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

[Joeker]

I understood the same thing Sector Drone did regarding film music's initial comment where there was no mention of blu ray. I must be a peanut too.

Cevolution, you sound like you need a hug.

[Cevolution]

Originally Posted by Joeker

I understood the same thing Sector Drone did regarding film music's initial comment where there was no mention of blu ray. I must be a peanut too.

Cevolution, you sound like you need a hug.

That's been painfully obvious for quite sometime to anyone who has observed you on this site over the last 2 years

Edit: It doesn't matter what you thought Filmmusic meant in his initial post. In Filmmusic's original post he mentions digital copies being of an inferior quality, and goes on to clarify what his intended meaning was in his follow up post:

Originally Posted by filmmusic

Obviously I was talking about the films that do have a Bluray release.

Anything that come after him explaining this from other members, harping on about movies not available on Blu-ray, or other advantages that they feel digitally distributed content has over physical media, was pointless.

[Sector Drone]

Originally Posted by Joeker

I understood the same thing Sector Drone did regarding film music's initial comment where there was no mention of blu ray. I must be a peanut too.

Cevolution, you sound like you need a hug.

Are you handing out hugs? I'll take one, big boy.

[Jumpman]

Gotta say, after working where I work for the last 4 months, physical copies of movies is starting to make me ill...just the amount of it.

I guess if it was like the old days when DVDs came by the bucket load but people were buying them like crazy, I might think differently but for the amount of product I moved around the last two days and the fact that almost nobody goes over to the media department, it just seems crystal clear to me that collecting on the physical front is for true collector's now.

13 years ago, the amount of FURIOUS 7 Blu's we have in store now would've been gone in 3 to 4 days. With the amount we have, these things, if not sent back, will sit here for months and months. It's crazy the lack of attention the media department is getting these days.

Has streaming and Redbox really changed the populist viewing habits? I mean, I'm mostly digital anyway but I just figured that old habits die hard but I'm starting to rethink that after just seeing how much product doesn't move from the movie section.

I'm to the point that the rest of my collecting might get sold off in the next two months. I mean, I rarely put in a disc now. I either fire up the Apple TV or I plug my iPhone to the TV and just watch my HD film that way (save on possible data capping).

Never thought I see the day where I start to detest the sight of Blu's vs. just firing up a digital copy. A 4TB hard drive looks to be my future Christmas/Birthday present.

[JMS1223]

I am mostly digital but I keep physical copies of my very favorite movies just in case the internet goes down or something. I like to have something that can not disappear too as I heard digital movies can technically be taken away from you.

[Jumpman]

Originally Posted by JMS1223

I am mostly digital but I keep physical copies of my very favorite movies just in case the internet goes down or something. I like to have something that can not disappear too as I heard digital movies can technically be taken away from you.

Technically true, they can disappear but a lot of the time that has to do with television rights and contracts in terms of what station/service gets to have a film at a certain time. Usually, it gets cleared up quickly.

The best way to avoid that is to download each purchase you make to where you don't have to worry about the Internet going down. This is why I feel iTunes is second to none. Their download option is impeccable. If you have an iDevice with enough storage, it essentially becomes your de facto movie player. And now that iTunes Extras are on iDevices as well, you get that to (via wifi of course).

But, like you, my absolute favorites...they stay on disc. Lately, I've been trying to truly identify which films are truly my absolutes so I can weed down the rest....to digital.

[JMS1223]

Originally Posted by Jumpman

The best way to avoid that is to download each purchase you make to where you don't have to worry about the Internet going down. This is why I feel iTunes is second to none. Their download option is impeccable. If you have an iDevice with enough storage, it essentially becomes your de facto movie player. And now that iTunes Extras are on iDevices as well, you get that to (via wifi of course).

I plan to buy a bigger iDevice so I can download my iTunes library. Right now I only have 5 movies on my iPad. I tried to download my top ten (which technically I have enough storage) but for some reason some of movies got undownloaded randomly. So right now I only have five. When I get the 128GB I will be able to have most of them.

[Jumpman]

Originally Posted by JMS1223

I plan to buy a bigger iDevice so I can download my iTunes library. Right now I only have 5 movies on my iPad. I tried to download my top ten (which technically I have enough storage) but for some reason some of movies got undownloaded randomly. So right now I only have five. When I get the 128GB I will be able to have most of them.

Yeah, I just bought a 128gb iPhone. My wife has a 128gb iPhone. I have two iPad minis with 32gbs a piece so I have plenty of storage to go around if the need ever arises. Right now, all my movies are stored locally on a 2TB hard drive. I've cut back heavily on buying movies, even digitally. I just mostly rent or stream from Netflix or HBOGo. So, I have tons of options available to me where content is never going to be a problem.

Between my four iDevices, I can save enough favorites on them to be okay. But I doubt that need will ever happen.

[Jumpman]

I've tried to stop buying because frankly, it's impossible to own every film you've ever loved, let alone like. It's a falsehood, the journey of collecting cinema on home video.

[JMS1223]

Originally Posted by Jumpman

I've tried to stop buying because frankly, it's impossible to own every film you've ever loved, let alone like. It's a falsehood, the journey of collecting cinema on home video.

Yeah, I mainly just stick to favorites when buying. Sometimes though if I get a free code or something I will use it even if the movie isn't a favorite.

I like to rent too when possible but sometimes there is no rent option and I hate that. There are currently a few movies I want to rewatch but I don't feel like paying $4 each to rent them so I kind of hope they show up on HBO Go. I don't have Netflix. I also use the library to borrow discs but many times the disc is damaged so that I am unable to watch the movie.

[Jumpman]

Originally Posted by JMS1223

Yeah, I mainly just stick to favorites when buying. Sometimes though if I get a free code or something I will use it even if the movie isn't a favorite.

I like to rent too when possible but sometimes there is no rent option and I hate that. There are currently a few movies I want to rewatch but I don't feel like paying $4 each to rent them so I kind of hope they show up on HBO Go. I don't have Netflix. I also use the library to borrow discs but many times the disc is damaged so that I am unable to watch the movie.

Yeah, I was on the library kick for a while and yep, the damages on those discs tend to make viewing hard.

I too feel you about paying five dollars to rent a film that I want to rewatch but we're basically paying for the convience of not having to get off the couch to watch them, which I get even though I don't agree with the price.

Like right now, I want to rewatch a few Bond films but they're not available for rent until October 23rd (mainly because they've been re-released again on home video). If I had access to the Epix channel, I could rewatch them now but how many video services/channels do we have to subscribe to in order to get everything? It's stupid so I'm only subscribed to two. Once the Bond movies become available to rent, I'll rent a few, even for five dollars.

I know people hated the Blockbuster late fee charges but frankly, in today's climate of having to hunt for shit, I miss Blockbuster.

[JMS1223]

Originally Posted by Jumpman

If I had access to the Epix channel, I could rewatch them now but how many video services/channels do we have to subscribe to in order to get everything? It's stupid so I'm only subscribed to two. Once the Bond movies become available to rent, I'll rent a few, even for five dollars.

Exactly. That same thing happened to me a few months ago. The movie will be on EPiX or encore but since I don't subscribe to them I can't see the movie. Really annoying. I only subscribe to HBO and Showtime. So just two for me as well. But with something like the Bond movies, you feel like rewatching a bunch, not just a select few so the $5 each adds up a lot.

I did notice though that the Blu-rays at the library are better because less people check them out due to only having DVD players, and the Blu-rays tend to be newer too. However, very few titles are available. Right now I want to rewatch the Back To The Future trilogy but the blu-ray is taking forever to get to me due to holds. If I rented it, it would cost me almost $15. I don't want to buy it. I mainly wanted to rewatch it this year because of the fact it is 2015, the year they travel to in the future. There are several other movies I want to rewatch too, but don't want to buy. I may just end up paying the $4 each to rent them if they happen to be available as a rent option.

[Jumpman]

Originally Posted by JMS1223

Exactly. That same thing happened to me a few months ago. The movie will be on EPiX or encore but since I don't subscribe to them I can't see the movie. Really annoying. I only subscribe to HBO and Showtime. So just two for me as well. But with something like the Bond movies, you feel like rewatching a bunch, not just a select few so the $5 each adds up a lot.

I did notice though that the Blu-rays at the library are better because less people check them out due to only having DVD players, and the Blu-rays tend to be newer too. However, very few titles are available. Right now I want to rewatch the Back To The Future trilogy but the blu-ray is taking forever to get to me due to holds. If I rented it, it would cost me almost $15. I don't want to buy it. I mainly wanted to rewatch it this year because of the fact it is 2015, the year they travel to in the future. There are several other movies I want to rewatch too, but don't want to buy. I may just end up paying the $4 each to rent them if they happen to be available as a rent option.

I love the BACK TO THE FUTURE trilogy enough to buy the upcoming Blu so that won't be a problem for me in the future.

As for rewatch/revisiting films that you don't own and having a hard time finding them, I've come to realize that certain films tend to get a marathon/replay on cable basically every year.

For instance, you can set your watch to it but basically INDIANA JONES, RAMBO, ROCKY, and BOND tend get rebroadcast on Spike, Syfy, or USA/TNT annually so that's one of the reason why I don't own any of those films except for the INDIANA JONES series. Funny enough, we just missed the Bond marathon on one of those stations by a 3 months I think, which sucks.

I've been doing a lot of research on which films tend to get rebroadcast annually and you'd be surprised by how many do. I mean, HBOGo gets the ROCKY films as well. Just have to make sure you watch them when they do. I mean, technically, I shouldn't own SCHINDLER'S LIST or PRIVATE RYAN on Blu because those films play every year on TV, uncensored and most of the time, without commercials. So, in reality, what's the point of owning those?

The hunting for your favorites or films you like can suck sometimes but it does feel better in your wallet if you just do some work.

[JMS1223]

Originally Posted by Jumpman

The hunting for your favorites or films you like can suck sometimes but it does feel better in your wallet if you just do some work.

I agree. I ended up waiting on some and they turned up on HBO later. I also was able to find some at my library which were not damaged. Ultimately if I can't get it I do end up paying the $4-$5 to rent it.

The worst is when the film was just on TV and you missed its run and only discovered that after you decided you wanted to rewatch that movie. And on top of that the movie is not available for rent on iTunes or anywhere, and is buy only.

[Jumpman]

Originally Posted by JMS1223

I agree. I ended up waiting on some and they turned up on HBO later. I also was able to find some at my library which were not damaged. Ultimately if I can't get it I do end up paying the $4-$5 to rent it.

The worst is when the film was just on TV and you missed its run and only discovered that after you decided you wanted to rewatch that movie. And on top of that the movie is not available for rent on iTunes or anywhere, and is buy only.

Oh, I'm with you there on the waiting and renting a film only to discover that it's on TV.

My new dilemma is the MCU. Reluctantly, I've bought everyone digitally but now with the Disney deal, Phase 3 will be on Netflix for about 3-5 years so in reality, I should not buy them. But as someon who's a completist when it comes to series, I feel I should get them anyway. But, I would be throwing away money by doing that because of Netflix. Ugh, wish I had never started collecting the series.

[JMS1223]

Originally Posted by Jumpman

Ugh, wish I had never started collecting the series.

You can always uncollect it. I used to collect Platinum Edition Disney DVDs but decided to uncollect them and sold all I had. Was glad I did.

[master gandhi]

Originally Posted by JMS1223

You can always uncollect it. I used to collect Platinum Edition Disney DVDs but decided to uncollect them and sold all I had. Was glad I did.

Well yeah, those are DVDs. heh

[JMS1223]

Originally Posted by master gandhi

Well yeah, those are DVDs. heh

Sold them before the Diamond Edition Blu-rays started and I never collected those.

[Dynamo of Eternia]

Physical media for me, and it always will be so long as it is an option.


I recently started going back and redeeming many digital copy codes that came with my Blu-Rays. I can see where they may come in handy while traveling or something. But I have no intention of paying a bunch of money to add to the digital collection. I'll have more than enough content through it to keep myself entertained should I ever want to use it away from home. And since I'm not paying for them specifically (they just happen to come with the Blu-Rays that I am going out of my way to pay for), while it would kind of stink to lose access to them, I'm also not counting on them being my main way to watch movies.

[master gandhi]

Originally Posted by JMS1223

Sold them before the Diamond Edition Blu-rays started and I never collected those.

I see. So you just don't like those Disney movies anymore?

I go through phases. I always consider myself a fan of Disney, Star Wars, James Bond, The Fast and the Furious, but I go through phases where I'm more obsessed than usual. For that reason, I need to have all of that in my collection for whenever I have the fever for them. heh