If you love a particular show, you should consider buying it instead of streaming it. While streaming is a good way to get access to a variety of shows and movies, there are plenty of titles out there that some homes mainly pay a subscription fee to access. Over enough time, the cost of those monthly subscription payments add up and can greatly eclipse the cost of buying the entire collection.
The Office continues to be a hugely popular title to stream and this also means it is a good candidate to consider buying. Right now, Fandango at Home (formerly Vudu) is offering the The Office: The Complete Series (includes series 1 through 9) for $99.99. While it is possible to buy each season on its own, the bundle is significantly cheaper right now.
A Peacock subscription is required to stream The Office, and the cheapest Peacock Premier plan costs $5.99 a month. If you want to watch The Office without ads, you are looking at paying $11.99 a month. If you only subscribe to ad-free Peacock to watch The Office, it takes about eight months before you end up paying more than you would have if you just bought the collection for $99.99.
The same is true for movies. Take the Harry Potter franchise as an example. There are eight movies in total and while each one requires a purchase, it is possible to buy the entire collection, and often, on sale. Right now Amazon is selling the Harry Potter 8-Film Collection (digital) for $78.99. Fandango at Home is also currently selling the Harry Potter Complete 8-Film Collection at the same price.
When it comes to streaming, the Harry Potter movies are one of those collections that has continually rotated between Max and Peacock. As a result, those paying to have continual access to these movies are paying a minimum of $5.99 a month for Peacock or $9.99 a month for Max.
Once again, these prices are for the ‘with ads’ plans. If you want to watch the movies without ads, Peacock costs $11.99 a month and Max costs a minimum of $15.99 a month. At these ad-free prices, subscribers would pay the current digital collection purchase price in around six months.
Of course, if you subscribe to a service for access to the rest of the catalog, and would continue paying for the service even if purchasing the collection, then it won’t be worth buying the Harry Potter collection. However, if you only subscribed to a service for these movies, it is going to be cheaper in the long run to just purchase them.
Don’t forget about Movies Anywhere support
If opting to purchase a show or movie collection then it is worth keeping Movies Anywhere support in mind. While not every digital title comes with Movies Anywhere support, many do, and this support makes it possible to access the same digital purchases through a variety of different apps and services.
For example, the Harry Potter Complete 8-Film Collection on Fandango at Home is listed as Movies Anywhere compatible and this means if buying through Fandango at Home, it should be possible to access the same movies through a variety of other apps, including Apple TV, Google Play, Microsoft Movies & TV, Prime Video and YouTube.
You do have to connect your accounts through Movies Anywhere to be able to access titles across the different services, but the process is quick through the Movies Anywhere website, and is a nice benefit to have access to.
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