Future of watching movies at home?

[Elodan]

Hey,

A couple of coworkers and I were discussing Amazon's Fire TV when I mentioned I'd like to get something like that or a Roku with a built in Blue-Ray player for the bedroom. One of them called me crazy for hanging onto obsolete technology (DVDs). I have a sizable collection of DVDs I rather not repurchase (at least for a while).

Our future options seem to be streaming or purchasing a digital copy from somewhere like Amazon or FIOS. I have streaming via Netflix and Amazon Prime but it seems that the HD and digital sound can be inconsistent depending on how the internet connection is. Also, you're depending on the service actually having the movie (TV show) in their catalog. I could buy from Amazon but then I'm tied into their ecosystem. In theory, you could loose your movies if the company ever went out of business (highly unlikely, I'll admit). In either case, do you get access to extras like director's commentary or deleted scenes?

What are your thoughts on the future of watching movies at home?

 

[delericho]

Digital streaming is the future, either on a pay per view or subscription basis. It's likely that the days of 'owning' media are coming to an end.

But hold off on ditching those DVDs just yet! Streaming may be the future, but my gut feeling is it's still some ways off being properly matured yet. Basically, my advice would be to keep the DVDs until you can't play them any more, and then take the lay of the land.

 

[Elodan]

Digital streaming is the future, either on a pay per view or subscription basis. It's likely that the days of 'owning' media are coming to an end.

But hold off on ditching those DVDs just yet! Streaming may be the future, but my gut feeling is it's still some ways off being properly matured yet. Basically, my advice would be to keep the DVDs until you can't play them any more, and then take the lay of the land.

Definitely not in a hurry to replace my DVDs. The topic got me wondering what the future holds.

 

[WayneLigon]

it kinda of depends on how greedy and fearful companies want to be. So many right now are scared of 'teh piratz' that they want to create their own separate playgrounds instead of putting their stuff on Netflix/hulu/etc. The best system might eventually be a combo of pay-per-view like Amazon's non-Prime services for new stuff, and a flat-rate charge to get anything from a library, where you put movies after, say, two years when you've wrung all possible cash you can from them.

MY future of watching stuff at home would be something like that. Some movies are pay-as-you-go for two years, others get put directly into the flat-rate zone (say, most indie/foreign films). Region and country of origin would disappear as a barrier. All visual media would be available from a global service, so if I want to watch tons of, say, German soap operas, then I can.