One of the biggest questions facing movie fans today is whether they should build a physical or digital movie collection. We'll explore the main talking points for each option to help you answer this question for yourself.

We'll mostly refer to 4K Blu-rays and iTunes movie downloads since those are the most popular. But the arguments we'll make work just the same for other physical discs and digital stores as well.

Physical vs. Digital Movies: Video and Audio Quality

A roll of film unravelling

Most movies are available in 4K video with some form of Dolby surround sound for both physical Blu-ray purchases and digital iTunes purchases. But you'd be mistaken if you thought that meant the video and audio quality was exactly the same across both formats.

Movies from iTunes, and other digital stores, still fail to match the quality you get with a 4K Blu-ray.

Typically, a Blu-ray movie takes up about 25GB to 35GB of storage. This is far too much data for most people to stream or download using iTunes, so Apple compresses movies to about a tenth of that size.

While Apple's compression is pretty good—you still get 4K definition and high-quality audio—you do lose some detail compared to a 4K Blu-ray. This is most obvious in darker images and color gradients, where compression results in flat textures or banding.

The same goes for audio, with Blu-rays offering near-lossless audio quality and a far wider dynamic range than what you get with iTunes.

However, even though Blu-rays offer higher video and audio quality than iTunes, that doesn't mean you'll actually notice a difference.

Digital iTunes movies still look and sound fantastic, and most people would need to perform a direct comparison using expensive home theater equipment to spot any differences between the two formats.

Physical vs. Digital Movies: Convenience

Digital movie collection on an iPad

Many people enjoy building a collection of physical movies. They stack entire bookcases with Blu-rays to act as a monument to their love of film. But a bookcase of Blu-rays quickly becomes a hindrance when you can't fit in your latest purchase or you need to find a way to transport and store it in a new home.

Digital movies suffer none of these problems.

A digital movie takes up no physical space and, unless you keep all your movies downloaded, you don't even need any digital storage to stream it. What's more, all your movies are always with you, anywhere in the world that you can get online.

There's also no getting up to change the disc in the Blu-ray player. If you want to watch a digital movie, all you need to do is select it in your library and hit play. Sure there might be a slight delay while you wait for the download or stream to buffer, but it's still quicker than changing the disc and waiting for a Blu-ray to load.

Physical vs. Digital Movies: Availability

Physical movies in a store

Not only is it quicker to start watching a digital movie compared to a physical movie, but it's quicker to buy one as well. Almost every movie you might want to watch is available for instant purchase on iTunes.

In contrast, to buy a physical movie, you need to put in an online order and wait for delivery or get your shoes on and head to the shops. Even then, they might not have what you want in stock.

If a movie is a few years old, you could struggle to find a new physical copy of it, but iTunes will never run out of stock.

Occasionally, you might come across a movie that is missing from digital stores, like almost every Studio Ghibli movie. But for the most part, it's much easier to find digital movies than physical ones.

If you watch the sales, you can even snatch great deals on digital movies.

On the flip side, if you're happy to buy pre-owned Blu-rays, you can save even more money by scouring the second-hand market, which simply isn't possible for digital movies.

Physical vs. Digital Movies: Bonus Features

iTunes movie Extras page

You can get bonus features with both physical and digital movie purchases. However, most of the time you get far more bonus features with a Blu-ray than what you get through iTunes and other digital stores. This is especially true for commentary tracks, which seem to be something of a rarity for digital movie purchases.

Of course, this varies from movie to movie.

If you're interested in the bonus features, you should always check what you get on the back of the Blu-ray box or in the iTunes Extras section of the iTunes store. It's common for the best bonus features to get reserved for special edition releases, which typically cost more than the standalone film.

It's also common for special edition releases to only come out as a physical release.

Not everyone cares about bonus features, but if you're a movie fan looking to start a lifelong collection, they're definitely worth thinking about.

It's also worth remembering that one of the most common "bonus features" for Blu-rays is in fact a digital download code. So it's entirely possible to avoid choosing between physical and digital movies if you pick your purchases wisely.

Physical vs. Digital Movies: Future-Proofing

VHS tape with player and remote

As technology keeps advancing, we're sure to see new developments in movie formats. Already, movies have shifted from VHS to DVD to Blu-ray. Each time, it leads people to rebuild their collections from scratch. It's only a matter of time until we see a similar shift away from Blu-ray.

Granted, that shift is still a while off, but when it does happen, you may not care for your Blu-ray collection anymore.

In contrast, as 4K gained popularity, Apple upgraded thousands of movies in its library from HD to 4K. If you already owned one of these movies, Apple upgraded you to 4K for free.

Apple isn't the only retailer to do this either, as Google also upgraded people's movies to 4K.

Free upgrades aren't necessarily going to happen again in the future, but they might. Whereas you definitely won't ever be able to upgrade a physical Blu-ray collection for free.

Since we're talking about future-proofing your movie collection, it's also worth mentioning rights ownership.

As lots of people like to point out, when you buy a digital movie, what you really buy is a license to watch that movie through that digital store. If Apple, for example, lost the rights to distribute a particular movie, it might vanish from your library as well, no matter how much you paid for it. This doesn't happen very often, but it has happened occasionally.

With a Blu-ray, you can keep watching it forever no matter who owns the rights. But as time goes on, you do need to worry about keeping your Blu-rays in working condition. Any number of problems, from scratching to damp to flooding, can cause your Blu-rays to stop working.

Related: How to Fix Common CD, DVD, and Blu-ray Drive Errors

The plus-side of Apple owning all your movies is that it's Apple's responsibility to keep them in working order. You can trust Apple to keep backups of all the movie files on its servers, but you aren't likely to manually backup your Blu-ray collection.

How to Choose Between Physical and Digital Movies

If you're still struggling to decide between a physical and digital movie collection, here are some hard and fast rules to help.

Choose a physical movie collection if:

  • You want the absolute highest quality picture and sound.
  • You want to display your movies in your home for all to see.
  • You prefer to save money by buying and selling second-hand Blu-rays.
  • You want to watch all the bonus features and listen to all the commentaries.

Choose a digital movie collection if:

  • You don't want to dedicate space for hundreds of Blu-ray boxes.
  • You like instantly switching between movies without changing a disc.
  • You want to access your entire movie collection on any device in any place.
  • You want the ability to buy and watch almost any movie without going anywhere.

We've offered a fairly detailed overview of all the major talking points when comparing physical and digital movies. However, as you've seen, there isn't exactly a clear-cut winner. The debate rages on, and it's down to you to choose where your priorities lie.