With over 18 years of history, Blu-ray technology was designed to take CDs and DVDs to the next level. Not only can they hold significantly more data than their predecessors, but Blu-ray discs even let you view high-quality (and 3D content) that often are closer to the experience of watching in theaters than the compressed versions you’ll find elsewhere. Not to be confused with DVDs, Blu-ray discs use a different kind of laser technology, which eventually became the industry standard for film and movies by 2008. In part, this is due to the fact that its players could be backwards-compatible with DVDs, but not the other way around.
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Although some things can (and have) lasted the test of time, the natural progression of most technology is that something becomes obsolete when a newer, better, or more efficient model comes along. In terms of the Blu-ray discs, there are several things that have pushed them to obsoletion.
I actually own like 4 set top blu-ray players. As for drives that can read blu-ray disks…at least 20(not including the set tops)? I’d honestly need to count but I use 16 drives basically daily. Working through backing up my massive physical collection.
As for cost. A movie that’s $30 one place might be $10 in another country. I buy a lot of foreign movies (not bootlegs just foreign). I remember the Harry Potter set(all films) in the US was like $150…it was $45 shipped from the UK. HP was a weird one because the books and movies were a touch different in those two markets as well. So you got the UK audio track which was fine by me. They won’t play in your standard player sometimes but region free players are a thing. Also a lot of stuff on Blu-ray just isn’t region coded at all.
I’ve also found that some TV series that are dvd only here are released on Blu-ray else where…so I import those as well. I’ve been playing around with AI upscaling so honestly dvd’s can look damn good after that as well and they’re cheaper still. Just a lot of time/energy consumption which offsets the cost saving.