Plex and Jellyfin are both excellent products for when you want to build out a personal media server. Using either application, you can effectively stream your personally-owned digital movie and TV show files from anywhere else in the world, so long as you have a stable internet connection.
Often left out of the conversation, however, is Movies Anywhere — a digital rights locker service owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company. Movies Anywhere isn’t a one-to-one replica of Plex or Jellyfin — rather than relying on your own home-grown local media, the platform ropes in your digital purchases from various services and storefronts like Amazon Video and Google TV.
What sets Movies Anywhere apart is its proprietary KeyChest synchronization platform, which centralizes your digital library under a single, unified locker account. In other words, Movies Anywhere can surface your collection of content from a variety of sources, whether they be purchased digitally, redeemed from an access code, or otherwise.
Movies Anywhere lives up to its name
The service streamlines access to your digital content library
What I love about Movies Anywhere is that it (partially) sidesteps the issue of digital rights management (DRM). Using the service, I don’t have to worry about the tedious process of unlocking and ripping 4K UHD Blu-ray discs to place on a media server, nor do I have to deal with dragging and dropping files, understanding whether said files are DRM-protected, or any other mystery factor.
Movies Anywhere is also great in that it simply makes life easier. Juggling a variety of online accounts is a hassle, and knowing which service a certain show or film has been previously purchased on can get confusing really quickly. With the help of Movies Anywhere, I only need to worry about a single login credential, and, from there, it’s off to the races.
…Movies Anywhere is yet another tool worth maintaining in your arsenal.
Now, I’m not suggesting you throw Plex and Jellyfin out the window — they’re both excellent solutions to have at your disposal, especially if you’re looking to digitize your existing disc collection. That being said, Movies Anywhere is yet another tool worth maintaining in your arsenal, particularly if you tend to purchase plenty of digital copies of movies and television shows. It can also connect to services like Fandango and Apple TV, which allows you to access your content across not only multiple devices, but multiple apps as well.
Personally, I’ve been using a mixture of all three services as of late. I love the flexibility that comes with this setup, and it means that, put together, I always have access to my content library. Collectively, these tools have also helped me reduce my reliance on traditional paid streaming services, too, which I’ve been attempting to wean off of as of late.
