I am tempted.

Seriously, optical mediums are dying because of products like this. A 100GB disc sounds great, but I'm not paying more than $50 just for a drive to burn the disc. If Blu Ray was made affordable from the beginning, I'm pretty confident things like Netflix or Amazon Prime would be much, much less popular.

LG goes for 50$ for a while now, and "eats" any disc. im now actually the only one that was able to image discs, other ppl/drives couldnt even get to read properly..

Seriously, optical mediums are dying because of products like this.

Optical mediums are dying because the average consumer is too stupid to understand the differences between the quality of image/sound you get on disc format, and the crap thats streamed in from Netflix or Amazon. They see HD1080p or UHD2160p and think they've got the best there is. http://cdn.overclock.net/6/6c/6cfed06c_Streaming-Bluray-2Mbps-CU.jpeg

A 100GB disc sounds great, but I'm not paying more than $50 just for a drive to burn the disc.

But you'd pay $200 for an xbone that plays these discs?

If Blu Ray was made affordable from the beginning, I'm pretty confident things like Netflix or Amazon Prime would be much, much less popular.

BluRay has always been affordable. Its consumers like you who are cheap and opt for crappy streamed content instead of showing the content how it should look. The amount of data stored on bluray for the price it costs has always been good. People forget that they're not just paying for the medium, but for the data (movies) which took a huge investment/risk to create, market, and sell. Another big factor is the quality of the screen and audio system you're using. If you've got a low end walmart visio or whatever they sell cheap, steaming is perfect. But when when you watch that content on high end gear, the reduced quality is very apparent.

Optical mediums are dying because the average consumer is too stupid to understand the differences between the quality of image/sound you get on disc format, and the crap thats streamed in from Netflix or Amazon. They see HD1080p or UHD2160p and think they've got the best there is.

Most people don't see that close to their displays, nor do they care about the quality (for most people, the convenience factor outweighs the drop in quality). In the screenshot you showed, only the 2.5Mbps image looks distinctly worse at a distance. Oh, but I'm SURE you'll loudly disagree with that.

But you'd pay $200 for an xbone that plays these discs?

Uh.... no? I never said that or implied it. I also don't know anyone who would buy a console FOR Blu Ray playback, and, I was also referring to burning discs. Getting a little ahead of yourself there.

BluRay has always been affordable. Its consumers like you who are cheap and opt for crappy streamed content instead of showing the content how it should look. The amount of data stored on bluray for the price it costs has always been good. People forget that they're not just paying for the medium, but for the data (movies) which took a huge investment/risk to create, market, and sell.

Right... Tell that to Sony and Philips and see if they agree based on their customer feedback. Anyway, affordability is relative. Compared to DVDs and HD streaming, getting into Blu Ray is more expensive (or at least a worse value). I know people who have working Blu Ray players and have opted DVD.

Another big factor is the quality of the screen and audio system you're using. If you've got a low end walmart visio or whatever they sell cheap, steaming is perfect. But when when you watch that content on high end gear, the reduced quality is very apparent.

You seem pretty obsessive over quality.

Optical mediums are dying because the average consumer is too stupid to understand the differences between the quality of image/sound you get on disc format, and the crap thats streamed in from Netflix or Amazon. They see HD1080p or UHD2160p and think they've got the best there is. But you'd pay $200 for an xbone that plays these discs? BluRay has always been affordable. Its consumers like you who are cheap and opt for crappy streamed content instead of showing the content how it should look. The amount of data stored on bluray for the price it costs has always been good. People forget that they're not just paying for the medium, but for the data (movies) which took a huge investment/risk to create, market, and sell. Another big factor is the quality of the screen and audio system you're using. If you've got a low end walmart visio or whatever they sell cheap, steaming is perfect. But when when you watch that content on high end gear, the reduced quality is very apparent.

This is true most dont, but I can argue that Netflix 1080p/4K Can and usual look better then cable/satellites feeds, do to the amount of compression they use.

I'll wait for LG. Pioneer has riplock, which makes their discs read at only 2X or max 4X and it takes about an hour to copy a blu-ray. LG is able to copy at 8X and it takes only 15 mins. I'm sure this drive has the same issue. There's no other reason to get this than to copy discs or make MKVs. I haven't burned a disc in years.

Last time I used a DVD writer or dvd player in my system was month ago and that only cause I wanted DVD copy of Windows cause I didnt want to use my USB stick on infected pc. before that it was almost 5+ years, I Still have yet to put optical drive in my current system. I use them so rarely these days I just gona get external drive for the rare occasions. I like have physical copyies, but I also like digital copies cause of no need for swaping disc around, but going full digital is not fesable for alot people, as there isnt enough space to do that

I'll wait for LG. Pioneer has riplock, which makes their discs read at only 2X or max 4X and it takes about an hour to copy a blu-ray. LG is able to copy at 8X and it takes only 15 mins. I'm sure this drive has the same issue. There's no other reason to get this than to copy discs or make MKVs. I haven't burned a disc in years.

Riplock only affects ripping right?

I been using BD burners since forever, I buy media from Japanese sellers on ebay, its MUCH cheaper (including shipping) than USA/EU. The best ones for Burning are Pioneer, my finally dyed after years of working and not the laser but something mechanical, now I got LG BD burner and its worse, it cant burn at same speeds as pioneer even thou technically its rated higher than my previous pioneer. I have no experience in ripping so no idea which one is better but Pioneers for sure beat all the others in its quality and allowing faster burn speeds than the BD is rated on the box. Combine good Usenet with fast internet with printable Verbatim 50Gb BuRay media and you can have nice BD and BD3D movie collection, that looks like original disk in weeks. I even got photo paper and BD boxes, so I have all the best movies look 1:1 like original nicely on my shelf. BUT, Big TV series are cheaper and less hassle to buy original than burning yourself, especially multi season bundles (and especially on sale). I have a rule: TV series about space: Original BD or Original DVD TV series about everything else: BluRay rips saved on HDD (DVD rips I dont collect, look horrible on 4K TV) 3D Movies: 1:1 BD copies Other movies and 4K Movies: high quality BD Rips saved to HDD (4K movies 20Gb to 50Gb per movie and Standard BD at least 12-16GB minimum) P.S. This is not a discussion about piracy if its good or not, I dont promote it, I just shared my experience with BD burners.

Any type of reading from disc including installing Windows.

I dont understand, the drive reads ALL disk at x2/x4 speed OR the disks that the drive burns will be read at x2/x4 speed? Also, riplock is for all disks or BluRay only? If the drive reads at x4 maximum than how it can be rated higher? How they can rate it x16 (for example) if it wont read that high?

Every Pioneer drive has had this, so I don't see why this wouldn't have it too.

I guess you could say they're... Pioneers of noise reduction! HAHAHAHAHAHA *crickets* :grab: Anyway, for those of you who still work with physical DVDs or .iso files, I would recommend getting something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Zalman-ZM-VE350-Enclosure-Emulator-ZM-V350S/dp/B019C23LRA I have the USB 2.0 + eSATA version of this and it's been great being able to substitute so many discs, while also being able to install/repair computers without optical drives. You can also boot to these as normal USB hard drives, which I use to boot Linux to do diagnostics or fix Windows.

Most people don't see that close to their displays, nor do they care about the quality (for most people, the convenience factor outweighs the drop in quality). In the screenshot you showed, only the 2.5Mbps image looks distinctly worse at a distance. Oh, but I'm SURE you'll loudly disagree with that. Uh.... no? I never said that or implied it. I also don't know anyone who would buy a console FOR Blu Ray playback, and, I was also referring to burning discs. Getting a little ahead of yourself there. Right... Tell that to Sony and Philips and see if they agree based on their customer feedback. Anyway, affordability is relative. Compared to DVDs and HD streaming, getting into Blu Ray is more expensive (or at least a worse value). I know people who have working Blu Ray players and have opted DVD. You seem pretty obsessive over quality.

There's a pretty obvious drop in detail with every step down. Unless you're viewing at a significant distance the scenes that need more bits will have obvious blocking or other issues. Streaming should eventually be able to overtake standard BDs if encoding for BDs hasn't been changing (I don't think it has but I haven't checked). Streaming can change or update codecs at will so it's inevitable unless they choose not to. I would've thought they would've been closer than this but, apparently not. I'll probably buy a console primarily for UHD/4K BD playback, that's about all I ever use my PS3 for. I realize I'm in the minority on that, of course. Blu-Ray is only more expensive to get into if someone doesn't know how to shop. For example, I paid $15 (new, shortly after release) for the LotR extended BD set. If/when the industry decides to try disc activation bull it won't be any different than streaming but until then I think BD is the better value. When streaming has questionable quality improvements compared DVDs in a good playback chain what else is there to discuss but quality? I get that some people don't care about quality, that's fine, some people do and they shouldn't have to put up with junk quality when they're paying for it.

Optical mediums are dying because the average consumer is too stupid to understand the differences between the quality of image/sound you get on disc format, and the crap thats streamed in from Netflix or Amazon. They see HD1080p or UHD2160p and think they've got the best there is. [spoiler]http://cdn.overclock.net/6/6c/6cfed06c_Streaming-Bluray-2Mbps-CU.jpeg[/spoiler] But you'd pay $200 for an xbone that plays these discs? BluRay has always been affordable. Its consumers like you who are cheap and opt for crappy streamed content instead of showing the content how it should look. The amount of data stored on bluray for the price it costs has always been good. People forget that they're not just paying for the medium, but for the data (movies) which took a huge investment/risk to create, market, and sell. Another big factor is the quality of the screen and audio system you're using. If you've got a low end walmart visio or whatever they sell cheap, steaming is perfect. But when when you watch that content on high end gear, the reduced quality is very apparent.

I would largely agree about the average consumer, but Netflix UHD streaming has a minimum of 25MBit/sec requirement, and even their HD streams are usually at around 7.2MBit, with more advanced algorithms than the Blu Ray discs. I agree that the disks will have better quality, but the differences aren't as huge as they used to be, and a blu ray movie costs as a Netflix+Amazon Prime subscription per month, so there is the value proposition too.

There's a pretty obvious drop in detail with every step down. Unless you're viewing at a significant distance the scenes that need more bits will have obvious blocking or other issues. Streaming should eventually be able to overtake standard BDs if encoding for BDs hasn't been changing (I don't think it has but I haven't checked).

Are you referring to that screenshot or just in general? Because except for the 2.5mbps slide, there isn't an obvious decrease in quality in any of the others. Sure, some movies will have pretty obvious "blocking" and visible compression issues, but for most people they just don't care.

I'll probably buy a console primarily for UHD/4K BD playback, that's about all I ever use my PS3 for. I realize I'm in the minority on that, of course.

Why? You can get a full HD Blu Ray player for $50, where at least that will have a more user-friendly remote.

Blu-Ray is only more expensive to get into if someone doesn't know how to shop. For example, I paid $15 (new, shortly after release) for the LotR extended BD set. If/when the industry decides to try disc activation bull it won't be any different than streaming but until then I think BD is the better value.

Meanwhile, most movies aren't that cheap unless you buy used. When you consider the convenience of streaming (where you don't need to bargain hunt or deal with physical mediums) I'm not inclined to believe BD is the better value. If having a physical tangible object and highest quality is what you care about then obviously BD is the only choice. For most people, that's not worth it.

I get that some people don't care about quality, that's fine, some people do and they shouldn't have to put up with junk quality when they're paying for it.

I agree; I never said otherwise. My original post was saying that BD would've been more successful if it was more affordable. Consider this: DVD was released in 1999, and was readily available around 2000. It became incredibly cheap and common somewhere around 2006 (I don't know exactly when). Blu Ray was pretty much released in 2003 and readily available in 2006. Within 7 years, you could get DVD players for $25 and computer DVD playback software was cheap, or free (with questionable legal issues). Writable DVDs are worth pennies, and high-speed DVD burners could be acquired for less than $50. Meanwhile, it's been over a decade since BD has been widely available and BD players still cost at least $50. I'm not sure how much software costs to play them back, but free options took forever to play anything at all, and even then it seems their playback is limited. Decent-quality BD burners (without software) still cost over $50, but most are a lot more expensive. Writable Blu Ray discs cost roughly $0.45 a piece, and that's if you buy a large pack. Seems to me most new commercially published movies cost around $15 on average. That's just ridiculous. There's no reason Blu Ray products should still cost this much. Companies are much better off just shipping movies on flash drives. Considering how long it has been available, it should at least cost as much as DVD did back around 2008.

The screenshot. Though my general experience with streaming has been about the same. I'll likely pick up some console exclusives at some point and updates are generally more frequent than with BD players. Who knows if I'll end up using extra functionality added down the line but, having the option is nice. If we're throwing used out the window I'd agree. If not, and someone doesn't watch tons of movies/TV, the overall subscription cost over time probably won't be much better than simply buying stuff (also over time). I'd say Microsoft had a large impact, to a certain extent, though I understand their decision and it makes sense. Had Microsoft shelled out for the license, like they did with DVD, it would've meant way more prebuilts shipping with BD drives. That alone likely would've driven costs down and driven usage up significantly. The rise of streaming media probably had a lot to do with it as well. If I had to point the finger at anything in particular I think I'd go with the BD consortium. They've been stupid and pigheaded about playback, copy protection, licensing fees, and anything else one can think of.