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tatonka

macrumors 6502
Aug 25, 2009
495
40
Very welcome addition, coincidentally I previously bought single House MD episodes only to later buy the season pass as well .. stupid me.

T.
 

hexonxonx

macrumors 601
Jul 4, 2007
4,610
1
Denver Colorado
And since digital copies come on DVD you can ignore the nice-backed-up-Hi-Def-with-much-better-compression-Blu-ray and use the digital copy part with any computer that has a DVD drive. In other words: Don't need one. And you still save money. Just saying.

The real downside is you have to wait until the season is over to get the episodes when you buy on physical media and many shows are timely or are fun because you can discuss them with others who are watching week to week.

More on topic, the best part about this is you can try a few episodes of a show before you commit to a season. The other way doesn't make much sense if you have ever gotten sick of a show. :)

Correct! I had every episode of Breaking Bad this past season when someone I knew was stills airing to get the FVD rental or to stream on Netflix.
 

trainwrecka

macrumors 6502a
Apr 24, 2007
515
709
Earth
Finally!

I have been waiting for this for awhile.

I always want to test out a show with a few episodes before committing, but then I miss out on the deal of buying a whole show at a discount.

Problem solved!
 

NightStorm

macrumors 68000
Jan 26, 2006
1,860
66
Whitehouse, OH
still makes no sense u can get the BD box incl. digital copy for less than those low quality iTunes rips

But you have to wait for the Bluray to be released... this is fine for most (as most people have cable/satellite), but for those that don't this is an excellent way to enjoy the content you want to watch.

In the end, this can save money too. I save annually by dropping my monthly cable subscription AND not purchasing season sets on Bluray/DVD. I buy only the shows I want to watch via iTunes season passes, and the net result is more money in by bank account to buy other Apple products. :)
 

Reborn

macrumors member
Dec 13, 2011
54
0
It's on baby... Now someone just needs to start making television shows that cater to people with triple-digit IQ's.

So in your opinion anyone with 100 IQ would find any of the shows stupid? What's your IQ? 001?
 
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Macboy Pro

macrumors 6502a
Feb 16, 2011
730
52
WAY WAY WAY Overpriced!

but not as overpriced as you would expect from Apple (the king of $25 memory for $200).
 

nylonsteel

macrumors 68000
Nov 5, 2010
1,549
489
re original article

hey - sounds good to me

though i dont use the service

this is a good option to have
 

robgreene

macrumors regular
Jan 12, 2008
202
584
Rent to Own Movies?

Now all we need iTunes to add is "Rent-to-Own" movies, where after renting a movie, it deducts the rental price from the purchase price if you choose to buy it.
 

sulliweb

macrumors 6502
Mar 13, 2011
250
8
I always want to test out a show with a few episodes before committing, but then I miss out on the deal of buying a whole show at a discount.

Problem solved!

Ok, I'm confused... I mean, I suppose I get what you're saying, but don't you watch the shows on TV before buying a season pass anyways? If the show isn't good enough to buy the season pass, wouldn't it mean the episodes aren't really good enough to buy???

Or maybe I'm just over thinking it...

For me, there are shows that are worth the risk (NCIS for example). I love the show, so until it starts to go downhill, I'm going to buy the season pass sight unseen. Then, there are new shows or shows that have slipped a little (Last year's season of Psych for example). I think it was the 4th or 5th episode of that season before I decided to go ahead and buy it. Nothing before that was really worth buying outsde of a season pass, and as a whole, it hadn't really measured up to buying a season pass either.

I'm still likely to keep the same practice simply because I'm not a big fan of partial seasons. I think I have 3 episodes total where I don't have the whole season... Just not my thing, so this isn't big news for me...

Now, if they'd give us the option to upgrade from SD to HD for a discount like you can with the iTunes+ to get DRM free copies of music... I'd jump on that in a second.

Update: This is only for current Season Pass Seasons... I went back and checked one of my older seasons, and it didn't have the Complete My Season option... Anywho, just for reference.
 
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mmjosh1010

macrumors newbie
Nov 30, 2006
4
0
Devon, United Kingdom
Yay at last, been hoping for this for ages. If there is a new show I like to purchase just a couple episodes to see if I like it and always thought it was a rip-off I then had to pay for those episodes again if I brought the season!
 

charlituna

macrumors G3
Jun 11, 2008
9,636
816
Los Angeles, CA
I noticed this yesterday. I still find it easier and more affordable to buy each show as it is released each week.

Given that there isn't really that great of a discount I agree. But I have several shows putting up features that are 'pass only' and sometimes later in the season. So now I can hit the complete button for that last ep and get the free stuff . Win.
 

Michael CM1

macrumors 603
Feb 4, 2008
5,681
276
About time. But what's still missing is an HD upgrade option. I bought the Dr. Horrible webisodes before Apple offered HD videos. Why can't I pay $1 to upgrade to the HD version?
 

haravikk

macrumors 65816
May 1, 2005
1,499
21
Anyone here buy tv series as opposed to streaming? What are your reasons?
While I almost never have time to, I prefer to know that I can re-watch a series without having to go back and buy another X months streaming license or whatever. I like having everything just be there on my computer, so I can watch anything I have, whenever I want. This is particularly good for comedy series where episodes may not bother with continuity so you can just open a random one and watch, or for multi-season series where I want to re-cap.

For some shows I may have a favourite season as well, that I can watch again and again. For example, the first season for Dexter, which is still by far the best, followed by the second (which I can also re-watch).


I think this is also a great feature for people that want to "try before they buy" as they can watch the first episode of a season with only a small charge, and then delve into the rest of the season if they liked what they saw.
 

newagemac

macrumors 68020
Mar 31, 2010
2,091
23
I'd like to see an iTunes Match for TV Shows. Let me buy at SD prices and upgrade to HD with my Match subscription. :D
 

SiliBear

macrumors member
Dec 3, 2007
45
0
Now we just need a button for "upgrade my SD television and movie purchases to the latest HD version" for a modest price. Just as was done in audio a few years back.
 

prhammer

macrumors newbie
May 12, 2011
23
1
What will the market bear

Prices for TV and movies are out to lunch, and it is very sad. This is a good step in the right direction, but we have a long way to go.

The math is easy to do. On average people watch 150 hours of TV a month. On average, a cable bill is 50 bucks. This is subsidized with commercials. This is where all the disagreements will come in. But triple the cost without subsidies seems very fair in my mind. So 1 dollar for 1 hour of TV from iTunes. Remember, a show like house is 45 minutes. So it should be 75 cents per episode. Anymore then that, and it doesn't add up.

That math may add up for you, but it doesn't make a lot of sense from an economics perspective. Price is not a fixed thing based on actual value - it is a simply a signaling mechanism for supply and demand. What will people pay? That's what establishes price. The networks and Apple simply determine a price that fits their economic model. TV Show Rentals apparently didn't make a lot of money, so they dropped them. I'm guessing they are making significant $ on TV Show purchases - as they clearly take up much more bandwidth than music. In fact if you make that comparison, an SD version of a TV show only costs 70 cents more than a song.

I purchase shows so that I can use them on any of my devices and don't have to worry about having a good connection for streaming. I also like to rewatch some shows, so it makes sense for me. Also, helps decrease DVR traffic.

----------

I think this is also a great feature for people that want to "try before they buy" as they can watch the first episode of a season with only a small charge, and then delve into the rest of the season if they liked what they saw.

I think this is the best reason. Also, some new shows don't let you buy a season pass initially until they are sure that the whole season is going to be produced. So if they offer the season pass halfway through the year after you've bought numerous episodes, I like the option to finish out the season. Sometimes I find myself holding off on buying individual episodes in hope that the season pass will become available and then I have a big backlog to watch!

----------

Complete My Season

Link to the Seasons that are eligible.

Sorry to see that it isn't for all shows. (Thanks for this link, I kept wondering why it wasn't showing up for me on some shows I have bought some episodes for.)
 

nwcs

macrumors 68030
Sep 21, 2009
2,722
5,262
Tennessee
I wonder if this will be the start of two really needed options:

1. Upgrade to HD which for a small fee will let you get the HD version of whatever you had before
2. Upgrade HD to 1080p HD when/if they start rolling out 1080p support

Bonus 3: Upgrade to DRM free someday like what eventually happened with music

----------

Anyone here buy tv series as opposed to streaming? What are your reasons?

Several reasons: offline viewing is number 1, what I want to watch isn't always available streaming, as content agreements with streaming providers change what I was watching may no longer be available in the future.

There are many reasons to stream but also a lot for not streaming.
 

jettredmont

macrumors 68030
Jul 25, 2002
2,731
328
With all the streaming options available these days I'm not sure why anyone would want to pay a relatively large amount of money to "purchase" a television series. You could pay for three months of streaming for the cost of one season.

Anyone here buy tv series as opposed to streaming? What are your reasons?

I do!

For TV shows that I immerse myself in and want to do "marathons" rather than disjointed episodic viewing, I buy instead of stream. And for TV shows that go on "sale" I've been known to bite.

I don't do Netflix (which doesn't have good current-season content to begin with) or Hulu Plus (which still requires the same commercials as regular Hulu).

For Hulu, a 60 minute show has 5-6 ad breaks (if I recall correctly), of about 30-60 seconds each. Still better than broadcast TV, but they are not skippable. A family of 6 spending 5 minutes watching commercials is 30 minutes of wasted time; we value 30 minutes of time well above $1.99 (hell, the 10 minutes spent in front of commercials for my wife and I is barely worth the $1.99 saved by renting our eyeballs out). So, for a "full family" show, I'd rather watch the show without ads than waste everyone's time.

Generally speaking, most of our TV watching comes from streaming. But there is definitely a point at which the ad-based model stops being effective for us.
 

jettredmont

macrumors 68030
Jul 25, 2002
2,731
328
Prices for TV and movies are out to lunch, and it is very sad. This is a good step in the right direction, but we have a long way to go.

The math is easy to do. On average people watch 150 hours of TV a month. On average, a cable bill is 50 bucks. This is subsidized with commercials. This is where all the disagreements will come in. But triple the cost without subsidies seems very fair in my mind. So 1 dollar for 1 hour of TV from iTunes. Remember, a show like house is 45 minutes. So it should be 75 cents per episode. Anymore then that, and it doesn't add up.

My family watches (per member) about 60 hours of TV per month, usually a bit less. At that, we're include two hours every single night (some nights we watch more, some night less). These are "true" hours, meaning 3 "hour-long" shows, sans the hour of commercials (or slightly more) that would have been included in those shows' normal runs.

Yes, when we had DirecTV we had the TV going pretty much all the time, but this was "time filler", not truly watched content. For that, the monthly bill was $85. Not sure what you get for $50/month, but the local cable provider here advertises that as a "first six months" deal for their $100-120/month packages. We'll take the relative bargain of $85/month for DirecTV as the basis, though, to skew conservative.

If we bought all those 60 hours of television on iTunes, we'd be spending around 90*1.99 or $180/month. That's obviously a lot more than DirecTV was asking, and would require that everyone watch the same 60 hours of content. In truth, we have about 90 hours of content being watched between the lot of us, which ends up at $210/month.

But then, we look at the various shows we watch.

1. Kids' shows can just be watched on Hulu or NickJr. I know, I hate the ads too, but the quality of the streaming doesn't matter to them, nor the commercial breaks.

2. "Fluff" shows can also be watched on Hulu. These are shows where if we miss a week we don't really care. When watching these shows, we all generally have some other device (iPad or laptop or book) within easy reach to fill the 5 minutes or so of commercials.

3. Episodic shows where visual quality isn't critical also can be watched on Hulu. If we miss too many weeks we might catch the non-Huluable episodes on iTunes, or we might just watch what's there and fill in the gaps ourselves.

4. Half-hour shows ... well, those go to Hulu because the price-per-minute is twice as much as hour-longs :) I suppose technically a really engrossing 30-minute show might warrant iTunes purchasing, but I haven't seen one of those in a long time.

That leaves pretty much nothing but "serious" shows for us to buy on iTunes. We spend about $20/month on iTunes shows. Leaves a good chunk of our former "entertainment budget" for use on things besides sitting in front of the TV (and also gives us a lot of flexibility to forego the TV episodes some months, etc).

In exchange, the 10 hour-longs we watch from iTunes are commercial-free, higher visual quality than 90% of what we got from DirecTV (and MUCH higher quality than we see in friends' houses who get cable), can be rewatched by everyone in the family, and can be watched on any screen we own inside or outside the house (from the 50" TV down to the iPads ... technically iPods/iPhones as well, but that's just masochistic unless traveling).

For 1/4 the cost, a significantly better experience? Makes sense to me. Would be a lot harder sale if so much of the "cable fluff" wasn't available streaming on Hulu et al, but as things stand it's a good deal.
 
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