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Which 4k blu ray???? Without spending $1000


jordan122345

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1 hour ago, MC39693 said:

My wife discovered that I was looking into a 4K player and asked ... why, we don't buy any "media" anymore ... aka everything is via "the net".  I think she's right, hence the end of Oppo players.

At first, it does seem to make sense, but when it comes down to it no matter how you stream it, it does NOT sound or look as good as a disc. For things you really like a disc can't be beaten. 

 

This has been my experience streaming regular moves and a few demo videos in 4K and the WIFI had no problems. 

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^^^^^^. Agree totally with @dtel.  I notice a deference in both sound and picture.  The studios are pushing streaming too.  Streaming movies always come out before disks anymore.  Sure it’s better money for studios without manufacturing a disc.  

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21 hours ago, MC39693 said:

My wife discovered that I was looking into a 4K player and asked ... why, we don't buy any "media" anymore ... aka everything is via "the net".  I think she's right, hence the end of Oppo players.

Its crazy, but I think she is right too.  I don't buy movies any more, but I do try and pick up what multi channel music I can and when it is affordable.

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9 hours ago, Westcoastdrums said:

Where are you streaming from.... Honestly 

The only streaming I have done was either Netflix or Youtube and it was OK but not as good as a disc, well it seemed like it to me.

 

Also when BR came out I thought it was a little better until I tried the same movie twice by accident, although it could have been the movie? One weekend one of the daughters brought the DVD of Burlesque, a few weeks later a different daughter brought the same movie on BR and it was surprising the difference mostly in sound quality. The only reason I watched both was the music is cool and it is well recorded, the BR was amazing. The difference was quite shocking to me.

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1 hour ago, dtel said:

The difference was quite shocking to me.

Interesting.  After re reading that, yeah I can believe that. Youtube and Netflix surely have to be reasonably compressed due to the sheer amount of offerings.   I don't own any blue rays and I am not a big movie guy, but based on my experience with testing DVD vs blueray on a quality production, I would have to agree. 

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I agree with @dtel re. quality ... but the old quality vs convenience debate has been had before and eventually, I think ... convenience wins out.  The youngsters don't want to "find" the disc, put it in the right machine etc.  And, they are the market... if not now eventually.  So, I think quality will loose out except for a few hold outs.  Now where did I put that 8mm camera?

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About a year ago, my 2005 Yamaha DVD player started having skipping issues on some DVDs, so I looked into the Oppo machines, but didn't like the idea of shaky support and updates, so I went with the top Panasonic Blu-ray player, the 4K THX certified DMP-UB900, and it's working well for me.  It has 2 HDMI outputs, one for video, which goes to the TV, of course, and the second one goes to the AVR for audio.  I was very pleasantly surprised to find that CDs sound much better on the Panasonic than on the old Yamaha.

 

The Panasonic also has an interesting feature that lets you choose between solid state or tube style sounds.  Although it does not play SACDs, it is a high-end player.

 

I like a number of Japanese bands, so I switched the DVD player over to All Region years ago.  When I got the Panasonic, I realized that Blu-ray players can't be switched over so easily, but with Blu-ray region coding, North America and Japan are in the same region, so I can buy Blu-ray concert discs and view them with no problems.  The upscaling of DVDs is automatic and looks quite good.

 

When you put in a CD, the player automatically switches to High Clarity Sound, which shuts down any unnecessary circuits, to minimize any interference from them.  According to Sound & Vision, "Panasonic clearly designed this player with audiophiles in mind."  That's how it sounds to me, too.

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On 2/18/2019 at 6:46 PM, dwilawyer said:

Just read an article that Samsung will no longer be making blu-ray.

 

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/02/samsung-says-it-will-stop-making-new-blu-ray-players/

 

 

Samsung has their own reasons for stopping production of Blu-ray players, but those reasons may not apply to other companies.  For me, I like that my 2018 Panasonic Blu-ray player makes CDs sound much better than they did on the 2005 Yamaha DVD player.  As well, like many people, I have a large collection of CDs, and would be unhappy if I couldn't find a player with current technology to play them on.  As for movies, the audio and video quality can't be equalled by a streaming source.

 

Finally, if you want to watch concert videos, particularly with non-mainstream artists and bands, you probably won't find many of them on most streaming services.  This applies equally to CDs from those bands.

 

It's also been mentioned in the news that fewer new cars come with CD players.  This seems like a big mistake, for the reasons above, plus the convenience of just popping in a CD and listening to it, without any intermediate steps of recording your music onto a USB stick first, and then probably listening to MP3s, instead of CD-quality sound.  My Dodge Grand Caravan came with a CD player and a 28-gig hard drive that can hold thousand of songs, and hundreds of CDs.  You just pop in a CD, press Copy, and in 15 minutes at most, while the CD plays, the CD is copied to the hard drive.  The files play back in AAC format, which sounds better than MP3s.  The HD's database can easily be searched by genre, artist, album or song, so it's easy to find what you want.  Why give up all this convenience and sound quality, two things that often aren't found together? 

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