I actually find the quality of DVDs to be very good with the right equipment. I’ve seen DVDs projected in movie theaters and they look good. There are bad transfers and I’d certainly take a BluRay over a DVD if there’s an option, but overall DVDs are still a solid format that I still use regularly. I’ve never had the urge to actively seek out an update to something I already have on DVD, though I might grab an upgrade if I see a sale or the mood takes me.

Because the assumption is there’s very little throughput. Storage isn’t really that expensive, but bandwidth is and Backblaze is only cheap if you aren’t trying to get at your data regularly. That’s fine for backups because hopefully you never need them.

EDIT: I should say that for an individual user, getting data out of Backblaze isn’t that expensive, but it’s more expensive than cold storage. I think they charge $.01 per GB transfered, so a 10GB movie would cost you about ten cents to stream. It would cost you $100 to recover a 10TB backup from Backblaze (though for a fee than can mail you some of that on a hard drive, I think).

Well, I was referring to the book Hyperion rather than the whole series. I actually wouldn’t necessarily recommend any of the sequels to Hyperion. They are fine, but forgettable and as hard as they try, they just don’t recapture the big ideas of the first.

So for me it’s Hyperion > Dune, but probably Dune Chronicles > Hyperion Cantos overall, especially in terms of ideas because I never warmed to Herbert’s style.

iOS or Android?

Hyperion is a bit uneven, but I wouldn’t call it dense. It’s deliberately exploring different literary genres, some more successfully than others, but I’d never call it difficult reading. Dune can be a real slog at time and there are parts when I’m not even clear who’s saying what.

Hyperion is one of my favorite books. It’s uneven, but very good. I’ve read the whole series and after the first one they are fine, but nothing to write home about. You can easily stop after the first book if you want something else.

Dune’s complete series is worthwhile, but I don’t really care for Herbert’s writing style. The universe is very rich and the series explores some of the great ideas in science fiction, but it’s like an RPG sourcebook masquerading as a novel to my tastes.

I’ll also pitch in Jellyfin+Finamp for a self hosted option. Navidrome is also very good, but if OP is already in the Jellyfin ecosystem, it’s a good choice.