Buy Online/Save Money
I recently purchased a copy of This Perfect World by Freedy Johnston and discovered a significant advantage to buying retail over digital. 
The first advantage is obvious. With used copies for as little as 1¢ and new for $3.95, packaged media is far less expensive. Other advantages are not so obvious. A good example is buying a CD allows me to rip to the audio format of my choosing rather than the preference of the retailer. While an iTunes purchase would have my album in AAC or eMusic in VBR MP3, I’m free to encode with the format that best suits my audio needs. In this case, I’ve chosen the lossless WMA codec. Retailers like Zunior.com have a lossless option but at additional cost. 
On February 12th, I purchased a new copy of This Perfect World for $2.99 which included shipping and received it on February 15th. The biggest drawback is the delay in shipping but I didn’t need instant gratification and saved $5 from Amazon’s MP3 album cost of $8.96. Amazon still made a little from this purchase. One of the primary reasons I do most of my shopping on Amazon is because of the wide array of choices at better-than-Walmart prices. I believe they may be the only retailer who offers digital downloads, retail, and redistributed media. 
What follows is the cost of downloading the same album from some of the other popular retailers:
Make Your Own Music: The Freedom To Choose Your Own Format
I’m very picky about my audio files and want this section to be a quick run-through on audio compression without being overly technical. Put simply, audio compression takes an original audio file and puts it into a smaller container, the most popular of which is MP3. There are many compression methods but they come in two flavors: lossy and lossless. Lossy loses some audio quality while lossless claims not to. MP3 files are the most compatible across portable media players. Most portable media players will also play WMA and some will play lossless FLAC files. While there are many audio formats like ogg, Monkey’s Audio, AAC, and M4A, I’m sticking with MP3, FLAC, and WMA because these formats work best on the player I use, a Creative Zen X-Fi2.
There are just as many methods for doing this as there are formats. I use MediaMonkey not only for ripping audio but also for managing the audio collection on my PC and portable media player. I won’t go into the specifics about doing this but here’s a screenshot showing all the choices I have using MediaMonkey: 
The end result is the album I wanted in the digital format I chose for $2.99 instead of AAC for $9.99 or MP3 from Amazon for $8.96.
Not Just Music For Less
Freedom like this can terrify retailers. Instead of responding with lower prices, illegal downloading has turned into a scapegoat for proprietary formats and encryption methods. Every step towards better encryption results in even better decryption. While not acknowledged formally, retailers of DVD burning suites are aware of consumers’ wants and provide methods for exporting audio and video to compressed formats. 
Like the audio CD example above, consumers can save big by purchasing new or used DVDs online and converting them to the video format of their choosing. This not only results in a digital copy but one that can be transferred between all your media players. In my case, I have the freedom to playback my media between a Zen, G1, PS3, laptop, and two PCs. Most digital downloads are locked to the device the media was downloaded to.
To purchase a used copy of The Devil’s Backbone on DVD from Amazon in very good condition is $5.97 ($2.99 + $2.98 S&H). A digital download from Amazon’s video on demand service is $9.99. 
At the moment, because retail media still remains a viable option, it is the less expensive choice. It’s also the better choice for the savvy shopper looking for options in the format of their digital media. This will remain the case unless retailers give in to lower prices, develop unbreakable encryption methods, or lobbyists succeed in the pursuit of intellectual property lockdown. In the meantime, enjoy the cost benefits of online shopping and avoid the digital market altogether.
