It entirely depends on the movie and which one of us wants to see it. If it is part of a universe, then I’ll probably buy the disc. If it’s a stand alone, the wife will probably rent it digitally.
I’m not a huge consumer of new release movies, but I’ve still got old-fashioned netflix that I use from time to time. Also streaming and amazon instant.
If a movie is worth seeing big-screen, we make an effort to see it in a theater.
We used to buy DVDs as soon as they came out at Amazon prices, but the BRs we buy now are very few and far between - perhaps one a year.
We rent everything else on Vudu, and have bought a few titles that were not available for rent and were reasonably priced. We have yet to take advantage of the convert-to-digital programs but probably will for the cream of our movie crop.
For new movies (for a pretty liberal use of the word “new”), we go with a combination of Redbox and Netflix (both disc based and streaming). We rarely watch movies on cable, and certainly never buy them.
I used to buy movies all the time on DVD. But once I switched to bluray, I saw the massive amount of money I was wasting on movies I never watched more than once or twice, and that Netflix would save me a ton of money.
If you are endlessly patient, perhaps. One of the reasons we finally killed off disc-Netflix was because new movies took FOREVER to reach us… besides the 30-day delay for most new titles, it could take 2 or 3 weeks to actually get a new disk, sometimes much longer. Netflix clearly abandoned its policy of buying as many discs as needed to fulfill demand, and when we purged our list of older “let’s watch that someday” titles and had only 8-10 newer titles on the list, we sometimes went a week or more without any disc at all.
Netflix, Amazon and HuluPlus streaming for the backlog, and one rental or so per week from Vudu, is cheaper and means no delays once a new movie is released to rental.
Generally, the new releases are available via the Netflix DVD-by-mail service on Tuesdays, so I put the previous week’s movies in the mail on Saturday. They receive the movie on Monday and ship the new release title for delivery on Tuesday. I also make sure that the new releases are on top of my Netflix queue.
I pretty much only see a movie in the theater if it’s particularly enticing and playing in the cheap second run theater or if my friends make a point of going as a group.
I almost always only buy movies if I’ve already seen it and I want to support the artist.
Netflix here too. I didn’t respond to the poll because none of the options even remotely describe me.
If I really care about seeing something soon, I see it in the theater. (This is about 2 movies a year). If I didn’t care enough to see it in the theater, then whenever it gets through my Netflix queue is soon enough.
I don’t have any premium cable channels. I’ve never paid for anything on demand from my cable provider. I have never used online service or RedBox and it’s been probably five years since I last used a brick and mortar store.
I think this went from a large proportion of movie watchers to single-digit percentages. As others have said, we have probably 100 or more discs we’ve watched once, maybe twice. I’m happy to make my hardcopy purchases very select, my digital purchases a little more freely, and rent by the view for everything else.
I only buy movies on DVD/BR if I’ve already seen it and like it enough. Otherwise watching it via a Netflix rental is enough. But my problem is that there are too many distractions when watching a movie at home, so this year, I’ve been going to the movies more frequently. But I also concluded that in general, 3D is worthless, so I’ve stopped watching most movies in 3D. (And the 2D showings are cheaper.)
Netflix here. By “new release” I mean in the past year. It’s not that important to me to see something the same week that it’s released for watching at home.
Occasionally I get it together enough to watch Netflix streaming, and I usually do this for movies where I am the only one in the house who is interested.
Having a physical DVD is still good for us, a lot of the movies we watch now are family movies/animated movies, and it’s convenient to be able to pack a movie for an afternoon at Grandma’s, or the baby-sitter’s. We also spend a lot of weekends at our cabin, which is internet-less and entirely cable-less.
Mixture: Rent from Redbox, rip and download to my DVR. I can rent the disc, say on a Thursday when demand is low, return it Friday (or sometimes even the same day), and watch Saturday.
Yes, I delete when done. I don’t have that much space to keep all this stuff.
Maybe not what the MPAA likes, but everyone gets their usual fees.
I have 3 DVD players, 2 of which are never used and the third gets used at most a couple times a year. May not have any of them plugged in later next year.
I’d like to watch more movies in theaters, but they just plain don’t play most of the movies I want to see anywhere near us. I don’t know if The Way, Way Back even played anywhere within 20 miles of us.
Only have HBO, so again, the type of movies we like rarely pop up there.
(And I love using discount codes for half off or even a free rental. I guess I’m Redbox’s patsy in this way.)
I still buy physical discs of movies that I really like, but there are very, very few movies that I’ve purchased before at least one viewing. Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing was the last one; I can’t remember what was before that. So I nearly always rent new releases.
Back before Netflix offered streaming, when it was still a big deal that they were offering Blu-ray rentals, that’s how I watched most new releases. These days, though, all of my rentals are online.
I used to download Amazon rentals to my TiVo: I loved it, because I had a month to start watching most titles and rewinding/fast-forwarding works better when content is on the TiVo vs streaming. But the last few movies I downloaded from Amazon wouldn’t play, so I started renting iTunes movies via Apple TV. That’s now my method of choice. Plus, it seems like iTunes gets new movies sooner – or maybe just the movies I want to see.
Because I use a cable card with my TiVo I don’t have the option of using my cable company’s VOD. Also, I have HBO but can’t imagine relying on that for new releases: I use it mostly for their original shows, and then sometimes for older titles that I haven’t seen yet/want to see again but don’t own.