Sell off my Blu Ray's and go strictly VUDU?

[Grego]

I have been contemplating selling off all of my physical media (Blu Ray primarily) and going strictly digital...which I already have around 150 titles in my VUDU library.

My primary concern is, the slight loss of picture and sound quality. I only purchase HDX content, and even though HDX states that it is 1080P, Blu Ray still has slightly better (or better than slightly??) picture and sound quality. I believe that as time goes on, the gap between digital HD content and Blu Ray is closing...as digital inches closer and closer to matching Blu Ray picture and sound quality, its just not there yet.

There is something that attaches me to my Blu Ray collection, that makes the decision to go strictly digital very tough...but, in the way of music, I haven't purchased an actual CD in years...and download from iTunes...movies will probably go the same route as the music industry did eventually. I think that Blu Ray is the last form of physical media we will see...it will be all about bandwidth after that.

So, I need some perspective...help me decide, do I sell my Blu Ray collection or not??

Thanks!

[billygreen23]

Re: Sell off my Blu Ray's and go strictly VUDU?

I'm staying with physical copies for the bonus features. That is the primary reason why I would ever even buy a movie in the first place. I really enjoy director's commentary, behind the scenes, etc.

I will never go all digital until bonus features become standard.

[lujan]

Re: Sell off my Blu Ray's and go strictly VUDU?

I have thought of that but still want to keep the BDs because you never know if the ISP will increase prices so much that we won't be able to afford to pay for it in order to watch the digital movies. Also, the video and audio (especially) is so much better right now using blu-ray. If the providers such as Vudu in the future use the same encode (both video and audio) I may consider getting rid of the BDs. I must confess that starting this last holiday season, I just bought strictly digital only movies and didn't even bother with the BDs.

[LuzRinggold]

Re: Sell off my Blu Ray's and go strictly VUDU?

Personally I think it would be a bad idea to ditch your physical media. Besides, I am sure that close to half of your collection aren't even UV movies.

[MaxH]

Re: Sell off my Blu Ray's and go strictly VUDU?

If you're tired of dealing with physical media, maybe get one of those binders that has pages with pockets for discs for those you've converted, like this: http://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-N...pd_sim_sbs_e_6 (check out the third image). Keep the discs stashed away somewhere but free up the drawer/cabinet/shelf space.

[YankeeGator6]

Re: Sell off my Blu Ray's and go strictly VUDU?

I've pretty much given up my physical media. I had a large collection of over 1000 discs, and I am slowly selling/trading off everything but my absolute favorites. Extra features are great, but honestly, for most movies if I watch them more than once it's a lot. I've traded a lot of stuff on swapadvd.com for things I didn't own. While I agree that the picture quality and sound is better on the bluray, UV will continue to improve and not having a giant wall of media is actually pretty liberating. I find more feelings of annoyance that my MGM, Disney and other random titles are not UV and D2D eligible much more than I ever miss my physical media.

[Grego]

Re: Sell off my Blu Ray's and go strictly VUDU?

I've pretty much given up my physical media. I had a large collection of over 1000 discs, and I am slowly selling/trading off everything but my absolute favorites. Extra features are great, but honestly, for most movies if I watch them more than once it's a lot. I've traded a lot of stuff on swapadvd.com for things I didn't own. While I agree that the picture quality and sound is better on the bluray, UV will continue to improve and not having a giant wall of media is actually pretty liberating. I find more feelings of annoyance that my MGM, Disney and other random titles are not UV and D2D eligible much more than I ever miss my physical media.

Hi YG6, you and I are on the same page my friend. I have made up my mind to sell off my BD/DVD collection, and while I have always cherished (ALOT) my media collection...it's just not worth it anymore. I find myself pressed for storage space, downloading/streaming instead of digging out the BD, and let's face it...the movie industry is moving towards where the music industry is right now (I haven't purchased a CD in many years) but, download music from iTunes. You are correct in saying that digital movies are only getting better, it's only a matter of time until the digital media possesses just as high quality picture and sound as the BD. I believe that these are the end times for physical media...meaning, I do not believe that BD will see as long of a success period as DVD did, and BD will fizzle out in popularity and the selections at retail outlets will start to dwindle way down...the future will be more about bandwidth vs. sinking R&D in to physical media.

[lujan]

Re: Sell off my Blu Ray's and go strictly VUDU?

... I believe that these are the end times for physical media...meaning, I do not believe that BD will see as long of a success period as DVD did, and BD will fizzle out in popularity and the selections at retail outlets will start to dwindle way down...the future will be more about bandwidth vs. sinking R&D in to physical media.

This is already starting to some extent. I've noticed my local BB used to have a larger selection of BDs and now there are fewer aisles of BD titles. This is disconcerting to me as I liked to see the product a lot of times before I buy.

[tgmoore71]

Re: Sell off my Blu Ray's and go strictly VUDU?

I vote to sell your physical media while you still have buyers and can get paid to switch. Same thing happened with early adopters for dvd, nobody is looking to buy VHS tapes.

[MattO]

Re: Sell off my Blu Ray's and go strictly VUDU?

I've been burned too many times by big companies' music services going out of business and losing my content - MTV, Microsoft and Walmart. While I have done D2D and sold off the discs, I only do that for titles I could live with losing.

Then there's the ability to lend a copy, watch special features and watch movies on the occasional bad internet day.

[coolcatdaddy]

Re: Sell off my Blu Ray's and go strictly VUDU?

I look at a digital rental/download service like Vudu as a supplement to my physical collection of media.

Unfortunately, when you "buy" a download, unless it's in an open format, you're going to loose the ability to play it if the download service goes out of business or there are other changes. With physical media, I can have confidence that I will still have the movie to play five, ten or twenty years from now.

I still have a few vhs tapes of films that have only been released on dvd or blu-ray in the past year or two - it took the studios about twenty years to make the film available in a new format.

If you're just a casual film viewer with a few favorites that you might purchase and you've never collected dvd or blu-ray before or have just a few titles you're comfortable getting rid of, going "all digital" with a service like Vudu makes sense. You're just running the risk of re-buying a few favorites if the service goes under.

If you're someone like me, with a collection of over 2,000 dvds and blu-rays, a service like Vudu is a great way to own a hi-def version of favorites that have never been (or might not be) released on blu-ray or a standard-def version of a movie that's not currently in print on dvd. I look at is as a long-term rental. It's not going to replace my core collection of physical media, though.

[punking]

Re: Sell off my Blu Ray's and go strictly VUDU?

There's no way I'd sell of my current collection as (like the above poster) I see UV separate to my blu-rays, and there are a number of reasons why.

-Until CFF takes off there's no easy way of making sure that your films don't suddenly vanish, or watching them if your internet is down.
-The quality isn't as good as blu-rays (although on the average non-calibrated TV that probably isn't so noticeable)
-A large amount of my collection are Region B films not available in the USA, or they are labels like Criterion, Olive etc and many of those are not on Vudu.
-There are many films that are not converted to UV
-You can often pick up a used blu-ray for five dollars, but on Vudu the same film will be $13 or $19 dollars. Sales are few and far between.
-Few or no extras with the movies on Vudu.

People say that the quality of online streaming will improve, and there's no doubt about that. But, I have a feeling Vudu will make you pay all over again for a higher quality of a film that is already in your collection (comparable to buying the blu-ray after you've bought the DVD). Which a lot of people may be fine with.

For me Vudu is useful for that film that I like, but don't love.

[jeremymc7]

Re: Sell off my Blu Ray's and go strictly VUDU?

I've got rid of all my movies and gone with UV / Vudu

... with the following exceptions.

1. Not available on Vudu / UV, I have Blu_Ray or DVD
2. 3D Blu-Ray, Vudu is TOO EXPENSIVE, and most 3D titles are not UV. Also 3D on Vudu OFTEN comes with lower quanity sound / channels than the 2D version or Blu-Ray 3D.

[BlakkMajik3000]

Re: Sell off my Blu Ray's and go strictly VUDU?

I've converted about ~90% of my collection to UV. The remaining are MGM and Disney movies, with a handful of movies that are either not sold on Vudu or the film is non-UV but the distributor is a DECE member (ex. King of New York is distributed by Lionsgate, but digital version isn't UV).

With that said, I haven't ditched my discs just yet. I'm still waiting for the release of the CFF before going "all digital".

[Lunchbox]

Re: Sell off my Blu Ray's and go strictly VUDU?

I've been battling with the same question myself.

I don't like owning a lot of physical things, though how confident am I with all digital since it's reliant on internet connection and hardware. (Router/ modem)

I have a happy medium at the moment. All digital and 5 very favorite titles which are Blu-ray DVD combos.

I started selling my physical media slowly until I felt more comfortable with digital but with the goal to rid myself of excess physical possessions. After experiencing a flood and a house fire, I found you can only grab so much, so why own so much. It feels freeing to not have so much stuff.

Just my opinion.