Podcast #1138: Who Needs to Buy Physical Media?

HDTV and Home Theater Podcast

On this week’s show we take a brief look at a $120 wireless HDMI solution and we ask, who Needs to Buy Physical Media? We also read your emails and take a look at the news.

News:

• Pay TV Companies, and the DOJ, Push Back on Big ‘Spulu’ Sports Streaming Joint Venture
• Roku (ROKU) shares down 16% after FQ4 earnings, Oppenheimer downgrades
• Comcast and Paramount Talk About Combining U.S. Streaming Services
• Walmart to acquire Vizio in $2.3 billion deal

BMOSTE Wireless HDMI Transmitter and Receiver

• Small transmitter and receiver. About the size of USB Stick
• Dual-Band WI-FI. Long range (30m) stable connection
• Plug and play
• 1080p
• $120

Easily to setup but you need to provide power via the USB cable that is included. My Macbook Pro and Projector USB did not have enough power to run the device. I needed to add an external power supply to make it work. Once it was connected I immediately saw my computer screen.

The picture looked good with no breakups while the laptop was in the same room. There was a lag that was noticeable and made it quirky to use the mouse. I think for gaming this is going to be a big issue. But for watching movies it's not really an issue at all.

When I moved the laptop into another room that was about twenty feet away with two walls between the transmitter and receiver, the picture froze . However putting the laptop in the room directly behind the projector with one wall had no impact on the picture. If the TX and RX are in the same room you will have no issues. One wall will probably work but it will decrease the distance that you can transmit. Two walls will probably not work.

If you need a wireless 1080p solution you can’t beat this device on size and cost. Just keep distance and the number of walls you are going through in mind. We’ll take a look at their 4K solution which is much bigger in size and costs about $50 more.

Who Needs to Buy Physical Media

Last week we received an email from a listener named Bob with a link to an article that discussed what “forever” means in the terms of digital content. The article pointed out that a streaming service owned by Sony was dumping libraries after April 2nd. You may not have heard about this because the streaming service is for Anime and is called Funimation. It's not like you’ll be losing movies from Warner Brothers or Sony Pictures.

There is a lot of talk about physical media vs digital. Which one would you rather have and use? Do you even need discs anymore? In this episode we will examine why or who would want to buy physical discs. Let’s take a look at one of the biggest movies of last year and determine if you should buy the disc, buy the digital version, rent, or stream the movie.

Oppenheimer - The story of American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the development of the atomic bomb.

• UHD - $23 includes Blu-Ray and Digital Code
• Blu-Ray - $18 include DVD and Digital Code
• Amazon Prime Video/AppleTV $19.99
• Amazon Prime Video/AppleTV Rent $5.99
• Peacock included with Service

With all these options what makes the most sense? Are you going to watch it over and over in a theater that you spent thousands of dollars on and want every ounce of performance out of your system? Then by all means get the UHD Disc. That will be your best looking and sounding experience. You have a digital code as well, so if you just want to watch Oppenheimer for the tenth time without having to go through your library to find the disc and pop it into your player, you can call it up on whatever STB you use.

If you just want to watch it once, even in your theater that cost thousands of dollars, rent it on Apple, Amazon, Vudu, or whatever service you use. If you decide later that you want to watch it once or twice more, you’re still ahead of the game! There may be a slight perceivable degradation in quality but is it worth $12-$18 to barely notice an improvement in picture and sound?

If you are sitting in a room with an awesome OLED and a high quality soundbar you may want to sign up for Peacock and stream it through the service for $12 a month. This option allows you to stream the many other shows available and then cancel if you don’t find more value. Peacock allows you to stream Oppenheimer for $6 if you don’t mind limited commercials. Only do this if there are other shows/movies you want to check out otherwise you can rent it for $6 on the various platforms without commercials.

Disc sales have been declining for the last five years as people switch to streaming services to watch movies instead of disc purchase and rentals. There are less and less reasons for studios to manufacture discs. Those who like to have the physical copy of the disc are the vast minority.

Whether you use Vudu, Amazon, or Apple, you have a huge library at your fingertips. Buy the digital copy of the movies you like to watch on repeat, rent the ones you want to watch once. Hell we’ll say it, it's like having a Kaleidescape! If your hangup is quality, the difference in quality is pretty small because the compression and broadband speeds have both improved in the last ten years. And when noticeable, it's still not like comparing Standard Definition to High Definition. It's more like comparing 1080i to 720p ATSC from back in 2006. Both huge improvements over what we had been watching.

Our recommendation going forward is: If you have a large library of physical media, you can rip what you have and put it on a server. Plex is great and easy to use. For future titles, buy/rent on the digital store of your choice. If the title is supported by Movies Everywhere you can watch on multiple platforms across multiple apps!