Digital Movie Collection For Dummies - Blu-ray Forum

Fiffy · 04-25-2022, 12:16 AM

- One criterium that I find important is the likelihood that a store (and thus your collection) will be around in the long term. We have already seen some smaller stores disappear, and in some cases people lost movies. Among the digital stores, Amazon and Apple are the market leaders by a significant margin and are obviously financially healthy companies. The latter is also true for Google, but they are known to sometimes suddenly shut services down when they are not profitable enough. Vudu is a smaller player and has already changed ownership several times, so IMO they are a bit more of a question mark in this regard.

- Movies Anywhere is great, but there are still a lot of movies that aren't eligible (and neither are TV shows), so the choice of a store remains important. And the demise of Ultraviolet has shown that you can't necessarily rely on these locker services either.

- Another thing you might want to look at are the differences in streaming quality. Here's a thread for that:
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=323204

- I wouldn't pick a store based on your TV OS. If you plan to collect a somewhat bigger library, the value of the movies will probably far exceed the cost of a streaming box over time.

- All of the stores mentioned above support different devices and smart TVs. That includes Apple, however iTunes extras like commentaries and alternate cuts are currently only accessible on computers and Apple devices.

- iTunes has one major advantage: if a movie becomes available in 4K after you buy the HD version, they will upgrade your movie to 4K for free. Amazon and Vudu don't do that.

04-25-2022, 12:16 AM	#4
Fiffy Blu-ray Samurai Member since:Jul 2007 Location:San Jose, CA Trading Score:4	- One criterium that I find important is the likelihood that a store (and thus your collection) will be around in the long term. We have already seen some smaller stores disappear, and in some cases people lost movies. Among the digital stores, Amazon and Apple are the market leaders by a significant margin and are obviously financially healthy companies. The latter is also true for Google, but they are known to sometimes suddenly shut services down when they are not profitable enough. Vudu is a smaller player and has already changed ownership several times, so IMO they are a bit more of a question mark in this regard. - Movies Anywhere is great, but there are still a lot of movies that aren't eligible (and neither are TV shows), so the choice of a store remains important. And the demise of Ultraviolet has shown that you can't necessarily rely on these locker services either. - Another thing you might want to look at are the differences in streaming quality. Here's a thread for that: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=323204 - I wouldn't pick a store based on your TV OS. If you plan to collect a somewhat bigger library, the value of the movies will probably far exceed the cost of a streaming box over time. - All of the stores mentioned above support different devices and smart TVs. That includes Apple, however iTunes extras like commentaries and alternate cuts are currently only accessible on computers and Apple devices. - iTunes has one major advantage: if a movie becomes available in 4K after you buy the HD version, they will upgrade your movie to 4K for free. Amazon and Vudu don't do that.

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