Summary
Theres no disputing the convenience offered by streaming services, but theyre far from perfect.
As a result, quality suffers.
By comparison, a Blu-Ray disc can hold up to 128GB of data.
Corbin Davenport / How-To Geek
One area where youll notice the difference is in dark scenes, where streaming compression causes macro blocking.
This is visible as small squares in dimly lit scenes where detail has been lost.
Its unsightly and can obscure some of the finer details in the scene.
Kris Henges / How-To Geek
Its especially frustrating if you havea fancy OLED TVthat can produceperfectly inky blacks.
The same can be said of audio, which requires less compression in physical releases for the same reasons.
Dont be blinded by the 4K label either; resolution isnt everything.
Corbin Davenport / How-To Geek
Unfortunately, these have seemingly been lost in the switch to streaming services.
Netflix lets you switch between different languages but doesnt include any alternative commentary.
Outside of a few trailers and teasers, youre also unlikely to find special features on streaming platforms.
Tim Brookes / How-To Geek
These consoles are passable Blu-ray players.
If a disc supports Dolby Vision or HDR10+, the older HDR10 format is used as a fallback.
At this stage, wed recommend avoiding anything that lacks a 4K output.
This is especially true for content made for TV.
The upside is that many movies are getting the 4K treatment.
For many movies, one final 4K release is worth it for archival purposes.
I pay for Netflix, Apple Music, and Game Pass, and I dont think twice about it.
But it turns out that owning physical media in an era of digital everything has its charm.
You don’t have to own everything.
Even many video games require a constant connection, especially subscriptions like Game Pass and live service titles.
Blu-rays buck the trend.
Theyre the final boss of high-quality, physical media.Who knows if well see another format after Blu-ray?
