Samsung Quits Blu-ray Player Market

DVD, cheap, fast, easy rips. Blu-ray, expensive, slow large and sometimes problematic rips, incompatible tech refreshes... Blu-ray, from the inventors of Betamax, who unlike Betamax, "bought the win" this time.

They deserve the worst.... I own just a few Blu-ray, there's simply no need. Sorry Sony.

No, no one "bought" a win. BD was always the better format. The ONLY advantage HD-DVD had was price. It never had the backing, the storage, the video and audio quality, or the durability of blu-ray. Toshiba failed, hard, primarily due to their own mistakes and bad marketing. The BDA (the people that actually own blu-ray) had the backing of tech and Hollywood giants while Toshiba fumbled at every step.
 
Plus, when you stream, you own nothing. NETFLIX subscribers, you want to watch Disney/Marvel/Pixar?
Next year, you won't be able to. Not a problem for those of us who own copies of the movies.

Not always true. That is true on a stream for all service like netflix where in reality you are just renting. But on others where you buy a digital copy as long as that service is running, you can get to what you bought.
 
Not always true. That is true on a stream for all service like netflix where in reality you are just renting. But on others where you buy a digital copy as long as that service is running, you can get to what you bought.

Wrong they can remove a movie whenever they want.. Even if you bought it. It's happened on iTunes already. You buy licenses on these services.. Not the movie itself.

4K physical media ripped to my Plex server is so much better then anything stream can offer atm.
 
How does streaming 4k compare with 4k bluray though?

Not bad - at least Amazon Prime app on the 4K Apple TV. And now that I think about it the Prime original content looks a lot better. They probably have more control over the encoding. If disks are cheaper, they will always get you the best picture but 4K streaming, at least for some content, isn't that bad either.

I haven't bought a DVD or BluRay player in ages. Gaming consoles make much better players - better menus, better speed - better everything. I picked up an Xbox One-X on Black Friday for $250 mainly to get 4K. I don't blame Samsung and others for getting out.
 
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The problem with 4K streaming is the quality of the stream and the bandwidth needed to maintain a certain level of quality. I am a huge fan of maintaining physical media, but who even makes a decent Blu-Ray player anymore? I am still using my Denon which is a rather higher end unit. The job it does with audio is impressive, but it is getting old as it only does 1080p. I am not sure if I want to spend that much money this time around on a player.
The first thing I do is rip the disk to my server. I think the only 4k disk I've actually watched from disk was Paddington 2 and that was only because I couldn't get KODI to work on the Xbox 1x (still doesn't with 4k last time I checked). Ended up setting up a DLNA server on my NAS and using my C8's built in player. For netflix, I often start on the TV or Xbone and then switching. ROMA had weird color shifts on the XBone, but I find for shows that have lots of shadows, the XBone has less noise. Really ROMA is probably the only show that looked worse on the XBone.

That said, i may pick up a 4k Player just in case I need it, but I suspect by the time the BD drive that can rip 4k dies we'll have moved on to 8K.
 
Wrong they can remove a movie whenever they want.. Even if you bought it. It's happened on iTunes already. You buy licenses on these services.. Not the movie itself.

4K physical media ripped to my Plex server is so much better then anything stream can offer atm.
That's true for streaming, but only because Apple has a license for some shows/movies in one country and not in another. The case I believe you're referring to was one where the person bought the movie in Australia and then moved to the US or Canada where Apple didn't have a license. In that case, if you haven't download the movie before moving, you'll lose access until you go back to a country where they have the license.
 
I also noticed that Netflix still isn't renting out 4K Blu-Rays... I get wanting to own personal favorites, but it sure is hard to justify when it costs an order of magnitude more.

Thanks, any suggestions for conversion/compression software from whatever BR is to .mpv/mp4

I'd recommend Staxrip or Hybrid.

Handbrake is fine, but if you want top quality encoded rips, you want a GUI that supports vapoursynth filters. Plus, they let you put your GPU to work, whereas Handbrake is still CPU only last time I checked.
 
Wrong they can remove a movie whenever they want.. Even if you bought it. It's happened on iTunes already. You buy licenses on these services.. Not the movie itself.

Newsflash, the same is true with BD as well. BTW, by your own admission, you have lost all legal rights to any disk on your plex server.
 
I'm scared, and looking at the end of physical media ownership...

What is even more scary, is the ignorance of so many people that think "I don't need to own my favourite movie, Netflix has it". I guess you will only miss it when it's gone.

I wonder if people here will wake up when we will all be forced to stream games, and not run them on our own hardware anymore?
 
No, no one "bought" a win. BD was always the better format. The ONLY advantage HD-DVD had was price. It never had the backing, the storage, the video and audio quality, or the durability of blu-ray. Toshiba failed, hard, primarily due to their own mistakes and bad marketing. The BDA (the people that actually own blu-ray) had the backing of tech and Hollywood giants while Toshiba fumbled at every step.

Actually I have both and don't agree, they did indeed buy a win as the BR crowd was able to lock in enough studios for BR release only that Toshiba saw the writing on the wall.

The primary quality difference is going to be with the print transfer of which I have seen great ones and crappy ones. The BR for Ghostbusters is virtually indistinguishable from a DVD print which is sad. Perhaps Sony will invest in doing a proper transfer but I doubt it. Talking about media "durability" is a curious angle as not enough time has passed to make that assessment either way.

I will tell you I'm a trifle bent that my Samsung BR player will NOT play Guardians of the Galaxy BR all the way through without locking up and there is no flash upgrade for the player to alleviate the problem. Good thing I was able to rip the disk and it plays just fine off my WDLIVETV.
 
Actually I have both and don't agree, they did indeed buy a win as the BR crowd was able to lock in enough studios for BR release only that Toshiba saw the writing on the wall.

The primary quality difference is going to be with the print transfer of which I have seen great ones and crappy ones. The BR for Ghostbusters is virtually indistinguishable from a DVD print which is sad. Perhaps Sony will invest in doing a proper transfer but I doubt it. Talking about media "durability" is a curious angle as not enough time has passed to make that assessment either way.

I will tell you I'm a trifle bent that my Samsung BR player will NOT play Guardians of the Galaxy BR all the way through without locking up and there is no flash upgrade for the player to alleviate the problem. Good thing I was able to rip the disk and it plays just fine off my WDLIVETV.

Hollywood went with what they thought would win in the end. Toshiba had studios like WB on board, but they made a lot of mistakes that made the format less desirable. For a format that really was not much more expensive to produce than DVD at the time HD-DVDs cost pretty close to early blu-rays. I recall blu-ray marketing being better at the time as well, but that might be more due to sheer exposure than the quality of the ads themselves.

I mean durability as in how hard they are to damage. The coating on the back of BD discs is much, much harder to scratch and gouge than other disc formats. That was one of the big selling points early on, I remember there being a lot of talk about what it takes to make a BD disc unplayable. As far as things like disc rot goes, yeah we're still several years too early to find out how well either format holds up over time.

From my experience as well as experience from family members, Samsung players are bad. Some discs having issues playing is not at all surprising.
 
No, no one "bought" a win. BD was always the better format. The ONLY advantage HD-DVD had was price. It never had the backing, the storage, the video and audio quality, or the durability of blu-ray. Toshiba failed, hard, primarily due to their own mistakes and bad marketing. The BDA (the people that actually own blu-ray) had the backing of tech and Hollywood giants while Toshiba fumbled at every step.

You are wrong. You need to go back and read about how these formats started before spreading anymore FUD.
 
DVD - Good enough! It's only a movie or a TV show FFS!

We rent the odd one from the library when Prime wants £4 or Netflix doesnt have it. I have two BD players in the home (I inherited them kinda) but never bought a BD disk. The only physical DVD media I buy now is the annual Supernatural season boxset on DVD for the GF at Xmas.
 
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When streaming by internet is just not available in many parts of the non-urban world, the DVD makes a lot of sense. When download speeds are under 10 Mb, physical media make a lot of sense.
 
When streaming by internet is just not available in many parts of the non-urban world, the DVD makes a lot of sense. When download speeds are under 10 Mb, physical media make a lot of sense.

Sure but you may as well use blu-ray because movies are higher resolution than on DVD. Even better still would be 4k blu-ray which is of an even higher resolution.
 
DVD - Good enough! It's only a movie or a TV show FFS!

We rent the odd one from the library when Prime wants £4 or Netflix doesnt have it. I have two BD players in the home (I inherited them kinda) but never bought a BD disk. The only physical DVD media I buy now is the annual Supernatural season boxset on DVD for the GF at Xmas.

Maybe for some people dvd is good enough. Granted I’m in like the .1% , I have a full theater setup in my home with a JVC 4K projector and 7.2.4 atmos setup. Even so my wife is spoiled and hates watching anything that’s not at least HD quality actually so is my 9 year old son. If something on demand on cable isn’t in HD he always ask why it’s so blurry, that’s on my crappy lcd tv in the living room. I really enjoy movies and I want the best experience I can get. Tv shows on the other hand isn’t as big an issue , I’ll stream those on Netflix or Hulu and I’m fine with the HD quality on those.
 
Definately in the minority to care about Dolby Atmos and DTS-X, but several studios have started putting the atmospheric audio on 4K disks only. If 4K discs stop being as popular, prices will remain higher to get the better audio track.

Lame.
 
How does streaming 4k compare with 4k bluray though?

It doesn't. UHD discs significantly beat UHD streaming, just as BR discs significantly beat 1080p streaming. Blu's often have better picture quality than 4K steams also, not accounting for HDR.

When it comes to gaming, I am 100% digital, even in instances where it's cost prohibitive (consoles). The ability to borrow/sell my games means nothing to me, I wouldn't do it anyway, so I'd rather have the convenience of a digital copy. With movies, it's the exact opposite. I have a healthy, growing movie collection that is strictly physical media. Truthfully, I'd rather be entirely digital with movies too, but the key difference is that with gaming, you're getting exactly the same game whether you buy a physical copy or a digital copy. With movies, the physical copy is always a better video stream, usually a better audio stream as well, and often the only way to get extras. If I'm buying a movie, I want the best possible version of it, and that means buying the disc. If a service ever existed that allowed you to purchase a digital copy that was bit-for-bit exactly the same as the 4K/Blu disc, and allowed you to download it for local playback in instances where streaming was not an option (AKA Steam for movies)... that service would see a lot of my money. But since the movie industry cares more about keeping their product out of the hands of pirates than they do about keeping the people who still pay for their product happy, we'll never see such a thing... and thus I'll keep buying discs for as long as I can.
 
Actually I have both and don't agree, they did indeed buy a win as the BR crowd was able to lock in enough studios for BR release only that Toshiba saw the writing on the wall.
You are wrong. You need to go back and read about how these formats started before spreading anymore FUD.

A nice wiki on the history war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_optical_disc_format_war

I'd say its easy why people could disagree on the how and why of how it ended up. Things I do remember was that in the beginning the local BB had near equal space for each format. Almost overnight a few months in and HD DVD went to a couple of sections. A month after than then 1 and then delegated to the bargain bins.

I do however strongly disagree about the quality of HD DVD vs Blu-Ray. Coming from DVD and sure it looked nice, especially if compared to single layer DVD. I started picking up some before I even had a player because of a couple exclusives at the time(Excalibur and something else I can't remember). Once MS discounted the x-box drive I picked it and about a dozen movies for around $160 at a local gamestop. It was pretty easy to get running on my rig. By then I had numerous Blu-ray players in the house including my rigs and I made like for like movie comparisons from both formats. HD DVD was only using Mpeg 2 w/ lower bit rates while BD was a mix at the time of Mpeg 2 or AVCH H.264 Mp4 but many mpeg2's were reissued later in AVC H.264 Mp4. I don't specifically remember the color depth on HD DVD but it too seemed a bit bland compared to the Blu-ray counterparts. On large t.v.s it was pretty easy to make out the extra 'noise' on HD DVD due to its compression techniques. Honestly Mpeg 2 was a horrible and bloated choice for this.

Back to topic. Judging from other people posting similar experiences as mine with them it's obvious Samsung players suck and no one will really miss them. I guess they just couldn't lock in a good quality/price point.
 
It doesn't. UHD discs significantly beat UHD streaming, just as BR discs significantly beat 1080p streaming. Blu's often have better picture quality than 4K steams also, not accounting for HDR.

When it comes to gaming, I am 100% digital, even in instances where it's cost prohibitive (consoles). The ability to borrow/sell my games means nothing to me, I wouldn't do it anyway, so I'd rather have the convenience of a digital copy. With movies, it's the exact opposite. I have a healthy, growing movie collection that is strictly physical media. Truthfully, I'd rather be entirely digital with movies too, but the key difference is that with gaming, you're getting exactly the same game whether you buy a physical copy or a digital copy. With movies, the physical copy is always a better video stream, usually a better audio stream as well, and often the only way to get extras. If I'm buying a movie, I want the best possible version of it, and that means buying the disc. If a service ever existed that allowed you to purchase a digital copy that was bit-for-bit exactly the same as the 4K/Blu disc, and allowed you to download it for local playback in instances where streaming was not an option (AKA Steam for movies)... that service would see a lot of my money. But since the movie industry cares more about keeping their product out of the hands of pirates than they do about keeping the people who still pay for their product happy, we'll never see such a thing... and thus I'll keep buying discs for as long as I can.

Couldn't agree with you more on any part of what you stated. On the same page with all of the that.
 
This is no surprise at all. Some of us don't mind having hundreds of discs around the house (or whatever your number) but most of us would rather not. Myself included. Just more junk that I don't need. Instead of a relatively large blu ray player, I use a tiny raspberry pi. Others use an android box, whatever your flavour.

Have all your media on your computer? No problem, a dock and a large HDD make an excellent, small and ecnomical backup solution. Its actually much cheaper than optical media per unit of data :)
 
A nice wiki on the history war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_optical_disc_format_war

I'd say its easy why people could disagree on the how and why of how it ended up. Things I do remember was that in the beginning the local BB had near equal space for each format. Almost overnight a few months in and HD DVD went to a couple of sections. A month after than then 1 and then delegated to the bargain bins.

I do however strongly disagree about the quality of HD DVD vs Blu-Ray. Coming from DVD and sure it looked nice, especially if compared to single layer DVD. I started picking up some before I even had a player because of a couple exclusives at the time(Excalibur and something else I can't remember). Once MS discounted the x-box drive I picked it and about a dozen movies for around $160 at a local gamestop. It was pretty easy to get running on my rig. By then I had numerous Blu-ray players in the house including my rigs and I made like for like movie comparisons from both formats. HD DVD was only using Mpeg 2 w/ lower bit rates while BD was a mix at the time of Mpeg 2 or AVCH H.264 Mp4 but many mpeg2's were reissued later in AVC H.264 Mp4. I don't specifically remember the color depth on HD DVD but it too seemed a bit bland compared to the Blu-ray counterparts. On large t.v.s it was pretty easy to make out the extra 'noise' on HD DVD due to its compression techniques. Honestly Mpeg 2 was a horrible and bloated choice for this.

Um... You actually have it backwards. BR tied its design to MPEG2 primarily and until several years in, all media was MPEG2 since the VC-1/AVC authoring systems weren't really there for BD. HD-DVD was the one that was pushing the advanced codecs and most HD-DVDs ended up using AVC and had better video quality. That's literally part of the reason that MS went HD-DVD instead of BD. Sony wanted only MPEG2 for quite a while on BD until they eventually caved. Almost all HD-DVDs were VC-1 and almost all early BD were MPEG2. That MPEG2 legacy is literally why BD had such a high bit rate as it was required to get decent quality from MPEG2.
 
Its actually much cheaper than optical media per unit of data

Heck, 64gb microsd cards are like $10 retail, and that's dropping every month.

I wouldn't be surprised if physical media moves to flash memory cards sometime soon. It's more expensive per card, but there are definitely logistical benefits when you can fit a thousands of them in something the size of a shoebox.
 
Convenience trumps quality every time. Something will come in as a niche player for those that demand fidelity but it won’t be main stream, and it will cost an arm and a leg.

Streaming won.
 
Plus, when you stream, you own nothing. NETFLIX subscribers, you want to watch Disney/Marvel/Pixar?
Next year, you won't be able to. Not a problem for those of us who own copies of the movies.

Exactly. I buy DVDs and Blu-rays of shows and movies I like and the first thing I do is rip the videos to my Plex server and then store the media in a box. Why?

1. I can rip as high quality as I want/need.
2. As you point out, shows and movies are pulled from Netflix or Prime all the time. Im not subscribing to 50 different streaming channels to see what I want.

When people make dumb remarks about me buying physical media or BD drives for my systems, that tells me they don’t really understand the streaming landscape, let alone the technical aspects.
 
Exactly. I buy DVDs and Blu-rays of shows and movies I like and the first thing I do is rip the videos to my Plex server and then store the media in a box. Why?

1. I can rip as high quality as I want/need.
2. As you point out, shows and movies are pulled from Netflix or Prime all the time. Im not subscribing to 50 different streaming channels to see what I want.

When people make dumb remarks about me buying physical media or BD drives for my systems, that tells me they don’t really understand the streaming landscape, let alone the technical aspects.

A lot of that hinges on how much you want to rewatch your old stuff.

Personally, I'm swamped. I have way more TV and film on my to-do list than I could ever hope to watch, and with a few exceptions, I'd almost always rather watch something new than rewatch something I've already seen.

As for selection, there's really no need for an array of subscriptions when individual services have boatloads of good stuff. But you can also temporarily subscribe to a service for one exclusive series, drop it when you're done, and end up paying a couple of bucks for several seasons.
 
Kinda like SACD and DVDA, in 2020 we've effectively reached the limits of what human beings are capable of hearing and seeing.......the improvements at this point will rarely, if ever, outweigh the costs......I can see the 21st century being the BioRevolution age.....Industrial/Mechanical is starting to feel like us "just not trying hard enough". Famous last words, rite? :D

Also, Samsung are like Sony...for awhile they made 30 different versions of the exact same thing, and then had 30 other items just like those 30, so I fully expect for the market to scale to demand. There will be plenty of $2000 4k+ BD players out there and there will be a few $80 Cody models as well, and a few in between that the rest of us will wind up owning......
 
How does streaming 4k compare with 4k bluray though?
It's like 1/4 the quality. 4K streams are 15-20 Mbps while a UHD Blu-ray is 80-100 Mbps including audio.
Generally on parity since you can stream 4k HDR high bitrate from YouTube and Netflix... Seriously, 10mbps-20mbps 4k is on the upper end of noticeable quality and that's achievable for many residential ISPs.
See above. The audio tracks on a UHD Blu-ray are 10-20 Mbps by themselves. Regular Blu-ray at 1080p is 30-50 Mbps, for crying out loud.
 
Imo, streaming 4k is a compromise for convenience. If you want the max in terms of 4k visuals and sound, physical media is the way to go.

4k streaming is ok, just not the best to do it justice.

I use my Plex server for media I want for times of convenience (movies etc I don't care for best quality and just want instantly and anywhere - think on phone or iPad or instant craving) and reserve 4k discs for the movies I love the most and want my home theater to do its thing.

Either way, both have their appropriate uses. For my use anyway.
 
No, no one "bought" a win. BD was always the better format. The ONLY advantage HD-DVD had was price. It never had the backing, the storage, the video and audio quality, or the durability of blu-ray. Toshiba failed, hard, primarily due to their own mistakes and bad marketing. The BDA (the people that actually own blu-ray) had the backing of tech and Hollywood giants while Toshiba fumbled at every step.

PS3 were sold a at a loss at the time, and PS3 was/is the major BD drive. So in that regard, a win was bought.
I had an hybrid HD-DVD/BD LG drive on my PC back then, got HD=DVD and BD disks from amazon.
never noticed any video ou audio quality advantage of blu ray until Alchemy Live BD .
and even on that disk, the advantage was not on the BD tech, but actually from the quality of the master records used.

HD-DVD was doomed to lose: Blu ray sounds cooler, you had to purchase a drive for the XBOX, dual format disks where never much needed: once you watch a movie at HD quality, you wont watch it again on DVD.

back to topic: Samsung Bd drives suck, they will not be missed.

Streaming 4k compares to 4k BD image quality like military music compares to music.
 
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I am about to buy a Blu-ray burner but I will not buy any blu-rays. I plan on ripping a bunch of Blu ray's and burning them to DVD 9 for 1080p playback and personal archive.

Does anyone know of a good BR ripper software?

MakeMKV for ripping, and Handbrake for compression. I used to use BDrebuilder when I was still burning DVD9 movies, I think it's still out there. It does a good job for HD audio and sets your target size to fit on DVD9. But since I went Plex I just take the rips from MakeMKV and run it the output through Handbrake at 1080p HEVC .265 and keep the 5.1 stream (DTS or AC3). Excellent quality output at 2-3gb per rip.

If you are actually going to be burning stuff to disc, PM me, I have leftover optical media to sell you, LOL

Back on topic... I don't think the market will miss Samsung BR players. It's pretty tiny as it is. So many people have PS3/4/Xbone, why do they need a standalone player (they don't). And 4K isn't worth the effort for most.

I still have physical BR players but they collect dust. Everything I do now is either streaming or Plex from my own collection of BR rips. Plex will even do 4k if you want, but how you get your content is up to you, LOL (no current way to rip 4k that I'm aware of).

I would like to say the DVD numbers surprise me, but they don't. There are tons of people (cough *the Elders* cough, like my mom/mother in law/father in law/everyone I've met over 65, etc) that can't tell the difference, or people in other markets where BR just hasn't made a huge impact (ie - all of South America, etc).

But until streaming becomes perfect, or data caps go away, there will always be a place for physical media. It could whittle down to just the "elites / AVR snobs" though. Honestly I'm not touching 4K unless I win lotto and install a huge 4K TV or projector.
 
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All this talk of backing up media is making me look at my blu-ray collection and thinking "I need to get a NAS set up at some point and put all of these on it".
 
I also noticed that Netflix still isn't renting out 4K Blu-Rays... I get wanting to own personal favorites, but it sure is hard to justify when it costs an order of magnitude more.

Dude, Netflix doesn't even send out BRs for a lot of older movies. Go look for a movie from the 80s/90s and they are all "DVD only". I've been trying to upgrade my older collection and they keep sending me DVDs...
 
Dude, Netflix doesn't even send out BRs for a lot of older movies. Go look for a movie from the 80s/90s and they are all "DVD only". I've been trying to upgrade my older collection and they keep sending me DVDs...

Which considering some of the transfers you might not be missing anything.

It costs MONEY to do a decent transfer from film to BR, which a number of studios loath to do.

Why on earth would you spend money on an old title that has been out 20-30-40 years when you can do a half assed transfer and call it good.

The BR transfer of Ghostbusters is that BAD.
 
Which considering some of the transfers you might not be missing anything.

It costs MONEY to do a decent transfer from film to BR, which a number of studios loath to do.

Why on earth would you spend money on an old title that has been out 20-30-40 years when you can do a half assed transfer and call it good.

The BR transfer of Ghostbusters is that BAD.

Yeah, half assed Blu Ray (and DVD) releases are... frustrating.

That's actually a partial benefit of using a streaming service. Sometimes they get a better master to start with, and sometimes they do a decent job cleaning them up. You can post process rips yourself, of course, but spending 20+ minutes patching up a 90 minute movie can be hard to justify.
 
I have a 55" TCL P605, 4K, HDR, Dolby Vision set. Last year I bought a cheapy Magnavox 4K BRD player, a the Sony X700 player and Thor: Ragnarok on 4k BRD. Brought everything home, hooked it up to test versus streaming the movie from Vudu. I also compared Star Wars: Rogue One across all both players, streaming, and my PS4. After a few hours of switching back and forth, to my eye there was a difference between streaming and disc, but it was negligible. Had a friend over who has a calibrated 65" Panasonic plasma (that used to be mine) and his opinion matched mine. Not enough difference to justify the cost. I took both players back.

I acknowledge that there are probably other movies where the difference in quality might be more evident. But after decades of chasing home theater nirvana (CRT, digital projectors, ISF calibrated sets, and dialed in audio setups) I'm just as happy with my TCL and soundbar setup as with anything else I've ever owned. Maybe I'm jaded and tired of fussing with all the gear. Been there done that. Now, I just want everything to provide good quality with minimal effort to setup and maintain, and with a small footprint.

If you're considering a UHD BRD player, go for it, but don't let people hear tell you it's night and day difference with streaming. If you have data caps, then that's a concern.

IHMO. YMMV. ETC. ETC.
 
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