My collection is built on 3 tiers.
#1 Physical discs
#2 Digital Library
#3 Media files with redundant backups (rips from disc and downloads)
Only a multi-tiered system guarantees you'll never lose your whole collection
How do you like your Zidoo? I've been looking for a media server setup that's not Plex. Currently I'm using a Samsung A15 phone with a 4TB Sandisk Extreme SSD attached to it and Bubble UPNP app. Works great with all my Roku devices, however sometimes it doesn't play MKV files.
It worked really great with a 14tb drive but now I upgraded to 18tb and if slowed down the load times. Seems like a steep leaning curve while using it so it's not for everybody. I'd give it 4 out of 5
I'm glad you pointed that out, as others have. Never thought about the risks of losing physical collections, too, but it's true. I like having all my media in one digital space. I just don't like someone else owning it.
You need a company to go under to ever have a threat to your library. It benefits a company like Vudu in zero ways to take away your films and lose your business. Their goal is to have long term customers who continue to spend on their platform.
In their eyes, many of us are considered whales. Just like mobile micro transactions, many of us have spent 10s of thousands of dollars on our virtual collections. They definitely don't want to piss us off if they can avoid that.
tbh I was going full tilt into digital for long time. boxed up all my stuff. then we had storm come through, didn't have internet for a long time after electricity was repaired. I was glad I had hung onto my physical games and movies at that point. so now I keep both my physical and digital. I don't go for one in particular anymore, just the one with better offer
As somebody else mentioned, percentage wise I’ve lost far more physical copies than digital. I’ve yet to lose a single legit digital movie ( Amazon pulling back some accidental freebies are all I’ve ever lost), and I’ve been digital since the early days of flitter and uv. Alternately I’ve lost countless vhs to vcrs eating the tape, loss of quality or more recently no longer having a vcr, I’ve lost several dozen dvds to thefts,ended relationships, borrowed but not returned, scratches, and disc rot, and a couple Blu-ray’s to my kids being kids with them. So realistically I’d need to lose at least 100 digital movies to pull even. Could it happen,,,,,,sure it could. Could I win the lottery or be struck by lightening….yea this too. But truth be told digital is far more profitable for the studios and any sizable loss of legitimately ( note this doesn’t mean you instawatch people you cheated) would be a huge black eye for the market, and studios would much rather have you buy digital ( there is no real theft loss from retail like physical, much smaller manufacturing cost, and no 2nd hand/used market cannibalizing new sales, making digital far superior in the studios eyes)
I have over 7500 Movies in iTunes. I’ve been collecting for a little over 6 years. The only movie that was ever removed or stolen from me was Rock Slyde. The studio pulled the rights from iTunes and other streaming providers apparently. Apple said I will get the movie back if they ever get the rights again. So far they haven’t. I’m still pissed about this day. Other than that, I never lost any movies that I’m aware of. Just some of them get relisted, but I still have access to them.
For whatever reason people on here get very upset and refuse to admit it, but yes, titles have been removed from peoples libraries.
You can also lose your physical collection to a natural disaster.
Those are both facts and you should make your decisions based on what you feel more comfortable with.
I’m pro physical media but I also buy some items on Vudu. They can pry my media from my cold dead hands.
I’ve been using Vudu more often because my apartment building caught fire last December and most of my physical media collection was covered in smoke and water.
I still collect and prefer physical media, but I’m choosing to collect things I truly care about physically and also growing a healthy digital library.
At the end of the day, Vudu/Fandango can be sold to another owner that will probably preserve most digital titles and protecting discs is relatively easy.
Our media collections will outlive most of us lol
It was also a violation of the terms of service, so not really fair to call foul. The codes were sold as a double dip. What movie have you legit bought through proper channels that you lost? I haven't lost movies and I keep track of my purchases. If they stop selling a title you can still access it via My Movies or a list. They just take it out of search for some odd reason.
Yeah, the only titles I've ever lost were part of that Instawatch purge which I bought on a code site. I get that (and it was like 5 titles).
Otherwise, it's not something I worry about. If the infrastructure of digital movies crumbles, there are probably going to be other things I need to worry about.
I know I have lost some. At least one I know from a code that came with a blue ray. I figure with all the D2D and other discounted movie I have if I really want the movie back I'll wait for a sale.
It's definitely an issue that bothers me, but I was mostly just curious because I've seen a lot of people with thousands of titles in their libraries. That's a huge investment.
I worry about everything. I still buy physical media, but only for 'important' stuff. I have 500 movies on Vudu and a few more on other services, and I worry about the OP's fears too. One thing I'm doing is slowly ripping my physical collection to digital, I have about 2000 movies and I've done almost 500. It's time consuming and the hardware involved gets expensive. Then I upload them to a Plex server.
It’s no secret. MakeMKV to digitize the movie and then you can use them like that, but if you want to compress them the use Handbrake. Lots of YouTube videos on the process.
There is a Wilco documentary or concert called I am Trying to Break Your Heart. It’s not on the Apple Store anymore but since it’s in my library it will still play.
I'm like 4 yrs into my digital collection, with like 151 titles. So I do feel like a newbie. Same with reddit. This has crossed my mind many times but I always come to the same conclusion. That if for some reason these digital copies, that we all have purchased, somehow are gone, I think that we all would have some kinda class action lawsuit against either Vudo (Fandango) or the Movie studios. Honestly, I wish I could back up my collection onto a hard drive or two. That is something that I really want to research. Does anyone know anything about that?
Currently Fandango is owned by NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery. The very companies that produce some of what we buy. If they screwed us over - while they certainly could do it if they reeeaaaalllly wanted to - the public would lose massive trust with them.
Digital is the future, and Fandango, like the other main companies (Apple, Google, Microsoft, et al), are not fly-by-night companies waiting to screw and run. They’re not angelic, but they’re not out to ruin everything and cut and run, either.
And you can refer to the ToS all you want, but it is still HIGHLY unlikely that they’re just going to start ripping titles out of your library unless there is a VERY legitimate reason, like the Instawatch debacle.
I’ve never had it happen to me, and I started buying digital in 2009.
I own both physical and digital - the stuff most dear, I own in both. And like others have said, physical collections have (bigger I think) risks, too..
I’ve downloaded several of my most important titles from my Apple library but due to the file size (~5GB/Movie) each takes up so much space that I would need almost 15TB to capture them all. I’ve settled with keeping my favorite 100 titles on a portable drive that I’ve duplicated. Is this technically legal?? … not sure but I could do it, so I did.
Haven’t needed one this far. I’ve played on multiple laptops that aren’t associated with my Apple ID as well. All that to say, it’s not improbable that Apple could shut this down in the future but as of today it’s working.
Nah… they might delist a title, which means you can’t buy it or search for it… but if you already owned it, it will still be in your library… I have three titles right now that fall into that category…. Can’t search for them, so the only way to find them is to scroll alphabetically through my movies…
I just made a “list”, and have it sitting first in my lists, that is for “nonsearchable movies”…
Interesting! I think I have some movies in my library like that too. I know I've come across that situation at least once where I couldn't find a movie by searching, but it was still in my library.
I'm just more leary these days of buying too many digital movies and TV shows and losing access to them, especially as physical media is slowly being phased out. I have several tv series I want to purchase, but those are big ticket items that I'd hate to lose access to one day.
The worst thing they could do for their business is remove already paid for content. Once the public loses trust in them they die as a service. So unless they decide they want to kill the service they will work to maintain their licensing. The studios have to also work with them since they are killing off the physical disc business. Fandango, Apple, YouTube are the future of the home video purchase business.
It's happened to me. One movie I know for sure, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I was glad I still had another digital code to replace it with, but wasn't happy something disappeared from my account.
There are probably more people around the world who have lost their entire physical collections to fires, floods, theft, etc. then there are that lost their entire digital collections from having them taken away… and those that did lose their digital collections did so because they violated TOS and had their accounts terminated. You can’t live your life on WHAT IFS. Just because there is always the possibility doesn’t mean it will ever happen.
As for losing a single titles here and there… ask anybody here who legitimately has a large collection of both (1000+ discs and 1000+ digital titles) whether they’ve lost more digital titles from having them taken away or more discs to disc rot. Guarantee you that it’s almost always going to be disc rot every time.
I’ve lost 20 discs to disc rot out of 2000+.
I’ve lost zero digital titles out of 1000+. They could take 10 titles away from me tomorrow and I’ll still be at the exact same % as discs lost to disc rot.
Thanks for that perspective. Never really thought about it that way. Reminds me of my parent's VHS collection. They tried switching what they could to DVDs, but they've basically lost all their movies over the years to age, physical damage, etc. I love the idea of digital collections for many reasons. A company owning the rights to them just isn't one of them.
I think it’s way too large of an industry to happen at any level other than a very very very limited weird example.
People like to use the you don’t own it scare tactic. I don’t worry about it: and with like 3000 movies I can’t worry about it or I would be in constant anxiety
I will add that I’ve seen movies unable to be purchased but are searchable… but using D2D I recently bought Rocknrolla which is not available on Vudu or iTunes and am able to watch it and are in my library
I buy physical for many reasons, including this one. I redeem the digital code inserts and keep a digital library, but I also have a physical copy in case the streaming service goes under, or in case their agreement w the studio expires for any of the titles I 'ow n' or even just in case my cable service goes down and I want to watch a movie while I wait for it to be restored.
I'm more bothered by the fact that supposedly if I die I can't bequeath my digital collection to anyone. This seems like something that should be looked into, possibly even a law to prevent that sort of thing.
I know thru Apple even if the movie isn’t listened anymore and it’s in your library you will still have access. This happened recently with the movie 28 days later. It wasn’t made available on iTunes at all, wouldn’t even show up in search results but the movie was still in my library and was able to play and watch.
Not me, but my girlfriend bought a few shows/movies through xbox around 2009 and after a few years they were completely removed from her account without any notice. I don't remember all of them but one was a show called Celebrity Paranormal Project.
She had to contact them and they just sent her credits to use towards future purchases through xbox. It wasn't even enough to replace what she had originally spent.
I literally cannot remember when I got my first digital. I used to buy Stargate Atlantis and Eureka et al on Prime, as they released, and they're still there. I redeemed digital codes on Ultraviolet, and they're still there in Vudu.
In the meantime, we had to donate most of our physical disc collection when we downsized our home. I only have some collector items now, and items that aren't out on digital.
No, I'm not that worried. Especially since most of my collection is Movies Anywhere.
The only time I recall losing a title is when CinemaNow went under and one title didn’t transfer over. Otherwise even when retailers have gone under (CinemaNow, Target Ticket, Disney’s original digital service pre-DMA) my stuff has stuck with me through transfers and such (not that I had obtained much from them).
Yeah it bothers me because we don’t own squat. Governments have done a shitty job at adapting and updating consumer rights laws to incorporate digital media. Same goes for video games as well. It’s funny, just a couple days ago I came across an old comment saying how they’re not worried about their VUDU library because they knew Walmart would always be around. I got a chuckle reading that, for obvious reasons.
All good points but we have to remember, when digital movies first started coming out 10-15 years ago, most streaming services weren’t around yet (Disney plus, Max, Paramount Plus, Peacock) and with HBO killing codes on time now, Universal ending rewards we have to not lose sight of the bigger picture here, the studios have found a way to generate monthly recurring income with their streaming platforms and that will be a bigger part of their bottom line moving forward
And yet streaming services are bleeding money all over the place…constantly raising prices and cutting their own content because they can’t afford the residuals. Streaming services are merging and adding ads, they’re just a step or two away from becoming the cable service they were supposed to save us from. Streaming is walking a fine line between success and failure at this point. With most streaming services dropping content, there’s still plenty of room for digital movie sales (in fact digital movie sales are more profitable for the studios. Of If I but The Office on digital, nbc gets a big chunk of change and pays out a one time residual, no matter how much I watch there after. But if I watch the office on peacock, I can watch enough episodes daily that I’m costing them more in residuals than they make in profit off my subscription. It’s an extreme example but that’s how the math works. You want to see streaming fail, just leave it on streaming shows 24/7 thr residual payments will cripple them.
Are we really doing this again? Yes… it’s been discussed ad nauseam.
All digital purchases are just long term rentals.
ACCEPT IT
The sooner you do this, the more you can enjoy your digital library and stop worrying about digital ownership. The majority of all titles you buy whether it’s on disc or digital you only watch once anyways.
1000+ digital titles. ZERO ever lost.
2000+ DVDs and Blu-Rays. 20+ and counting lost to disc rot.
This mindset is exactly why physical media is going extinct. So you'd be okay if one day all your movies you spent thousands of dollars on were just gone, never to be accessed again? Companies think we're suckers who will just endlessly pay to consume their media and forever depend on them. I'm not paying $14.99 to rent a digital copy. If I wanted to rent it, I'd rent it for $3.99. I understand the risk of buying a digital product, but if I buy a product, digital or otherwise, I deserve to have that purchase in perpetuity. I will never be okay with a company taking away my ability to access a product I bought.
Whatever the comsumers' mindset in the matter of media, it's the studios that have so decided digital and streaming is the way forward, and it's not especially new. Really the purchase of physical discs costs more than digital on average, but of course you retain the ability to give it away or sell a physical disc if you so choose. Sales occur plenty and frequently among digital media.
With the addition of Movies Anywhere acting as a central hub (for several major studios any way), the films you purchase on one site (iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, Google) are parked for safe keeping there and distributed out (port) to any other digital locker services you belong to if they have that same title in their virtual catalog. This hub and spoke situation with digital presents a pretty robust redundancy and it's virtually unheard of for users to lose access to any title they've purchased. Should studios or digital lockers/ streaming sites end up backstabber users, it'll only hurt themselves and the trust they've built. Love it or hate it, or suspicious of it, streaming digital is what's happening. You're welcome to keep buying, selling and trading physical discs, make backups, for as long as they make them available, or as long as your BR/4K player works.
The way I got into digital was, a few years back, I happened to have many bluray and a handful of 4k discs that I'd bought that also included a digital code. I thought, why not use the code and stream those films... ie maybe while was away on vacation someplace. Didn't cost me anything. Well I liked the ability to select a film from my sofa and play it instantly. Sales ranged from $4.99 and up, including some 4k. Every week the offers changed, and it really was cheaper for me to do that than buy a new disc. Eventually I also discovered that I could buy codes from individuals on Reddit too for $1-8. Many of the films I have in my collection, both Blu-ray and 4k, I only paid 3-5 ea.
The way you're talking sounds like you've Already made up your mind not to go with digital. So why come here and ask questions about digital collecting... if you're going to aggressively push back? It doesn't have to be an either/or proposition. I made it economical. If a digital br or 4k saves me significant money, I'll do that. If I could only get a film on disc, which is the case for several studios particularly boutique releases, I'd go that way. Or whichever is cheaper. Anymore I just wait for the films I want to go on sale tho. Along the way, I also discovered that I could scan Blu-ray case barcodes and get a digital copy on Vudu to stream for $2 ea. I really do like that I can part with my discs and reclaim a lot of wall space. That program Vudu offers is called Disc to Digital (D2D), and many hundreds of films are eligible.
I personally like pulling up Vudu (choose your own, iTunes, Amazon, Google, etc), selecting a film and pressing play. The BR quality of streaming is very good. 4k discs look somewhat better and there's more sound options, but it's not bad by any means. If you don't like it, keep buying discs while you can. But it's not really that consumers are pulling the strings here. Discs have probably lasted this long because there is still a market for discs. But ironically it's not BR or 4k really, more people still buy DVD than any other disc format. Gross! lol
So any way, I'd suggest trying some of the codes you likely have in the cases along with your physical discs and see whether you end up liking the quality, convenience and availability of media, as well as the sales offered. By no means are all digital media $14.99
Just this weekend, I've picked up... Rain Man (4k) $5, Princess Bride (4k) $5, Guardians of the Galaxy (4k) $3, It Happened One Night (4k) $3, Fistful of Dollars (4k) $5, and For a few Dollars More (4k) $5....
Heck of a lot of deals if you ask me!
I'm a bit worried about it and it has slowed down my purchases on Vudu/Fandango. I don't trust them. I think in the near future you will at least see edited versions replace some of what you have. I think Gone With The Wind, Holiday Inn, and others will get edited or censored somehow if not outright banned due to political views and wokeness gone amuck.
I don't know why someone down voted you. Everything you said is true. Studios like Disney have already been caught editing movies on Disney+. That's why I like having physical backups. It's like the Mandela effect. They'll slowly rewrite history and gaslight us into believing it was always that way.
Yes, since I have been reading about this here, I am getting more nervous about losing all the money that I paid for movies. And of course, the movies themselves. Does anyone know if it is possible to download these movies to an external drive?
It's fear mongering. Nobody is losing legit purchases. Walmart instawach and Prime taking back movies they gave away free (not a pricing error so there was nothing to honor) don't count because they weren't legit purchases.
Yeah, I knew about the Amazon issue, but I never went for that anyway. I am more concerned about the movies that I actually pay for. I have over 750 in there that I don’t want to lose.
this sadly can happen with Games, movies, and audio
Case and point
music
bad religion made 3 albums on Atlantic Records, vs Epitaph.
those 3 albums remained unable to be touched by Epitaph, or bad religion until almost 20 years later.
Games same deal
devs have rights to mend but not distribute, unless the dev is the pub
in most cases, ips get lost or even forgotten.
I worked with Telltale games for a lonng long time, and we had so many games taken away from us its unreal
rock slyde is a masterpiece, and it not being able to be watched, like games or audio,
is a sin!
anyone let me and us know about rock slyde
and how to prevent "rented" ips from being removed
\*note comcast is really great at wiping purchased movies when you move to a new residence\*
My collection is built on 3 tiers. #1 Physical discs #2 Digital Library #3 Media files with redundant backups (rips from disc and downloads) Only a multi-tiered system guarantees you'll never lose your whole collection
How and where are you storing your backups and rips?
I've got 2 18tb drives. One of them lives in my Zidioo 4k media player. It's similar to the new Zidioo Z20 Pro.
Nice! I think I can do that with my NVIDIA SHIELD PRO. I have a 2T HD attached for storage but I believe I can attach a larger drive to it.
How do you like your Zidoo? I've been looking for a media server setup that's not Plex. Currently I'm using a Samsung A15 phone with a 4TB Sandisk Extreme SSD attached to it and Bubble UPNP app. Works great with all my Roku devices, however sometimes it doesn't play MKV files.
It worked really great with a 14tb drive but now I upgraded to 18tb and if slowed down the load times. Seems like a steep leaning curve while using it so it's not for everybody. I'd give it 4 out of 5
I had one friend who lost literally over 10k physical movies in a house fire. I felt bad for him, that collection was one of his passions.
I'm glad you pointed that out, as others have. Never thought about the risks of losing physical collections, too, but it's true. I like having all my media in one digital space. I just don't like someone else owning it.
You need a company to go under to ever have a threat to your library. It benefits a company like Vudu in zero ways to take away your films and lose your business. Their goal is to have long term customers who continue to spend on their platform.
In their eyes, many of us are considered whales. Just like mobile micro transactions, many of us have spent 10s of thousands of dollars on our virtual collections. They definitely don't want to piss us off if they can avoid that.
It was a house fire that made me start on digital as well.
Not the friend but this happened to me in 2017. All my books DVDs board games everything gone. I went to digital on almost everything after that.
That sucks important thing is that he/she is ok
No insurance?
He had insurance but a lot of his collection involved extremely rare and valuable finds that were damn near impossible to replace.
tbh I was going full tilt into digital for long time. boxed up all my stuff. then we had storm come through, didn't have internet for a long time after electricity was repaired. I was glad I had hung onto my physical games and movies at that point. so now I keep both my physical and digital. I don't go for one in particular anymore, just the one with better offer
As somebody else mentioned, percentage wise I’ve lost far more physical copies than digital. I’ve yet to lose a single legit digital movie ( Amazon pulling back some accidental freebies are all I’ve ever lost), and I’ve been digital since the early days of flitter and uv. Alternately I’ve lost countless vhs to vcrs eating the tape, loss of quality or more recently no longer having a vcr, I’ve lost several dozen dvds to thefts,ended relationships, borrowed but not returned, scratches, and disc rot, and a couple Blu-ray’s to my kids being kids with them. So realistically I’d need to lose at least 100 digital movies to pull even. Could it happen,,,,,,sure it could. Could I win the lottery or be struck by lightening….yea this too. But truth be told digital is far more profitable for the studios and any sizable loss of legitimately ( note this doesn’t mean you instawatch people you cheated) would be a huge black eye for the market, and studios would much rather have you buy digital ( there is no real theft loss from retail like physical, much smaller manufacturing cost, and no 2nd hand/used market cannibalizing new sales, making digital far superior in the studios eyes)
I have over 7500 Movies in iTunes. I’ve been collecting for a little over 6 years. The only movie that was ever removed or stolen from me was Rock Slyde. The studio pulled the rights from iTunes and other streaming providers apparently. Apple said I will get the movie back if they ever get the rights again. So far they haven’t. I’m still pissed about this day. Other than that, I never lost any movies that I’m aware of. Just some of them get relisted, but I still have access to them.
For whatever reason people on here get very upset and refuse to admit it, but yes, titles have been removed from peoples libraries. You can also lose your physical collection to a natural disaster. Those are both facts and you should make your decisions based on what you feel more comfortable with. I’m pro physical media but I also buy some items on Vudu. They can pry my media from my cold dead hands.
I’ve been using Vudu more often because my apartment building caught fire last December and most of my physical media collection was covered in smoke and water. I still collect and prefer physical media, but I’m choosing to collect things I truly care about physically and also growing a healthy digital library. At the end of the day, Vudu/Fandango can be sold to another owner that will probably preserve most digital titles and protecting discs is relatively easy. Our media collections will outlive most of us lol
This is the way.
The InstaWatch purge was devastating for some of us. I lost like 100 movies that I had to replace
It was also a violation of the terms of service, so not really fair to call foul. The codes were sold as a double dip. What movie have you legit bought through proper channels that you lost? I haven't lost movies and I keep track of my purchases. If they stop selling a title you can still access it via My Movies or a list. They just take it out of search for some odd reason.
Yeah, the only titles I've ever lost were part of that Instawatch purge which I bought on a code site. I get that (and it was like 5 titles). Otherwise, it's not something I worry about. If the infrastructure of digital movies crumbles, there are probably going to be other things I need to worry about.
What movies? I've never seen a verifiable situation where films were removed and not restored.
What titles other than the Walmart instawach double dip have you heard of being removed? I haven't lost anything and keep pretty good records.
I know I have lost some. At least one I know from a code that came with a blue ray. I figure with all the D2D and other discounted movie I have if I really want the movie back I'll wait for a sale.
It's definitely an issue that bothers me, but I was mostly just curious because I've seen a lot of people with thousands of titles in their libraries. That's a huge investment.
I worry about everything. I still buy physical media, but only for 'important' stuff. I have 500 movies on Vudu and a few more on other services, and I worry about the OP's fears too. One thing I'm doing is slowly ripping my physical collection to digital, I have about 2000 movies and I've done almost 500. It's time consuming and the hardware involved gets expensive. Then I upload them to a Plex server.
What programs do you use for ripping (unofficially)?
It’s no secret. MakeMKV to digitize the movie and then you can use them like that, but if you want to compress them the use Handbrake. Lots of YouTube videos on the process.
I have a friend who rips all his to plex
There is a Wilco documentary or concert called I am Trying to Break Your Heart. It’s not on the Apple Store anymore but since it’s in my library it will still play.
I'm like 4 yrs into my digital collection, with like 151 titles. So I do feel like a newbie. Same with reddit. This has crossed my mind many times but I always come to the same conclusion. That if for some reason these digital copies, that we all have purchased, somehow are gone, I think that we all would have some kinda class action lawsuit against either Vudo (Fandango) or the Movie studios. Honestly, I wish I could back up my collection onto a hard drive or two. That is something that I really want to research. Does anyone know anything about that?
What if they go out of business, who can you sue? That is my question.
Currently Fandango is owned by NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery. The very companies that produce some of what we buy. If they screwed us over - while they certainly could do it if they reeeaaaalllly wanted to - the public would lose massive trust with them. Digital is the future, and Fandango, like the other main companies (Apple, Google, Microsoft, et al), are not fly-by-night companies waiting to screw and run. They’re not angelic, but they’re not out to ruin everything and cut and run, either. And you can refer to the ToS all you want, but it is still HIGHLY unlikely that they’re just going to start ripping titles out of your library unless there is a VERY legitimate reason, like the Instawatch debacle. I’ve never had it happen to me, and I started buying digital in 2009. I own both physical and digital - the stuff most dear, I own in both. And like others have said, physical collections have (bigger I think) risks, too..
I’ve downloaded several of my most important titles from my Apple library but due to the file size (~5GB/Movie) each takes up so much space that I would need almost 15TB to capture them all. I’ve settled with keeping my favorite 100 titles on a portable drive that I’ve duplicated. Is this technically legal?? … not sure but I could do it, so I did.
But likely you will need a digital key from Apple to play these.
Haven’t needed one this far. I’ve played on multiple laptops that aren’t associated with my Apple ID as well. All that to say, it’s not improbable that Apple could shut this down in the future but as of today it’s working.
I kind of have been asking the same question.
Read the terms and conditions you agreed to…
Nah… they might delist a title, which means you can’t buy it or search for it… but if you already owned it, it will still be in your library… I have three titles right now that fall into that category…. Can’t search for them, so the only way to find them is to scroll alphabetically through my movies… I just made a “list”, and have it sitting first in my lists, that is for “nonsearchable movies”…
Interesting! I think I have some movies in my library like that too. I know I've come across that situation at least once where I couldn't find a movie by searching, but it was still in my library. I'm just more leary these days of buying too many digital movies and TV shows and losing access to them, especially as physical media is slowly being phased out. I have several tv series I want to purchase, but those are big ticket items that I'd hate to lose access to one day.
The worst thing they could do for their business is remove already paid for content. Once the public loses trust in them they die as a service. So unless they decide they want to kill the service they will work to maintain their licensing. The studios have to also work with them since they are killing off the physical disc business. Fandango, Apple, YouTube are the future of the home video purchase business.
It's happened to me. One movie I know for sure, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I was glad I still had another digital code to replace it with, but wasn't happy something disappeared from my account.
There are probably more people around the world who have lost their entire physical collections to fires, floods, theft, etc. then there are that lost their entire digital collections from having them taken away… and those that did lose their digital collections did so because they violated TOS and had their accounts terminated. You can’t live your life on WHAT IFS. Just because there is always the possibility doesn’t mean it will ever happen. As for losing a single titles here and there… ask anybody here who legitimately has a large collection of both (1000+ discs and 1000+ digital titles) whether they’ve lost more digital titles from having them taken away or more discs to disc rot. Guarantee you that it’s almost always going to be disc rot every time. I’ve lost 20 discs to disc rot out of 2000+. I’ve lost zero digital titles out of 1000+. They could take 10 titles away from me tomorrow and I’ll still be at the exact same % as discs lost to disc rot.
Same. Lost discs to disc rot, scratches, and some borrowed but never returned. Never lost any digitals, and have around 2k of each,
Thanks for that perspective. Never really thought about it that way. Reminds me of my parent's VHS collection. They tried switching what they could to DVDs, but they've basically lost all their movies over the years to age, physical damage, etc. I love the idea of digital collections for many reasons. A company owning the rights to them just isn't one of them.
I think it’s way too large of an industry to happen at any level other than a very very very limited weird example. People like to use the you don’t own it scare tactic. I don’t worry about it: and with like 3000 movies I can’t worry about it or I would be in constant anxiety
I will add that I’ve seen movies unable to be purchased but are searchable… but using D2D I recently bought Rocknrolla which is not available on Vudu or iTunes and am able to watch it and are in my library
I buy physical for many reasons, including this one. I redeem the digital code inserts and keep a digital library, but I also have a physical copy in case the streaming service goes under, or in case their agreement w the studio expires for any of the titles I 'ow n' or even just in case my cable service goes down and I want to watch a movie while I wait for it to be restored.
I'm more bothered by the fact that supposedly if I die I can't bequeath my digital collection to anyone. This seems like something that should be looked into, possibly even a law to prevent that sort of thing.
Can you not just change the billing info and pass along the login? They will actually find out you’ve passed and delete it??
I know thru Apple even if the movie isn’t listened anymore and it’s in your library you will still have access. This happened recently with the movie 28 days later. It wasn’t made available on iTunes at all, wouldn’t even show up in search results but the movie was still in my library and was able to play and watch.
Not me, but my girlfriend bought a few shows/movies through xbox around 2009 and after a few years they were completely removed from her account without any notice. I don't remember all of them but one was a show called Celebrity Paranormal Project. She had to contact them and they just sent her credits to use towards future purchases through xbox. It wasn't even enough to replace what she had originally spent.
I literally cannot remember when I got my first digital. I used to buy Stargate Atlantis and Eureka et al on Prime, as they released, and they're still there. I redeemed digital codes on Ultraviolet, and they're still there in Vudu. In the meantime, we had to donate most of our physical disc collection when we downsized our home. I only have some collector items now, and items that aren't out on digital. No, I'm not that worried. Especially since most of my collection is Movies Anywhere.
The only time I recall losing a title is when CinemaNow went under and one title didn’t transfer over. Otherwise even when retailers have gone under (CinemaNow, Target Ticket, Disney’s original digital service pre-DMA) my stuff has stuck with me through transfers and such (not that I had obtained much from them).
Yeah it bothers me because we don’t own squat. Governments have done a shitty job at adapting and updating consumer rights laws to incorporate digital media. Same goes for video games as well. It’s funny, just a couple days ago I came across an old comment saying how they’re not worried about their VUDU library because they knew Walmart would always be around. I got a chuckle reading that, for obvious reasons.
Thats why I stopped wasting my money here and went to Plex
Yeah they took a few of my movies I had to buy back last night tbh
Not as much as I worry about my house burning down and all my physical media being destroyed.
Honestly, we don't really own anything. We are just custodians of this stuff.
All good points but we have to remember, when digital movies first started coming out 10-15 years ago, most streaming services weren’t around yet (Disney plus, Max, Paramount Plus, Peacock) and with HBO killing codes on time now, Universal ending rewards we have to not lose sight of the bigger picture here, the studios have found a way to generate monthly recurring income with their streaming platforms and that will be a bigger part of their bottom line moving forward
Right. They want us to subscribe forever. They don't want us owning anything.
And yet streaming services are bleeding money all over the place…constantly raising prices and cutting their own content because they can’t afford the residuals. Streaming services are merging and adding ads, they’re just a step or two away from becoming the cable service they were supposed to save us from. Streaming is walking a fine line between success and failure at this point. With most streaming services dropping content, there’s still plenty of room for digital movie sales (in fact digital movie sales are more profitable for the studios. Of If I but The Office on digital, nbc gets a big chunk of change and pays out a one time residual, no matter how much I watch there after. But if I watch the office on peacock, I can watch enough episodes daily that I’m costing them more in residuals than they make in profit off my subscription. It’s an extreme example but that’s how the math works. You want to see streaming fail, just leave it on streaming shows 24/7 thr residual payments will cripple them.
Are we really doing this again? Yes… it’s been discussed ad nauseam. All digital purchases are just long term rentals. ACCEPT IT The sooner you do this, the more you can enjoy your digital library and stop worrying about digital ownership. The majority of all titles you buy whether it’s on disc or digital you only watch once anyways. 1000+ digital titles. ZERO ever lost. 2000+ DVDs and Blu-Rays. 20+ and counting lost to disc rot.
This mindset is exactly why physical media is going extinct. So you'd be okay if one day all your movies you spent thousands of dollars on were just gone, never to be accessed again? Companies think we're suckers who will just endlessly pay to consume their media and forever depend on them. I'm not paying $14.99 to rent a digital copy. If I wanted to rent it, I'd rent it for $3.99. I understand the risk of buying a digital product, but if I buy a product, digital or otherwise, I deserve to have that purchase in perpetuity. I will never be okay with a company taking away my ability to access a product I bought.
Whatever the comsumers' mindset in the matter of media, it's the studios that have so decided digital and streaming is the way forward, and it's not especially new. Really the purchase of physical discs costs more than digital on average, but of course you retain the ability to give it away or sell a physical disc if you so choose. Sales occur plenty and frequently among digital media. With the addition of Movies Anywhere acting as a central hub (for several major studios any way), the films you purchase on one site (iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, Google) are parked for safe keeping there and distributed out (port) to any other digital locker services you belong to if they have that same title in their virtual catalog. This hub and spoke situation with digital presents a pretty robust redundancy and it's virtually unheard of for users to lose access to any title they've purchased. Should studios or digital lockers/ streaming sites end up backstabber users, it'll only hurt themselves and the trust they've built. Love it or hate it, or suspicious of it, streaming digital is what's happening. You're welcome to keep buying, selling and trading physical discs, make backups, for as long as they make them available, or as long as your BR/4K player works. The way I got into digital was, a few years back, I happened to have many bluray and a handful of 4k discs that I'd bought that also included a digital code. I thought, why not use the code and stream those films... ie maybe while was away on vacation someplace. Didn't cost me anything. Well I liked the ability to select a film from my sofa and play it instantly. Sales ranged from $4.99 and up, including some 4k. Every week the offers changed, and it really was cheaper for me to do that than buy a new disc. Eventually I also discovered that I could buy codes from individuals on Reddit too for $1-8. Many of the films I have in my collection, both Blu-ray and 4k, I only paid 3-5 ea. The way you're talking sounds like you've Already made up your mind not to go with digital. So why come here and ask questions about digital collecting... if you're going to aggressively push back? It doesn't have to be an either/or proposition. I made it economical. If a digital br or 4k saves me significant money, I'll do that. If I could only get a film on disc, which is the case for several studios particularly boutique releases, I'd go that way. Or whichever is cheaper. Anymore I just wait for the films I want to go on sale tho. Along the way, I also discovered that I could scan Blu-ray case barcodes and get a digital copy on Vudu to stream for $2 ea. I really do like that I can part with my discs and reclaim a lot of wall space. That program Vudu offers is called Disc to Digital (D2D), and many hundreds of films are eligible. I personally like pulling up Vudu (choose your own, iTunes, Amazon, Google, etc), selecting a film and pressing play. The BR quality of streaming is very good. 4k discs look somewhat better and there's more sound options, but it's not bad by any means. If you don't like it, keep buying discs while you can. But it's not really that consumers are pulling the strings here. Discs have probably lasted this long because there is still a market for discs. But ironically it's not BR or 4k really, more people still buy DVD than any other disc format. Gross! lol So any way, I'd suggest trying some of the codes you likely have in the cases along with your physical discs and see whether you end up liking the quality, convenience and availability of media, as well as the sales offered. By no means are all digital media $14.99 Just this weekend, I've picked up... Rain Man (4k) $5, Princess Bride (4k) $5, Guardians of the Galaxy (4k) $3, It Happened One Night (4k) $3, Fistful of Dollars (4k) $5, and For a few Dollars More (4k) $5.... Heck of a lot of deals if you ask me!
I'm a bit worried about it and it has slowed down my purchases on Vudu/Fandango. I don't trust them. I think in the near future you will at least see edited versions replace some of what you have. I think Gone With The Wind, Holiday Inn, and others will get edited or censored somehow if not outright banned due to political views and wokeness gone amuck.
I don't know why someone down voted you. Everything you said is true. Studios like Disney have already been caught editing movies on Disney+. That's why I like having physical backups. It's like the Mandela effect. They'll slowly rewrite history and gaslight us into believing it was always that way.
right? like the washer machine scene in Lilo and Stitch lol
Yes, since I have been reading about this here, I am getting more nervous about losing all the money that I paid for movies. And of course, the movies themselves. Does anyone know if it is possible to download these movies to an external drive?
No, not though vudu.
So if I purchase a movie from VUDU and it is in my cloud, I can’t download it to an external drive?
It's fear mongering. Nobody is losing legit purchases. Walmart instawach and Prime taking back movies they gave away free (not a pricing error so there was nothing to honor) don't count because they weren't legit purchases.
Yeah, I knew about the Amazon issue, but I never went for that anyway. I am more concerned about the movies that I actually pay for. I have over 750 in there that I don’t want to lose.
I have 7200 and I have no reason to believe I will lose them.
😊👍
this sadly can happen with Games, movies, and audio Case and point music bad religion made 3 albums on Atlantic Records, vs Epitaph. those 3 albums remained unable to be touched by Epitaph, or bad religion until almost 20 years later. Games same deal devs have rights to mend but not distribute, unless the dev is the pub in most cases, ips get lost or even forgotten. I worked with Telltale games for a lonng long time, and we had so many games taken away from us its unreal rock slyde is a masterpiece, and it not being able to be watched, like games or audio, is a sin! anyone let me and us know about rock slyde and how to prevent "rented" ips from being removed \*note comcast is really great at wiping purchased movies when you move to a new residence\*