Certainly not. I just insert the disc and it starts playing. How can it be easier than that? It's also really hard to get the best possible quality of every movie and all the extras with piracy. It's not very convenient.

Besides, you don't support the artists in any way doing that. I want more movies to be produced that I like. The only way to incentivize that is with my wallet. Blue-rays is probably the best way to do it.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Acquiring:
Blu-Ray - Drive to the store, find the movie you want, (In some cases make sure it has the special features if you want those, which will cost more), wait at the checkout, pay, drive home.
Alternatively - Go the the store's website, type the movie name, enter credit card details, wait for delivery.
Piracy - Go to Torrent site, type movies name, download. (Optional - spend an extra minute looking for the torrent of a lower quality because your TV can't display 1080p anyway, and making sure it has special features if you want those)
Movie is ready to play in less time than it would take to drive to the store.

Playing:
Blu-ray - Find the disc, put in player, wait for ads on media you have purchased and own, (alternative - pay more for a better player that skips ads you don't want to watch on the media you paid for and own), wait through needless menu animations, watch movie.
Piracy - Go to your movies folder, open the file.

There is no metric by which Blu-ray is more convenient than Piracy unless you live somewhere with lousy internet. I have on more than one occasion downloaded a torrent for a movie I own the Blu-Ray for because that was faster than finding the disk with the added bonus of skipping all the faff on the disk (ads, menu transitions). The only argument for purchasing a Blu-ray is to support the creators, and if they want me to spend money for a worse experience then the studios should not be making it even worse by including ads.
Every time I purchase a Blu-ray to support media I like, I watch it and I am immediately reminded of all the annoyances that make me regret my decision.

Netflix was so successful because it was easier than piracy. Now there's a dozen different "me too!" services and I could check each of them to see if they have the movie/show I'm looking for, or I could just go to a torrent site that I know has it.

[–] doodledup@lemmy.world -3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You keep repeating the same things that I've already invalidated.

All ads are skippable and with the right player will skip automatically
You can digitize your movie collection. No need to insert any disc if that's what you prefer
Blu-rays have much better video and sound quality. If you do find a Blue-ray rip you'll quickly run out of storage unless you spend a thousand dollars on harddrives. Each Blue-ray rip takes between 50 and 100 GB of storage. No, don't even start with shitty compression. I don't want that.
Some people want the Blue-ray menu. They are actually really nice sometimes. There are even movies with director commentary, recording functionality or other fun gimmicks. You don't have to use it. But you have it as sold and intended.
But all of the points above are irrelevant when you consider that pircary does not support the creators at all and ensures that companies make even shittier content and services. They need the money to produce the content so they will squeeze everyone else even more if they don't get anything from you. Piracy makes everything worse.

[–] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

You keep repeating the same things that I've already invalidated.

Ditto

All ads are skippable and with the right player will skip automatically

Not on mine. Buying a different player isn't exactly "easier", they sure as fuck try to make is difficult for me to avoid the ads on the media I paid for, and I shouldn't have to.

You can digitize your movie collection. No need to insert any disc if that's what you prefer

So once again, piracy is easier (My entire thesis here). I can acquire it already digitized for me.

Blu-rays have much better video and sound quality. If you do find a Blue-ray rip you'll quickly run out of storage unless you spend a thousand dollars on harddrives. Each Blue-ray rip takes between 50 and 100 GB of storage. No, don't even start with shitty compression. I don't want that.

I frequently spend time looking for torrents of lower quality because the most popular, easy to acquire files, are higher quality than my system is capable of.
The easiest to acquire file will have identical quality to a Blu-ray for me because the source is not what is limiting the quality.

Some people want the Blue-ray menu. They are actually really nice sometimes. There are even movies with director commentary, recording functionality or other fun gimmicks. You don't have to use it. But you have it as sold and intended.

Bully for them, I don't. Most torrents include all sorts of special features, from multiple sources, that sometimes you wouldn't be able to get them all on a single Blu-ray. Different audio tracks exist for files, it doesn't require a disk to have the commentary track.

But all of the points above are irrelevant when you consider that pircary does not support the creators at all and ensures that companies make even shittier content and services. They need the money to produce the content so they will squeeze everyone else even more if they don't get anything from you.

I've already agreed that the only reason to buy a Blu-ray is to support the creators. The fact that companies apparently need you to purchase Blu-rays or they will go out of business is all the more reason for the companies to not enshittify the Blu-rays with ads.

Piracy makes everything worse.

Capitalism makes everything worse. That's why ads are on the Blu-ray in the first place. It's not enough for the company to make money from the sale, they have to make more money selling ads, which makes my experience as the purchaser of the product worse.

If companies allowed me to pay them directly for a digital download of a video file, without any ads included in it, I'd be happy to do so. But that's never going to happen because of [see meme above].