But where will I buy my 4k discs?

gudnoyez

https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/best-buy-ending-dvd-blu-ray-disc-sales-1235754919/

I guess Amazon is still in the business but hate buying anything from them. I mean if its something worth watching more than once I like 4k HD Blu Ray's better picture quality and sound than streaming. Time to trade the HT rig in for a soundbar

nooshinjohn

Remember, you will own nothing and be happy.

pitdogg2

Straight up horsehockey!! I for see discs going straight to the moon in price! I fargin HATE Amazon! It's a fargin monopoly plain and simple. We are constantly cancelling company credit cards because of Amazon. The company will only allow corporate purchases to go through Amazon and for whatever reason the CC's are constantly being hacked,stolen compromised, pick your word. The fact is it's a problem.

I noticed just yesterday at my local BB they had completely tore down their DVD, Blu Ray, 4k section. I asked the employee if they were going to stop selling and he boldly said no not at all, just getting an accurate inventory count, it will be put back up in 3hrs, I'm sorry for the inconvenience. Liars!!

rooftop59

Netflix just stopped their disc by mail business as well…of course you didn’t own those, but still benefit from the better AV quality of a disc…

I wonder how long Redbox will last…

Emlyn

Another option is Gruv.com which is owned by Universal. They seem to be competitive. WalMart is another option. Barnes and Noble carries media in store and online. I've bought almost all media from Amazon for many years now.

Can't say I'll miss Best Buy since I only venture into one of their stores every few years if I need an appliance or phone. Shame, since I spent a lot of money with that company over the years. They'll apparently stop selling physical media both online and in stores starting in 2024 so seems like they'll still have physical media in stores through the holiday season.

Nightfall

I'm sure discs will still be readily available on eBay if you hate Amazon. eBay has pretty good buyer protections too.

GlennDog

nooshinjohn wrote: »

Remember, you will own nothing and be happy.

"they" are totally serious about this. Every time I think of this mindset (and their actions to implement totality) my BP skyrockets!

pitdogg2

Our wally world has never sold 4k movies, they only sell the standard Blu Ray. The local Target store is very hit and miss. Best buy was my best option locally. I've bought some through ebay, unfortunately I've been more disappointed than happy with those purchases. To be real frank here, it's just a matter if time before we will no longer be able to even buy a spinner to play these discs. If you've not noticed new players coming to market are very scarce. I've watched streaming movies I've noticed some of the compression artifacts on many of those. My buddy invited me over to watch some at his house, he thought the picture was really excellent. I invited him over to my house to watch the same movie on my oppo 205 let's just say it was an apple to Orange comparison and he can see it right off the bat even though he's not an movie guru so to speak. His comment to me was I've never noticed any of this before I'll never be able to watch these again knowing what I know now once you see something like this you can't unsee it.

gudnoyez

They still had albums for sale a couple of weeks ago at Best Buy. I went in for a new Lap Top and wandered around a bit to the small section of LP's nothing I wanted or didnt already have. I also glanced at they ever shrinking selection of movies for sale.

The Walmart near us does have 4k selections on the latest releases that's about it. I dont do Target, Barnes and Nobles has a nice selection of CDs and vinyl but thier movie selections are overpriced. That leaves Bull Moose or Amazon or E-Bay. I also think it's only a matter of time until its streaming only.

jbreezy5

pitdogg2 wrote: »

Our wally world has never sold 4k movies, they only sell the standard Blu Ray. The local Target store is very hit and miss. Best buy was my best option locally. I've bought some through ebay, unfortunately I've been more disappointed than happy with those purchases. To be real frank here, it's just a matter if time before we will no longer be able to even buy a spinner to play these discs. If you've not noticed new players coming to market are very scarce. I've watched streaming movies I've noticed some of the compression artifacts on many of those. My buddy invited me over to watch some at his house, he thought the picture was really excellent. I invited him over to my house to watch the same movie on my oppo 205 let's just say it was an apple to Orange comparison and he can see it right off the bat even though he's not an movie guru so to speak. His comment to me was I've never noticed any of this before I'll never be able to watch these again knowing what I know now once you see something like this you can't unsee it.

“I've watched streaming movies I've noticed some of the compression artifacts on many of those.“

I experience your above quote the most when streaming Youtubetv; I can see video artifacts very easily.

My Vudu movie streams are pretty good visually, but audio quality doesn’t exceed Dolby Digital+ (no Dolby HD or DTS-HD) during playback.

Blu-ray and/or 4k discs are the best bet for audio and video playback quality.

pitdogg2

All cable or Satellite services use mpeg 4 compression as well as streaming, it may look great until you watch native full resolution OTA of the same show. I used to have a tower with a deep fringe Channel Master antenna with a rotor, beautiful picture and sound.

jbreezy5

I had to switch to streaming service just to watch tv. Where I live there is a lot of main road traffic that makes OTA broadcasts impossible to watch due to constant RFI.

But, I couldn't agree more; would much prefer OTA, if it worked here. Would probably still stream for greater selection and DVR too though.

GlennDog

pitdogg2 wrote: »

All cable or Satellite services use mpeg 4 compression as well as streaming, it may look great until you watch native full resolution OTA of the same show. I used to have a tower with a deep fringe Channel Master antenna with a rotor, beautiful picture and sound.

Tell me more. I cut the cable 2 months ago and only have OTA and Netflix. OTA is horrendous. Simply unwatchable. Granted my Samsung is 8-9 yrs old and claims to be a smart tv, but it's not.

Recommendations, please!

fwiw, I've got an antenna stretched across the living room to the front picture window that faces west. antenna is propped up against the window about 5 feet high . . . Also, an AL awning hangs over the picture window

rooftop59

GlennDog wrote: »

pitdogg2 wrote: »

All cable or Satellite services use mpeg 4 compression as well as streaming, it may look great until you watch native full resolution OTA of the same show. I used to have a tower with a deep fringe Channel Master antenna with a rotor, beautiful picture and sound.

Tell me more. I cut the cable 2 months ago and only have OTA and Netflix. OTA is horrendous. Simply unwatchable. Granted my Samsung is 8-9 yrs old and claims to be a smart tv, but it's not.

Recommendations, please!

fwiw, I've got an antenna stretched across the living room to the front picture window that faces west. antenna is propped up against the window about 5 feet high . . . Also, an AL awning hangs over the picture window

If you have the cable still running through the wall to an outdoor box, a great solution is to use that cable to install a rooftop or side mounted antenna.

Also, I found this site really helpful when I was running OTA and using plex as the DVR: https://www.antennasdirect.com/transmitter-locator.html

pitdogg2

🤔🤔Glenn step back and think for a minute.... Do you know how a faraday cage works? You don't think that awning could be blocking signal do you? 😉

Seriously mine was a 30' tall tower with a 14' Channel Master antenna with a preamp right at the antenna connection point on the mast that was 12' taller that came down to a rotor on the tower. So here's what I had 300ohm balen that connects to the antenna proper, 18" RG6 quad shielded solid copper conductor coax to channel master preamp in, preamp out RG6 quad shielded solid copper conductor coax to Channel Master amp input in my basement. RG6 quad shielded solid copper conductor out to TV antenna input. I could easily pick up OTA channels from as far as 100 miles away on good atmospheric conditions, 65-70 miles most every day. My antenna picked up UHF/VHF and FM. I cannot stress enough that you must go all in and get one of those triangle towers most everyone had on the side of their house in the 50's and 60's. I pulled one off an old farmhouse that was 5 sections, each section is about 10' with the top section (about 9') that the mast (chainlink fence top rail because it's thicker and much sturdier than run of the mill antenna masts) went through top section to rotor.

I took this home and sanded and steel brushed on a drill for about 4weeks to remove rust and double check for too rusted and weak sections then primed and painted with 3 coats of Silver Rust-Oleum paint from. One section was toast and trashed about half way. I cut it off and it became my base section that I dug a 5' deep hole about 4' square. The 4' square part was about 3' deep. In the center was a circular hole that went another 2'deep I dug with post hole digger large enough in diameter for the tower to go into. Slammed it into the ground, put the next was bolted on and leveled and attached to house with the proper stand off. At that point I poured concrete into the hole to level at ground level. I let it dry for one week before I finished stacking and bolting they next 3 sections. Sumbuck was solid!!

I'll do it again at the house I have now one day soon.

This was my antenna, it appears they are making them again. They did at one time discontinued them. EXCELLENT ANTENNA!!!

https://www.channelmaster.com/collections/tv-antennas/products/ultra-hi-crossfire-100-tv-antenna-cm-3671

This is similar:

https://www.channelmaster.com/collections/tv-antennas/products/advantage-100-outdoor-tv-antenna-cm-3020

These work pretty good for UHF only
Most HD today is UHF

https://www.channelmaster.com/collections/tv-antennas/products/extremetenna-80-outdoor-tv-antenna-cm-4228hd

Here's your preamp. The closer to the actual antenna lead the better.

https://www.channelmaster.com/collections/antenna-pre-amplifiers/products/tv-antenna-preamp-1

I guess this is the new indoor amp.

https://www.channelmaster.com/collections/antenna-distribution-amplifiers/products/tv-antenna-booster-2

treitz3

If you are going to go in....go in deep and all out!!!

😀

Tom

msg

pitdogg2 wrote: »

If you've not noticed new players coming to market are very scarce. I've watched streaming movies I've noticed some of the compression artifacts on many of those. My buddy invited me over to watch some at his house, he thought the picture was really excellent. I invited him over to my house to watch the same movie on my oppo 205 let's just say it was an apple to Orange comparison and he can see it right off the bat even though he's not an movie guru so to speak. His comment to me was I've never noticed any of this before I'll never be able to watch these again knowing what I know now once you see something like this you can't unsee it.

What a #$%* you are for doing that to your buddy, with 205s listing for $2500 to $3500+.

Not to worry, all. Blu-ray will make a comeback when the hipsters of the future want to go retro, and the quality will be just as good as that of modern vinyl. Um, err.. never mind.

msg

[quote="GlennDog;c-2742821"Also, an AL awning hangs over the picture window [/quote]
Awnings are great. I wish they still built homes with these. And glass louvred screen doors and sunrooms and porches.

ChrisD06

"The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the pirates."

-Gabe Newell, CEO and Founder of Valve

I love my IPTV. Wouldn't trade it for a thing. Not paying $10/mo for poor quality streams from 9 different services when I can pay the same price, for the same streams, for everything I want from my IPTV provider.

Feel like discontinuing 4K Blu-Rays will only exasperate this issue.

GlennDog

Ivan,
I truly appreciate all the info, but I won't be going as far as you did . . . I'm just not that invested in TV

I see old antenna mounted in attics all the time. Will the UHF be affected by lumber obstruction? I suspect not, but I'm not sure. . . .and man, I haven't thought about a faraday cage since high skoo!
Also, HOA here isn't down with a tower like you've described.

I'll splice together some longer lengths of cable to relocate my existing antenna in another location. However, my house might be working against me . . . it's also clad in AL siding

Thanks again, Brother!

pitdogg2

Yep that siding is working against you. @SCompRacer had some luck in his attic. In my case I needed a rotor as my stations were not in one direction. The big bow tie antenna works well and you me be able to rotate. Those cheap amplified antennas are junk as they amplify as much signal as they do noise. If that's what you got get rid of it 😁😉

aprazer402

GlennDog

yeah, gotta take this to another level . . . sans the 3 story tower

thanks again @pitdogg2

mantis

I get it, it sucks. But what can any of us do?

SCompRacer

We are in a HOA with the no external antenna thing too. Twenty-three years ago, when the house was being built, just after the roof was put on, I stuck one of Radio Shacks best antennas in the attic. It's a truss roof so what a pain! It worked but not really well. I used it mostly for FM in the basement.

I revisited it this year as wife said she was tired of paying extra just for local channels. (She likes weather by Tom Skilling, channel 9). So I get up there with my aiming app for TV towers and it hit me. I could hear my first bosses, Bruce and Joe, at West Side Rentals. Stupid richee!

I turn it around and wow, what a difference! We get like sixty channels now. We are ~ 45 miles from most of the broadcast antennas. Most TV's don't have a signal strength meter so I picked up one of these Mediasonic HomeWorx boxes (it has HDMI out) for ~ $25. It has a signal strength meter built in and comes with a remote.

She watched the meter on the TV while I adjusted it for best signal. Another advantage of the HomeWorx box, I run it through the AV receiver so the wife doesn't have to change inputs on the TV. She uses the HomeWorx box remote to change channels. Made my life simpler. LOL

I use a small 4dB booster/splitter for more reliable channel 9 reception. We have two TV's connected.

GlennDog

thanks Rich @SCompRacer

nooshinjohn

SCompRacer wrote: »

We are in a HOA with the no external antenna thing too. Twenty-three years ago, when the house was being built, just after the roof was put on, I stuck one of Radio Shacks best antennas in the attic. It's a truss roof so what a pain! It worked but not really well. I used it mostly for FM in the basement.

I revisited it this year as wife said she was tired of paying extra just for local channels. (She likes weather by Tom Skilling, channel 9). So I get up there with my aiming app for TV towers and it hit me. I could hear my first bosses, Bruce and Joe, at West Side Rentals. Stupid richee!

I turn it around and wow, what a difference! We get like sixty channels now. We are ~ 45 miles from most of the broadcast antennas. Most TV's don't have a signal strength meter so I picked up one of these Mediasonic HomeWorx boxes (it has HDMI out) for ~ $25. It has a signal strength meter built in and comes with a remote.

She watched the meter on the TV while I adjusted it for best signal. Another advantage of the HomeWorx box, I run it through the AV receiver so the wife doesn't have to change inputs on the TV. She uses the HomeWorx box remote to change channels. Made my life simpler. LOL

I use a small 4dB booster/splitter for more reliable channel 9 reception. We have two TV's connected.

That image quality is so good that I can tell the studio must have been really cold… or someone was under her desk…

SCompRacer