Hmmmm... What's to stop someone from going to Best Buy and scanning every movie in the store???
I’d assume that’s why they collect location information. If you are scanning in retail environments, that probably flags you for investigation.
Nothing stops them. This isn’t new.
[snip]
Nope. You're jumping to conclusions without ascertaining the facts.
"What's to stop someone from going to Best Buy and scanning every movie?" This: You can only scan barcodes at the billing address that matches your credit card.
It's a stupid system, because not everyone lives at his or her billing address. I have accountants that manage my finances, and my credit-card statements go directly to their office. So, my billing address isn't my home address—which means I cannot scan movies at home.
Vudu does have an computer app you can download that lets you register DVDs or Blu-ray discs by putting them into the computer's drive. But it only works with internal drives—and of course there are no Macs with Blu-ray-compatible drives. So, for Mac users, it only works for standard DVDs, not Blu-rays.
I can only imagine this verification system will have to change in significant ways, because there are too many caveats. Aside from what I just described, anyone can borrow DVDs and scan them at home. (I'm not advocating this; just pointing out the flaws in the system.) Also, anyone who lives, say, above a video store could in fact probably scan anything in the store because, as far as the phone is concerned, he/she would still be at the billing address.
So, grab your legal copies while you can, because I suspect this is going to change soon.
(The Vudu rep told me that once you've converted a title, it will remain in your iTunes account forever—even if that title is later removed for whatever reasons (e.g., the licensing agreement with the studio is discontinued or whatever).
You really can't scan everything. Vudu D2D only works on old titles that didn't have digital copies at release. It's not going to work on new titles. With your situation, there are several websites out there that have all the bar codes for every DVD/Blu Ray. You just type in the movie you own and the bar code comes up. I was using that since some of my older Blu Ray titles are in boxes. Way easier doing that then digging them out. I have all my movies I own cataloged on DVDPedia so i know which ones are in the boxes. I'm not going to mention the website since it could easily be used to scan movies you don't own.
It sounds interesting, but also like an awful lot of work. I don't own that many Blu-ray movies (maybe 25?). When I want to watch them I pop them in...like an adult. I guess if you want to stream to a device or avoid the inconvenience of putting a disc in, it's fine. I'll likely stick with the discs.
You say “like an adult”
i say “like an animal”
Whatever. I was a member here before you were born.
It sounds interesting, but also like an awful lot of work. I don't own that many Blu-ray movies (maybe 25?). When I want to watch them I pop them in...like an adult. I guess if you want to stream to a device or avoid the inconvenience of putting a disc in, it's fine. I'll likely stick with the discs.
If I'm at home, I'll stick with the Blu-ray disc (especially for 24p support). But I like having the ability to download a few films to my iPad before I get on a flight. And with $5 upconverts from DVD to HD, I can get higher quality streams and downloads for my older (non-Blu) film collection.
A few years ago, I ripped my entire DVD and Blu-ray collection and put them all in the cloud, so that I could easily access the files if I chose. This doesn't address all of those films, but a huge chunk of them at least. I'm going to stop paying $100/year to Dropbox to host my films and migrate the remaining rips to iCloud Drive, which offers cheaper storage plans.
Right. That I agree with. I don't fly much and don't feel like I need to access my Blu-rays on the road. But if I traveled more, I might. It's not a bad service at all...I just don't think I would be interested at this time.
Hmmmm... What's to stop someone from going to Best Buy and scanning every movie in the store???
I’d assume that’s why they collect location information. If you are scanning in retail environments, that probably flags you for investigation.
Nothing stops them. This isn’t new.
[snip]
Nope. You're jumping to conclusions without ascertaining the facts.
"What's to stop someone from going to Best Buy and scanning every movie?" This: You can only scan barcodes at the billing address that matches your credit card.
It's a stupid system, because not everyone lives at his or her billing address. I have accountants that manage my finances, and my credit-card statements go directly to their office. So, my billing address isn't my home address—which means I cannot scan movies at home.
Vudu does have an computer app you can download that lets you register DVDs or Blu-ray discs by putting them into the computer's drive. But it only works with internal drives—and of course there are no Macs with Blu-ray-compatible drives. So, for Mac users, it only works for standard DVDs, not Blu-rays.
I can only imagine this verification system will have to change in significant ways, because there are too many caveats. Aside from what I just described, anyone can borrow DVDs and scan them at home. (I'm not advocating this; just pointing out the flaws in the system.) Also, anyone who lives, say, above a video store could in fact probably scan anything in the store because, as far as the phone is concerned, he/she would still be at the billing address.
So, grab your legal copies while you can, because I suspect this is going to change soon.
(The Vudu rep told me that once you've converted a title, it will remain in your iTunes account forever—even if that title is later removed for whatever reasons (e.g., the licensing agreement with the studio is discontinued or whatever).
I’m surprised you dont just take the obvious step of changing your billing address to the nearest Best Buy once a year. Scan 100 movies in the store and change the address back to your accountant’s address.
It sounds interesting, but also like an awful lot of work. I don't own that many Blu-ray movies (maybe 25?). When I want to watch them I pop them in...like an adult. I guess if you want to stream to a device or avoid the inconvenience of putting a disc in, it's fine. I'll likely stick with the discs.
You say “like an adult”
i say “like an animal”
Whatever. I was a member here before you were born.
Hmmmm... What's to stop someone from going to Best Buy and scanning every movie in the store???
I’d assume that’s why they collect location information. If you are scanning in retail environments, that probably flags you for investigation.
Nothing stops them. This isn’t new.
[snip]
Nope. You're jumping to conclusions without ascertaining the facts.
"What's to stop someone from going to Best Buy and scanning every movie?" This: You can only scan barcodes at the billing address that matches your credit card.
It's a stupid system, because not everyone lives at his or her billing address. I have accountants that manage my finances, and my credit-card statements go directly to their office. So, my billing address isn't my home address—which means I cannot scan movies at home.
Vudu does have an computer app you can download that lets you register DVDs or Blu-ray discs by putting them into the computer's drive. But it only works with internal drives—and of course there are no Macs with Blu-ray-compatible drives. So, for Mac users, it only works for standard DVDs, not Blu-rays.
I can only imagine this verification system will have to change in significant ways, because there are too many caveats. Aside from what I just described, anyone can borrow DVDs and scan them at home. (I'm not advocating this; just pointing out the flaws in the system.) Also, anyone who lives, say, above a video store could in fact probably scan anything in the store because, as far as the phone is concerned, he/she would still be at the billing address.
So, grab your legal copies while you can, because I suspect this is going to change soon.
(The Vudu rep told me that once you've converted a title, it will remain in your iTunes account forever—even if that title is later removed for whatever reasons (e.g., the licensing agreement with the studio is discontinued or whatever).
You really can't scan everything. Vudu D2D only works on old titles that didn't have digital copies at release. It's not going to work on new titles. With your situation, there are several websites out there that have all the bar codes for every DVD/Blu Ray. You just type in the movie you own and the bar code comes up. I was using that since some of my older Blu Ray titles are in boxes. Way easier doing that then digging them out. I have all my movies I own cataloged on DVDPedia so i know which ones are in the boxes. I'm not going to mention the website since it could easily be used to scan movies you don't own.
I used the same site. My Alien Blu-ray box set lacks a barcode. I used Vudu's Mac app for reading the physical discs, which worked for the first two films, but the next two films kept giving me disc read errors (even though the discs are in perfect condition). So I just went to the site and scanned there, and it worked fine.
I thought I would share my more educated experience after a frustrating stumble through this yesterday. I've now successfully followed the VUDU Disc to Digital 'HDX' + Movies Anywhere linking to iTunes for 30+ BluRay and 10+ DVD.
At this point, I would approximate 70-80% of my legacy BD/DVD movie library qualifies for transfer based on the titles I have attempted to scan through VUDU D2D. I would expect everyone's results to fluctuate significantly depending on library titles' movie studios, combo packaging, alternate D2D inclusions, etc. I would guess maybe 50/50 luck with boxsets when they included individually retail packaged titles with barcodes. It's worth noting that a handful of BD titles were recognized as DVD by VUDU D2D, thus resulting in a $5 fee, opposed to the expected $2.
Having now fully linked Movies Anywhere with my VUDU and iTunes libraries, I do have ~95% cross-visibility between libraries. Testing all the newly imported titles through iTunes Movies via Apple TV 4K on Samsung 65" 4K HDR highlights tremendous variations in picture quality. DO NOT EXPECT IMMEDIATE 4K HDR UPGRADE TO YOUR ENTIRE MOVIE LIBRARY. This is never going to happen for multiple reasons. While obviously true for older DVD movies, I was/am surprised how many of my library's originally BD disc movies (now technically VUDU 'HDX') have yet to be fully remastered for 1080P HD streaming (yes 4K HDR would be nice too). Titanic for instance does not even have an 'HD' designation within iTunes movie description.
Some titles do look horrible to be completely honest. Some of this may have something do to with HDR enabled Apple TV 4K attempting to output non-HDR content? Overall I find the process worthwhile for library consolidation, although I personally have yet to see any D2D titles streamed from iTunes equal the quality of a bluray disc or 4K stream. Hopefully iTunes Movies' "free 4K HDR upgrade" gradually occurs for titles over time.
Vudu does have an computer app you can download that lets you register DVDs or Blu-ray discs by putting them into the computer's drive. But it only works with internal drives—and of course there are no Macs with Blu-ray-compatible drives. So, for Mac users, it only works for standard DVDs, not Blu-rays.
Actually, I have an external Blu-ray drive that I've successfully used to "scan" movies using Vudu's Disc-to-Digital software in the past. But about a year ago I ran into a problem where the software stopped working properly. There was a long thread on their forums about it where some people still had it working and many others did not. No clear resolution was provided in a timely manner and I eventually gave up and lost interest.
With this most recent news, I decided to try out the iPhone VUDU app's scanning feature for D2D and was happy to see that it worked for some of the movies that i previously didn't have success with using their "desktop" app.
Hmmmm... What's to stop someone from going to Best Buy and scanning every movie in the store???
I’d assume that’s why they collect location information. If you are scanning in retail environments, that probably flags you for investigation.
Nothing stops them. This isn’t new.
[snip]
Nope. You're jumping to conclusions without ascertaining the facts.
"What's to stop someone from going to Best Buy and scanning every movie?" This: You can only scan barcodes at the billing address that matches your credit card.
It's a stupid system, because not everyone lives at his or her billing address. I have accountants that manage my finances, and my credit-card statements go directly to their office. So, my billing address isn't my home address—which means I cannot scan movies at home.
Vudu does have an computer app you can download that lets you register DVDs or Blu-ray discs by putting them into the computer's drive. But it only works with internal drives—and of course there are no Macs with Blu-ray-compatible drives. So, for Mac users, it only works for standard DVDs, not Blu-rays.
I can only imagine this verification system will have to change in significant ways, because there are too many caveats. Aside from what I just described, anyone can borrow DVDs and scan them at home. (I'm not advocating this; just pointing out the flaws in the system.) Also, anyone who lives, say, above a video store could in fact probably scan anything in the store because, as far as the phone is concerned, he/she would still be at the billing address.
So, grab your legal copies while you can, because I suspect this is going to change soon.
(The Vudu rep told me that once you've converted a title, it will remain in your iTunes account forever—even if that title is later removed for whatever reasons (e.g., the licensing agreement with the studio is discontinued or whatever).
Doesn't having your CC billing address at your accountant's office create other problems too, such as merchants that won't ship to anything other than the CC billing address?
The state of the union regarding Macs and optical drives isn't going to get any better either.
People living above a video store; something like .00001% of the population?
Vudu has been offering the D2D service for about five years. Why do you think it is changing soon?
Comments
Whatever. I was a member here before you were born.
Right. That I agree with. I don't fly much and don't feel like I need to access my Blu-rays on the road. But if I traveled more, I might. It's not a bad service at all...I just don't think I would be interested at this time.
At this point, I would approximate 70-80% of my legacy BD/DVD movie library qualifies for transfer based on the titles I have attempted to scan through VUDU D2D. I would expect everyone's results to fluctuate significantly depending on library titles' movie studios, combo packaging, alternate D2D inclusions, etc. I would guess maybe 50/50 luck with boxsets when they included individually retail packaged titles with barcodes. It's worth noting that a handful of BD titles were recognized as DVD by VUDU D2D, thus resulting in a $5 fee, opposed to the expected $2.
Having now fully linked Movies Anywhere with my VUDU and iTunes libraries, I do have ~95% cross-visibility between libraries. Testing all the newly imported titles through iTunes Movies via Apple TV 4K on Samsung 65" 4K HDR highlights tremendous variations in picture quality. DO NOT EXPECT IMMEDIATE 4K HDR UPGRADE TO YOUR ENTIRE MOVIE LIBRARY. This is never going to happen for multiple reasons. While obviously true for older DVD movies, I was/am surprised how many of my library's originally BD disc movies (now technically VUDU 'HDX') have yet to be fully remastered for 1080P HD streaming (yes 4K HDR would be nice too). Titanic for instance does not even have an 'HD' designation within iTunes movie description.
Some titles do look horrible to be completely honest. Some of this may have something do to with HDR enabled Apple TV 4K attempting to output non-HDR content? Overall I find the process worthwhile for library consolidation, although I personally have yet to see any D2D titles streamed from iTunes equal the quality of a bluray disc or 4K stream. Hopefully iTunes Movies' "free 4K HDR upgrade" gradually occurs for titles over time.
The bottom line:
Your results will vary
The state of the union regarding Macs and optical drives isn't going to get any better either.
People living above a video store; something like .00001% of the population?
Vudu has been offering the D2D service for about five years. Why do you think it is changing soon?