Buying DVD's vs Streaming

L

lone wolf

Gawd
Joined
Feb 4, 2003
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I'm curious, with all of the new streaming sites (amazon, netflix etc) how many out there still actually purchase DVD's for their collection? I am still buying all of the TV shows that I want, I'm currently on an 80's kick. Knight Rider, Alf, Street Hawk...
 
I buy TV shows as well. More collect them than anything as there is no way I have the time to watch all of them. I like to buy movies on DVD even though I never really watch them more than once. I haven't purchased a DVD movie in a long while as any spare funds are going into the house.
 
I enjoy streaming, but I for any reason the connection is rough and it's constantly buffering, I will play dvd/blurry or something off the hard drive. Sling TV can be brutal on some channels. Netflix and Hulu seem to do ok
 
I'll happily buy a high-quality blu-ray to get top notch PQ and HD audio. If the PQ isn't that hot then I'll stream
 
The streaming/digital versions are all molested. The quality is actually okay on Netflix, but it's pure shit on stuff like iTunes and Play.
 
Haven't bought a DVD since the 2nd month Netflix has been in business. Just doesn't make any sense at all to me no matter how inexpensive DVD sets may appear to be. Between Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu+ there just isn't anything that I'd watch that isn't provided by those services.

Phyiscal media lacks any value proposition. It's a huge amount of sunk cost, it takes up physical space, and all for no good reason.
 
I think DVDs look like complete shit and I have no interest in viewing them at this point.
 
ocellaris said:
I think DVDs look like complete shit and I have no interest in viewing them at this point.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I can't bare to watch them unless on an old school tv from a distance. Upscaling looks like crap and watching default 480p on a high res screen is too small to be enjoyable for tv/movie. Hopefully OP just meant movies in general though. It's aggravating that some companies take so long to release blurays and sit on DVDs, those are the ones I refuse to purchase and will stream them in HD where I can.

It's funny how our eyes have grown accustomed to high res imaging. I remember back in the day watching video tapes on VCR like it was nothing.
 
I still buy blu rays and dvd's, and rip them all. Keep blu rays lossless, and re-encode DVD's into H264 while keeping ac3 audio intact. I own over 300 blu rays, and usually buy once they hit the $10 or less mark.
 
The nice thing about physical media is that it does have some resale value once you're done with them. Game of Thrones, for example. Or, easier to share with others.
 
Why not both. I buy Blu-Rays pretty regularly but I make sure to add the UV digital copy to my collection. I have almost 200 movies to stream from that if I don't want to hunt a movie from my collection. Maybe a third of those are available on netflix or Hulu and when they are that's usually temporary.
 
As long as there are data caps, ill continue to buy those must-have titles on disc
 
I do still buy the series that I want. I just got MASH complete series, Star Trek TNG. I understand that it is a waste of money these days with all of the streaming available.
 
I buy the best. That would be 1080p BD with uncompressed audio.
Soon, it'll be UHD BD and I'll buy those too. Why watch / listen to anything less than the best?
Convenience? Lame excuse.
 
I have recently started to purchase movies through Amazon digital. Previously I purchased blu-ray or DVD's and ripped them to my HTPC so I could stream them around the house. Buying from Amazon digital allows me to do the same but without having to rip anything and use up disc space.

I will admit I am not a videophile so I can't speak to the picture quality vs. blu-ray but it's plenty good for me. It does look better than my ripped DVD's and almost as good as my ripped blu-rays. The only annoying thing is when the internet is out and I can't access my collection, although that rarely happens.

My one fear is that something will happen and the movies I purchased will be gone. Not likely Amazon will go out of business but who knows what could happen.
 
I still buy BDs for titles I consider important. But I've been buying Amazon Instant Video for over seven years too. Mostly for cable TV shows since I'm cord-cut. But occasional movies too when they go on sale. Plus I converted a lot of my existing DVD/BD library to UV titles using VUDU's disc-to-digital service. I have about 200 Amazon titles and 100 UV titles. (and probably 200+ physical DVD/BDs)

mrc73 said:
I will admit I am not a videophile so I can't speak to the picture quality vs. blu-ray but it's plenty good for me. It does look better than my ripped DVD's and almost as good as my ripped blu-rays.
Click to expand...

The 1080p encodes Amazon uses are almost 10Mb/s, which is larger than Netflix SuperHD or VUDU's HDX. (5-6 Mbps) On paper it's better than the other streaming providers. But I've found that encoding quality varies greatly from source to source and provider to provider.

mrc73 said:
My one fear is that something will happen and the movies I purchased will be gone. Not likely Amazon will go out of business but who knows what could happen.
Click to expand...

You can have the same fears about purchased media from Steam, or Origin, GooglePlay or iTunes. None are guaranteed to be around tomorrow, or 5-10 years from now.
 
I'm getting old...so collecting "stuff I don't use very often" is getting low on my list of importance. The only discs I buy now are the "big animated movies". Why? That is what the kids watch...again..and again..oh, and again. Shit, I bought a bunch of blu-ray discs the last black Friday, haven't watch one of them. I'm even downsizing quite a bit of my storage/system just because my overall consumption is down.

I have two large totes in the basement full of DVD's we NEVER watch. We have another one of CD's we never listen to. My guess is if I donated it to good will, the wife would never notice.

As for buying in either physical/digital format...who gives a shit. Even if Amazon goes "bye bye", would that really be in the top 100 bad things that have happened to you by time it happens?

My method is pretty simple now:

1) We go to the theater on $5 Tuesday if the movie is big enough.
2) If not, we get it from Redbox when it comes out
3) If it is not on redbox, it most likely is on Amazon or Netflix
4) If not, we'll buy it.

This way costs me about 6$/movie on average between my wife and I. My data storage needs have gone from needing to grow at a TB+ per year to having nearly 50% space available on my current system which was almost full. My next storage system will 2x4TB in "fake RAID1" via duplication.
 
I still buy some movies, but the volume I purchase is way way down. To give some idea of what I mean, I currently own about 1,500 DVD's and a little over 300 high def movies (mostly HD-DVD but a few BD's too). The last time I bought disks was in 2006 or 2007, when the HD-DVD vs BD war was ongoing. It wasn't that the side I picked "lost", it was that I determined around that time that both were going to lose in the long run to streaming.

So I went from buying 50-100 movies a year to only buying a handful of "must own" movies a year. When something like Avengers or Frozen comes out we'll buy a copy, and most of the time it's a present for someone. Otherwise we just stream.

I'll go even further, in fact. I'm currently in the process of ripping and encoding the majority of the physical discs in the house so I can get rid of them all. It's a lot more convenient to have a 1-2GB H.264 encoded file on the home file server to watch from anywhere than to hunt around for a disc, pop in in the dvd player, etc. We use the TV daily and go months and months without using the DVD player.
 
Same here. I buy a few when I REALLY want to own it or support it, but nowhere near what I used to. I still have hundreds of HD DVDs too! Watch them every once in a while. But for the most part it's streaming 95% of the time. Wave of the future, convenience beats quality.
 
I only purchase select movies and tv shows on disc. I prefer streaming for the convenience.
I don't buy DVD's anymore since there is Bluray but I did purchase Ashes to Ashes on DVD since that is the only format it's on and it wasn't on Amazon or Netflix, so I ordered the PAL DVD's (no NTSC either) and ripped them to my computer.
 
I buy Blu-Ray discs of movies that I really enjoy and will watch again. Otherwise I'm ok with Netflix/Prime.
 
I buy Blu-Ray sets of my favorites like Breaking Bad, LOTR trilogy, a few others. I just picked up the first two seasons of Banshee on BR, too. The ease and convenience of streaming can't be overstated, however. I recently cut the cord and am doing well with Sling TV, HBO Go, Netflix.

BR and streaming are wonderful. :D
 
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