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| Porn Users Forum » Why do movies from Amazon have a higher price for streaming than the DVD? |
| 1-12 of 12 Posts | Page 1 |
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| 09-07-18 06:19pm - 2255 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User  Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Why do movies from Amazon have a higher price for streaming than the DVD? You often find that if you want to buy a movie (to own) for streaming at Amazon, you will pay a higher price than if you bought the DVD. It doesn't make any sense economically. For example: the price of "The Witch" is: ("The Witch" is a horror movie) DVD $3.92 Blu-ray $7.99 To rent a streaming version: rent SD $2.99 (I think this is 720p) rent HD $3.99 (I think this is 1080p) To buy a streaming version: (you can watch the movie through the Amazon site as long as you are a member of Amazon-no time limit on watching--you don't own the movie, but you have purchased the right to watch it) Buy SD $9.99 Buy HD $12.99 But to buy the DVD or Blu-ray disc is much cheaper than to buy the right to stream the movie permanently. It costs money to make a DVD or Blu-ray disc. So I would have thought that the DVD or Blu-ray disc would be more expensive. But I don't like paying a higher price to stream. Also, the DVD or Blu-ray versions often have extra features about the movie, that the streaming version does not. But I like buying the right to stream it on PC or TV, for convenience, instead of buying the physical DVD. I don't have to find the DVD to play the movie, if it's stored on the Amazon servers. And if my DVD program goes on the fritz, then Amazon streaming usually works much better--but not always. The Amazon streaming service can have occasional problems as well. What do PU members do: Buy a DVD or Blu-ray disc? Or buy a movie through Amazon or some other service to stream the movie? Or not buy a movie to own, but only to rent? | |
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| 09-07-18 06:46pm - 2255 days | #2 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Actually, this thread could expand into an examination of the streaming system: how it works, advantages, disadvantages, whatever. Somewhere in the disclaimers for Amazon and Apple and other streaming services, they advise downloading a copy of any movies you buy (you don't own the movie, you have purchased a lease to stream the movie). This is supposed to be for your protection. But these movies are all copy-protected, and can only play on copy-protected devices (computers, kindles, whatever), so there is a storage problem: you can't download them onto a large Hard Drive. So who has the copy-protected storage space to store all these movies? it would take a professional lab to store the movies, because the expense to store them on copy-protected devices would be too large. Or am I making a mistake? Can I store these movies on a PC with a large Hard Drive? I need to clear my mind and find whether I should be storing my streaming movies I bought on a hard drive, or if that is possible. But that is not the way I want to use these movies: I want to be able to play them on the TV, computer, cell phone, kindle, and I can't do that from a copy on a hard drive: that has to be done through a connection to the Amazon site, or from a copy downloaded to the cell phone or kindle, which is also limiting: much easier to stream from the Amazon site. | |
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| 09-13-18 05:04am - 2250 days | #3 | |
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exotics4me (0)
Active User  Posts: 664 Registered: Jan 12, '07 Location: USA |
There's no legal way to download Amazon's movies, even if you buy them. I also buy movies from them to stream. I'm as good of an example as you will find for the pros and cons of digital content. I also buy digital video games. My two nephews refuse to buy digital video games because they take their physical games and trade them at Gamestop for a new game. It would add up to quite a bit if I had physical copies of the games I have but I don't think I would have as many if I had to store the physical copies. Which is a difference between movies and video games. To play a digital video game on the Xbox, you have to download/install it. Why? Most say because the Xbox comes in different hard drive sizes/prices. The 1TB is $50 more than the 500GB. But I would think it's as much about the pressure on their servers to stream a large video game. The average XBox One game is 50GB, the average 1080p movie file is 5GB. I usually just put one game on my Xbox at a time and let the others stay on the cloud until I'm ready to play them. Amazon's big selling point with the "lease" is, "Why have to buy a hard drive, wait up to an hour or more to download, when you can watch instantly from our servers?" If those files were bigger, like the video games, I think they would make a Fire Box with an internal hard drive and make you download them. But that's still the lease. You can't legally sell or trade digital games or movies. I asked the kid at Gamestop if I could buy a large external and fill it with say 50 games and sell it to someone. Nope. I have to be signed in to my account to play those games. I could maybe sell the account to someone but then I think that would go into a major felony. Same with your Amazon account. I was told I should put my login/username and password to my Amazon account in a "file" so if something happens to me, my family, next of kin, could sign in on the account and still access my movies. One part that I don't know if you've tried is Amazon Music Unlimited. I have it because I have music playing 24 hours a day, even when I'm asleep. I have a specific sleep album that I listen to on loop while sleeping. They allow you to download the music to your device but if you stop paying your yearly fee (think it's $69 for Prime members), the files stop working. I just use my browser on my PC to watch most of the television and movies I watch. I have a smart TV, it's a Samsung, one of the better rated smart TVs but I hate it. I could hook a keyboard and mouse up to it for navigation but then I would have to unhook those from the PC. Instead, when using it, I have to go through alphabetical lists with the up, down, right, left buttons on the standard remote. It gets stuck. It will get stuck for 10 minutes while going through the guide. I push it 100 times. It unfreezes and scrolls through 100 channels without being able to stop it. I bought my mom an Amazon Fire Stick with voice by Alexa. Mom loves it. It connects to a TV through HDMI. You press a button on the remote and say what you want to watch, Alexa starts it. I would buy myself one if I watched more television than I do. I've found going to the websites is the easiest way for me to watch television or movies. Of course, if I stop paying Spectrum, I won't be able to since I have to sign in my Spectrum account to watch anything on websites. Oh and there's another question that I've seen come up. It's do you have to be a Prime member to keep access to your movies you bought while you were a Prime member. The answer is you have access to the movies as long as you have your login, doesn't matter whether you're a Prime member. My first time I jacked off, I thought I'd invented it. I looked down at my sloppy handful of junk and thought, This is going to make me rich. - Chuck Palahniuk | |
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| 09-14-18 04:12pm - 2248 days | #4 | |
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PinkPanther (0)
Active User  Posts: 1,136 Registered: Jan 08, '07 Location: Oakland, CA |
I'm buying physical media as seldom as possible these days. Once in a great while, I'll like something enough to want to have a physical copy. For instance, there's an absolutely amazing film called "Dawson City: Frozen Time" that I plan on buying the physical DVD of some day so that I can have the extras, etc. But, for 99% of the stuff I want to enjoy, whether it's music, film, pro wrestling, porn, TV, etc, streaming is the way to go for me these days - and it's really inexpensive as compared to buying physical media in the aggregate. | |
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| 09-14-18 07:57pm - 2248 days | #5 | |
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Loki (0)
Active User  Posts: 395 Registered: Jun 13, '07 Location: California |
Living in Silicon Valley, I have a running argument with my friends that streaming services replacing ownership of things is a trend that only benefits the wealthy. Most of my friends are wealthy tech workers, so they don't see the disadvantages of streaming each time they want to watch something. $5 a pop isn't anything to them. To me, a disabled person on a limited income, $5 a pop adds up fast. It actually works better for me to buy a DVD so I can watch and re-watch content as I want. And I actually own it, so I can make copies, sample it, whatever, under the fair use doctrine. A lot of commerce is moving to the streaming/sharing/leasing model over the actual ownership of things. I recently read an article that there is a car service that allows use of a car with a subscription fee. This mode of commerce is fine for those who can afford it, but some of us struggle to put food on the table and can't afford subscriptions to Netflix or Amazon or even cable. "A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself." | |
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| 09-14-18 09:54pm - 2248 days | #6 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Streaming is usually more convenient than watching a DVD. You can stream from many devices. I guess with Roku or other similar devices you can also stream a DVD on some devices. PC and TV, mainly. That's a guess, because I've never owned a Roku-type device. But it's still more convenient to stream a movie that you purchased a lifetime lease (or bought the streaming version on Amazon or a similar service). You don't have to locate the physical copy of the DVD. And Amazon (maybe the other services, as well) keeps a record of when you stopped the playback of a movie, so you can either watch from the point you stopped at, or start at the beginning of the movie. If you are on a very limited budget, buying the DVD can be cheaper than buying the streaming version. But then, you have to be very selective about what you buy, and guess in advance that the DVD is worth your while watching it multiple times. One advantage of a DVD over the streaming version is that DVDs often come with extras, such as a comment track by the director or some of the actors. So it's hard to make a strong case that DVD or streaming version is the better choice. I own a lot of DVDs. Mostly because I bought them years before I started buying streaming versions of movies. But I really enjoy the convenience of a streaming version of a movie. I am an Amazon prime member, so I watch movies on my PC and on my kindles. Like I said, I don't have a Roku-type device, and even if I did, I don't know if that would allow me to stream DVD content on my kindles. An Amazon prime membership was recently raised to about $119, I believe. But that gives you access to a lot of free movies and TV series. A lot of the free movies are junk. But there are also a lot of good movies that are free. You also get free shipping on orders from Amazon, in most cases. But if you are on a very limited budget, the free shipping might have little real value, since you won't be buying a lot from Amazon anyway. | |
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| 09-15-18 12:01am - 2248 days | #7 | |
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Loki (0)
Active User Posts: 395 Registered: Jun 13, '07 Location: California |
Streaming has its fans. I don't deny that it is more convenient and less cumbersome than owning physical copies of things. But you never own anything. Your heirs can't sell or view your leased content after your death. To me it's more a philosophical argument on the nature of society. I see that a subscription/leasing economy is burdensome to the poor in a way that owning things isn't. If more and more things move to a subscription/leasing model, you need a higher income to stay in place, and largely have nothing to show for your expenditures. At least with buying a dvd, if I never buy one again, I still have the ones I own to watch as much as I want. I can stop paying and still enjoy what I have. Not so with a subscription/leasing model. In that model, you must keep paying to keep access to the media. "A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself." | |
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| 09-15-18 04:07am - 2248 days | #8 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
I don't know about the legality of this. But in your will, or in a separate piece of paper, you could give your account details to one heir. And then that heir should be able to access your bought (or permanently leased) software: both books and movies and TV series, whatever. Let's take Amazon. Because that's the service I use most often for buying ebooks and movies. You don't have to pay a monthly fee or yearly fee to access the ebooks and movies you have bought. You do need an account with Amazon, but that is free. You don't need to be a Prime Member, to rent, or buy, or view the ebooks and movies. You just need to access your free Amazon account, and then stream or download the ebook or movie to a kindle, or stream it on your PC. Again, I don't know the legality of this. Do your legal rights to the ebooks and emovies you paid for expire when you die? Probably. It's almost certain you can't legally trade or loan any of the ebooks or emovies you buy, except that you can give them as gifts (but then you have not bought the right to view them for yourself--that would be a separate purchase). I don't know if Amazon traces your physical location each time you access your ebooks or emovies. Or whether they have programs that try to determine if more than one person is using the account to access the content. I would assume that family members have the right to view these ebooks and emovies. But if you have a large collection of emovies and ebooks you have bought, it might be worth while giving a letter to one of your heirs with your account details, and a list of the ebooks and movies you have purchased. Or not. As you see fit. | |
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| 09-15-18 04:46am - 2248 days | #9 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
@Loki, I don't mean to pry. But if you have an EBT or medicaid card, you are eligible for a discounted membership to Amazon Prime. I think it's $5.99/month. I don't know if they have a discounted yearly membership rate. It's supposed to be easy to sign up for the discount, if you have either one of those cards. And it only makes sense to take advantage of the program, if you are eligible. | |
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| 09-15-18 05:44am - 2248 days | #10 | |
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Loki (0)
Active User Posts: 395 Registered: Jun 13, '07 Location: California |
I've looked into Amazon Prime. I wouldn't get enough out of it to justify a membership, even at a discount. Thanks though. "A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself." | |
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| 09-18-18 06:17am - 2244 days | #11 | |
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MrMaxxx (0)
Active User  Posts: 44 Registered: Sep 10, '18 Location: Canada |
I'm a sucker for a DVD or Blu-Ray. I like physically owning certain movies instead of downloading or streaming them. Hell, sometimes I own them and then end up downloading them because I'm too lazy to get my Blu-Ray player out to play the disc... | |
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| 09-18-18 04:33pm - 2244 days | #12 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
I enjoy the convenience of "owning" or "buying" the online video. That way, I don't have to find the physical DVD, or have to worry that my DVD player is going on the fritz. Although the streaming version from Amazon sometimes has a playback problem, it doesn't happen very often. And Amazon videos remember where you stopped playback of each video, so you can re-start from the beginning, or resume where you stopped watching. The main thing lacking with a bought license to stream is the extras that some DVDs have: the commentary, and other special features are missing. | |
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