This post will explain why I have decided that there does not need to be one or the other platform. Both have their use case. You have to determine what suits your needs. I’m going to discuss the reason why or why not for both platforms.
Digital Media. This form fits best into today’s society. Instant, portable, and transferable. If you don’t have an AppleTV, Chromecast, or HTPC (Home Theater PC) please close this blog down and spend the $35 or $100 and then leave a comment thanking me. I’m not going to discuss Netflix, Hulu, Redbox Instant, or Amazon Prime here because I’ve already posted about that in another discussion. I prefer to use iTunes. I started as an iPhone guy (I now use Android for personal and iPhone for work) so my digital library started with the iTunes store and hasn’t looked back. There is also Google Playstore, Amazon, etc, but in my personal opinion Apple cannot be beat. ITunes is very simplistic and as the fanboys say “It just works”, and yes it does. The content is available on the PC, via AppleTV, and on an iPhone or iPad. Anything you purchase from the Apple store is available for download to all end user devices. Quality is high and I’ve never had an issue with making or redeeming purchases…ever. Digital is great. Your movies or TV shows are now always available and searchable. There is no more getting up, looking for the movie on the shelf, loading the movie in the player, etc. With digital you turn on your media player, search for your content, and hit play. Sounds to good to be true right? Well it is. There are still shortcomings with digital content. Specifically with the audio. I do think digital will win in the end, but there have to be a lot of advances in many areas before physical no longer has a place in the home.
Physical media. The first thing that comes to mind here are collectors. Some people are X-MEN collectors for example. Having the physical copy with booklets and special edition boxes does matter. Sometimes having something physically in your hand is a comfort zone. You can touch it, it’s yours, you own it, and can display it. The ability to share physical media is something that the digital realm cannot provide at this time. You can get around it by sharing users and passwords, but the way digital libraries are content indexed and built per users makes this is a pain to do. With a physical product you simply give it to someone and they later return it. There are no cross platform compatibility issues either with physical media like there is with digital content.
Now lets look at price, access, availability, and quality for both platforms. Most people should have a bluray player and that is the price point I’m going to discuss here. Price is pretty close between the too platforms. Sometimes the $7.99 bluray bucket at best buy has some gems in it, but when you’re talking about a new release you are looking at around $24 and tax. Sometimes this also includes a DVD and digital copy. You’d think this would be the way to go because of the digital copy being included. When digital copy first came out it was. You got a code in the case, entered the code in iTunes, and viola. Unfortunately this process got disrupted when each movie studio tried to build their own redemption library and format. You had to sign up for 10 different websites due to each movie having a different redemption site. Each movie has a different redemption period for when you can access the digital content as well that expires. Meaning you can no longer download or access it. Some studios don’t allow you to physically download the media as well. You have to access their site, use their media player, and stream it from them. I no longer relay on digital copies included with physical media. It is way to inconsistent and more times a hassle than a luxury. Some people chose build their digital library from physical purchases by ripping the physical media. This also used to be consistent but is no longer. Handbreak used to be a great utility, but most physical media is protected with DRM (Digital Rights Management) now and is therefore encrypted and not allowing you to copy it to your PC. Not to mention this is still illegal by law. Even though you own the physical media you are not allowed to make copies, even personal copies. It’s terrible, because this would be the path to go in determining physical vs digital. Unfortunately the studios appear to want to push you one way or the other. You can’t have both. The price of a digital download is almost always equal or less than the price of the physical form. I would say 80% of the time a new release is about $5 cheaper to acquire digitally. Why? Well you are only paying for the content. There is no markup for boxing/packaging, shipping, etc. Price leans toward digital being the cheaper method. So this brings us to access. Clearly digital is the winner by a longshot. You don’t even have to leave the couch. There is no get up, drive to the store, hope it’s in stock, wait in line, etc. Instead, within minutes of the release day you can access the content. This is a clear winner and flows right into availability. As I’ve already said digital is always available and always there from almost any device. Physical just isn’t. As a traveler I get effected a lot with this. If everything I purchased was digital it would be great. So why don’t I always buy digital? It seems like a clear winner, right. Nope it’s not, and the reason is quality. I have a home theater and I care more about sound than I do video. ITunes movie files are around 2-6gb depending on the length of the film. A bluray disk holds 25gb on a single layer disk and up to 50gb on a dual layer disk. So what does this mean? It means the 1080p dobly 5.1 audio digital file is highly compressed VS a lossless video and audio bluray. In my honest opinion you are not going to notice a difference in the video quality. Even fast action scenes now are rendered beautifully on digital downloads. If you put them side by side and play a scene you will notice a slight difference, but I honestly feel this gap has been decreased so much that it is almost no longer a gap. Video quality is excellent for HD digital copies and works just fine. The main problem though is audio quality. You’re not going to find a digital copy higher than dolby 5.1. So 7.1 and up systems are out of luck. The audio bitrate for a dolby digital download is 640kbps. Bluray is lossless. The formats you almost always find are Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MasterAudio and either encoded in 5.1 discrete or 7.1 discrete for blurays. What are the bitrates for those formats? 🙂 I smile because they are only about 30x higher. TrueHD is 18.64 Mbit/s and DTSMA is 24.5 Mbit/s. 102kbps make up 1 Mbit. You will notice a HUGE difference when a theater audio system is used for playback. Just the numbers alone should speak for themselves. This is why digital is a good primary use for laptops and tablets, but nowhere close to being the primary in the home….for certain content.
So how do I decide? Easy… If it’s a big action movie and I want to feel the explosions so I will always buy the physical copy. Most of the time I won’t be watching an intense action film on my iPad. Comedies, almost always digital. There isn’t a need to have the lossless audio track when digital serves it’s purpose just fine. I’m not going to nitpick a comedy for it’s quality like I would when watching an action film. It will be a long time before lossless audio will ever be streamed unfortunately. Not only for movies, but music as well. The file sizes are too large to meet the requirements for supplying the quick demand. It’s not feasible with current US networks. Most homes don’t pay for the fastest internet access speeds. I wish the US had the network for it, but till that day comes, I have to decide digital or physical and that is ok. I would say I’m about 70% digital when purchasing new films. So it really comes do to determining your needs and wants. Both are valid platforms and will be valid platforms for a long time to come. Do what makes you happy. Most importantly try to forget the numbers and just enjoy the content. I won’t, but maybe you can.
–Austin
Common Mans Home Theater 