paying $25 for 1080p when $10 will get you 4K digital. Then when you redeem the movies anywhere code, you don’t get 4K because your blu-ray is only 1080p.

I thought it would be cool to get into some classic 4K upscale cinephile releases like Lawrence of Arabia but it turns out that I can buy the 4K version on Apple TV for like $5 where getting your hands on the disc is like a hundred bucks.

I certainly appreciate the disc releases from outlets like Criterion but $40+ for a movie seems so hard to justify.

The 4K experience on providers like Apple is so excellent, the benefits of blu-ray are so minimal if any at all.

Another random example, my Studio Ghibli transfers on blu-ray are clearly worse quality than HBO Max, and there are no 4K blu-rays except for The Boy and the Heron. There is no motivation to re-do any disc releases of those movies on 4K UHD because nobody is going to buy them.

My feeling is that despite the licensing pitfalls of digital ownership, I’ve concluded that it just makes more sense compared to physical media. Don’t bother with blu-rays. If a license gets revoked from me in the future I’ll just shrug my shoulders and pirate the title.

[account42]

> New release titles often skip blu-ray entirely, especially for demographics that don’t care for the format like kids content. Either that or new titles will skip 4K so you’ll be paying $25 for 1080p when $10 will get you 4K digital. Then when you redeem the movies anywhere code, you don’t get 4K because your blu-ray is only 1080p.

On the other hand, digital DRMed releases will only get you 720p on Linux while MakeMKV with 4K Blu-Rays works just fine. And besides, who would want to watch new releases these days. Also keep in mind that 4K is not the same as 4K - bandwidth matters a lot and streaming providers tend to cheap out there.

It's definitely pricey though but with some patience you can grab even 4K releases at $20-30 and then you'll have that movie (and that specific version of that movie) for as long as you want and not just for however long the streaming service/contracts stay up.

[dangus]

Well, I solve this by using Linux for my computers but I use a commercial streaming box for video.

But you can also solve it by just going the piracy route instead of ripping blu-rays.

> And besides, who would want to watch new releases these days.

Most people. I’m not going to just watch the same content over and over.

> Also keep in mind that 4K is not the same as 4K - bandwidth matters a lot and streaming providers tend to cheap out there.

Honestly, not anymore, not in any way my eyes can detect. Apple TV’s 4K content is given plenty of bandwidth. Vincent from HDTVtest did a comparison and the results are basically identical to 4K Blu-ray. And that’s with a fraction of the hardware cost, basically $0-99 on a streaming box versus a $400 player and a $25-40 disc.

Like I said in my Ghibli example, streaming bandwidth sounds bad in theory but in practice when a movie isn’t even available in 4K on disc and the streaming transfer looks better, streaming is obviously the best way to watch.

The ultimate issue is that there’s no money being invested in a nearly dead format.

As an analogy, I’d really like a minivan or a station wagon instead of an SUV. But if I buy a Volvo V60 or a Honda Odyssey I’m buying a car that hasn’t been redesigned in close to a decade because they’re not popular/profitable enough. In contrast, if I go buy a three row SUV like a Kia Telluride, I’m getting the best 3 row vehicle on the market. This is exactly the predicament the blu-ray market is in. I don’t really want a three row SUV but my hands are tied, I’m not going to buy an inferior vehicle.

For example, Disney isn’t even going to produce their own discs anymore, they’re outsourcing it to Sony. I can’t imagine the quality will be optimal going forward. They are giving the blu-ray market the cable television treatment: they’re making money on the last holdouts and investing nothing into it.