Blurays are still way better than streaming though, especially the UHD ones. Bitrate is always way higher and the audio is noticeably crisper in my opinion.
I still regularly buy Blu rays, but it has to be for a specific kind of film or one of my favourites.
It’s more useful than breaking into a cinema, stealing the hdd and encryption keys and storing the screening file on your server.
And more useful than camrips.
What I want to say: It’s the best you can get to archival quality without aquiring the source files.
For sure but I used to think that BluRay in itself had any added value as in “it is better than the quality of a playable file”. But it does not. It simply is like a DVD which contains a high quality version if the film.
It can be hard to find full 4k atmos versions online in my opinion. But usual benefits are the same for any physical collection. Actually having something tangible you can look at and touch and know you’ll always have as long as you look after it and disc rot doesn’t come for it before your own demise.
For FHD Blu-Rays yes (though IIRC you need to download a file with the list of AACS keys for decryption). For UHD BluRays, you need to get a drive that people have made a custom firmware for and flash the firmware first. This is because UHD drives also have hardware level encryption protection that prevents you from being able to read the discs directly (assuming the firmware is working as intended, hence the need to flash a custom firmware). Realistically, just find a remux torrent. It’s much easier.
There’s caveats to that these days. Official streaming, in practice, sure. But with a debrid/similar service and sufficient bandwidth, you can pirate stream files with equivalent quality to uncompressed Blurays
Blurays are still way better than streaming though, especially the UHD ones. Bitrate is always way higher and the audio is noticeably crisper in my opinion.
I still regularly buy Blu rays, but it has to be for a specific kind of film or one of my favourites.
But what is the benefit of Bluray over dowloading?
That bluray is the source of your release.
The bluray is an export of the movie with lower compression flashed to a BluRay disk. Then we rip it back out of the disk.
The BluRay does not really add value besides as a physical storage medium. It is about as useful as DVD’s were in the past.
It’s more useful than breaking into a cinema, stealing the hdd and encryption keys and storing the screening file on your server.
And more useful than camrips.
What I want to say: It’s the best you can get to archival quality without aquiring the source files.
For sure but I used to think that BluRay in itself had any added value as in “it is better than the quality of a playable file”. But it does not. It simply is like a DVD which contains a high quality version if the film.
It can be hard to find full 4k atmos versions online in my opinion. But usual benefits are the same for any physical collection. Actually having something tangible you can look at and touch and know you’ll always have as long as you look after it and disc rot doesn’t come for it before your own demise.
Back up your physical media!!
Can’t you just get the BR-ISO and remux yourself?
For FHD Blu-Rays yes (though IIRC you need to download a file with the list of AACS keys for decryption). For UHD BluRays, you need to get a drive that people have made a custom firmware for and flash the firmware first. This is because UHD drives also have hardware level encryption protection that prevents you from being able to read the discs directly (assuming the firmware is working as intended, hence the need to flash a custom firmware). Realistically, just find a remux torrent. It’s much easier.
Speaking only for UHD blurays - to get similar quality requires large files. Storing a collection of giant files is a hassle.
There’s caveats to that these days. Official streaming, in practice, sure. But with a debrid/similar service and sufficient bandwidth, you can pirate stream files with equivalent quality to uncompressed Blurays