Any of you made this jump yet?

Any of y'all started buying your movies through a service and streaming them? If not, what's keeping you from doing so?

Aside from the occasional collector's edition (like Scream Factory or Criterion), I buy all of my movies through iTunes now, and began ripping all of my Blu-rays. I've got about 8TB so far. The special concerns of my disc collection were just too great.

I've got a substantial collection through Vudu/Ultraviolet as well, since you can pay a buck and get an HD copy of a film you own in your digital locker, but I like the safety of having an actual download, rather than relying on a stream (and thus a continued existence of the service). Also, immersion in the Apple ecosystem means all of my stuff just works together seamlessly.

I guess you touch on a problem I've had making the jump. I've no love for Apple products. But I'm trying to find a good compromise that lets me buy on a platform to use between my Xbox, laptop, phone, and tablets (1 of which is an iPad I have to use for school).

And on top of that, like you said, getting a service that lets me do an actual download. My recent travel history has taken me places with shoddy wifi, so can't count on a stream when I want to watch a flick.

I get all my stuff through Google Play. Amazon would be my second choice. Google play stuff will play anywhere and Chromecast is awesome.

I can also second this one, as all my Disney "play anywhere" Blu Ray's I've bought redeem to Google Play, and it's great as well (And will play on anything with a YouTube app). Really, you should decide what devices you're going to use to play your media and that will determine what service to use. They're mostly universal now, but still a few limitations. The most simple option seems to be the Roku series, I've set my parents and grandparents up with one and they both love it, and it will play anything. Chromecast is nice, but you need to control it with your phone, and I've found I much prefer a separate remote to hand off to the kids/wife, so I'm not searching for my phone 20 minutes later. Xbox One has FINALLY gotten just about all the streaming services as well, so I use that quite a bit too.

For my wife I set up a Roku box. It was the easiest for her to use. The kids and I use Chromecast.

Anything that has a Youtube app can stream your Google Play stuff. It's under your purchased items.

Ah didn't know that about the YouTube app. Good stuff - thank you.

Many many years ago, I hacked an Xbox (the original Xbox) with a mod chip and large hard drive. There was an app for this called Xbox Media Center, which, especially for it's time, was awesome.

I lost track of the app when I retired my Xbox (no HD video capability). I was on a nostalgia kick a while back and discovered that XBMC becamse "Kodi", and is apparently still a thing.

Anyone use this? I would imagine is has similar features to Plex, perhaps with some additional internet streaming capabilities?

https://kodi.tv/about/

Many many years ago, I hacked an Xbox (the original Xbox) with a mod chip and large hard drive. There was an app for this called Xbox Media Center, which, especially for it's time, was awesome.

I lost track of the app when I retired my Xbox (no HD video capability). I was on a nostalgia kick a while back and discovered that XBMC becamse "Kodi", and is apparently still a thing.

Anyone use this? I would imagine is has similar features to Plex, perhaps with some additional internet streaming capabilities?

https://kodi.tv/about/

I use physical media as exclusively as possible and avoid downloading like the plague. If I go to that I can forget ever actually using the internet because it will be nonstop downloading all the time with the wife and kids, and perpetual 500+ ms pings.

Plus, I do not like the trend of trying to turn every device into a subscription service.

Basically ditto, minus the wife/kids.

I still buy movies I like on physical media. Netflix has curtailed the TV Show Seasons buying I used to do, though it was only for a couple series of the ones I watch, so not that big an impact.

I object on principle to the subscriptionizing of content with no guarantees about content's availability for the aggregated source distributors like Netflix (where contracts are fickle) and the nascent fragmented services of the 1st party options (where the content is likely to remain available -- until they decide to stop supporting the service altogether). My physical disks suffer from neither availability problem, and have a much more transparent value proposition that I'm comfortable with.

To DE's point, some of these services allow downloading of the movies so that it won't require additional streaming beyond the first hit. Still taking my time though on the route I want to go.

I just had to buy an 8TB drive. I'm at 6TB right now. Time to transfer again. Blech.