VUDU TO BE ACQUIRED BY FANDANGO

[pasalott]

you knew it would end in tears for all of us

Guess it's time to buy some disk storage, setup a media server and start ripping blu rays

[cpr3584]

you knew it would end in tears for all of us

[pasalott]

Would you be willing to pay a store a monthly fee for a dvd/blu-ray you bought from them in order to keep it? My answer would be Hell No!!!

I essentially do that with games. Pay $60 for a game but have to also pay Microsoft and Sony $60 each to play online with XBOX and Playstation , which is required for pretty much all games now.

[Chedwiggen]

That being said, would anyone here be willing to pay for a monthly or annual subscription, say $5 a month or $60 a year, to access your digital library if that meant keeping Fandango/ Vudu in business? I own about 450 titles on Vudu, not as much as many here, but more than half of those are not on Movies Anywhere.

Would you be willing to pay a store a monthly fee for a dvd/blu-ray you bought from them in order to keep it? My answer would be Hell No!!!

[pasalott]

Wouldn't Fandango combine libraries with Vudu? Why would they spend all that money to purchase Vudu then trash their library of movies?

That being said, would anyone here be willing to pay for a monthly or annual subscription, say $5 a month or $60 a year, to access your digital library if that meant keeping Fandango/ Vudu in business? I own about 450 titles on Vudu, not as much as many here, but more than half of those are not on Movies Anywhere.

Speaking of risks with digital, I play video games, mostly on PC, and pretty much the only option for PC games is digital, mostly through Valve's Steam service. If they went under, I stand to lose almost $10,,000 in game purchases.

Valve doesn't charge an annual subscription but Microsoft and Sony charge $60 annually for XBOX and Playstation to play online and access their servers, which is needed for most games now. I can see Fandango and possibly other similar streaming services with digital movie purchases going the same route, since they need revenue to maintain and upgrade their servers.

[jeremymc7]

I think the bigger question / concern from above (not me) was that not only could we possibly loose titles in a conversion but what about loosing the thousands spenting only buying digital if Vudu or FN finally go under. Per my point that's something you should know and risk whenever buying something that is virtual, not physical. But in my case once you move on to the next physical format the prior physical is of little value, to me.

I also have titles in FandangoNow as well that are not MA or in Vudu. Will those get merged? We'll see.

[bestquality]

They're buying the customer base and market share. There's no reason to think any purchases will be lost barring contractual issues with defunct studios. It's in everyone's interests to make sure customers remain whole. The concern was if Vudu couldn't find a buyer. Now they'll be effectively be owned by two studios. They have every reason to make sure customers are satisfied with the product and transition. It's an open question to what that transition looks like though. Will they keep accounts separate? Will be able to merge them? Will a merge be forced or optional?

[jeremymc7]

Like many of you, I've been thinking about this change a lot lately. I've probably sunk around $10,000 into Vudu since I started buying digital movies, and something tells me that there are a lot of people on these forums who make that look like a small investment. So, my question is - what does it really mean to buy Vudu? Thoughts?

Just something you have to be aware of when you move into the digital world.

I couldn't give away my LaserDisc collection. Likewise with my DVD collection it would have been sell it all at once or piece mill.

My CD collection of thousands of CD's went to goodwill when I moved it to my iTunes collection. It wasn't worth selling. I didn't want all the extra clutter in the house. So away it went for free even though I paid through the nose for it. Same for LaserDisc, DVD, Blu-Ray, etc.

I used to keep backups of everything on hard drives including the CD's that went to iTunes and the movies. At a point the amount of spent on drives, esp with BD or 4K file sizes got to be too much.

What I've said we've needed from the start is a iTunes or Spotify service for movies. You pay $25/mth and you have access to match every movie.

The music industry figured out how we can $10/mth and listen to a vast and broad music collection. Movies & TV. Not so much.

[RayDyer]

Like many of you, I've been thinking about this change a lot lately. I've probably sunk around $10,000 into Vudu since I started buying digital movies, and something tells me that there are a lot of people on these forums who make that look like a small investment.

So, my question is - what does it really mean to buy Vudu?

For instance, when a wireless company buys another wireless company, they buy accounts. They are paying the smaller company for each customer, with the understanding that most of those accounts will stick around and pretty immediately start paying the new company. They start making money on a monthly basis from the customers they "bought."

In this case, Vudu doesn't get monthly payments. There are accounts, but in this case I would think that each account is more of a drain than a revenue stream. If I watch one of my movies, that's money that Vudu got as much as a decade ago. The new company isn't making cash on that. They would only make money on my account if I buy a new movie, or rent something, etc.

So, what is Fandango Now buying? The Vudu name? Maybe. The only thing that Vudu seems to have is a lot of existing accounts full of already purchased movies...and a massive library (that largely overlaps with the library FN already has).

I guess my point is - we're worried (justifiably so) about losing our collections in this transition. Especially our non-MA collections, which is about half of all my movies, personally.

But, if FN wants to continue generating revenue off of the accounts they are purchasing, they have to give people a reason to keep buying. Removing thousands of movies from individual collections would go against that.

Maybe I'm being naively optimistic, but following the money seems to give a genuine reason for FN to do everything they can to keep collections just as they are. Because, really, what they are buying, is the movies in those collections.

Thoughts?

[jeremymc7]

Disc + Digital is now official dead as of this morning

Quite possibly. I mean the page is still there. It just doesn't have any titles in it.

But then pre-orders only has 12 titles in it too.

CV has really messed with a lot of things. There's also a lot of "housekeeping" that needs to happen between Vudu (Walmart) and FandangoNow. I'm sure things will go away, some for good, others will come back, and still other new & different things will emerge.

Need to wait and see.

INTERESTINGLY, Walmart still has InstaWatch up. Now if it's still properly linked O can't say since I already purchased all the recent InstaWatch / D+D titles in the last week.

https://www.walmart.com/search/?cat_...eahead=instawa

[Fendoren]

Disc + Digital is now official dead as of this morning

[jeremymc7]

Did you expect Fandango to turn itself into a physical retailer in order to keep that program alive?

Program is still well alive and kicking. See my prior email with link to everything available on D+D.

Vudu moves around their collections and sometimes removes ones from general view. IE D+D in this case for right now, when they add other, Say Mothers Day. This sometimes happens in one place like the web site or on the Roku app, or maybe in all places. In general the website still has all the various collections just the link to the program was viewed from view.

There?s are hundreds or thousands of these various collections pages. I started to map them all out for others but at a certain point it just got to be too much work. Instead I just saved bookmarks for the pages I care out such as Disc + Digiral, Disc to Digital, Redeem digital movie code ( works for all movies instead of going to the specific movie page)? Redeem digits movie credit ($2-$5) which pop up each time.

Regards.

[Cranston37]

What happened to Disc Plus Digital? All offers, menu selections, and reference has been removed from the site and app. Figures.

Did you expect Fandango to turn itself into a physical retailer in order to keep that program alive?

[jeremymc7]

What happened to Disc Plus Digital? All offers, menu selections, and reference has been removed from the site and app. Figures.

Nope. Still there.

https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/...isc-Digital/76

[jtullier]

What happened to Disc Plus Digital? All offers, menu selections, and reference has been removed from the site and app. Figures.