Zarathustra[H]
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2000
- Messages
- 38,924
This thread makes me sad. If the [H] community in general are content with streaming then Blu-Ray doesn't stand a chance. Netflix "Super HD" encodes are unwatchable to me. Not only are they clearly bitrate-starved for the resolution but the amount of scrubbing they do to make the image more "stream-friendly" is egregious. If I were a cinematographer I would request Netflix to encode my 6Mb "Super HD" stream at 720p with an unmolested image. It would look way better than their traditional 1080p "Super HD" encodes.
I suspect there is a lot of placebo effect going on here, just as we have in the mp3/flac arguments.
On my 60" Panny plasma, I can certainly see the difference between a real bluray and netflix "Super HD"....
....if I stand really close, and compare the still frames side by side.
In normal watching, at normal distances, without pausing to look at still frames I'd be hard pressed to tell you if I were watching a bluray or netflix.
I can't speak to the audio differences, as - since the launch of bluray - I've always watched at relatively low volume on TV speakers. I've never lived anywhere where having neighbors hasn't made anything louder a problem. When I did have a 5.1 setup back in college, I found that dealing with all the extra wires just wasn't worth the hassle for the rare occurrence I actually got to blast it in full glorious surround.
Maybe it is nice to live in the middle of nowhere where housing is cheap enough that you can afford to be anything less than a millionaire and live in a house that is not connected to your neighbors, but I'd choose the urban life 100% of the time