Why Buy Digital Movies From ITunes, Google, and Amazon
Star Wars is being reprinted again today. This time it will appear on iTunes, Amazon and Google Play . Regardless of whether you have already bought this particular collection dozens of times, digital libraries are not going anywhere. But is it worth buying from them?
There is no shortage of ways to buy a movie these days. However, conventional wisdom usually suggests that buying a movie from an online library to obtain streaming rights is not a good idea. Before we talk about why it might be okay to get an online version, it’s fair to dwell on common objections :
- It doesn’t really belong to you: when you buy a Blu-ray, it becomes your owner. It stays in your home, you can watch it as long as you want, and you don’t have to pay again for access later. With digital libraries, you may be denied access .
- Large companies (and their servers) can fail: When you buy a movie on Amazon, you can stream as many as you like from their servers. But what if these servers go down? Tech companies are constantly shutting down services, and it is unknown when the company will go out of business. You only get these films as long as these companies are able and willing to provide them to you.
- You only need an internet connection to browse your library: For decades, if you bought a VHS, DVD, or Blu-ray cassette, you could watch your movie without internet. Now, if Comcast breaks the bed, your entire media library is gone. To make matters worse, if you have a slow connection, this HD movie starts to look like it was shot in Potat-O-Vision.
- Either way, you can get the digital version for free with Blu-Ray: some (though not most) paper films come with free “digital” copies. Unlock codes can give you access to movies on sites like iTunes, Vudu, or others. If you can have both, why spend $ 20 on just one?
Of course, everyone will have their own objections, but these are some of the most common, and they are all well-founded. However, in our search for gaps in the digital library method, we may have overlooked several things. And for the sake of this discussion, we’ll assume it’s worth paying for the media in fair circumstances.
Digital movies are more convenient than ever
There was a time when buying a movie on iTunes meant you could watch it on your computer, possibly an iPod, and that’s about it. However, this only covers a small fraction of the use cases. Most of us want to watch movies on the couch in our living room, on a tablet, or even on our phone.
This is more likely today than ever. Personally, I’m firmly entrenched in the Google ecosystem, which means I have an Android phone, tablet, Chromecast, and a web browser where I might want to watch a movie. One purchase of a movie from the Google Play store means I can watch that movie on any of those screens. If I went and bought a Blu-ray with this movie, I would have to copy it to my computer , add it to my own media server, and take responsibility for ensuring that the computer always has an internet connection with sufficient downloads. speed. Or I could format the file to optimize for playback on my phone and take up space in the internal memory, which is even more cumbersome.
To be honest, this process is easier than ever. But that also means that if you want to watch movies on any device other than a dedicated Blu-Ray player, you have a lot of extra work to do. Incidentally, this is technically illegal work . While few of these parts have serious moral fights with copying movies you bought, this means you have fewer simple options as the software to do this is also illegal. In other words, you won’t be able to rip Blu-ray using iTunes anytime soon.
If you want to pay money for “permanent” (we’ll come back to this) access to a movie, you really don’t have a more convenient option than buying from an online library. In fact, the only real hang is to fit your ecosystem. If you buy from Amazon Instant Video, you cannot cast to Chromecast. ITunes movies won’t work on Amazon Fire TV Stick. And Google had to invent clever backdoors to get Play Movies on Apple TV . But if you have a fairly stable set of devices, you shouldn’t have much of a problem.
Digital libraries are much better
If you have a collection of Blu-Ray discs, they should take up shelf space. They need to be packed in boxes. If you copy your movies, they will fill up your hard drive. You can customize your collection to be comfortable to watch, but most people tend to post their movies in a spine-like format, which means that any guests who want to see what movies you have in stock should will bend your neck 90 degrees to get a good view right.
Simply put, digital libraries look much cooler. You can see the cover, explore the descriptions, view your selection on your phone or tablet. You can watch trailers and even get information about actors or soundtracks while watching . Blu-ray players have some of these features, but they also contain a lot of unnecessary junk. Most Blu-ray movies have tons of trailers and not to be missed, and load times are terrible.
This shouldn’t be big news for us. Netflix is so popular that it has become a cultural icon, providing us with a beautiful digital library that can stream movies on demand without any unmissable trailers or other junk. Digital libraries like Google Play are much closer to Netflix than Blu-ray experiences, and that’s a good thing.
Media ownership is a myth
Most of us don’t like to think about it, but we rarely “own” a movie when we buy it, regardless of the source. When you buy a disc from a store, you are buying a license to watch the movie at home. This license is controlled by digital rights management tools. In particular, Blu-Ray discs have one of the most complex and over -the- top DRM media out there.
In most cases, this is not a problem with the licensed Blu-Ray player. However, Blu-Ray often requires updates to keep DRM working. The new discs come with DRM updates, as well as revocation lists that may disable certain models or rosters until they receive security updates. This means you can buy a new Blu-ray, insert it into your old player, and end up blocking that movie, or perhaps all of your movies, depending on which rights the new disc will revoke.
This is known to have happened on a small scale in 2010 when some legitimate consumers tried to watch Avatar and were blocked . Not all were affected, but a bug in the system caused some users to get the shaft. From time to time, someone comes across a problem where the software between the player and the disc is not consistent and an update is required.
However, this raises a key question. Requiring software updates for Blu-ray players isn’t much better than storing movies on a remote server. Both may fall someday. As long as your Blu-ray player is up to date, you have nothing to worry about, but you still risk buying an ecosystem where your rights could be revoked in the future. Intentionally or unintentionally.
Of course, this does not mean that Blu-Ray cannot be trusted. Often, when we discuss media “ownership”, the implication is that if there is a risk of losing access to something after a few years, it’s not worth buying at all. This is far from the truth. Many people bought VHS tapes, and now, even if you still have a working VHS player, tapes will wear out over time and the quality is poor. Part of buying new media is paying for a technical upgrade, not just a movie license. Whether it’s the cynical receipt of money or just the nature of technology, the desire to pay for a movie once for all is an unrealistic expectation. Even if we all wanted it.
Digital libraries are not perfect, but they are no worse than any other option.
None of this means digital movie streaming is perfect. $ 20 is still $ 20, and even if that’s the normal price for a new movie, there are more and more cheaper ways to watch movies every year. If you don’t want to pay the premium, it’s hard to blame you.
However, some people (myself included) still enjoy buying movies. Personally, I’ve always wanted to buy CDs because I love the way they look on the shelf. This is like the version for movie lovers to have a lot of leather-bound books at home. Over time, however, I found that browsing my movie collection became a problem. Half of the Blu-ray players I have ever had are slow, unreliable, or complain about updates every time I try to watch a movie on them. And even in 2015, there is still no free Blu-ray viewing software on my computer.
However, digital movies from online retailers are an attractive option. You can play them on almost any device, library apps are more convenient, and best of all, you won’t lose access to your movies because you haven’t updated your toaster. And if you’re worried about your library disappearing, don’t worry. We’ll all be paying for new 16KHD holographic versions of Star Wars long before Apple or Google go out of business and shut down their movie servers.
Photo by Maria Morrie .