vism.net

I was an early adopter of the DVD format thanks to some promotional offers from now defunct online stores. I’ve always had an appreciation for movies and had owned a few VHS tapes during a time when most people just rented. I quickly ramped up my movie purchases with the DVD format and next thing I knew I was at 400+ titles. I had to have bookshelves installed in my room to store them. People questioned: why I needed to buy so many? How many do I even watch more than once? Why don’t you just download/rent them?

Well, at first it was the idea of owning my favorite movies so I can watch them whenever. Then it became more a hobby of just collecting movies I liked for any reason. “This one had great gunfights.” “This one has great surround sound.” “I love this actress.” Why didn’t I just pirate like everyone else? Well I have an appreciation for quality and I didn’t want to sacrifice video or sound by downloading a divx video. Then when Blu-ray emerged as the HD format winner, I started questioning why I do this when it becomes obsolete. I started getting rid of my DVDs and getting them on Blu-ray, but this time I halted before it got out of hand. I started to think back how many times I had re-bought the same movie over and over. Terminator 2, Terminator 2 Ultimate Edition, Terminator 2 Extreme Edition. I wasn’t about to do this over again. And it is happening again with Blu-ray: Terminator 2, Terminator 2 Skynet Edition… As a collector you want the best version of the format, and the studios keep milking us for it.

So I’ve decided the movie industry can suck it. As much as I enjoy the HD format, I can live without it. As much as I love having physical cases sitting on my shelf of all my favorite movies, I can live without spending the cash and real estate. It’s so much more convenient to have all your movies in a digital format on your hard drive. Especially with tools like XBMC and the skinning designs of Aeon, this makes it even more enjoyable. But of course this suggests an unethical acquisition of the movies. I still watch movies in the theaters and pay the ridiculous inflated price of a movie ticket. I still will buy a Blu-ray disc once in awhile for a movie I really love. But for the most part I’ll just download avi’s like everyone else.