NetFlix BD's Without DTS-HD Master Audio / DD 5.1 Instead

Yeah I just noticed this with the Cabin in the Woods disc I got the other day through Blockbuster Online. Pretty lame...

The whole BD rental situation is pretty frustrating. Blockbuster Online has very long wait times for latest releases and the stores are usually all rented out within hours...

Thought about switching to Netflix but supposedly it is not much better. Also thought about RedBox but it appears that many movies are not available right away...

[quote name="drewTT" url="/t/1430959/netflix-bds-without-dts-hd-master-audio-dd-5-1-instead#post_22431341". Also thought about RedBox but it appears that many movies are not available right away...[/quote]

Redbox doesn't have many movies PERIOD. (And even fewer BDs)

Of course it is a big deal. HD Audio is other half of what makes Blu Ray different from DVD. The only way out for use renters is NEVER buy any BD released from that studio and spread the word for others to boycot as well. Studio only answer to one thing: their bottom line.

This is a rip off.I rent a lot of BD's from both Redbox and Netflix but from now on I'll think twice before I pay  for a rental copy with a dumbed down audio.Those studios are just unbelievable!

My opinion: For a one-time rental viewing, Dolby 5.1 is just fine. Any movie that has an awesome enough soundtrack that I really feel the need for lossless audio is most likely a movie I'll buy anyway.

Of course, if I was ripping the rental copies to build a library of illegal movies then I might be upset about not getting lossless audio. But I don't do that sort of thing and I'm sure none of you are either.

Also, keep in mind that an occasional movie-only RETAIL disc is equipped with only lossy DD 5.1. One such example is the movie 'Red'. Only the deluxe 'Special Edition' version has lossless audio.

Mark

I rarely ever watch a movie twice. So for me, it is rent only. Occasionally I will buy but that is very rare. So, HD audio on a rental disc is very important to me. Not everyone try to rip the rental disc like you hinted.


Often those are the B movies (or really old classicalls) that Studios don't feel like spend time to produce HD audio tracks. I'd avoid those discs even if I rent.

Netflix has a fairly big catalog, but it is bad enough that there are so many good movies & TV shows available on BD, but not from Netflix. The "rental" versions that strip out all of the extra features are fine with me. But when they start crippling them vs. retail versions with different video aspect ratios and lossy audio, I'm very disappointed. I don't so much feel "ripped off" because I'm averaging less than $2/rental, but definitely disappointed, and I'm more likely to remove a crippled rental version from my queue. If it starts happening more often on big titles, I'll have to find some other way to get my BDs with the best possible audio and video. I don't mind buying a BD for a movie that I know is fantastic and that I'll watch multiple times, but the vast majority of movies are worth watching no more than once IMHO.

If it's that important to you, you'd buy it. When you go to the movie theater, do you demand a lower ticket price because you're only going to watch it once? I buy all my BD movies for quite a few reasons, and believe we should have perks over someone that just rents. I don't go to movie theaters so I look at the price of a BD as 2 tickets to a movie theater. Seems fair to me.

Well, it's not like the choice is yours so you just have to adjust your buying habits to the product offered. OTOH there are people who will pay regular ticket price to see a movie on a crappy small screen, with poor seating layout and horrible sound setup; I just don't go to those theaters persoally. I'd prefer the regular BD disc as a rental but the elimination of extras I wasn't happy with, and definitely not different aspect ratios or sound formats when I'm paying extra for BD in the first place, sound being a big part of my preference for BD.

Huh? If I know that theater has a crappy setup, I simply not going there. Period.
I get charged extra for BD rental and get delivered half of the goods. I don't care about any of the extras but expect the disc come with both HD video and audio. I guess your logic demands us renters only get 720p video as well ?

I think it's a given that people don't like the idea of stuff being stripped down.

The real question is, are they mad enough to do anything about it. If so, what?

Are you going to stop renting in protest? That's all well and good except the rental outlets don't control this stuff and it only hurts them when you bail on them. Further, the studios get exactly what they want: you'll likely view the movie in some other way that gets them more money, be it in the theaters, buying the disc or streaming.

If you buy instead of rent, that merely confirms to the studios they are doing exactly what they should be doing: make the alternative unappealing enough to make people stay away from it.

The problem is, the studios seldom stop when things are going their way. They need to tinker more. How long will it be until we see a lot more retail releases where only the mega-bonus edition gets the lossless audio codecs? We've already seen a couple, so it's not out of the question they might expand that technique.

So, what do we do?

Really, the only thing we can do and still send a message is to not buy, then tell the studios we won't buy until they stop stripping down the rental versions, then support the studios that provide full retail versions for rental.

Anything else we do is either going to make them see success or cause them to try even more stuff to change our behavior.

So you buy so rarely that you say "so for me, it is rent only," yet somehow think that the studios will care when you threaten to "NEVER buy any BD released from that studio?"


Basically, your threat is that if they don't stop providing DD @ 640Kbps instead of lossless on rental discs, you'll continue doing exactly what you were doing when the rental discs were identical to the retail ones. That's.... quite a threat. Good luck with that.

No, I will not buy anything from the studios that strips down rental discs and will advocate others to do the same. That's the only thing I can do. I may stop renting altogether if this trend continues. Buy the discs will only encourage the studios conitnue what they did today.

Don't stop for a second that this will not affect you disc buyers. When most ppl stop renting discs, places like Netflix will cease to offer rental servcies (Netflix tried very hard to do just that in past couple years). When that happens, kiss good bye to your wallet. I still remembered back in the days that first release VHS movies taps were priced around $100 a copy. There is nothing stops studios charge you whatever they want when you have no alternatives unless you are happy with sub-standard neo-HD streaming.

The problem with that "threat" is that you've already admitted that you rarely buy anyway, so your threat holds little to no weight. That was my point.
If you're willing to miss out on watching movies you clearly want to watch, all to make a symbollic point that will largely go unnoticed, be my guest. But really, there's no need to delude yourself into thinking your actions are making any sort of difference.


The rest of your post is just fear-mongering nonsense in a sad attempt to get others on board with your so-called "boycott."

I buy a lot less than I used to. No doubt, Netflix has contributed to that. For the cost of one disc, I can watch dozens of movies every month. I don't see myself going back to the days of collecting a lot of discs like I did with DVD, especially for blind buys. There are several reasons:

1) Cost. Let's face it, these discs are expensive. Before BD came out, I used to be able to get day one new releases for $14 - $17 at places like Walmart, who discounted the price in the first week of release. I was motivated to buy a movie sooner rather than later. However, after BD came out, not only did those discs not come with the first week discount, but the DVD discounts dried up, as well. Some new BD releases are 50% more than the cost of the DVD at full price. I can't afford to buy them like I used to buy DVDs, many of which I got for $5-$8 on catalog titles.

2) Quality. With the number of DNR jobs and revisionist color palettes on some of these "new tranfers", I simply can't bring myself to spend good money on many of them. I have no faither I'm gaining anything other than occassional increased picture quality. In other words, if they aren't going to spend the money and give me the best version of the movie, I'm not going to give them the money they're charging for it.

3) A lot of movies simply aren't worth owning. I've bought a lot of movies that I really didn't need to buy years ago. Some of those sit on the shelf never to be watched again. When I switched to BD, I decided I would only buy movies I knew I would watch now and then. Repeat viewing movies only for me.

4) I've already bought a lot of my favorite movies. While I intend to replace some of them on BD, most of them are just as enjoyable on DVD as they would be on BD. Further, I bought a lot of special editions with tons of special features and most of those discs look quite good, even with less resolution. Some simply aren't worth the upgrade, especially to pay more for a bare bones release.

The net result of this is, I buy less.

The studios simply haven't made it worth it for me to go all in on BD.
Edited by NetworkTV - 9/26/12 at 8:12am

I have no doubts that my stance makes very little impact on studios. And there is NO MOVIE that I MUST watch.

You two seems to be the perfect candidate for the digital streaming studios are trying out now. Meanwhile, I belongs to a minority who still prefers the physica media with both HD audio and video intact. Anything less doesn't worth my money.

I don't understand that mentality. Then again, I'm a film lover.
That makes absolutely no sense. I own hundreds of BDs and rent BDs all the time from a variety of sources. How you could take anything I've posted and somehow twist it into meaning that I would prefer streaming to BD is baffling to me. Seriously - are you sure you're fully comprehending what you're responding to?

I really only popped in because I thought it was funny how you were threatening to no longer buy BDs right after admitting that you almost never buy BDs. I'll leave you to your hyperbole and lack of self awareness.

The problem is, the main appeal of phyiscal media is owning it - knowing it can't be taken away and will be there whenever you want to watch it.

If all you ever do is rent, you're essentially setting yourself up of a similar situation as streaming, where that disc may go out of print, then be unavailable when it gets damaged later.

Further, to say "anything less isn't worth my money is bunk". You aren't giving the studios any money. You've maybe paid a buck or two to view the movie like some library book. You're not laying out any real cost. You want a full sundae for the cost of the taste test scoop in a cup. You're paying for the ability to rent movies, not for the copies of the movies themselves. "Your money's worth" comes down to how many rentals you get for your monthly fee, not in what features a disc contains.

No doubt, I don't like this trend any more than anyone, but to feel like you're getting ripped off with a rental that costs less than a cup of coffee is silly.

Should the studios be stripping down rental copies? Of course not.

Should you buy the disc if the better audio is important to you? Yes, you should, just like you should buy a better audio and video system if you want the best viewing experience. Then you can talk about it being "your money".

Well said.

Sorry guys, I love audio and have invested quite a bit in speakers, subs, 7.2 system, etc. Too be frank the vast majority of people renting from Redbox/Netflix, etc are not going to care if it is lossy or lossless. Those of us at AVS are a different demographic, and yes, I expect many of us to care and be frustrated, but most people are listening to movies from the stock speakers in their TV. I don't really see this as an issue for 95%+ of renters. For the folks that are in that 5%, I have really looked into buying more used movies recently and I am selective with my Redbox rentals. I don't have any real physical rental stores near me that stock a lot of Blu-Ray discs, so either I rent lossy and, if I really like the movie, buy it, or buy more used movies, or suck it up and listen to the lossy track.

It really depends on the movie as well, because a comedy or heavy dialogue driven drama will really not benefit much from a lossy track vs lossless. Action movie? For sure..

Well, I think that's really the key:

If you've spent a great deal of money building a system and stripped rentals bother you, then it ought to be important enough to buy those movies you really want a good expience out of the audio. Not investing in the media for your home theater is like buying an expensive HDTV set, then not going the extra mile to get some sort of HD service for it - either by getting a good antenna or paying for HD service through a provider.

I certainly wouldn't buy an expensive pair of dress shoes only to bum around in paint splattered jeans and a ripped T-shirt.

Obviously, most people (even here) aren't going to buy every movie they want to see, but you're simply not going to make full use out of a good home theater system if you don't keep any good movies around to enjoy with it.

Me? I can't afford the expense in setting up a really good HT system in a dedicated room, so I don't worry about the differences in audo codecs. I likely wouldn't hear them with my system. Those that can do that are not in the norm of renters as a group. Even my conservative system (which can decode and play back the lossless formats) would probably blow away most of the average systems out there people watch stuff on in their living rooms. The number of people using the internal speakers on a TV or sound bars likely dwarfs the number of people with even a basic home theater in a box setup.
Edited by NetworkTV - 9/26/12 at 11:26am

I agree on all fronts. I actually see why the studios are doing this. I may not agree, but cheap rentals have devalued home video and we have seen a shift from buying to cheap streaming/renting and/or using your time elsewhere.

I have really been taking advantage of the used Blu-Ray sales as they pop up and grabbing 10-15 movies at a time. Many of them are newer releases and I am paying an average of $3-4 after shipping... At that price I can buy them, watch them, and if I don't like them trade them in and get at least half my money back...

I'd like the idea of buy used BD discs. Studios sure won't like this Game Studios already used various tricks on a lot of new console games so that you can't buy a used game disc and expect the same value. For example, EA requires you to register the disc serial number to the game console. Once it is done, you can't play the same game disc on different consoles for online gaming. Theoritically, movie studios can explorit the BD-Live feature to do the same thing.

More fear-mongering, I see. The fact is that there is nothing stopping people from buying used BDs. They're readily available to those who are actually interested in buying (which you've already made clear that you're not, disingenuous "threats" notwithstanding.)

LOL. Gamestop based their entire business model on used game sales. That's why multiple studios now tried to curb used game sales. Who's to say movie studio isn't thinking about doing the same if this used movie disc business picks up. Other than eBay, I personally don't know anywhere you can buy used BD movies.

I see you are only good at one thing: personal attacks.

Which has nothing to do with movies, which are a completely different animal. But why let that get in the way of baseless, ignorant FUD?

I would attempt to explain why your "concerns" are so laughable, but what would be the point?

A year ago, concerns about my rental BD discs will come with worthless DD 5.1 audio does not exist. You would told me the same thing if I posted then. The fact is you have no idea how the minds of the movie studios work and continue to post your worthless personal attacks. Movie studio and game studio have a lot in common, they'd like you to pay them each time you play their movie or games. In case of EA games, you can pay additional $10 for another key after you bought the used game disc. Movie studio can do the same if it is technically possibile. They can use BDLive features to ask you register with them in order to view certain extras on the disc.