Physical & Digital EST: The Future of Home Video Discussion Thread

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

I have been streaming video since the 90's but it has never changed my mind about owning physical content. I rent on physical (Netflix) because my prime time speeds are not dependable. My cost has averaged about $1.90 per Blu-ray disc rental over many years with Netflix. That is much cheaper for me than the total cost would be for Redbox rental and much more convenient.

It looks like that 99 cent rental rate was my introductory welcome to Vudu. I noticed today that the rentals are varying from $2.99 to $7.99 with many being around $4-6 for HDX or UHD. I suspect that Vudu has specials from time to time, but these regular prices are not all that enticing. These full prices are still acceptable in some instances, such as when I know that I will only want to watch something once.

A Netflix disc rental plan might be a better value in the long term. I have not looked at their disc offerings before; how is the selection?

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I watched my first full length 4K movie stream tonight via Vudu. I rented Hostiles for the ridiculously low price of 99 cents.

Was that because of being a new member? At one time they had one or two free rentals just for signing up.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

Was that because of being a new member? At one time they had one or two free rentals just for signing up.

It was either my welcome offer or a discounted day of the week like a streaming version of Taco Tuesday. Today, many of the UHD rentals are $5.99 and a few of the most recent titles are as high as $7.99, which I think are excessively high. I don't like paying more than $4-5 for any rental despite the convenience factor.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Vilya

It was either my welcome offer or a discounted day of the week like a streaming version of Taco Tuesday. Today, many of the UHD rentals are $5.99 and a few of the most recent titles are as high as $7.99.

Its all just noise to me, been through discussions like this countless times. You will be all digital this time next year.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by Vilya

A Netflix disc rental plan might be a better value in the long term. I have not looked at their disc offerings before; how is the selection?

Catalog titles can be hit or miss. Most all new titles are available on street date so load your queue early. Some titles may be delayed a week.

The thing I love about Netflix is how easy it is to start or stop their service, just a couple of clicks. They do not do refunds. If you cancel (disc or streaming) the service will continue till the end of the pay period.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

Its all just noise to me, been through discussions like this countless times. You will be all digital this time next year.

Care to make a bet on that? You would lose and lose badly. I know myself a LOT better than you do. Renting has NEVER impacted my purchasing behavior. The only thing that has changed here is who I am renting from. It used to be from a store; now I rent from a streaming service. I have been renting, and then buying, movies and TV shows for almost as long as you have been alive.

I catalog all of my purchases on this website; it is pretty easy to track how my collection grows month after month, year after year.

[The_Donster]

Originally Posted by quirkmanly

These were on clearance end-caps in most stores. You can plug your zip in here at Brickseek to see if you have any local to you still.

Thanks for the links Wendell and I quirkmanly. Looks like a neighboring town has them in stock. I’m going to pop over to the Target where I’m at to see how many they have in stock. If I’m lucky I’ll find one. Makes me wonder what the new ones are going to have on them that this one doesn’t though.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I buy more movies on disc every two months than many people do in an entire year. I buy 20-30 titles on disc every month. At the moment I own 7,286 titles on DVD, blu-ray, and 4K discs combined. I own a few hundred more on other formats. I do not see how I could be any stronger of a supporter of physical media than I am and that I always have been. It's in my very blood.

I thought that Monty Python clip was funny. It in no way felt like a "dig" to me. I have a sense of humor; it makes life vastly more fun.

I have rented movies, off and on, for over 30 years. The primary thing that has changed here is who I am renting from. I have always purchased a physical copy of any movie that I like from VHS tape through to 4K discs. That will NEVER change.

Vudu allows me to rent and view titles that I am uncertain about owning at a very attractive price. Did you not read how my renting that title last night resulted in my purchasing that same movie on 4K disc?

No matter how cheap a digital purchase may be at any given time, it can not satisfy my essential requirement that I have absolute control over the content that I buy. I will not accept the EULAs that govern digital purchases, either. I do not even bother to redeem the digital codes that come with my discs.

Even though that 4K stream looked really good, I am confident that the 4K disc will look, and likely sound, even better and that is my next requirement for a purchase: I always seek the highest quality for my purchases. For me, Vudu is simply the online equivalent of the mostly defunct brick and mortar video rental store of yesteryear. I will rent from them, nothing more.

Exactly.

I buy a lot of movies (not quite as many as you, but still a lot ), and my standards for that are that I'm getting it on physical media (I need the control / ownership aspect, even if it means getting a DVD instead of a 4K download/stream), and from there the highest quality option (4K > regular Blu-Ray > DVD).

My wife and I use Netflix and Hulu streaming. We also currently have a bunch of premium cable channels due to a deal we got earlier this year (which is good for 2 years) when we went and bundled several services together and are actually saving money compared to what we were paying beforehand for everything. Often times between those things, if a movie pops up that we didn't catch in theaters and wasn't worth a blind buy offhand, we'll check it out, and I'll buy it if I want it.

Also, my wife works in a public library. They have movies on DVD that can be checked out for free to anyone with a library card (they rarely if ever get them on Blu-Ray), so sometimes we'll check out movies that way if they aren't available in HD through our cable and streaming services.

One day she brought home Downsizing (the Matt Damon movie). We were both interested in checking it out based on the trailers and commercials, but never got around to seeing it in the theater. I had considered just buying it at one point, but was hesitant and wanted to check it out first. As she randomly brought it home, before we put the DVD in, I checked to see if the movie was available in HD through any of our services (so we could watch it in better quality if available at no additional cost to us), but none of them had it, so we watched the DVD (this was actually when I discovered how nicely the 4K player that we got earlier this year upscales DVDs).

The movie ended up being... pretty bad. We were both glad that we didn't buy it. However, if we had ended up liking it, then I would have gone and bought the physical 4K/Blu-Ray combo pack to add it to our collection.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

Exactly.

I buy a lot of movies (not quite as many as you, but still a lot ), and my standards for that are that I'm getting it on physical media (I need the control / ownership aspect, even if it means getting a DVD instead of a 4K download/stream), and from there the highest quality option (4K > regular Blu-Ray > DVD).

My wife and I use Netflix and Hulu streaming. We also currently have a bunch of premium cable channels due to a deal we got earlier this year (which is good for 2 years) when we went and bundled several services together and are actually saving money compared to what we were paying beforehand for everything. Often times between those things, if a movie pops up that we didn't catch in theaters and wasn't worth a blind buy offhand, we'll check it out, and I'll buy it if I want it.
There is nothing like watching s film blind and loving or even liking it.

Also, my wife works in a public library. They have movies on DVD that can be checked out for free to anyone with a library card (they rarely if ever get them on Blu-Ray), so sometimes we'll check out movies that way if they aren't available in HD through our cable and streaming services.

One day she brought home Downsizing (the Matt Damon movie). We were both interested in checking it out based on the trailers and commercials, but never got around to seeing it in the theater. I had considered just buying it at one point, but was hesitant and wanted to check it out first. As she randomly brought it home, before we put the DVD in, I checked to see if the movie was available in HD through any of our services (so we could watch it in better quality if available at no additional cost to us), but none of them had it, so we watched the DVD (this was actually when I discovered how nicely the 4K player that we got earlier this year upscales DVDs).

The movie ended up being... pretty bad. We were both glad that we didn't buy it. However, if we had ended up liking it, then I would have gone and bought the physical 4K/Blu-Ray combo pack to add it to our collection.

But it’s not the same experience. You lose something watching the digital version. I blind buy all the time and I have a really good idea of ilms I’m going to like before hand. That way my first experience is top notch picture and audio. Doing it your way would dilute that. Out if the 50+ films I blind buy, only 3 or 4 get sold or given away and that’s in a bad year. I research thoroughly and read non spoiler reviews plus follow films through pre production to post.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

But it’s not the same experience. You lose something watching the digital version. I blind buy all the time and I have a really good idea of ilms I’m going to like before hand. That way my first experience is top notch picture and audio. Doing it your way would dilute that. Out if the 50+ films I blind buy, only 3 or 4 get sold or given away and that’s in a bad year. I research thoroughly and read non spoiler reviews plus follow films through pre production to post.

I do not feel like the quality difference was even remotely that severe when watching that 4K stream last night. I fully expect the 4k disc to look better, but I was never taken out of the movie viewing experience by the quality that I received from Vudu. It looked really good and it was very stable.

As I am someone who likes to own movies, there is a very high probability that I will watch a title more than just once. My next viewing of this movie will be in the highest quality possible.

Renting allows me to evaluate a movie that I am uncertain about at a very low cost and streaming this rental was also very convenient. My renting this title led to an actual 4K disc purchase. I do not like blind buying 4K discs as they are more expensive and I am also not the biggest fan of Westerns in general, so renting first was a prudent decision all around.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

But it’s not the same experience. You lose something watching the digital version. I blind buy all the time and I have a really good idea of ilms I’m going to like before hand. That way my first experience is top notch picture and audio. Doing it your way would dilute that. Out if the 50+ films I blind buy, only 3 or 4 get sold or given away and that’s in a bad year. I research thoroughly and read non spoiler reviews plus follow films through pre production to post.

Look, I blind buy a lot of movies that I think I'm most likely going to enjoy and want to have, and the rest that I buy are things I've already seen.

While in a perfect world I would see every movie in the best available quality the first time and every time seeing it, that's just not always practical.

My wife and I may have watched this movie on DVD instead of Blu-Ray or 4K Blu-ray, but it was free and when all was said and done, we were glad that we didn't pay for it. Your argument here is that I should have just gone out to blind buy it at around $25 to $30 (being that it would have been a 4K purchase) just so that we would have seen it in the best quality. Plus with how nicely our 4K player upscales DVDs, while I wouldn't opt to watch a DVD over a BD or 4KBD as a standard, watching a movie on DVD when that is what suits me under the circumstances and/or is the best option available isn't so bad. I make no apologies for not doing that, least of all to you. It would have been a waste of money.

In this instance, blind buying it was something that I was not comfortable with and was a non-starter. Period. End of Story.

This is a huge issue with you and your concerns. It's one thing to worry about people's spending habits having an effect on the market to shift things towards digital and that impacting your options going forward on enjoying movies in the manner that you prefer. But it doesn't end there with you.

You even take issue with people watching movies at lesser quality even when it has no impact on you or the market in any capacity. My wife checked out a DVD for free from the library. No money was spent on our part. We did not buy a digital stream/download. Heck, we didn't even rent one like Vilya did (which I don't blame him at all for doing, I fully understand wanting to check out a movie before buying it by the cheapest means available). But here you are still taking issue with it.


While I've brought this up a few times (and I don't expect you to actually change how you do things), when you buy a video game digitally that is available physically because you don't want to take your VR helmet off, that has more of an impact on that industry and on people who prefer physical video game media than my wife checking out a DVD from the library has on your preferred way of watching movies. But you shrug off your gaming habits and the effect it has on others while taking issue with other people's movie viewing habits, even when they have no impact on you at all.

Not that I would think it would be a good idea nor would you actually do this, but for all I care you could mount your TV upside down, swap the positioning of the left and right speakers of your surround sound system, and wear old cheap red and blue 3D glasses while watching most movies (even if in 2D) because you like the way the colors look. Whether you were to watch movies that way or the way that you currently do, if your purchasing habits remain the same in both cases, then it has no impact on the market.

But unlike me, you DO flip out over stuff like that, too, that has no effect on the market. You really need to get over yourself with this stuff. Or at least get some self awareness of how extreme your hypocrisy over these things has gotten.


Everyone compromises these things to some extent or another based on various factors that impact them. You may see yourself as not doing so, but on some level or another, you have. I'm sure no matter how nice your equipment and set up is, there is better, higher end equipment out there.

I'm sure you could probably sell your house and buy a smaller, cheaper one with enough room for a proper, large HT set up, room to store your discs, and with everything else to meet your basic necessities, and put the money that you have left from selling your cheaper house towards upgrading your equipment. If need be, you could also get a second, part time job to make extra money to also put towards those upgrades. It may mean less time to actually watch movies, but it will mean that when you do watch them, the quality will be even better! And that's all that matters, right? That should be everyone's top priority according to you, so why aren't you already taking these steps to upgrade your equipment? You wouldn't want to comprise and accept lower quality, no matter how large or small that difference may be!

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

Look, I blind buy a lot of movies that I think I'm most likely going to enjoy and want to have, and the rest that I buy are things I've already seen.

While in a perfect world I would see every movie in the best available quality the first time and every time seeing it, that's just not always practical.

My wife and I may have watched this movie on DVD instead of Blu-Ray or 4K Blu-ray, but it was free and when all was said and done, we were glad that we didn't pay for it. Your argument here is that I should have just gone out to blind buy it at around $25 to $30 (being that it would have been a 4K purchase) just so that we would have seen it in the best quality. Plus with how nicely our 4K player upscales DVDs, while I wouldn't opt to watch a DVD over a BD or 4KBD as a standard, watching a movie on DVD when that is what suits me under the circumstances and/or is the best option available isn't so bad. I make no apologies for not doing that, least of all to you. It would have been a waste of money.

In this instance, blind buying it was something that I was not comfortable with and was a non-starter. Period. End of Story.

This is a huge issue with you and your concerns. It's one thing to worry about people's spending habits having an effect on the market to shift things towards digital and that impacting your options going forward on enjoying movies in the manner that you prefer. But it doesn't end there with you.

You even take issue with people watching movies at lesser quality even when it has no impact on you or the market in any capacity. My wife checked out a DVD for free from the library. No money was spent on our part. We did not buy a digital stream/download. Heck, we didn't even rent one like Vilya did (which I don't blame him at all for doing, I fully understand wanting to check out a movie before buying it by the cheapest means available). But here you are still taking issue with it.


While I've brought this up a few times (and I don't expect you to actually change how you do things), when you buy a video game digitally that is available physically because you don't want to take your VR helmet off, that has more of an impact on that industry and on people who prefer physical video game media than my wife checking out a DVD from the library has on your preferred way of watching movies. But you shrug off your gaming habits and the effect it has on others while taking issue with other people's movie viewing habits, even when they have no impact on you at all.

Not that I would think it would be a good idea nor would you actually do this, but for all I care you could mount your TV upside down, swap the positioning of the left and right speakers of your surround sound system, and wear old cheap red and blue 3D glasses while watching most movies (even if in 2D) because you like the way the colors look. Whether you were to watch movies that way or the way that you currently do, if your purchasing habits remain the same in both cases, then it has no impact on the market.

But unlike me, you DO flip out over stuff like that, too, that has no effect on the market. You really need to get over yourself with this stuff. Or at least get some self awareness of how extreme your hypocrisy over these things has gotten.


Everyone compromises these things to some extent or another based on various factors that impact them. You may see yourself as not doing so, but on some level or another, you have. I'm sure no matter how nice your equipment and set up is, there is better, higher end equipment out there.

I'm sure you could probably sell your house and buy a smaller, cheaper one with enough room for a proper, large HT set up, room to store your discs, and with everything else to meet your basic necessities, and put the money that you have left from selling your cheaper house towards upgrading your equipment. If need be, you could also get a second, part time job to make extra money to also put towards those upgrades. It may mean less time to actually watch movies, but it will mean that when you do watch them, the quality will be even better! And that's all that matters, right? That should be everyone's top priority according to you, so why aren't you already taking these steps to upgrade your equipment? You wouldn't want to comprise and accept lower quality, no matter how large or small that difference may be!

You are missing the point slightly. My concerns with digital are not limited to inferior A/V quality. However, im going to leave it there for now.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

You are missing the point slightly. My concerns with digital are not limited to inferior A/V quality.

I realize that, but you are still arguing against others on the basis of quality, including the scenario where my wife and I watched a DVD that she brought home from the library. And in Vilya's case, while he did spend $1 on a Vudu rental, he then bought the movie physically in 4K.

You are still getting upset over things that do not impact you. Plain and simple.

[Groot]

Vilya- It may have been that cheap too because it's free on Netflix. Not in a 4K/UHD stream, but it's on there. That's how I finally got around to seeing it. It's a damn good movie.

[randian]

Originally Posted by turns2stone

Thanks to Movies Anywhere and the proliferation of cheap codes, I'm more of a "movie buff" now, that at anytime in the past when I was disc-only.

Movies Anywhere increased the price of codes. There is more competition to buy MA-eligible codes, and studios eliminating iTunes redemptions requires purchasing higher-priced 4k codes for those who want 4k.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I thought that Monty Python clip was funny. It in no way felt like a "dig" to me. I have a sense of humor; it makes life vastly more fun.

If you really had a sense of humor you'd know that was a Fawlty Towers clip, you philistine

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by octagon

If you really had a sense of humor you'd know that was a Fawlty Towers clip, you philistine

I saw John Cleese and jumped to that conclusion.

[gotmule]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

I have been streaming video since the 90's but it has never changed my mind about owning physical content. I rent on physical (Netflix) because my prime time speeds are not dependable. My cost has averaged about $1.90 per Blu-ray disc rental over many years with Netflix. That is much cheaper for me than the total cost would be for Redbox rental and much more convenient.

I am still on the Netflix disc plan as well, but don’t quite reach those rental numbers. I have even gone so far as stopping a movie after 15 minutes because the audio on a movie was outstanding, and I wanted to hear it the right way, so I bought the 4K version just for the Atmos track. I would never have bought the latest Maze Runner otherwise.

[flyry]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

If they wanted to continue with their own service then Amazon would give them the greatest access across the most devices.

As to the UI, if you setup your streaming device to output the original frame rate* and your display device to accept various frame rates then you will come to dislike the Netflix UI because of the auto preview. You will get a black screen as try to scroll thru the content selection because of the various frame rates used. The screen goes black as the system re-syncs, very annoying!! I have complained to Netflix about the lack of being able to turn off the auto preview.

*Some devices/displays do not have this option.

I don't have the numbers but why do you keep talking like Netflix is some obscure service? I'd wager its on more than Amazon.

[flyry]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I watched my first full length 4K movie stream tonight via Vudu. I rented Hostiles for the ridiculously low price of 99 cents. When adjusted for inflation that is far less than what it cost to rent a crappy pan & scan VHS tape 30+ years ago. I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that Vudu has a very large selection with many titles that I actually want to see unlike Netflix or Amazon Prime.

The picture and audio quality were very good from start to finish. I started my stream at 9 PM and I was done by 11:20 PM. The image never degraded due to server issues (and over a wireless network using an outdated dual band "N" router) unlike what I frequently experience with Amazon Prime streaming. My ISP cooperated fully tonight.

I made a point to observe the backgrounds in both day and night time scenes and I never noticed any loss of detail or any macro blocking. The image looked very good in both the foreground and background alike. The image was stable throughout. I still believe the image quality would be even better with the 4K disc, but until I get it, I can not make a comparison.

Before anyone thinks I am a convert to digital, I am not, but I really like the ability to rent what I want to see on a pay as I go basis as opposed to paying a flat monthly fee or by buying a movie blindly. Ironically, renting this movie via a digital streaming provider has resulted in a physical media sale. Now that I know that I really like this movie, I am buying it on 4K disc. This is one very important way that streaming and physical media can compliment each other.

I suspect that will be the case with many of the other titles that I plan to rent. I will stream a rental, then buy it on disc if I like it. It is the same thing that I did when laserdisc and DVDs were the state of the art format. Rent first and buy the disc when pleased with the movie. Vudu is now my preferred digital streaming rental research tool.

Oddly in my 2+ years with my new TV and tons of 4k streaming,Hostiles is the only title I've ever had issues with.

I had a free credit on Fandangonow and noticed tons of macroblocking.

Not sure if it was a FN issue. It occured on my roku and native tv app.

Side note, my wife and I watched Poltegeist on Sunday.

I had ordered the blu and received it Sat even though I had it in my digital collection, I wanted it physically. I was lazy and started the digital stream, but stopped it and popped in the disc. It did look better in this case.