Blu-ray disk movies and availability of online digital copies - digital keys


Many movie disk purchases include an alpha-numerical key for digital downloads of that movie.
Go to a site that accepts such keys, enter the key and you will be able to watch that movie, using online streaming, and without your disk.
The best known, Ultraviolet, closed recently but a new one, MoviesAnywhere has opened. Vudu also accepts digital keys.

I have discovered a way to make my purchased collection available to the TV.

A while back, I purchased a 4K UHD blu-ray copy of the movie Independence Day (1996). I think that is one of the movies, that I like, that will improve on a 4K screen. Some movies are better suited for 4K UHD than others. I had also, previously, purchased the full Game of Thrones series on blu-ray discs.

Neither of my blu-ray players supports 4K UHD disks.

This was frustrating to say the least. Now, several months later, after some web reading, I managed to find a round-about way.

Currently, several of the online movie/TV-series clouds have allowed users to link those providers together. Namely Vudu. My GoT set is on iTunes, as well as my 4K Independence Day 4K UHD blu-ray, and I was able to connect my iTunes library to Vudu. I opened a MoviesAnywhere account and connected that to Vudu.

The end result is I can watch the 4K UHD version of Independence Day (1996) on my 4K UHD TV.
There is a distinct change and improvement in that version over the 1080p/FHD version.
My GoT set is also available, but in 1080p/FHD. Also an improvement.

The reason for the GoT improvement is compression. Presumably, a full, uncompressed version of the disk is used by the cloud services, where my hard drive set has been compressed to save space,at a cost in quality.

Every compression algorithm gains a reduction in size at a cost of quality loss.
My hdd GoT files average 1gb. The uncompressed version on a blu-ray would be about 20gb.
I could get my blu-ry disks out but I like to keep those in storage and in near mint condition.
The cloud services allow me the convenience of not wearing my disks out or having to take the time to setup the blu-ray player and pull out the disks. As a matter of fact, I don't need to buy a 4K UHD blu-ray player unless I want to record, in which case I would have to get a laptop compatible recorder/player.

I can watch my 4K UHD movies without owning a 4K UHD player.


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