Your Movie Collection - Virtual or Physical, which do you prefer?

[rushmore223]

Just curious how many of you collect. I am the type of person, whether it's music or movies, I like to have a physical, tangible copy of the recording. I am going to guess most of you on here are more like me in that sense.

However, I know many people that have ditched the discs in favor of Hard Drive storage, streaming or cloud storage. While it free's up alot of space, I think I would not only miss having the hard copy on hand, but I'd feel like I could somehow lose the movies I have collected, whether it be by Drive corruption, streaming service glitch or expiration.

I know this is the way of the future and eventually we may have to give up the discs, but I think when that happens I will buy far fewer movies as I will feel as though I don't actually "have" the thing I purchased.

Just wondering what your thoughts on this are.

 

[Khev]

I absolutely want to own physical copies of my favorite films. Not only is the quality still better than streaming but it just "feels" more like the film is in my possession if there's something tangible I can pick up and use. I'm the same way with books vs. tablets and things.

 

[HODLr]

I have around a thousand movies. I have regular DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray. I hate the space they take up so I bought a bunch of binders, that hold around 350 discs each. I cut the main graphic form the cover and put that behind the disc.

With Netflix, Redbox, Vudu, torrents, et al, kind of defeat buying them these days. I now only buy Blu-rays of must have movies and watch everything else online through various methods.

Sometimes, even though I own the movie I want to watch, I watch it online so I don't have to search for it locally. HD is pretty good online, but with 4k's coming, it might be a whole new game, because streaming those will be a massive undertaking, in terms of bandwidth.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

Virtual for me because of the space, but if a really cool box-set comes out, then I get it, if the film is one of my favorites.

 

[batfan08]

Physical. I don't know. I guess it all goes back to my being a collector. I like having comic books that I can flip through and movies that I can pick off a shelf, just like I enjoy collecting figures.

 

[crows]

I have around a thousand movies. I have regular DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray. I hate the space they take up so I bought a bunch of binders, that hold around 350 discs each. I cut the main graphic form the cover and put that behind the disc.

With Netflix, Redbox, Vudu, torrents, et al, kind of defeat buying them these days. I now only buy Blu-rays of must have movies and watch everything else online through various methods.

Sometimes, even though I own the movie I want to watch, I watch it online so I don't have to search for it locally. HD is pretty good online, but with 4k's coming, it might be a whole new game, because streaming those will be a massive undertaking, in terms of bandwidth.

Doesn't the Binder scratch the disks when you take them out????

The only reason I don't do the binder thing is fear that the back material of the binder will slowly scratch it up

 

[Darth Snoopy]

I used to buy a lot of movies but space became an issue. I now collect just my absolute favorite movies and have converted several movies to digital.

I love having a physical copy of my favorite movies, books, comics, music, etc. Having the tangible, physical copy of those items just feels right.

 

[EVILFACE]

Have some 400 dvds and blurays and wish I didn't.

 

[Lejuan]

Packed all but one of my DVDs in a box in the shed years ago and haven't missed a single one.

The one I didn't pack was the BBC 'Planet Earth' set.

 

[HODLr]

Doesn't the Binder scratch the disks when you take them out????

The only reason I don't do the binder thing is fear that the back material of the binder will slowly scratch it up

It might scratch if you constantly pull them in and out, but I'm not a heavy user that way. Normal use shouldn't affect them, plus I have the cut out cover between the material and the discs.

 

[DarthTrafford]

My twin brother and I have a huge collection of DVD's and Blu-Rays.
I don't like the down loading of movies.
I need the hard copy.

 

[fistfulmetal]

I used to have a huge collection of dvd movies and was running out of space fast. Plus with having a growing collection mostly of 1/6 figures, it didn't help either. So now I only buy blu-ray of must have movies. The rest of my movies are now on hard drives. If space wasn't an issue, then yes I would keep a physical collection.

 

[slynger]

Physical copies for sure. I don't mind if it comes with a digital copy, buy I want the physical copy first.

 

[VintijDroidGutzz]

Just curious how many of you collect. I am the type of person, whether it's music or movies, I like to have a physical, tangible copy of the recording. I am going to guess most of you on here are more like me in that sense.

However, I know many people that have ditched the discs in favor of Hard Drive storage, streaming or cloud storage. While it free's up alot of space, I think I would not only miss having the hard copy on hand, but I'd feel like I could somehow lose the movies I have collected, whether it be by Drive corruption, streaming service glitch or expiration.

I know this is the way of the future and eventually we may have to give up the discs, but I think when that happens I will buy far fewer movies as I will feel as though I don't actually "have" the thing I purchased.

Just wondering what your thoughts on this are.

I'm a big fan of having a physical collection; that includes everything from VHS tapes, to cassettes, to vinyl - as well as CDs, DVDs & BRs. Mostly the classics & personal faves. Vinyl's only gaining more popularity again as we speak.

I've also started dumping films, TV shows, music etc, onto a couple of designated back up external drives. There's so much I want to watch, that I want to either catch up on, or test the waters with first before possibly buying.

A lot of great TV to catch up on actually..

 

[karamazov80]

Have some 400 dvds and blurays and wish I didn't.

I don't know how many I have, but a bunch, mostly in boxes in the closet. And I also wish I didn't. If I could easily convert them to digital and had a reliable, good quality copy, I would offload them in a second. Same goes for my CDs. I know I could do this, but I have probably 1,500 CDs, and no time for that.

 

[third3ye]

I only buy discs for movies I REALLY love, which these days are just the MCU films and possibly the DCCU if BvS doesn't suck. Sometimes I'll buy the disc if the value is there, like Anchorman 2 which came with 3 versions of the film, as opposed to spending the same amount for just 1 version on digital. Everything else I buy digital (from VUDU pretty much exclusively).

I've got 2 towers of discs at home and wish 90% of them were digital.

 

[crows]

Do you guys have to replace your hard drives every couple of years or something??

is it right that those things are not meant to last more than a couple of years?

 

[vodoun]

Age has nothing to do with it. If a clip or spring mechanism fails. You're locked out. Back up your backup/storage. Place is full of hard drives.

 

[Stanlore]

I think the fact that all of us are collectors at the forum, the majority will prefer a physical copy.

Physical copy for me as well. My Blu Ray collection is slowly growing, and i only buy movies i've seen and like. Not many blind buys in my collection.

I'm also all in for the special features. If your asking me to buy a digital copy.... i'd rather download it for free...

 

[nexus]

Virtual for DVD. Physical for BluRay and 3D (for now). Virtual generally means a drop in quality compared to BluRay. I won't buy a BR without a digital file although not a big fan of Ultraviolet yet, prefer the itunes file. Conversly I hate paying the same price for a virtual movie as a physical, so I wait for itunes HD sales.

I've got 1,000+ DVDs I need to figure a way to get rid of. I wonder if I can set up an ebay $1.99/ea sale or something. What would be great would be to find some place that would rip them for free in exchange for the physical discs.

That said, I have been thinking about getting a little into Collector's Edition BRs. Some of the packaging and presentations have gotten pretty cool. Like the Walking Dead series for instance. I think some of CEs are pretty pricey in the secondary.