Does anyone else have anxiety about building a large iTunes video library?

[profmjh]

I've only just started buying TV shows from iTunes and, being new, I've worried about how much I can trust Apple to let me watch them whenever I want until the day I die. They're mostly things I know I'll watch again and again -- my favourite sitcoms (e.g. Family Guy) -- so I don't mind paying for them.

I tend to rent movies as it's much cheaper and eventually they'll show up on Amazon Prime or Netflix. Even then, I'll only rent them if I really badly want to see them. I like being forced to explore the Amazon and Netflix catalogues. It's made me watch great movies I would never have thought of before, e.g. Midnight in Paris, which I saw this weekend and loved. It had never reached my radar, despite being an Oscar-winner.

Do most people back-up their iTunes libraries? I have my music backed up, but I haven't done that for the TV shows. Yet. Seems like a lot of hassle/expense. And slightly defeats the object.

 

[mac.cali]

I've stumbled upon websites where they sell iTunes movie redemption codes for super cheap. For example: I just got Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials for $3 where on iTunes it's $14.99. Or plenty of Disney movies like Inside Out for $5 where on iTunes it's $19.99.

Since discovering this my iTunes movie and tv show library has grown so much. Yeah they have TV seasons too. Like I just got the entire Sopranos series for $9 also.

What site might that be?

 

[Boyd01]

Are you building a large iTunes collection or do you also worry about the ecosystem?

I worry a little, but not too much. I think I've purchased 25 iTunes movies out of the 600 total movies and 600 TV shows in my library. Everything else was ripped from DVD and could be migrated to another platform if needed. I keep local copies of everything and use a Mini as an iTunes server with the media on a 3TB drive. I'm in a somewhat remote location and can only get a slow DSL line, so streaming is not very practical.

Do most people back-up their iTunes libraries? I have my music backed up, but I haven't done that for the TV shows. Yet. Seems like a lot of hassle/expense. And slightly defeats the object.

I think it's the same as any other kind of data. If you care about it, you'd better back it up. Why do you think it's "a lot of hassle/expense"? I have 3 identical 3TB drives. One contains my library and I rotate the other two for backups. A Carbon Copy script clones the library drive every night. No hassle. External drives are not very expensive, unless we're talking about huge libraries. I have only used a bit over 1TB of the 3TB media drive, so I have room for thousands more movies.

 

[dearfriendx]

What site might that be?

This Google+ Community. I know, I don't even use G+ but this community is where it's at. People trade or sell either digital codes from their personal Blu-rays or there are some who buy codes in bulk and sell them relatively low. Just shop around on it. Gotta have PayPal and a G+ or YouTube account to comment. Once you get the hang of it it'll blow your mind how much you can save on movies especially Disney ones.

https://plus.google.com/communities/104807629505033449769

 

[ryanmcv]

I have almost 200 movies in my iTunes collection (mostly from digital copies). This language in the iTunes Terms & Conditions has me worried:

Apple and its licensors reserve the right to change, suspend, remove, or disable access to any iTunes Products, content, or other materials comprising a part of the iTunes Service at any time without notice. In no event will Apple be liable for making these changes. Apple may also impose limits on the use of or access to certain features or portions of the iTunes Service, in any case and without notice or liability.

So essentially, a "purchase" of a movie on iTunes is an indefinite license that can be revoked at any time. I'd imagine any studio that pulled their movies would face a huge uproar from customers, but the possibility is still worrisome. As another poster mentioned, I'm always going to keep physical Blu-ray copies of my favorite movies and series.

 

[priitv8]

IMHO, that statement only applies to availability of iTunes streaming and downloads (the "cloud" service). If you downloaded your copy, it is in your ecosystem, not Apple's. Hence - under your control.

 

[BWhaler]

I've built a large iTunes library, hundred and hundreds of movies.

I've never worried about being in the Apple ecosystem. Still not. But when I stop and think about Apple music, the mess that is iTunes, etc., I do worry a bit. Will I really be using Apple products 30 years from now? Who knows.

But for now, I feel good about Apple as a long term bet.

 

[BWhaler]

I have almost 200 movies in my iTunes collection (mostly from digital copies). This language in the iTunes Terms & Conditions has me worried:

Apple and its licensors reserve the right to change, suspend, remove, or disable access to any iTunes Products, content, or other materials comprising a part of the iTunes Service at any time without notice. In no event will Apple be liable for making these changes. Apple may also impose limits on the use of or access to certain features or portions of the iTunes Service, in any case and without notice or liability.

So essentially, a "purchase" of a movie on iTunes is an indefinite license that can be revoked at any time. I'd imagine any studio that pulled their movies would face a huge uproar from customers, but the possibility is still worrisome. As another poster mentioned, I'm always going to keep physical Blu-ray copies of my favorite movies and series.

This has already happened with Disney. People lost their movies in the cloud.

Sure, it was restored within a few weeks, but it was a bit unnerving.

 

[ZeRoLiMiT]

I am building my library! with Plex

 

[TrenttonY]

This Google+ Community. I know, I don't even use G+ but this community is where it's at. People trade or sell either digital codes from their personal Blu-rays or there are some who buy codes in bulk and sell them relatively low. Just shop around on it. Gotta have PayPal and a G+ or YouTube account to comment. Once you get the hang of it it'll blow your mind how much you can save on movies especially Disney ones.

https://plus.google.com/communities/104807629505033449769

Wow Thanks! Now the decision if I slowly build my Library with that or do the movies my self...

 

[breezeblocks]

Been back and forth on this exact thing over the last 5-6 years. Having previously ripped my 600+ DVD collection I now prefer to purchase the movies I love in iTunes and use Netflix/Now Tv for everything else.

I see my Apple TV as my blu ray player except instead of having a blu Ray player and shelf of movies I have one small box with all my movies there all the time. I never worry about leaving the Apple ecosystem for this reason as I can always keep the Apple TV as a stand alone box housing my movie/tv collection.

My dad and brother in law both still prefer to rip and house their media so I think it just comes down to whatever's most convenient for you.

 

[Boyd01]

I never worry about leaving the Apple ecosystem for this reason as I can always keep the Apple TV as a stand alone box housing my movie/tv collection.

I really don't think the AppleTV is a "stand alone box". It is completely dependent on content that is either stored in a local iTunes library or Apple's servers. And if it cannot talk to Apple's servers, you can't even access your local library from the Apple TV. This happens every time we have an internet outage here, the iTunes library on my Mini is not availabe on my two Apple TVs, although it works fine with home sharing on my MacBook Air.

 

[sentiblue]

I used to be so hyped about having a Mac Pro connected to a RAID5 array external storage of several TBs so that I can locally in the house service iTunes downloaded contents to all apple TVs in the family.

But then I've come to realize that My FiOS internet connection is 700Mbps... why waste nearly $10K to setup such a system when my connection can support pretty much a dozen devices streaming HD contents at the same time?

Any reasonable internet connection nowadays can support at least a few streams at the same time... I don't recommend spending money to build such a library and having to support it if it has any issues.

 

[dearfriendx]

I really don't think the AppleTV is a "stand alone box". It is completely dependent on content that is either stored in a local iTunes library or Apple's servers. And if it cannot talk to Apple's servers, you can't even access your local library from the Apple TV. This happens every time we have an internet outage here, the iTunes library on my Mini is not availabe on my two Apple TVs, although it works fine with home sharing on my MacBook Air.

Not sure this is entirely accurate. To stream content from iTunes to an Apple TV you just need wifi in your house. If the internet goes out, it shouldn't be affected. I'm not sure where you get the notion it has to reach Apple server-side just to stream local content?

 

[0007776]

If you downloaded your copy, it is in your ecosystem, not Apple's. Hence - under your control.

It still has DRM on it so if Apple for some reason decides that they don't want to keep running the servers to authorize computers you won't be able to use it anymore.

Personally I've bought about 17 movies off of iTunes, I prefer to rent them if I'm getting a digital copy as if I'm going to spend the money to buy the I don't want to have to worry about DRM. Obviously I do occasionally make exceptions.

 

[thisismyusername]

If you downloaded your copy, it is in your ecosystem, not Apple's. Hence - under your control.

Unless it's DRM free and can be moved to and played on a system that doesn't have any Apple hardware or software, it's still in Apple's ecosystem.

 

[Boyd01]

I'm not sure where you get the notion it has to reach Apple server-side just to stream local content?

It has been discussed here in the forums and elsewhere. Some people say their local content is always available, others say it is not during an outage. During an internet outage I could access ripped DVDs on my Mini from my MBA with home sharing over wifi. But my two AppleTVs would not connect to the mini.

When my DSL connection came back up, everything started working again.

 

[maxsix]

iTunes was / is one of Apple's most brilliant creations.

So cleverly designed and built, iTunes gives customers a way to easily spend their money for content. Once they learn iTunes software, they become firmly entrenched as Apple customers highly unlikely to go anywhere else, if only because of the uncertainty or fear factor.

A big juicy cash cow for Apple, iTunes carries on (at least for now) as the only place they look for the content they desire.

However it's now 2015...Soon to be 2016! We now have choices that allow us more freedom than ever before. No reason to give your money to Apple, when you can do it yourself and save.

For those of us who are more interested in building and maintaining our personal library of music, video, movies, etc. there's absolutely _NO_ reason to give our money to Apple, paying a premium, yet only having partial control over our investment of time and money.

iCloud, Apple Music, anything in services are unfortunately one of Apple's greatest weaknesses. Steve Jobs was unusually candid and publicly called MobileMe, predecessor to iCloud, one of Apple's biggest failures and embarrassments. Sadly iCloud is hardly any better.

Do yourself a huge favor, get an NAS unit, use it as your personal cloud / storage for all your content and you save money as well as keeping your data, your files, music, videos, movies etc, all yours.

 

[Ulenspiegel]

"Does anyone else have anxiety about building a large iTunes video library?"

No. I try to get as far away from iTunes as possible.

 

[Coffee50]

No, I feel fine about building my Itunes library.

As another poster mentioned, I've started buying digital codes from google groups, etc. Those are so cheap. Many current movie codes are $2-$4 bucks...cheaper to buy than renting from itunes, amazon, google play store, etc.

I only purchase blu rays of movies that I really want in my collection, so I have physical copies of my favorites. For everything else I'll do itunes.

Worst case, if itunes ever "goes away", I'll feel OK because I haven't spent a ton of money on it.

As we all know tech is always changing. I imagine there were people with a large VHS library at some point........who later had a large dvd library........who currently have a large blu ray library.

 

[Rigby]

It has been discussed here in the forums and elsewhere. Some people say their local content is always available, others say it is not during an outage. During an internet outage I could access ripped DVDs on my Mini from my MBA with home sharing over wifi. But my two AppleTVs would not connect to the mini.

You can still airplay video from iTunes to the Apple TV when the Internet connection is down (as opposed to pulling the movie from iTunes via Homesharing). This is even quite convenient by using the iOS remote app.

 

[Rigby]

For those of us who are more interested in building and maintaining our personal library of music, video, movies, etc. there's absolutely _NO_ reason to give our money to Apple, paying a premium, yet only having partial control over our investment of time and money.

I don't find iTunes more expensive than other *legitimate* sources. Often it's cheaper than a Blu-ray (like brand new releases for $15 or plenty of discounted movies). So I'm not sure what premium you are referring to.

Do yourself a huge favor, get an NAS unit, use it as your personal cloud / storage for all your content and you save money as well as keeping your data, your files, music, videos, movies etc, all yours.

I always find this argumentation a bit weird. In order to do that you need to either download the movie from "inofficial" sources (which is obviously illegal), or break the DRM of your DVDs and Blu-rays, which is also illegal in some countries, but in any case is possible with iTunes content too. So I really don't see a difference one way or the other as long as we are talking about "keeping the content all yours" legitimately.

 

[postpc]

I decided last month to go all in Apple, having agonized over
which eco system to chose for a couple of years. I'm in the process
of selling off my blue ray collection and started replacing them
with digital copies where possible.

Obviously this is going to lock me in big time, but to be honest
I got tired debating eco systems and I just wanted to get this
decision over with. I've adopted a minimalist lifestyle over the
last couple of years, and I'm trying to cut physical possesions
out of life where possible, and moving music and generally media
to the cloud fits that bill perfectly. Getting locked in like
this sounds scary, but the truth is while I have been flirting
with Google or Microsoft occationally I will probably stick with
Apple for the years to come, maybe even for the rest of my life,
who can tell. That doesn't mean all is well in Apple land, far
from it they manage to piss me off on a regular basis, mind you
but when all is set and done, they piss me off way less than the
competition and I don't see this changing any time soon.

Five years ago I decided to go 'post pc', so Ipad, Iphone and
Apple TV are the only computing devices at home.
This leaves me vulnerable in a way that I cannot backup my
purchases and I have to trust Apple and content providers to keep
my purchases available in the iTunes store. We'll see how that
works out.

 

[o0OBillO0o]

99% of iTunes issues are operator error. I've made them all. I love iTunes and the Apple Ecosystem.

I have effectively enjoyed over 50,000 songs, 500 movies, countless radio stations/podcast subscriptions, Audiobooks, and manage all my iOS devices.

Nothing comes as close to the integration and support provided by Apple.

 

[jetjaguar]

im all in for movies and tv shows with iTunes. I can't stand physical media and all I use are apple devices so it was a no brainer.