Why I Don’t Buy Digital Movies

With the availability of iTunes and other digital video services, I hear a lot of people talk about how they don’t buy DVDs any longer.  I hear things like “I don’t want to take up space with all of those cases” or “my kids destroy DVDs” – which make sense, but at the same time I can’t bring myself to give up my physical media.

For me, though, digital video distribution (DVD?) plays a supporting role rather than the primary role in building my video collection.  I don’t purchase movies digitally – I buy the discs.  Almost always Blu-ray discs, actually, since normally when I watch movies they’re being projected on a 100” screen, and DVD can fall apart at that size.  So do streaming services, to some degree, as well, but this isn’t the reason I choose not to invest in digital.  It’s more basic than that.

The main reason is that I don’t trust that these services are going to be around in ten years.  And I don’t want my investment to be lost.

History already tells us that we can’t rely on these services, no matter who is backing them.  Several big players have already tried and failed, including Wal-Mart and Target.  And when they fail, you lose what you’ve bought.

I know what you’re thinking… that Apple’s iTunes isn’t going to go away.  Maybe not.  At least not now.  But can you actually believe that Apple, if they’re still around in 20 years, is still going to be supporting a service that old?  They don’t support any services more than a few years old now.  There’s just no way that they’ll actually still make your movies available to you that far in the future.  Technology changes too fast.  Twenty years in the technology world is an eternity.  Very few tech companies make it that long. 

Owning the discs ensures that I’ll be able to watch them 10, 15, or more years in the future.  Even if (when) manufacturers stop making Blu-ray players in the future, the players I own today will still play those discs moving forward.  Yes, we’ll see improvements in picture quality with new tech like 4K and HDR moving forward, but Blu-ray is pretty good – it’s virtually the same level of quality currently projected in your local theater – and many movies have actually been shot in HD-like resolution, so in those cases a higher quality version usually doesn’t even exist.  And unless you’re sitting really close to very large screen, newer technologies won’t even provide any additional discernable picture detail. (Though HDR, if it catches on, has the potential to improve things considerably.)

The other big reason I still buy discs is convenience.  I don’t want to be without a way to watch a movie if my Internet goes down, I’m travelling somewhere where I don’t have Internet access, or it isn’t fast enough to stream a movie reliably.  Maybe in 5-10 years our Internet access will be more reliable and high speed will be more ubiquitous, but I just can’t count on it.  And will the streaming service you’ve invested n still be around at that time?  There’s no way to know.

That said, it isn’t like I don’t use digital video services, because I do.  They’re just my backup.  Most movies I buy come with a code to unlock digital versions.  And if they don’t, I’ve really found Vudu’s Disc-to-Digital program to be very handy.  (Tip: If you use the service, do the conversions at home on your own computer, and convert more than 10 discs at a time for a 50% discount.) I can’t convert all of my movies to digital, but I can certainly convert enough of them that I’m generally not left wanting when I want to stream a movie. I’ve got 241 on Vudu right now, so I’ve got plenty to choose from.

In any case, I know that everyone’s situation is different.  But I would encourage you to think about the future when making your video purchases.  Would you care if your selected service shut down in 5 years?  Would it bother you if you lost your investment because they’ve gone belly-up, or choose not to support it any longer?  It’s something to consider.

Toy Story in HD!

Toy Story and Toy Story 2 are coming on Blu-ray on March 23rd!  Cool.

 

HD-DVD vs Blu-ray, 15 months later

I was shocked by this announcement, but apparently more than 15 months after the official demise of HD-DVD, there are still more HD-DVD players than Blu-ray players in the wild.  And HD-DVD discs are still outselling Blu-ray discs.

A poll from Harris shows that 11% of Americans own HD-DVD players, while only 7% own Blu-ray players.  Consumers are buying approximately 6 DVDs every six months, and 0.7 HD-DVD discs, and 0.5 Blu-ray discs in the same time period. 

For a format that has been dead for 15 months, it is absolutely shocking that there are more HD-DVD players out there than Blu-ray players.  Blu-ray no longer has a like-format disc-based competitor.  Its primary competitor now is electronic download, provided by iTunes or video-on-demand services provided by Cable, Satellite, game console, and Internet companies.

The poll also shows that 93% of those that do not own Blu-ray players are not likely to buy one in the next year.

On another note, the Blu-ray folks recently announced that they intend to support a feature called Managed Copy, which would allow you to copy your movies onto a computer so you can play them without the disc.  This feature will require new players to work and will also not be compatible with existing discs (yet another hardware upgrade required).  Movie studios have to sign on to support the feature as well, but I don’t believe many, if any, will do that.  Managed Copy, incidentally, was planned into HD-DVD from the beginning and should the format have survived existing discs would have worked with new players adding this feature.

I’m beginning to wonder if Blu-ray really is going to ever catch on.  People are moving toward digital downloads more and more, and our Internet connections are getting faster and faster, making it easier and easier to download those movies.  Many carriers are now offering connections fast enough to start watching even high definition movies almost instantly, taking away a lot of incentive for people to invest into Blu-ray.

Personally I do buy some Blu-ray discs, but I also still buy HD-DVD discs because they’re cheap (around $4-6 now).  I’ll only buy Blu-ray if they include a DVD copy of the movie in the package, or it is a movie I already own on DVD.  I’m not willing to buy something ONLY on Blu-ray because if I did it would mean I wouldn’t be able to play it in a lot of places I watch movies.  I’m also very much put off by the high prices of the discs.  Generally I have a $20 ceiling on what I’ll pay for a Blu-ray disc, with only very rare exceptions to that policy.

HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray

I was researching HD-DVD and Blu-ray for an online posting, and some of the information I found is pretty interesting. Here's some of what I found, based on information from www.blu-raystats.com and Wikipedia.

HD-DVDs are nearly all released on its higher capacity 30GB format. As of this writing, 51.97% of Blu-Ray discs are released in the lower capacity 25GB BD25 format. Thus the apparent size advantage of Blu-Ray isn't currently being utilized by slightly approximately half of the currently published BR discs. The HD-DVD specification was recently updated to support 17GB per layer, up to three layers (or 51GB) per disc. Blu-Ray officially supports one or two data layers up to 50GB total.

38.11% of Blu-Ray discs are released in the MPEG-2 format. This is the older format that has been blamed for poor video quality on early Blu-ray discs. While the 50GB BD50 discs with MPEG-2 are certainly better than the 25GB BD25 discs, AVC and VC-1 encoded discs offer much better image quality, even comparing these formats in a 25GB format to a 50GB MPEG-2 disc.

Before buying a Blu-Ray disc, check the www.blu-raystats.com site to make sure it isn't a 25GB MPEG-2 disc, as these are the ones with image quality problems. A 50GB MPEG-2 disc will look fine for movies of average (or shorter) length as long as there isn't much bonus material on the disc. I am not aware of any general image quality issues with HD-DVD discs.

Other format differences: HD-DVD supports Managed Copy which allows you to copy your movies to a home theater PC, though I'm not aware of any implementations of this just yet. Blu-ray does not have any such capability.

HD-DVD has more interactivity features than the BD 1.0 specification, though BD 1.1 attempts to address this. In the real world, this means that HD-DVD discs currently tend to offer more visually appealing menus and more disc features. This is likely to change slowly with the adoption of the BD 1.1 and 2.0 specification.

Both formats support the same video formats. Audio format capabilities are effectively about the same, with some variation on which competing formats are utilized for different levels of compression. Both support uncompressed audio in at least 7.1 channels.

Both formats support full 1080p resolution at regular TV refresh rates as well as 24p, with effectively all movies being released in that format. The implementation on the discs is slightly different, but the data is the same. Some HD-DVD players only output up to 1080i, but many 1080p TVs are fully able to reproduce the original 1080p signal for display. To take advantage of a smooth 24p-based cadence, players in either format must be connected to a 72 or 120Hz television via HDMI. Connecting to any other type of television or using any other type of connection will result in 3:2 pull-down being added to output video at 60 Hz.

Movie studio support for the two formats is pretty much a toss-up, with current offerings in both camps having almost exactly equal numbers of titles available.

HD-DVD does not have any region coding requirement, so you are always free to import discs from overseas and play them on any player. Blu-Ray uses three region codes (A,B,C) to make sure that encoded discs are not played in regions other than those they are intended for, similar to the way that DVDs are region coded now. This in some cases is a disdvantage for HD-DVD, as sometimes a disc release for a short time is delayed while the movie continues to show in theaters elsewhere in the world.

In several cases if you are not able to obtain a movie title on the format of choice in your home country, it might be available on the other format elsewhere. If you have elected to use Blu-ray as your format of choice you need to make sure that the disc you are purchasing from overseas will play in your region, however.

Some/many HD-DVD discs are available in a "combo" format (usually at a higher cost) which contains the high definition version of a disc on one side, with a standard DVD version available on the opposite side for playback in regular DVD equipment. Blu-ray does not offer a similar capability.

Discs prices are pretty similar between the two formats, with both being significantly more expensive than DVDs.