kahuna

$30 give or take a couple dollars is standard for a 128GB Flash Drive. The SanDisk Extreme CZ80 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive I brought is a pretty solid flash drive.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00..._detailpages00

Coral

The HD is exactly the same... the only difference is the USB-HD has an enclosure so it can connect via USB externally.
An internal HD is usually on and powered a lot more because it's given power whenever the computer is on... whereas an external USB-HD is only on when it's needed to be used (normally). So the odds of a failure of an internal HD is greater than external USB-HD simply based on how frequent it's "on".

orangerunner

A good piece of advice with external hard drives is to use them every few months otherwise you risk having them seize-up from sitting idle for too long.

Coral

Agreed. If you're one to make backups of your data, you should be using the external HD at the very least once a month. Unfortunately, I know people who go a long time without backing up anywhere - and then act like the world is going to end when the HD in their machine dies. Then they go through that all over again the next time - learning nothing from the previous experience. It's frustrating.

mig0

I think it's because it would've taken a while for blu-ray to supplant DVD for that use at a time when USB drives (HDD, flash) were catching on and much more convenient, and capacities quickly surpassed DVD and even blu-ray capacities with greater convenience.

orangerunner

I still find it difficult to wrap my head around those who are movie fans that simply want a collection of movies compiled on a soulless, generic hard drive or stored in the cloud.

For sheer efficiency, yes, I understand that is the best way to go.

I guess a good sports-related comparison would be a huge sports fan whose favorite team has no colors and no logo to identify the team with. I feel there's more to liking a football/baseball/basketball team than simply the game itself.

For me, the related promotional packaging and artwork it an important part of the film as a whole.

Coral

For many, it's all about the movie - and they couldn't care less about the packaging.

I'll never buy a digital copy of a movie - I'll only stream it.
If I love the movie enough and it has high replay value and is a great price with good audio/video - then I'll buy the BD. That criteria will probably fit around 50 BDs or so - no big collection for me.

For the most part, the packaging doesn't mean much to me. As long as it's functional and doesn't come in something really awkward that make it a pain to put on the shelf - then I'm good. The packaging for movies is there simply to hold the discs - I only lok at it when I'm taking the discs out or putting it back in. Which is the opposite for music - I'll actually read the contents/lyrics sometimes while listening to music.

fumanstan

Coral already said so, but is it really THAT hard to wrap your head around that there are people that only care about the movie? I care less and less of packaging and artwork over the years; those are things that a collector certainly cares about, but certainly not necessarily part of being a movie fan.

orangerunner

As a "DVD Talk Hero" with over 46,000 posts, it's odd that the packaging means nothing to you.

If the current trends prevail, those who like the packaging will simply not have a choice anymore. At least those who hate the packaging have the option of throwing it away if they wish.

fumanstan

I find it odd that you presume packaging means nothing to me, since I said nothing of the sort. Now what I did actually say is that packaging means less to me over the years, coinciding with collecting a large number of home media. With that has meant less interest in buying special/limited editions, steelbooks, slipcovers, etc. That goes along with my subsequent sentence about a collector versus just being a movie fan.

Coral

The attitudes of most on this forum with regards to physical media has changed a lot over the last 10 years. DVD was a HUGE upgrade to VHS and the idea of owning movies in a very convenient, high quality format was very sexy. It got addictive and really promoted the idea of collecting movies. This wasn't just limited to movie/home theatre enthusiasts, but regular Joes would also amass their own collection.

Movies were sitting on shelves collecting dust - only watched once... some never watched, and many times bought blind and immediately regretted afterwards. That's all changed. After years everyone got smart. At the height of DVDs popularity, the DVD forum had a boatload of posts and discussions - now there's not that much traffic in DVD or HD forums... and most members BD collection is MUCH smaller than when they owned DVDs. Everyone is MUCH more selective in what they buy. Streaming makes sense for most viewing.

It has nothing to do with packaging and everything to do with owning inconvenient physical media at a higher price. Why spend $10-$15 (or more) to watch a movie that's not very portable, when you can buy a digital download for cheaper (and play anywhere) or stream it any time you need to (for much cheaper on a per movie basis)?

morriscroy

I guess I'm one of the few exceptions, with more blurays than my "peak number" of dvds.

I only started buying a lot of dvds/blurays in 2011. Prior to 2011, I had no interest in dvds/blurays.

Over the entire 2000s decade, I only acquired around two dozen or so dvds. (Mostly stuff like Cheech and Chong, Beavis and Butthead, Ozzy Osbourne, etc ...).

Alan Smithee

Most digital downloads aren't "cheaper"- I browse Vudu a lot and many titles cost the same as or sometimes MORE than what a disc would cost. I won't pay more than $5 for something completely intangible like that, plus the quality just isn't the same.

E Unit

Although for the last few weeks, I've noticed the new releases on Vudu have been $14.99 and includes most of the extras that are supposed to be on the blu's. That's definitely cheaper than the blu's on their release day.

Josh-da-man

I was looking up the soundtrack to the tv series Californication on iTunes.

I noticed that it is available to purchase for $19.99(SD)/$24.99(HD) per season. The whole series is available on DVD for about $45 from Amazon. At seven seasons, the SD digital purchase comes to about $140, almost $100 more than the DVD.

orangerunner

To each their own as far as packaging goes. I would think if one enjoyed a movie enough to purchase it, the packaging, even a typical trapsheet, would be an appreciated part of the purchase.

I'm not so sure about digital being cheaper.

Here on Amazon you can download Mission Impossible Rogue Nation for $19.99 or rent it for $4.99.

http://www.amazon.com/Mission-Imposs.../dp/B012PJXGXG

I can buy the Blu-ray for less than $19.99 (get the extras, free DVD & digital code) or rent it for $2.00 at Redbox.

The price of convenience I suppose.

Coral

MI has been out for about a month... BD's are discounted after about a month just to get the product off the shelves (it was never like that in the old DVD days). On release the digital download is often cheaper than the BD. This past week Sicario, The Visit and The Walk were released and the digital download is $10, $7 and $5 cheaper respectively.

PhantomStranger

I was one that used to love the packaging of media, but once your collection gets past a certain size it just becomes yet another box to hold the movie in.

fumanstan

I'm not sure why you're still so tied to the idea that a movie purchase and packaging go hand and hand. It shouldn't be too hard to see how convenience can trump packaging, especially after already seeing it happen with music.

orangerunner

With music, we're seeing a resurgence of vinyl, which is even larger packaging than CDs.

I don't mean to sound like a curmudgeon about it but I guess I don't really agree with the current trends.

It's a little like telling a comic book collector that comics will no longer be published on paper, only as digital files or a baseball card collector that cards will only be available as downloadable files. A gearhead who loves driving cars that the only new cars being produced will be driverless cars.

Will a Spiderman #1 digital file ever have any impact on popular culture the same way a physical copy did?

I think we're losing a lot substance by the allure of quick convenience.

slop101

Look, I still buy CDs, and some vinyl, but to think their drop in the bucket of sales gain means anything is preposterous.

Older people who buy physical media don't buy as much music as young people, and young people prefer downloads/streaming.

This chart is a couple years old, and outside of ALL music sales being lower (except for vinyl, which is still a fraction of the rest) things haven't changed much, if at all.



For further reading, check out this article that pretty much shows how, packaged or not, people don't buy music anymore.

It's just going to keep going like it always has, with the more convenient format dominating:

fumanstan

I'd say vinyl is a huge niche compared to current digital music and the height of CD's or tapes.

Regardless, my replies don't really have anything to do with assuming all those forms of physical media you describe would be completely replaced with digital nor your opinion on current trends. That's completely fine. I'm specifically addressing your inability to see how packaging is completely unrelated to being a movie fan, just like a comic book fan can be one by reading digitally, or a music fan doesn't need to be vinyl. It's not a hard thing to understand.

Alan Smithee

The only "convenience" of digital movies is not having to go anywhere to buy them, which I'll admit can be a big deal depending on where you live. I watched one of my digital movies last week and despite getting full bars on Vudu and having the fastest-available internet service where I am, it stopped at one point to buffer. I had that happen at least twice during the last year (and just one would be one time too many), but during that same year I had ZERO discs freeze up or glitch during playback. Hardly what I'd call convenient- and the quality on disc is still better.

And I'm a big fan of packaging, but a lot of companies half-ass it these days- like Warner's plain black-labeled discs in hole-filled Eco-Cases with no inserts. Whenever I open one of those up I hear them saying "We don't care about these anymore."

fumanstan

It's humorous you see that as the only convenience given your apartment.

mndtrp

I couldn't care less about packaging for movies or music. If it's there, I'll look through it once or twice, then it gets put on the computer and I put the packaging in a box to never look at again. The ability to watch a movie or listen to music almost anywhere trumps having a plastic case sitting on a shelf somewhere. Having everything instantly searchable by actor, genre, director, or anything else is incredibly handy. There's no way I could remember all of the minutiae of each movie.

I can understand why people appreciate and prefer the packaging, I'm just not one of them.