The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

I've started to make the switch and I think I'm going to take the rest of the plunge.

I'm completely moved to digital music.

I've started moving to digital movies.  I've had a good experience with a service called Vudu, plus I also use lots of On-Demand and Netflix.  I rarely, if ever, feel the need to use a physical disc to watch a movie or TV show.  I will likely stop buying Blu-Rays and DVDs altogether and pare down what I have.

I've played some games digitally from the XBox and PLaystation stores, but haven't yet played full releases on the consoles yet.  My hard-drive is too small.  Maybe next generation.  Also, I borrow games a lot and I can usually play them for free, whereas I'd have to pay if I downloaded them.  For now, I'll probably keep this where it is.

Books/Comics - I need to make the switch, but I don't yet have a platform that I'm comfortable with.  My wife uses a Nook and I have a book or two on that software, which I can read on the iPad.  But for Comics, I don't yet have a solution.  I want to stop buying physical books and even get rid of some that I have (plus, to download archives of old material for cheap/free is enticing).  Any suggestions?

Where are you on a move to digital stuff?  Do you still have an attachment to the physical media?

I have very, very little physical media. Haven't bought a DVD or CD in...a decade maybe.

Books I only read on my Nook unless I can find them at used bookstore or at the community library.  I only play computer games so those are just a download.

I have no attachment to physical media. It's all just clutter.

This is one area where it would be super easy for me to embrace a little minimalism. I don't care if it is digital or not, I am fine with it. I stopped really collecting media when CD's first came out, and have never started a collection of vhs tapes, dvd's or blu ray discs. As long as I can get to the music, the movie, the book digitally, I don't need the physical form of the media.

I'll include one exception, with that being literary collector items like signed first edition books, or autographed vinyl albums...that sort of sentimental media.

Even my uncool self gets pretty much everything digitally these days.  If I hear a song I tag it and buy it.  Many movies are downloaded although I still have my Blockbuster account. I can't seem to part with $19.25 a month for unlimited rentals, 3 at a time.

I have moved almost fully to digital music.  However, I support artists that I really like by buying their CD, and then I rip it to my hard drive.  I do this because I use the CD as a "backup" and I sometimes keep it in my car (since I don't have a digital media player in my car).

I can't seem to make the jump for movies.  I can't bring myself to pay $5.99 per movie for on demand.  I use Blockbuster Online (same as CF) and RedBox almost exclusively.  I have a big shelf with a number of DVD's of movies I really like.  At one time I envisioned myself having an entire library of DVD's and I probably have over 400 movies on disc.  I occasionally purge this down and toss out the ones I never watch, but I have them stored in small "library" type cases so they don't take up much room.  Since then I have pretty much stopped buying movies on disc, unless its extremely good (classic status).

I can't see myself going to digital on video games either any time soon.  I don't think its ready.  It requires too much hard drive space. 

For me, until hard drives become crash-proof, I don't trust digital media.  I'd rather have a disc that can't be easily erased than have my entire universe stored on fragile media that could be all lost any moment at no fault of my own.

^ That's not really how digital media is working anymore.  With the VuDu service, you own the "rights" to the movie and you can download and watch whatever is in your library whenever you want.  If you delete it from your hard-drive, you can go back and get it.

Music is different, I guess.   But I think that books and movies are kinda cloud based.

How much do you pay for this "Vudu" service?  Do you need an extra receiver in your home (like Roku)?

I have a hard time "purchasing" something that exists in a cloud...

Just download your stuff for free to a solid state drive and backup and be done with it.

The only thing digital I've just about turned to is PC games. Now that the stores have just about wiped out hard copies of PC games, I've been left to buy them off Steam (which is perfectly fine with me). With the incredible sales Steam has, I don't think I'd ever buy a physical copy anyway. I do back them up for a quicker install, but gaming on the PC is all but digital downloads now.

As far as movies, I still buy them when they go on sale or they've been out for YEARS and I can pick them up for $4 or $5.

And since I don't listen to music, it doesn't matter.

You pay nothing.  It's a platform, not a service.  It allows you to watch your movies on the following devices:

XBOX360
Playstation3
HDTV/BluRay devices
Roku
Android Devices
Mac
PC
Apple devices

I actually didn't seek Vudu out.  I pre-ordered Star Trek into Darkness on Blu-ray at Walmart.  It came with a copy of Star Trek (2009).  They mailed both Blu-Rays to me at release, but it also gave me a digital version of Star Trek immediately and STID 2 weeks before the Blu-Ray release on this Vudu platform I'd never heard of.

The quality and experience was so great, that I never even opened the Blu-Ray copies.  So, I'm thinking about buying or renting a few more things on there, if I ever want anything else.

Sorry, perhaps I was confused...



So how does one access this "platform," say, on XBOX360?  Is there an app in GameCenter similar to Hulu and Netflix?

^ Yes.  You just download the "app" on XBOX or iPad or Roku or whatever.

Or you can just go to the Vudu website.  It also lets you convert your movies somehow (though you might have to pay for that...not sure.)  And you can rent or buy.  And if you have any Blu-Ray movies with the "Ultraviolet" digital download, you can include those, too.

Smart TV's typically already have it installed or it can be added as well.

I've become pretty comfortable using digital games and music. I have several PC games that are completely digital and much of my song collection is digitial only. I haven't really stepped my toe into the digital movies although I have purchased several "on demand" movies for movies that I've wanted to see, but not really wanted to own.

I am looking forward to things hitting the equivalent of the "bargain bin".   It's digital, so there is no distribution cost.  They could sell you every movie with Stallone in it for $19.99, for example.  We see this kind of thing on Steam for games.  Once the digital platforms take off for movies, I'd expect a similar kind of thing.

I find myself, in reading this thread, really experience a distaste for the entire digital movie conversation.  Essentially, we could be moving into a world of completely on demand TV, movies included.  As it is, I record EVERY show on my DVR, and watch it when I want to (commercial-free). 

However, there's something about paying money for "rights" to watch something that I really don't care for.  If I'm going to pay my hard-earned money for something, I want to have it locally and/or physically to do with as I please.  I want to be able to load it on my tablet and watch it anywhere, or lend it to friends.  I am just having a hard time with this whole concept.

^ Lending does present a problem.  But I think that this format can bring the cost of movies and TV for everyone down to compensate.  I notice this for games now, which is partly behind why I haven't made the switch there.  Many of the games I play are borrowed from others.

I think that you just have a thinking from a different generation, Brian (which is fine -- I'm not knocking it, and in many ways, I'm there with you.) 

Just to be clear, you can download your Vudu movies and keep them locally.  But you don't have to.  Should you erase them, you can download them again, is all.  So, on my PS3 (where I watch them), I don't want to have a several gig file wasting hard drive space, so when I watch a movie a few times, I'll erase it and then can re-download it if I want to later.

Maybe they can do movies/music like books on the Kindle.  With my Kindle, I can "lend" someone else one of the books I bought for a period of up to 14 days.  For the next 14 days, it would be available in that person's Kindle account but not mine.  Maybe iTunes will allow tracks and movies to be "lent" to other iTunes users. 

^ They could.  But I don't think they need to.  If you don't let people lend, but just make prices low enough so that everyone can buy for themselves, people would prefer to buy digitally.  A good example is that you can't really "lend" iTunes music....or at least you don't.  But people buy stuff on there are not really from CDs.

I think it's just a change in thinking of media as a tangible property, when it's moved more to a license.

I'm far from all digital media.  About 3 or 4 years ago I bought a used machine to convert some VHS movies to dvd, still haven't done one yet, may have to skip that step and go directly to digital.  Actually, I want to setup my old turntable so I can break out the vinyl records, I kinda miss that imperfect sound, and the skipping sound when you get to the end of an LP.

BTW, I still use some 3.5" floppy disks at work to backup small files.

Music- I've been digital for awhile now;I skipped the CD's and went right from Cassette tapes to digital music.I use a thumb drive to listen to music in my truck,and use Grooveshark,and Winamp on my P.C. (Slight hijack- I love to be able to listen to the whole almbum if possible,one of the big reasons I use groove shark now)

Video games-I really don't play them much anymore,so I'd say all dgital,as most of the stuff I play are old games emulated..

Movies- I'll stream the occasional movie here and there,but I'm not ready to go completely streaming.
1.)I never have seen the point have buying a huge collection of movies in the first place.I rarely watch tons of movies over,and over,and over. Ussually when they're on HBO,or Cable I'll watch them over and over.....but VHS tapes,DVD's and Blu-rays...not really...

2.) I have a slow internet connection,and can't justify the higher cost of faster internet connection for the current services available...I love my Blu rays,with their awesome picture,and sound quality ...