Do you watch DVD or Blu-Ray disc movies in your PC?

[Chiyawa]

Hi,

 

Well, first of all, I'm a bit of old-school guy, and technically, I still like to watch DVD or Blu-ray disc movies. I usually use my PC to watch them because I can use my surround sound headphones, which, well, quite good, actually, if you don't mind the small screen.

 

So, what about you? Do you still watch DVD or Blu-ray movie on your PC? If your media server is a PC, I guess that counts too, since it is a PC.

 

Before anyone ask 'why not just go to Netflix or online streaming services?', my Internet has quota. Anyway, that's beside the point.

 

Regards,

Chiyawa

[GDRRiley]

I rip then on to my computer. I prefer ripping bluerays but my blueray drive has a part of the sata connection broken now.

[DrMacintosh]

I have an optical drive in my rig, I use it to rip CDs and DVDs that I find and don't have ripped yet. But they are DVDs and are SD so I usually find, erm, alternatives. 

[TempestCatto]

I prefer to watch movies from physical media as no streaming service can match the bitrate and therefore the quality. Plus, I like physically owning something I bought rather than it being digital. Makes me feel like I actually purchased something vs a license to use.

[PlayStation 2]

VHS via capture card. THAT'S how hipster I am, apparently.

That being said, I have a decent amount of DVDs and I bought a Blu-ray drive to rip the first SpongeBob movie and a VeggieTales episode.

[Beowulff83]

I was going down this road to set up kid's pc as a media center.  But found out i will be missing some features in my set up and its a giant pita to get everything working with blu ray properly.  I will eventually purchase a dedicated blu ray player.

[x-eagleeye-x]

The last rig I built had an optical drive, but the one I'm currently using doesn't. I didn't feel the need for it anymore since internet speeds have increased significantly over the past 5 years. I just use streaming services wherever I consume video content since those are encoded in Dolby Digital anyway.

 

As far as quality goes, my eyes and ears will not be able to truly appreciate the difference, unless I have both streaming 4K HDR and Blu-ray 4K HDR side by side at the same time. And even then, I would probably just think "meh, it's nice when you look at the bitrate statistics in real-time because the numbers are higher". There's only so much my eyes and ears can appreciate. I don't need to see the pore on the face of the actor to be slightly sharper on Blu-ray when compared to a streaming service. So when I look at value for money, I am absolutely willing to forgo high bitrate physical media for the convenience of streaming media + millions of hours of content for 1 price.

[Chiyawa]

41 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

I rip then on to my computer. I prefer ripping bluerays but my blueray drive has a part of the sata connection broken now.

I see. sad to hear your Blu-ray drive is having an issue. I think Amazon did sell LG Blu-ray drives for USD 75.

 

18 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

I have an optical drive in my rig, I use it to rip CDs and DVDs that I find and don't have ripped yet. But they are DVDs and are SD so I usually find, erm, alternatives. 

I see. Well, DVD may be in SD, but their surround sound is pretty good.

 

15 minutes ago, TempestCatto said:

I prefer to watch movies from physical media as no streaming service can match the bitrate and therefore the quality. Plus, I like physically owning something I bought rather than it being digital. Makes me feel like I actually purchased something vs a license to use.

Man, I like your style.

 

13 minutes ago, handymanshandle said:

VHS via capture card. THAT'S how hipster I am, apparently.

That being said, I have a decent amount of DVDs and I bought a Blu-ray drive to rip the first SpongeBob movie and a VeggieTales episode.

Oh wow, VHS through a capture card. I used to watch VHS, but I found they lack of surround sound, which is probably the main reason I go for DVD. You can actually feel the sound is coming behind you.

.

12 minutes ago, Beowulff83 said:

I was going down this road to set up kid's pc as a media center.  But found out i will be missing some features in my set up and its a giant pita to get everything working with blu ray properly.  I will eventually purchase a dedicated blu ray player.

Hmm, I see. Yeah, to watch Blu-ray disc movie, you need to pay for a software to play the movie. I wonder why Sony and the like still doesn't want release Blu-ray for the public as a free to use. In Windows 10, you should be able to play DVD movie just fine.

 

14 minutes ago, x-eagleeye-x said:

The last rig I built had an optical drive, but the one I'm currently using doesn't. I didn't feel the need for it anymore since internet speeds have increased significantly over the past 5 years. I just use streaming services wherever I consume video content since those are encoded in Dolby Digital anyway.

 

As far as quality goes, my eyes and ears will not be able to truly appreciate the difference, unless I have both streaming 4K HDR and Blu-ray 4K HDR side by side at the same time. And even then, I would probably just think "meh, it's nice when you look at the bitrate statistics in real-time because the numbers are higher". There's only so much my eyes and ears can appreciate. I don't need to see the pore on the face of the actor to be slightly sharper on Blu-ray when compared to a streaming service. So when I look at value for money, I am absolutely willing to forgo high bitrate physical media for the convenience of streaming media + millions of hours of content for 1 price.

I see. Well, I'm happy you found the streaming services works for you. I don't have lots of internet quota, so streaming services is not ideal. Even in Youtube I have to opt to watch at 480p to conserve data. But my main reason is surround sound feature. I don't know much about streaming services, but Blu-ray has 7.1 surround sound, which if you pair with a capable headphone (or you have a software that could mimic 7.1 surround sound to a stereo headset), they sound pretty good. You can listen the sound of a car pass by from behind to the front as if the real car pass by you.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

Blue-ray drives are still to expensive for me to even consider getting one. I still have a DVD drive in my rig but it hasn't been used for a long time. I just end up playing DVD/Blurays on my PS3. 

[Chiyawa]

1 minute ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

Blue-ray drives are still to expensive for me to even consider getting one. I still have a DVD drive in my rig but it hasn't been used for a long time. I just end up playing DVD/Blurays on my PS3. 

I see. Well, since you have PS3, might as well use it to watch Blu-ray disc.

[Guest]

Old enough we still have a box of VHS tapes..... that we don't watch anymore, but still have em'.

 

HTPC does dandy DVD, streaming, gaming, and other. xbox for the blueray.

 

When I was a kid, we watched vacations on a slide projector. Gramps passed many years ago, so my uncles took over and occasionally on christmas or thanksgiving they set it up and we watch once a year. Would like to digitize all of the slides (thousands actually) because they are already deteriorating some of them 50-60 years old now. Have to take care with them for sure. Finger will go right through.

 

I miss the old days. So much is changed.....

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

We digitized all of our DVDs/blurays a couple years ago and they sit on a drive in my HTPC now

[Chiyawa]

2 minutes ago, ShrimpBrime said:

HTPC does dandy DVD, streaming, gaming, and other. xbox for the blueray.

I see.

 

2 minutes ago, ShrimpBrime said:

we watched vacations on a slide projector.

Wow, a slide projector. Haven't seen one in ages. I think the very first and last time I saw it is at a museum.

 

2 minutes ago, orbitalbuzzsaw said:

We digitized all of our DVDs/blurays a couple years ago and they sit on a drive in my HTPC now

Okay, I guess the ISO still counts...

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Chiyawa said:

 

Wow, a slide projector. Haven't seen one in ages. I think the very first and last time I saw it is at a museum.

 

Right.  

 

DVDs arent really that far back there.

 

Aaaand Atari is still a thing.

 

 

 

[Chiyawa]

3 minutes ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Right.  

 

DVDs arent really that far back there.

 

Aaaand Atari is still a thing.

 

 

 

Oh ho ho. Well, Atari is still a thing even right now, but I'm more of a Commodore guy. I don't own any of their console, though.

[Guest]

Just now, Chiyawa said:

Oh ho ho. Well, Atari is still a thing even right now, but I'm more of a Commodore guy. I don't own any of their console, though.

My brother has the old Commodore and also Pong console. 

We've had many atari's. Dime a dozen.

 

[B16CXHatch]

I use to watch DVDs on a PC years ago. I remember the first DVD capable device was an eMachine eMonster 600 that a friend of mine and his dad gave me back when I was like 15 (2003). It was utterly amazing this 600MHz Pentium III running Windows 98se even had a DVD drive (it came from the factory with it), let alone play them. I watched the first Pirates of the Caribbean on it on a 15" CRT Monitor (after my parents watched it first on their actual DVD player). I only used it for DVDs briefly though. My brother got me a DVD player for Christmas either that same year or the next year. I used it for like 15 years until I accidentally kicked the open disc tray and broke it.

 

My first Blu-Ray player was an HP laptop that I got new in 2008. My parents and I watched the Dark Knight on it with it hooked up to their plasma TV. That was the only Blu-Ray it ever played before the drive broke

 

Of course I used a laptop to watch a DVD a few times years ago too. That was fairly rare though as I've never traveled a lot.

 

I do still watch DVDs and Blu-Rays now, but I use a PS4 Pro to watch Blu-Rays on my 43" LCD TV and I use a PS3 to watch DVDs on my 27" CRT TV (using S-Video). I also have the official remotes for both too cause I hate using controllers for media playback.