recommend a store to buy blu-rays from?

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1080p

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#726382 3-Dec-2012 18:53

Yah, the solution for playing Blu-ray content on your home network does not exist. Yet another market that is not being served by the content industry - but that is another issue entirely.

Personally, I think buying the Blu-ray and grabbing a digital encode from usenet/ThePirateBay is fine until such a solution is provided.

Just refrain from advertising that fact to everybody that you know and you will likely never face any consequences.

JimmyH

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#726433 3-Dec-2012 20:28

1080p: Yah, the solution for playing Blu-ray content on your home network does not exist. Yet another market that is not being served by the content industry - but that is another issue entirely.

Yes, it does exist. Ripping the disk to a NAS box or shared directory on your PC, and then playing the content across the network using 1080p-capable media players is inexpensive and pretty robust. So the technical end of the solution isn't the problem if that's what you want to do. Any barriers are legal rather than technical.

reven

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#726443 3-Dec-2012 20:43

i bought a bluray drive so i could rip movies i own to computer, so really not bothered about buying the movie and doing it that way. but i cant justify $50 on a movie, when i can rent it on vudu in hd for around $7 USD.

thinking ideal cost would be around $30. just thought there might of been a site similar to nzgameshop.com for movies out there, but i guess not.

davidcole

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#726577 4-Dec-2012 06:27

I found the start time on a tipped bluray as real slow (I recut playback of an m2ts file). Coul have been my network. Then I handbrake'd it to 720p.

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reven

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#726643 4-Dec-2012 10:15

ok looks like amazon is the best option out there.

the batman trilogy of bluray is $49 NZD delivered. shipping is $11.35, so thats not too bad.

JimmyH

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#727018 4-Dec-2012 18:35

$49 is a good price.

I haven't permanently hooked blu-ray up yet. Bought the player about 6 months ago, but it's still sitting in my "Christmas break to do" pile. However, I purposefully acquired a unit that was multi-zone for blu-ray as well as DVD so that I could take advantage of better US pricing and release windows. I think you have just validated my strategy.

bfginger

1269 posts

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#727091 4-Dec-2012 21:31

Always research a title before purchasing. Many titles have had multiple releases with different picture quality or cuts.

Many titles are released in different times and places by different outfits and everything that can go wrong does from 24fps films being released at 1080i50 to films being released with the bottom cropped off and stretched. I remember one title had nearly an hour cut off every release except the one on amazon.de. Some 4:3 titles are better to buy on DVD because they cut the bottom and top off to "widescreen" the BD release.

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da5id

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#727095 4-Dec-2012 21:43

To ask a related question: is there any other place apart from HD Tracks that is good to get hi-res or 24/96 or greater music? A lot of similar sites won't let content be downloaded to NZ.

I was wanting to get The Flaming Lips Yoshimi vs The Pink Robots, but after listening to some sample tracks at HD Tracks and reading what others have said, it seems obvious that the wrong mix was used - a 5:1 mixdown where the voice and other instruments change sides and pan all over the place.

Looking to get a proper mix to download, and/or to generally find other sites.

1080p

1332 posts

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#727124 4-Dec-2012 23:00

JimmyH:
1080p: Yah, the solution for playing Blu-ray content on your home network does not exist. Yet another market that is not being served by the content industry - but that is another issue entirely.

Yes, it does exist. Ripping the disk to a NAS box or shared directory on your PC, and then playing the content across the network using 1080p-capable media players is inexpensive and pretty robust. So the technical end of the solution isn't the problem if that's what you want to do. Any barriers are legal rather than technical.

I should have said that it does not yet legally exist. Owning the discs and torrenting the files is no different to ripping the discs yourself but torrenting is faster and you end up with a better quality result if you know what you're looking for.

1080p

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#727126 4-Dec-2012 23:02

da5id: To ask a related question: is there any other place apart from HD Tracks that is good to get hi-res or 24/96 or greater music? A lot of similar sites won't let content be downloaded to NZ.

I was wanting to get The Flaming Lips Yoshimi vs The Pink Robots, but after listening to some sample tracks at HD Tracks and reading what others have said, it seems obvious that the wrong mix was used - a 5:1 mixdown where the voice and other instruments change sides and pan all over the place.

Looking to get a proper mix to download, and/or to generally find other sites.

The more important question is whether your ears are even able to benefit from higher bit depth tracks. The likelihood of that is next to non-existent so just keep listening to regular CD quality music but invest in better equipment. :)

rhy7s

625 posts

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#727138 4-Dec-2012 23:42

da5id: To ask a related question: is there any other place apart from HD Tracks that is good to get hi-res or 24/96 or greater music? A lot of similar sites won't let content be downloaded to NZ.

Before you get too hung up on higher definition audio, make sure you've read: http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

stevenz

2802 posts

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#727360 5-Dec-2012 12:16

rhy7s:
da5id: To ask a related question: is there any other place apart from HD Tracks that is good to get hi-res or 24/96 or greater music? A lot of similar sites won't let content be downloaded to NZ.

Before you get too hung up on higher definition audio, make sure you've read: http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

Good article, thanks for the link!

Edit: This statement doesn't sound right though:

Above: Sampled signals are often depicted as a rough stairstep (red) that seems a poor approximation of the original signal. However, the representation is mathematically exact and the signal recovers the exact smooth shape of the original (blue) when converted back to analog.

"exact"? Simply not possible, it'll be a digital approximation, albeit one that is near-enough identical.

@KnightNZ

sen8or

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#727992 6-Dec-2012 12:17

you could always wander down to your local video shop, odds are they will be selling off their ex-rental movies approx 2 - 3 weeks after release, for the larger or more well stocked stores, this includes blu-ray. Ours go out at $14.99 at this time frame.

Discs are always as new, just have to put up with some rental stickering. But if you are ripping to your own network, then probably a non issue for you anyway.

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