The days of having to be at home or in the cinema to enjoy exciting action movies or soppy romantic comedies are gone. Now we can enjoy such entertainments while travelling by train, plane or car or in our hotel rooms. But should we drag around DVDs and Blu-rays or rely on data and streaming services?
For maximum image quality, Blu-rays are best. Compared to other formats, "the Blu-ray usually works at much higher data rates," says Andreas Sebayang from German IT portal Golem.de. Streams from the internet or movie files stored on a hard drive can't match them, nor can a DVD.
There's a wide range of portable DVD players available with folding screens or displays that can be attached to car headrests. The prices range from around 50 to 150 euros (55 to 165 dollars). But mobile players of Blu-ray discs are harder to find, Sebayang says.
"Notebooks with Blu-ray players are also rare as the trend towards mobile devices without optical drives continues."
Matthias Roessler from German computer magazine Chip says he knows the ideal device for watching movies while travelling: "Significantly larger than a smartphone, lighter and handier than a notebook: For movie fans who like watching blockbusters and series while on the go, tablets are just the thing."
To watch movies in good quality resolution and in their cinema format without black bars on the top and bottom of the display he recommends a Full HD tablet with a 16:10 display and at least 16 GB of memory.
"Some streaming services offer the option to store movies and series in the memory of a smartphone or tablet so that they can be viewed without an internet connection," says Sebayang.
Streaming services such as Amazon Prime and Sky offer this offline option, but not Netflix. When downloading the content beforehand, the user should consider the resolution - the higher the resolution, the more memory in the device it consumes.
The company Ultraviolet offers the option of a free digital version when you buy a DVD, Blu-ray or Blu-ray 3D of a movie or TV show which has the Ultraviolet logo on it.
"The strength of Ultraviolet is that it combines streaming, downloading and the physical disc," says Guido Randerath, chief editor of Heimkino, a German magazine on home cinema.
It's not easy to copy movies from a DVD or Blu-ray onto a notebook or tablet because of the copyright protection that's built in most cases.
If a disc isn't copy-protected, there are a number of options to transfer its content to a mobile device, for example the freeware programme Xmedia Recode which can also compress movies to preserve space.
Videos from platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo can be got onto devices for free via sites such as Keepvid.com.
To play the media once it's on your device, VLC Media Player is a good choice. It's free and supports virtually every video format.
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