Physical Media

[Barry]

I like having the discs, physical media.

 I like movies and want to see them as close to what they look like in the theater.
Many are satisfied with Kaleidescape and PLEASE don’t consider this a contest between the two. If I was starting from the beginning a comparison of the two would be more appropriate.

The 4K discs and some Blu Rays have presented the best picture that I’ve gotten and the best sound. Often on the 4K discs there are multiple soundtracks and I can choose. I don’t know if this is possible on other medium.

Often on discs there are more than one version of a movie or TV episode. For example., Daredevil, Batman vs Superman, and even Superman the(original) Movie have much longer versions on disk than was shown in the theatre. Even. X-Men Days of Future Past has a special ‘Rogue” edition.
Many movies have censored editions that are the most commonly shown. For example, the Daniel Craig James Bond movies have cuts in them so they can get the PG-13 rating and not an R. The 4K discs have the uncut versions and are not rated.

Of course there are directors’ cuts of movies that are just better than the original theatrical versions. This includes Apocalypse Now, Dark City, Aliens and so many more.

Bonus features: interviews, outtakes, features, documentaries, and great features. For example: five Roger Rabbit cartoons are on his movie discs. On every episode of Steinfeld in 4K (which I will post a review soon) there are interviews and outtakes.  On EVERY episode so far!

The biggest deal: Availability. Movies and TV shows often disappear from cable and streaming. The discs ae forever!  Once you have them, they cannot be taken away!!!!!

Finally, one funny thing.  In discussing Kaleidescape with two separate salesman, both seemed to be reading out of the same playbook. They mentioned that they liked Kaleidescape  because they did not have to load a disc and have to sit through the long intros and menus.  They never mention that you have to wait 8 to 10 minutes for the movie to download.!

[SRW1000]

I'm right there with you, Barry.

I can see the advantages that Kscape offers, but I'd still be concerned about them going under, and the studios also have the ability to update the movie you've "purchased" at any time.  I know that they'll tell you that even if they do go out of business the movie studios still have to provide you with a way to get the content, but there's the practical question of what that actually comes down to.  I wouldn't be that concerned about the download times, as we usually know what we want to watch before we sit down, so there's time to download it long in advance to watching it.

I'm also one of the people that loves the extras.  Some of these discs have so much to offer.  And, with a good commentary, it really feels like you're in the room during the discussion.  There are some great Hollywood stories that get told, some only on the periphery of the movie itself.

But I'm afraid that we're in a minority of consumers.  It looks like convenience and abundance are winning the war for content.  There are a few positive signs, though.  It appears that some younger people are enjoying physical media, similar to the small resurgence of vinyl over the past decade.

The other positive side is that smaller companies, like Arrow, are able to license content from the studios and put painstaking care into producing high-quality discs of titles that may never have made it to Blu-ray or 4K UHD.  It's a smaller market and prices are higher than big blockbusters, but they're usually packed with extra value.

[David Vaughn]

I had a K-scape in my home on a year trial and really liked the interface. In the end though, I couldn't justify the cost to "rebuy" my entire collection even when they had their "disc to digital" deals. It would have been well over $5,000 just for the movie collection and the equipment definitely falls into the "Premium Price" category. In the end, I decided to make my own K-scape with a home server + Plex + Zidoo. I use Plex in my den (there's an app on the TV or I can use the PS5 as well) and the Zidoo in the main theater, all for a fraction of the cost of what K-scape charges. 

One thing I discovered when ripping my collection is I had a handful of discs that had "gone bad." They would no longer play...what's interesting is that the ones that wouldn't play were all Disney or Fox titles, so maybe they shared the same disc maker. Now my entire collection is backed up, but it's gotten so large I just had to buy a new server (Synology 1825+ 8-bay server). I haven't expanded beyond 4 discs yet, mainly due to the insane prices for hard drives right now, but I have the ability to do so when needed. Currently, I have about 12TB of storage available, so I won't need to add a new drive for quite a while (fingers crossed). 

[bmoney]

Interesting about discs going bad

But using a NAS is like no other. Somthing about choosing your movie while sitting and looking at cover art work. Seeing runtime. Etc

[David Vaughn]

Interesting about discs going bad

But using a NAS is like no other. Somthing about choosing your movie while sitting and looking at cover art work. Seeing runtime. Etc

I have to admit, not having to watch FBI warnings is a great bonus! 

[bmoney]

Forgot all  about fbi warnings lol

[Paul Heroy]

David, I've been a little busy with some other stuff but I'm getting close to where I will want to start figuring out the workflow to rip 4K UHDs and set up my media library. 

One of those issues is that I had a couple of hiccups with my DS-1825+ drives, and did an RMA of 1 of the 3 WD Red Pros that I bought new on Black Friday 2025. Then 10 days later a 2nd Red Pro alarmed. But when I put it in a separate enclosure and initialized it with my Win PC, it came up fine. Smart data didn't seem to show any problems either. So, now I'm wondering if there is some lingering issue with Synology that caused 2 of 3 drives that are 8 just months old to alarm. (Unfortunately I didn't fully check the 1st alarmed drive, before doing the RMA.) I cobbled together several used Exos drives from eBay to fill out the other 5 bays after prices went batshit, so it's interesting that none of the used drives (which had between 20k - 40k hours on them when I received them) failed / alarmed, only the new ones.

WD has dispatched the replacement, and interestingly instead of a Red Pro they sent me a Gold (of the same capacity). That's their "enterprise" class drive, similar to Seagate's Ironwolf vs Exos line. For a while, you could find the Exos drives for less than the consumer drives new, but now you have to look for used ones popping up on eBay. 

[David Vaughn]

David, I've been a little busy with some other stuff but I'm getting close to where I will want to start figuring out the workflow to rip 4K UHDs and set up my media library.

One of those issues is that I had a couple of hiccups with my DS-1825+ drives, and did an RMA of 1 of the 3 WD Red Pros that I bought new on Black Friday 2025. Then 10 days later a 2nd Red Pro alarmed. But when I put it in a separate enclosure and initialized it with my Win PC, it came up fine. Smart data didn't seem to show any problems either. So, now I'm wondering if there is some lingering issue with Synology that caused 2 of 3 drives that are 8 just months old to alarm. (Unfortunately I didn't fully check the 1st alarmed drive, before doing the RMA.) I cobbled together several used Exos drives from eBay to fill out the other 5 bays after prices went batshit, so it's interesting that none of the used drives (which had between 20k - 40k hours on them when I received them) failed / alarmed, only the new ones.

WD has dispatched the replacement, and interestingly instead of a Red Pro they sent me a Gold (of the same capacity). That's their "enterprise" class drive, similar to Seagate's Ironwolf vs Exos line. For a while, you could find the Exos drives for less than the consumer drives new, but now you have to look for used ones popping up on eBay.

That's strange on the hard drives. Knock on wood, but I've never had a hard drive issue in my server or on my PC. Now that I've said that, they are all doomed to fail. Kind of like when Craig buys a Blu-ray and the 4K is announced to be released shortly after. 

Let me know if you need any assistance on getting the rips set up. There's a way to do it to preserve some extra space (only ripping the audio tracks you need, for example). 

[Paul Heroy]

Ha, hope you didn't jinx yourself David! I can only recall 1 other HD failing recently, a 3TB WD Red in my previous NAS, after maybe 5-6 years. I've populated the 8 bays in my DS-1825+ with 18TB drives (that was the best $/TB ratio when I started buying in November), the 3 WDs plus 6 Seagate enterprise class (or white label versions) which fortunately gave me a spare when the 1st WD HD failed. I frantically grabbed a couple more Seagate Exos HDs on eBay which will give me a 3 spare rotation. Yes, I'm probably a bit paranoid but earned it. I've had a couple of occasions where I've somehow lost a big chunk of precious media and was extremely glad to have had backups. 

Current setup is 2 pools of 4 x 18TB HDs. #1 is the main media pool (~4000 CDs / downloads, some older TV / movie recordings, backups of PCs, etc.), #2 is a dedicated backup of #1. I eventually want another device to serve as a separate backup... and I should make a copy for offsite storage. (Hello, my name is Paul and I have a problem. )

Definitely want to chat at some point about the rips - thanks.

[SRW1000]

Paul,

I had an issue with two WD Red Plus 10TB drives I bought at the beginning of 2025.  Put both of them in a brand-new Synology DiskStation DS223j, and the installation stopped about halfway through, telling me that there was a problem with the discs.  I also stuck them in a USB drive external docking station, and they weren't recognized with that, either.  

The WD team was easy to deal with and sent me a coupon for an additional discount, so it was cheaper for me to return and rebuy than it was to get replacements.

The second two drives worked flawlessly, so I don't know what the initial problem might have been.  Maybe WD drives are not as reliable as they had been?

These weren't purchased for movie storage, just for personal stuff, so everything is set up with a simple raid.

[bmoney]

Most HD should be pre cleared. If they fail they usually fail
From the get go 

[David Vaughn]

Most HD should be pre cleared. If they fail they usually fail
From the get go

How do you "pre clear" them?

[bmoney]

How do you "pre clear" them?

I know I’m unraid there is a docker that pre clears them for you. It basically writes and deletes thousands of files to see if it will have any failures.