For the longest time I always sided on the side of quality over convenience, but recently after traveling so much, I have finally switched my buying habits from physical to digital. As most of my blu-rays had ultraviolet copies, I went the Vudu route. What I wanted to ask(more for TV Shows then Movies), is there a service that I can purchase digital shows from that I will then be able to download to use with Plex, or am I pretty locked in to whatever ecosystem I purchase them from?
Thanks for the help in advance.
Unfortunately, while major music stores have gone DRM-free, movie studios are less enlightened and seem firmly set on developing newer, “unbreakable” forms of DRM.
Recording TV is pretty much the only legal option. Ripping purchased Blu-rays and DVDs fall somewhat in a gray area. Honestly, I think it’s kinda stupid that illegal downloads is the fastest and easiest way to get DRM-free digital content so you’re not locked into a single store or app or device but that’s just the way it is.
All I want to do is Shuffle. That’s what I use Plex for 95% of the time. Chose a series and set it on shuffle as background noise. Some day, I guess I’ll be able to do that without ripping or recording myself(or other ways). Thanks.
Part of the problem is thinking you’re “buying” anything when you pay money for a movie off Vudu or any of the similar services. You aren’t… it’s a long-term temporary license/rental, and you are forever at the mercy of playing the movie only on what devices that company wants to let you play it on, and only when, and only for as long as that company exists.
If you want to actually purchase a movie, purchase physical media, then exercise your fair-use right to make a personal copy.
@sremick said:
If you want to actually purchase a movie, purchase physical media, then exercise your fair-use right to make a personal copy.
This.
Or iTunes, though they don’t do it willingly, its pretty easy to pop the content you buy out of their store. Still physical media is the easiest way to do this and when your internet goes down, the only way to get to the media you like 
(Construction cut our fiber lines a few weekends ago and we were down for several days, its the first time I think my wife’s thanked me for running media servers in the home…)
