The deception of “buying” digital movies • Hacker News Board

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#251

Post by joshstrange » Tue, Oct 04, 2022, 4:01 PM UTC

rendaw wrote: post #231

iamacyborg wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buy blurays, rip them and then store them on a NAS to play back via Plex. Much, much better quality than any stream from Netflix et al.

How do you handle the storage for this? One bluray disk is about 60gb. I'm not sure if movies typically take 60gb but if you watch TV shows they do. 15 disks is 1TB. In a short while you're running a data center, especially if you collect a lot of video content. I've heard that you can get efficient re-encodings, but that typically means torrenting it from somewhere. I'm not aware of a way to make high quality re-enc…

A Synology is good option here (I say this as someone with 2 UnRaid machines and 1 12-bay Synology). You can even get one that can run Plex for you as well (assuming your transcoding needs are minimal/none, else you might need a seperate box to handle the transcoding and just use the Synology as storage, like I do).

14TB+ hard drives are not too bad (~$235) so that would be 210 movies right there (though you are going to need to "burn" 1 drive for parity). The other option is to more liberally interpret copyright laws and buy the disk then pirate a copy that matches your requirements. Seeing how there are many people out there just doing the pirating step and that you aren't running a pay-for-plex scheme then I can't imagine you running afoul of law enforcement.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#252

Post by selfhoster11 » Tue, Oct 04, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

rendaw wrote: post #231

iamacyborg wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buy blurays, rip them and then store them on a NAS to play back via Plex. Much, much better quality than any stream from Netflix et al.

How do you handle the storage for this? One bluray disk is about 60gb. I'm not sure if movies typically take 60gb but if you watch TV shows they do. 15 disks is 1TB. In a short while you're running a data center, especially if you collect a lot of video content. I've heard that you can get efficient re-encodings, but that typically means torrenting it from somewhere. I'm not aware of a way to make high quality re-enc…

Even if for some reason you don't re-encode, 18+ TB disks are now available. This means you can fit nearly 300 films' worth on a single drive like this, more if you buy multiple. I don't think it's such a bad idea to run a 4-drive cluster out of a single Raspberry Pi, with all the drives connected over USB.

You don't even need backups for this, really. If you own the discs and lose the digital version, just copy it on the disc again. If you acquired it via other means, then... it should be possible to replace most such data. Even if you do choose to make backups, then that doubles your cost per terabyte at most.

Storage is really cheap, assuming you're fine with something that isn't a fancy ZFS/RAID array.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#253

Post by rthomas6 » Tue, Oct 04, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #163

JohnTHaller wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's still Apple hardware/software. If you can't play it outside of the locked down Apple ecosystem which is checking your license, then you don't own it.

If your movie is from any of the five participating studios you buy the movie once and it works across all of the major video platforms if you use Movies Anywhere https://help.moviesanywhere.com/hc/en-us/articles/1150045768... Blu ray players are also locked down and the embedded keys are subject to revocation

If you buy blu-rays from those five participating studios, they also give you the same Movies Anywhere digital copy.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#254

Post by selfhoster11 » Tue, Oct 04, 2022, 4:04 PM UTC

throwaway2203 wrote: post #121

titzer wrote: post #114

I am hoarding DVDs and it's because a.) it's cheap, b.) it's reliable c.) it's future-proof and d.) I don't trust tomorrow's political/cultural landscape to not disappear things down the memory hole as well as subtly editing out offensive material or otherwise altering things in hard to detect ways. Case in point, not long ago a family member witnessed "Scrubs" being scrubbed of a particularly offensive joke that ran…

DVDs have a limited lifespan as well

Luckily, the data on them does not. Storing a 5GB file locally is basically free, at $15 ish per terabyte for modern HDDs.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#255

Post by Xeoncross » Tue, Oct 04, 2022, 4:05 PM UTC

senko wrote: post #215

Copyright, as it exists in the 21st century, is a scam. It does not protect the artists, the creative works, or the little guy. It is a product of decades' worth of lobbying by very rich and powerful organizations and megacorps. I'm not against the idea of a copyright. An artist has the right to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and creative works do have value. However, the original idea of copyright has been bent, b…

Does the US have any state or federal laws that don't benefit the wealthy at least as much as a regular citizen?

As far as I'm aware, even laws for the small business play into the favor of larger corporations either directly or via auxiliary laws.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#256

Post by selfhoster11 » Tue, Oct 04, 2022, 4:08 PM UTC

drstewart wrote: post #27

How big of a problem even is this? Serious question: who buys digital movies? I don't really know anyone who even buys movies at all anymore, but if they do it's likely they prefer a physical copy anyway. There's just so much content out there that the number of people that even care to rewatch a movie they've seen feels like it's really low.

Content is not fungible. When I want to watch Terminator (1984) and nothing else, then no amount of having other killer-robot films on your platform will satisfy this want.

As to why people who buy prefer to buy physical? Because there's actual ownership. I haven't even as much as investigated my options for buying 4K content, because I am 100% sure it doesn't exist in a form that's not hooked into some DRM system (AKA worse than useless). With physical content, at least you retain the control.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#257

Post by YurgenJurgensen » Tue, Oct 04, 2022, 4:09 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #204

throwaway2203 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DVDs have a limited lifespan as well

My oldest one is 25 years old and still works with no issues. Technically every physical object breaks down over time, but I expect that with proper storage and handling with care, a pressed DVD could last 50 years. And then you can also rip the bits and store them.

I have a disc from 2004 that had been in its original shrink wrap until this year but it had read errors when I tried to rip it and was showing signs of rot. Some discs are from bad batches, and you don't really have any way of knowing if a disc is bad until it starts rotting.

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#258

Post by indymike » Tue, Oct 04, 2022, 4:09 PM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #182

indymike wrote: post #61

There needs to be a very large lawsuit or two about this. Claiming you can buy something, and then renting it, even if the rental is 20 years is fraud.

I buy a concert ticket. Does this mean I can go see that artist everywhere they perform forever now? No. I bought a revokable, limited access right to see a particular performance. Should we not use the term "buy" here as well?

> I buy a concert ticket. Does this mean I can go see that artist everywhere they perform forever now?

This is a bad analogy. A better one would be, your bought a car from me, and three years from now, I tow your car away and do not compensate you for taking the car. Because buyer beware, caveat emptor, etc...

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#259

Post by awiesenhofer » Tue, Oct 04, 2022, 4:09 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #114

I am hoarding DVDs and it's because a.) it's cheap, b.) it's reliable c.) it's future-proof and d.) I don't trust tomorrow's political/cultural landscape to not disappear things down the memory hole as well as subtly editing out offensive material or otherwise altering things in hard to detect ways. Case in point, not long ago a family member witnessed "Scrubs" being scrubbed of a particularly offensive joke that ran…

> "Scrubs" being scrubbed of a particularly offensive joke

Which one?

Re: The deception of “buying” digital movies

#260

Post by selfhoster11 » Tue, Oct 04, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

vivegi wrote: post #33

The closest analogy I can think of is this: Property developer leases a beachfront land for 99 years and builds a resort. You book a vacation at the resort. You enjoy the facilities -- pool, spa, restaurants etc., during your stay. At the end of your stay, you lose the privileges of staying at the resort/using the facilities. Even if you bought a timeshare in the resort, you still do not own it. Heck, the property de…

Leasehold is a scam, and should not be legal in the first place. It benefits no-one except the original freeholder's great-grandchildren or whatever, and vastly complexifies matters for everyone else.