this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2023
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I had forgotten how much worse streaming quality was after being stuck on it for a while.
Popped in an old DVD and was surprised how much better stuff looked. Not to mention BR....
I always knew it, but actually seeing it in front of me made me sad for how much I've missed, and now I can't go back.
Not sure what you are streaming that a DVD looks better. Any 720p stream is better, let alone higher resolution ones.
I regularly see this response whenever someone mentions that home media (DVD, BlueRay) looks better.
I personally don’t know the answer, though I suspect as the other replies do also that it’s about compression and bit-depth … but I think someone really needs to do a breakdown on the technicalities here.
Either streaming has tricked everyone into thinking they haven’t lost anything, and that’s tragic, or we’re tricking ourselves into thinking our cherished home media looks better, which is somewhat sad but also interesting.
Genuinely, the bitrate for streaming is much, much lower than physical media. DVDs average about 6 Mbps, HD Blu-rays average roughly 30 Mbps, and 4K Blu-rays average around 100 Mbps. From everything I've seen Netflix doesn't really go higher than 20 Mbps even at 4K. Color banding and blocking is going to generally be the most visible issue with Netflix and other streaming services