Does anyone here have a digital movie collection?

[ThaVirus]

In general I’ve leaned on streaming services to watch movies, but lately I’ve found that a particular movie I want to watch is not on any of the services I pay for. That gets frustrating.

I’ve been keeping an eye out for Blu-Ray and disc deals but I find the physical media is cumbersome. Having to change discs depending on what you want to watch, storage space, etc. I’m not a fan.

I bought a few movies recently (physical copies) and they came with digital codes as well. I redeemed them and set up my MoviesAnywhere account and now I’m kind of thinking that a digital collection may be exactly what I’m looking for. The issue is, I’ve heard horror stories of digital licenses just being a “lease”. Basically, you can buy a right to the digital license for whatever movie through the host, but if they just so happen to choose to stop hosting it, you will lose the movie and there’s really nothing that can be done to prevent it.

I say all this to ask, has anyone actually encountered that sort of issue or is it totally overblown?

[lcarus]

I have about 8 TB full of movies and shows and stuff. I've collected a bunch of stuff over the years. It sucks that about 99% of the time I think "Oh I'd like to see this movie", Netflix or whatever site you're subscribed to doesn't have it. Now there's a streaming site for every single distributor and even then they don't have everything.

The only thing I almost always stay subscribed to is Shudder. Mainly for the Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs. But they have a lot of horror movies and shows for a good price.

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by lcarus

I have about 8 TB full of movies and shows and stuff. I've collected a bunch of stuff over the years.

Yep, we’ve got Amazon Prime, Netflix, Peacock, Paramount+, Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max and oftentimes I still can’t find a particular movie that pops in my head. That is very annoying.

But it sounds like you’ve got the digital copies saved on a hard drive. Where do you get the movies?

Do you have any experience buying digital movies from retailers like iTunes, Microsoft, Prime Video, etc.?

[notorious]

Originally Posted by lcarus

The only thing I almost always stay subscribed to is Shudder. Mainly for the Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs. But they have a lot of horror movies and shows for a good price.

Hmmm. I'm going to check this out. Loved Joe Bob back in the late 90s.

[DCTwister]

Yeah if you have movies on iTunes or whatever, you only have a subscription to watch those movies during the term of your subscription, nothing more. You don’t own the movies. If that service goes away, you lose access.

The only way around this really is to rip the movies from Blu-ray/DVD onto your hard drive. About 10 years ago I went about doing this. Seemed like a good idea at the time, although a big pain in the ass. Of course I never really used them much and defaulted to just watching / buying on iTunes / Netflix or whatever. Think of it this way - most movies are pretty fungible anyway. You will watch them a few times and never again in reality. If you “buy” on iTunes that probably covers you for a few times you will watch it in your lifetime. Ripping to hard drive is simply not worth the trouble and you would have had to buy the Blu-rays or DVDs anyway.

[Fish]

Man, I used to spend so much time gathering and organizing media collections. Movies, TV, music. I had apps like Couch Potato that would routinely scan for and download new media when it was released. I'd format the names, download artwork, and organize it all.

Then Amazon did their online music thing where they would allow you to upload any music you had whether it was pirated or not, and it would host all of it online, which I could access from anywhere on just about any device. Which worked so well it completely broke my OCD media routine.

Amazon has since abandoned the free music upload collection ability(), but I'm pretty much 99% online streaming at this point. I still have my collection on my computer, but it's getting very dated at this point. If society ever completely collapsed, I'd still have local access to a pretty sweet collection of 90's-2010's movies/TV/music. So, I got that going for me..

[BigRichard]

I have several TBs of movie and tv data. I haven't broken it out in a while but I also have two large disk binders stocked full of DVD I copied. I am guessing there is a 200 movies in there from probably 10-15 years ago.

[UteChief]

I went from hundreds of DVDs and Blu-ray’s to 3. I am 99% digital through iTunes and love it. I no longer wanted to store my collection. I have heard stories of movies and TV series being dropped from carriers but I haven’t experienced anything.I share my collection with my Mom. With iTunes you can share with up to 5 people.

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by DCTwister

Yeah if you have movies on iTunes or whatever, you only have a subscription to watch those movies during the term of your subscription, nothing more. You don’t own the movies. If that service goes away, you lose access.

The only way around this really is to rip the movies from Blu-ray/DVD onto your hard drive. About 10 years ago I went about doing this. Seemed like a good idea at the time, although a big pain in the ass. Of course I never really used them much and defaulted to just watching / buying on iTunes / Netflix or whatever. Think of it this way - most movies are pretty fungible anyway. You will watch them a few times and never again in reality. If you “buy” on iTunes that probably covers you for a few times you will watch it in your lifetime. Ripping to hard drive is simply not worth the trouble and you would have had to buy the Blu-rays or DVDs anyway.

I feel what you’re saying. I’ve been eyeballing some movies on sale. Everything I’ve looked at is $4.99. Ultimately, if I do buy a few of these movies and they end up taken off whichever platform I buy from, it probably won’t hurt me all that much.

I would only buy from Apple, Microsoft or Amazon anyway so I feel like I’d be relatively safe on the retailer side.

Originally Posted by UteChief

I went from hundreds of DVDs and Blu-ray’s to 3. I am 99% digital through iTunes and love it. I no longer wanted to store my collection. I have heard stories of movies and TV series being dropped from carriers but I haven’t experienced anything.I share my collection with my Mom. With iTunes you can share with up to 5 people.

Same. I’ve always been a minimalist myself. At this point I probably own like 20 total DVDs and Blu-Rays which are all kept in a box in storage.

Digital is just SO much more convenient.

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by Fish

Man, I used to spend so much time gathering and organizing media collections. Movies, TV, music. I had apps like Couch Potato that would routinely scan for and download new media when it was released. I'd format the names, download artwork, and organize it all.

Then Amazon did their online music thing where they would allow you to upload any music you had whether it was pirated or not, and it would host all of it online, which I could access from anywhere on just about any device. Which worked so well it completely broke my OCD media routine.

Amazon has since abandoned the free music upload collection ability(), but I'm pretty much 99% online streaming at this point. I still have my collection on my computer, but it's getting very dated at this point. If society ever completely collapsed, I'd still have local access to a pretty sweet collection of 90's-2010's movies/TV/music. So, I got that going for me..

I think about the society collapsing thing all the time.

More realistically, in everyday life, physical copies are really only useful over digital when you still have power but no internet. Having DVDs has actually saved us from a few hours of extreme boredom in the aftermath of hurricanes from time to time so I don’t mind keeping a few handy in case of emergency.

The convenience of streaming is absurdly amazing but I do hate the fact that you don’t actually own anything and are basically just leasing it, having to pay for it forever.

Originally Posted by BigRichard

I have several TBs of movie and tv data. I haven't broken it out in a while but I also have two large disk binders stocked full of DVD I copied. I am guessing there is a 200 movies in there from probably 10-15 years ago.

I have the same for CDs lol

Just taking up space in a box in the closet for the last decade now. I’m no pack rat but even I’ll have to wise up and just throw that all out one day.

It is always a nice nostalgia kick when I go through the box and find the binder. Remember keeping those things in your car? Flipping through it to find the next listen while your friend is driving? Ah. Those were the days.

[ThaVirus]

Thanks for the info, bros. Your posts have put me at ease.

I will likely not hesitate to buy a few movies here and there that I really love on sale for $4.99. Worse comes to worst and the retailer drops the license, I’m only out $5. $5 doesn’t get you shit these days so it’s no great loss. Can’t even buy a Happy Meal with $5 anymore.