Do you guys redeem the digital codes that come with Blu-ray/4K discs?

I still buy movies on Blu-ray or 4K (depending on the price), but have never redeemed a single digital code that's included... Until tonight! I began to redeem all my digital codes (on Movies Anywhere) that I've had unused in their cases from the past 12 years or so of buying movies or shows that included them.

Here's what happened:

To begin, I knew there were expiration dates on them and wasn't expecting too many to still work.

However, Disney pulled through big time as ALL their movies worked (Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, etc.) even as far back as Brave (oldest one I had with a code), even if they had expiration dates. Among my Disney collection, only the few Studio Ghibli films I own didn't work for some reason.

Universal was very good too. They said subject to expiration, but I didn't see any firm dates and they all worked except for my copy ParaNorman (sad). It's a 3D Blu-ray, so maybe that's no longer supported?

Warner Bros, however, was the WORST. Not a single WB film or TV series I own had a code that still worked. And I own some recent films like Kong vs Godzilla and The Suicide Squad too! They all had very short redemption periods (only 1-2 years) and all followed that exact date it appears as all failed.

Interestingly, my How to Train Your Dragon 2 code worked despite having a 11/17 expiration date, but my How to Train Your Dragon 3 code did not... 2 was a Fox release, 3 was a Universal release, so maybe that's why?

My copy of Les Mis (2012) worked, and while I didn't see an expiration date, and Universal was doing great, I was still surprised given it's ten years old.

Another interesting find were all the Garfield and Holland Spider-Man films (and Into the Spider-Verse). They all had expiration dates well since past, but all their codes still worked. Same wasn't true for the few other Sony/Columbia films I own, though, which failed.

So overall, pretty good success except for Warner Bros. Not one WB film code worked, meaning they're very strict with the (short) expiration dates.

Out of the 197 codes I entered, 120 still worked. The 77 that didn't work, 64 were WB and the other 13 were random films from everyone else.

(I also own a lot of Funimation releases, but they have their own digital site/app to redeem their codes on that I'll try another time.)

I always found them a waste of space. I don’t think I’ve watched a dvd in almost 3 years

Universal will be alerted to it now and they'll be making sure to close that loophole.

I ignored the codes until a few years ago. Then I redeemed them because I was bored and sometimes it’s just easier to watch a movie on an iPad. Most of the codes redeemed except for very early Warner Brothers codes (I remember The Hangover and Observe and Report specifically).

Apparently it wasn’t until the last year or so that WB began to crackdown on the expiration dates. I’m not sure why (maybe to drive people to Max?). All the other companies are still pretty loose about it.

I have 1000+ codes on iTunes and Vudu and just under 1000 on Movies Anywhere. My physical collection isn’t going anywhere though. You don’t really own the films and any random title can be pulled (or edited…French Connection) at anytime.

We'd didn't want to hook up our old Xbox One S again just to watch a movie one night, so that's what led us to redeem the digital code (and all the others we've saved over the past decade+) and try the digital approach.

But yeah, not going to abandon physical media anytime soon. As you said, stuff can happen to digital media.
Unless I see a digital movie for a crazy good sale, I'm still getting the Blu-ray/4K release and they'll likely just remain on the shelf since we'll redeem the codes from now on for convenience.

Here's hoping Warner Bros. reverses their decision on digital codes because I have a lot of WB movies (including some just 1-2 years old that didn't work), but I'm not counting on it with all the poor decisions that have been made under Zaslav. They're trying to sell off 50% of the movie and TV music assets, licensing stuff to Netflix, etc., so they don't seem to care too much about their brand anymore.

Congrats on reaching 3,000+ DVDs, by the way! I've checked your collection in your signature a few times in the past.

Thanks!

Good call on this. Just redeemed Anchorman 2 on itunes. I always do it for my new 4k ones but just figured I wouldn't need to bother with old ones.

Edit*

Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz also worked. The World's End did not even though it was in the same 3-pack lol.
Jurassic World worked.
The websites they gave for Skyfall and The Force Awakens did not load.

Didn't see codes for any of the other blu rays I have left. Still, four free digital movies is pretty good. Especially since I get the 4k upgrade for free too. Thanks for the idea!

I found out today that some digital codes are included in just DVD releases, and some of those codes will get you the HD or even 4K versions of that movie.

So, I went back through my collection for just my DVD-only copies, and got roughly a 75/25 split between HD and SD digital redemptions. I read that Lionsgate, apparently, includes the same digital insert in all their movies regardless of format and will either be HD or 4K (depending on when they were released; HD for older releases, 4K for more recent releases).

I redeemed Knives Out (Blu-ray copy) on Vudu and got the 4K digital copy instead for example. I'm tempted to get the 10-Year Anniversary DVD-only release for The Hunger Games (all four films) for just $15 at Walmart since they'd all probably be 4K digital copies (HD at worst).

I also had a lot of (non-Disney) animated movies on just DVD (since they're usually super cheap in stores at like $5 or less, or heavily discounted on Black Friday and such), and all the ones with a code ended up being HD versions instead of SD except for just a couple. So, that was pretty cool.

Might be worth considering picking up some DVD copies of some movies when they're marked down for cheap to either get the HD or 4K digital version.

All of this excludes Warner Bros. though. They're being the jerks here and not allowing any codes to be redeemable past their expiration dates any longer (seems to have taken effect shortly after their Discovery merger), and those dates are usually just 1 year after release (at least recently). So... gotta buy (and redeem) WB films within the first year. I saw a $5 DVD of The Suicide Squad (with digital code included) yesterday at Walmart and got excited, except I saw the code already expired in Dec. 2022...