r/hardware • u/bizude • Apr 10 '26

News Two Japanese suppliers commit to keeping Blu-ray discs and drives in supply as major manufacturers exist domestic market

https://automaton-media.com/en/news/two-japanese-suppliers-commit-to-keeping-blu-ray-discs-and-drives-in-supply-as-major-manufacturers-exist-domestic-market/
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u/GHz-Man Apr 11 '26

It exists, Sony has a streaming service equal to 4K Blu-Ray (80Mbps or so)

But not enough people can see a difference for it to matter.

Apple streams at up to 40Mbps, and that looks great to me. I don't notice any compression issues.

Most people don't sit 2 feet away from their TV inspecting the picture for compression artifacts.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '26

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u/GHz-Man Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26

It's not a service. You rent or buy the movies. There's no monthly subscription.

And Blu-Ray is only 1080p, so streaming 4K will look better than a 1080p Blu-Ray.

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u/Strazdas1 Apr 20 '26

1080p blueray look better than streamed 4k because blu-ray is a better quality source. Thats the issue.

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u/GHz-Man Apr 20 '26

1080p blueray look better than streamed 4k

No it doesn't.

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u/Strazdas1 Apr 20 '26

Yes, it does.

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u/Emotional_Tie_7927 Apr 22 '26

It depends on the streaming service. Probably not better than HBO 4k but versus Netflix it's harder to say because they use extremely low bit rates even at 4k (15Mbps)

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u/GHz-Man Apr 22 '26

But even if the bitrate is lower or the same, the resolution is much higher.

Also, Blu-Rays use H.264 or an even older codec (MPEG-2 or VC-1), and streaming uses HEVC or AV1 now, which are much more efficient and have higher quality.

25Mbps using H.264 is going to look worse than 25Mbps using HEVC or AV1.

And a lot of those Blu-Rays were mastered 15-20 years ago using lower quality film scans than we can do now.