The Dark Knight Rises, did you buy the Blu-ray or 1080p iTunes ?

[GarrettL1979]

Originally Posted by NightStorm

And just as I posted my last response... Amazon.com posted the Indiana Jones Bluray Collection for $39.99. Guess I'll have another four movies to convert. =)

Dang-- I missed this. It's back up to $65 today.

[jtrenthacker]

I plan on buying the bluray. For movies that I know I will watch multiple times, I want the best audio/video experience I can get. Besides, I can rip it to itunes if I want.

[randy98mtu]

I buy the bluray and rip. Just getting my home theater up and running, so I want the best sound and picture I can get. When I watch in the theater, I use the bluray. If I'm just watching upstairs or not sure what I want to watch in the theater, the ATV with all my rips is a dream. I'll take the hassle for having the 100% uncompressed version on disc. I do the same for music still, as well.

[green94]

I've been buying all of my movies on iTunes lately and I love it. I do have a question though, it seems like more and more movies are incorporating digital downloads in HD that you can download via iTunes.

Is TDKR one of these Blurays where I can download the digital copy from iTunes in HD?

[crzdcolombian]

Originally Posted by ELMI0001

Bought it on iTunes but have not watched it yet.

Watch Lifehacker.com for iTunes gift card discounts. I bought the Best Buy black friday $100 iTunes card for $80. I basically get everything 20% off on iTunes. Therefore, I paid $18 for the HD Dark Knight Rises.

No need for the disc, I don't have a blu-ray player and don't plan to buy one if I don't need to.

Not concerned about reselling the movie or willing it to anyone.

I got it for 18 bucks on blu ray with ultraviolet. Why is everyone obssessed with iTunes. I have gotten flixster to send me itunes copies of movies and they are sending me a iTunes copy of the new spiderman so i hope I can get them to send me a copy of Batman although it says it right on the back of the blu ray case NO ITUNES included so I might be out of luck on that

[Roy Hobbs]

Does the iTunes version of Dark Knight Rises switch aspect ratio during the IMAX scenes like the blu-ray?

The Ultraviolet(Flixster) version doesn't and it's annoying

[atandon]

Originally Posted by crzdcolombian

I got it for 18 bucks on blu ray with ultraviolet. Why is everyone obssessed with iTunes. I have gotten flixster to send me itunes copies of movies and they are sending me a iTunes copy of the new spiderman so i hope I can get them to send me a copy of Batman although it says it right on the back of the blu ray case NO ITUNES included so I might be out of luck on that

Sorry but I didnt get that comment regarding flixster sending u itunes copies of movies. Can u elaborate

FWIW, I have a flixster account linked to my ultraviolet account

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I personally buy the blu ray disc after migrating to a projector setup at home

On my 90 inch screen, movie purchased via iTunes look softer
In fact vudu HDX streams also look better.

I personally would love to see iTunes supporting better quality streams. But I won't hold my breadth since I know that the number of folks using big screens are in the minority

[TrackZ]

I bought the Dark Knight 3 pack at BB on Blu-ray for $30 and also bought the iTunes HD copy. I plan to do a lot of comparing and blind testing of friends with this film to use it as a basis for determining whether I will be sticking more to BD or iTunes.

Also plan to run a Handbrake encode of the BD rip at higher quality (CF 18 and 640k DD) to use as a third sample. I'm amazed that iTunes HD copies come with only 384k DD audio surround tracks. Apple seriously needs to step up to DD Plus audio. That plus a slight bump in video bit rate and iTunes would be a serious contender to BD, even on more expensive setups.

I did also redeemed the UV/Flixster digital copies of the films. They appear to have redeemed in SD, although I only tested playback on my iPad Mini. The stream looked like total garbage.

The whole UV system is just a clusterbleep IMO. You have Flixster, VUDU, UV, CinemaNow, etc. All these systems require their own accounts, and they are all linked but in a really confusing unclear manner. I can't imagine any normal consumer making sense of it.

It's a total crapshoot though what movies propogate through to which service. For example, Jaws redeemed through UV shows up in VUDU and Flixster. The 3 Batman films though don't seem to have gone through to my VUDU.

Apple can kill UV so badly if they push the envelope further in their quality. iTunes and the Apple ecosystem is so much simpler to use, especially with the recent iTunes 11 update and hopefully continued improvements coming to that and AppleTV.

I have a 57" TV right now and just use TV audio in my temporary living arrangement, but I'm moving into my new house next year. There's I'll end up pouring somewhere between $12k and $18k into an 80" or 90" TV, 7.2 Triad speakers, top end receiver or mid-level separates, etc. I'm trying to figure out what the right form factor for my content is (iTunes, BD, BD encoded for iTunes, etc). I just bought a Popcorn Hour A-400 I'm experimenting with. It just leaves so much to be desired in simplicity compared to the Apple stuff.

[atandon]

TrackZ, agree with u on the messy state of ultraviolet
But I honestly believe, if executed properly, it can be a good solution


But with that said, apple does the best job simplifying things. To boot, their encodes don't suffer from issues like audio out of sync, cropping, etc (something i see with some vudu streams)
Now if only we could get a HDX equivalent in picture and audio quality

The other problem right now. With studios pushing ultraviolet, we are seeing some of them drop iTunes digital copies.
And even if they do provide one, no guarantee its in HD

Sigh! This fragmentation is infuriating

[randy98mtu]

I signed up for Flixster/UV just to get my digital copy of Rises. Nothing worked and I will probably never bother with it again. I was just getting error messages and nothing ever showed up in either place. Since I already know how to rip and encode, I am not going to spend much time trying to figure it out but also won't put any value in UV digital copies in the future.

[iHailCarlo]

I will be getting the Trilogy BluRay set. Just some things I need to have on disc.

[starkmj]

Originally Posted by randy98mtu

I signed up for Flixster/UV just to get my digital copy of Rises. Nothing worked and I will probably never bother with it again. I was just getting error messages and nothing ever showed up in either place. Since I already know how to rip and encode, I am not going to spend much time trying to figure it out but also won't put any value in UV digital copies in the future.

...is why I didn't buy it on Blu Ray. No iTunes digital copy? Forget it. And even if it did have it, it would probably be in SD.

I'm tired of ripping my own copies, and think the iTunes encodes look great. Maybe they aren't "quite" as good as the BR, but the ability to easily watch in HD on my apple tv, transfer it to iPad or iphone, and download it anywhere I am from the cloud, is enough reasons for me to go this route.

[jbachandouris]

I had preordered the Bluray collectors tin at BestBuy. I changed my mind and bought on iTunes gift card and went through iTunes instead.

Sigh, I still don't own a Bluray player and my HD TV is only 26".

[randy98mtu]

Originally Posted by starkmj

...is why I didn't buy it on Blu Ray. No iTunes digital copy? Forget it. And even if it did have it, it would probably be in SD.

I'm tired of ripping my own copies, and think the iTunes encodes look great. Maybe they aren't "quite" as good as the BR, but the ability to easily watch in HD on my apple tv, transfer it to iPad or iphone, and download it anywhere I am from the cloud, is enough reasons for me to go this route.

I'm all for the convenience. And I still rip the movie so I have the convenience in watching. My recently completed theater has an 11' wide 2.4:1 screen though. That's 143" in full screen and about 112" at 16:9 with a 1080p projector. Those little differences start to show up. I haven't done any AB comparisons, but I prefer to have the full lossless audio as well. My 1080p encodes aren't bad by any means either, let alone the 720p. 480p digital copies are almost unwatchable to me now though.

[dgalvan123]

good thread.

For this movie:
I expect Santa will be bringing it to me on Blu-ray.

In general:
It's clear everyone is trying to figure out the best balance of future-proofing (blu-ray probably wins here) vs. convenience (iTunes wins here).

Of course if you buy blu-ray you can have the best of both worlds if you make the extra effort to rip (less convenient), and you still don't get iCloud streaming if the movie didn't come from iTunes.

I follow two models, currently: Movies for Me and Movies for Kids

-------------
Movies for me:
I rarely buy any movies for myself anymore, since I know from experience that even when I own them I rarely watch them (maybe 2-3 times a year for movies I REALLY like, like the Dark Knight. Maybe once every 5 years for movies I like but am not as excited about, say Monty Python and the Holy Grail).

For the vast majority of movies I like, the fact that I have access to them through Netflix serves my interests perfectly. Why bother buying another disk (or even file) that is going to sit unused except for a couple times over multi-year timescales. I watch most movies for the first time when they get to Netflix anyway, and use it for easy access to kids-shows and old TV seasons anyway.

For those very few movies I love SO MUCH I just have to own (the Nolan Batman movies qualify, as do Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, etc.), I buy on Blu-ray. I figure that's the most future-proof, and will allow me to rip to have the movie on any device I want, and have the disk as a backup.

--------------
Movies for kids:

I have a 2.5 year old son and a 10 month old daughter. I love introducing my boy to classic Disney animation. When he hooks on to one that he LOVES (right now it is Cars), he always asks to watch it. While we don't let him watch all that much TV/movies at home, when we make long car trips it is nice to have a movie or two for him.

So this is a much different rate of usage than the previous model: kids want to watch the same movie over-and-over again, and often the best time is on the road when netflix streaming is unreliable or bandwidth limiting at best. So here I am buying (or getting as gifts) the blu-ray/DVD combo packs. The DVD is immediately ripped and handbrake'd into iTunes, so it can go to the Apple TV or the iPad or even our iphones for travel. The Blu-ray is for future-proofing. (I don't have a Blu-ray drive for my computer yet, and can't justify buying one right this moment because my biggest TV is only 37", but in the next couple of years I expect we'll upgrade our TV and then I'll want to upgrade my rips to 1080p. But for right now the DVD is plenty resolution for the iPad screen and for my son's non-critical eyes. Plus the file size is much lower than the Blu ray rips would be, so I can fit more programs on an iPad if they came from a DVD.

[GarrettL1979]

Originally Posted by dgalvan123

good thread.
I have a 2.5 year old son and a 10 month old daughter.

Same here! My son loves Cars too. And you're definitely right about kids wanting to watch the same things over and over...

[iphone1105]

Lately I have switched to an all digital movie library. i Truly love the ease of use between my iTunes, Apple TV's, and numerous iPhones and iPads in the house.

I watched my iTunes HD Copy of TDKR last night, and me and the lady had a splendid viewing experience on our 55" LCD!

[atandon]

Nice post dgalvan123
Kinda summarizes my viewing habits (and movie choices)

[Che Castro]

Also bluray is gonna be around for a while but a better thing will come along & replace it , your going to have those bluray movies collecting dust
Like I do with my DVD movies & VHS

[ASP272]

If I want to own a movie I always buy the Blu-Ray that comes with the iTunes digital download. That way I have the best of both worlds. High end video and audio for my big bad Samsung TV and sound system and a digital iTunes version that streams to all my iOS devices via iCloud (and is always higher quality than my iPad 2 or iPhone 5 can display anyway! However I caught The Dark Knight Blu-Ray trilogy when it was on sale on Amazon for just $24 so I had to grab it. It comes with the Ultraviolet versions as well, though no iTunes. Still, I want to watch this series of movies with my big screen and big sound, not on a tiny iOS screen. But that's just me.

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Originally Posted by Che Castro

Also bluray is gonna be around for a while but a better thing will come along & replace it , your going to have those bluray movies collecting dust
Like I do with my DVD movies & VHS

Of course nothing says the digital version locked to iTunes won't require an upgrade fee to higher quality in the future. The Production Companies like- and make a LOT of money- selling us the same movies over and over. They won't want that to end just to help Apple's proposition be better (for Apple).

And even if we just have faith that we will get to upgrade the quality of Apple iTunes purchases, we're starting from a lower quality than BD now. So maybe the first upgrade will move toward what BD has been for a couple of years now. Frankly, that would be great in and of itself.

The BD buyer can save some money now, get extras (if the extras are important to them), make an iTunes version for most of the convenience & iDevice compatibility, loan it to a friend, sell it to someone else, will it to loved ones, and on and on. When the new standard actually gets here- which I foresee as still a long ways off- the BD collector can sell off the collection and put the proceeds toward the new & better. If Apple doesn't get the Studios to just take the hit and give away free upgrades, the iTunes media collector is either stuck with what they have now or they pay up- perhaps in full or in part (but there's definitely no selling their iTunes collections "as is" today to someone else to subsidize the upgrade).

I can appreciate both sides of the view and the natural bias here toward whatever Apple pushes. I could even make a strong case that convenience trumps some benefits. But net:net? Generally, the same movies can be purchased for less on BD than iTunes, reasonably easily converted for iTunes convenience, and experienced at a higher quality of both picture & sound than what we can get from the iTunes version. It's "cheaper and better quality" vs. convenience (and what Apple wants us to want).

[Che Castro]

Last question about this

For those who got both Blu-ray Disc & iTunes 1080p

I don't care about audio that much cause my sound bar is not 5.1

But I do have a big screen tv so picture quality matters somewhat
If the bluray is a 10 best quality
What is the iTunes 1080p ? Like an 8 or 7

[Che Castro]

I found some examples

iTunes 1080p is on the left
Bluray is on the right







http://arstechnica.com/apple/guides/...y-shootout.ars

[HobeSoundDarryl]

If I'm not mistaken, the purpose of those examples was not to show an objective comparison of iTunes video vs. BD but to show how good iTunes can look vs. BD. If I'm right, that's a very biased comparison. For example, I could find a car that is entirely worn out on the inside, completely lacks an engine, etc but has a great "shell" and take a picture of it vs. a car that is well maintained inside & out. Both will look great in the 2 pictures. But one is clearly better than the other.

Video & audio is motion art. More compression means greater potential for motion artifacts. Dolby Digital vs. DTS Master or LPCM means highly compressed audio quality vs. up to uncompressed audio quality. Etc. Higher compression works by tossing out detail... detail that must then be recreated when the playback device tries to reconstitute the picture. More compression relies on algorithms to try to guess more of the detail of the picture to put it back together. Less compression means less guessing (more of what we're supposed to see and hear are captured in the file).

It may not matter to someone with a cheaper sound system (without surround) or a cheaper television. But what about next year when one might upgrade either? Higher quality sources maximizes the show on whatever hardware we own or buy. You get the best quality your HDTV and sound system can deliver. Upgrade the hardware and the software won't upgrade with it. In other words, if you have some software overkill now because the hardware is not high quality, no big loss; better software quality will look & sound as good as it can look & sound on the hardware you have. Upgrade the hardware, and better software will look better on the new hardware.

To each his own. If one is happy with iTunes quality and it's various limitations, great! If others prefer BD quality & sound, that's great too. It's not a everyone should go one way or the other argument. But that also means it's not a "since Apple wants us to favor iTunes, iTunes is the one and only way to go" argument either.

[Omne666]

Originally Posted by urkel

Ugh. Personally, I'm all for digital downloads but I hate salesmen because their "expertise" is nothing but justification for a predetermined conclusion.

Hmmm...salesman? Opinion only mate, as I see it. Don't work for Apple, and if I could buy from Amazon or who ever and have it work as seamlessly, I'd have no issue in doing so.

Originally Posted by urkel

a bunch of made up excuses just to promote an iTunes sale over a blu ray while omitting all the added value of physical media over digital.

Excuses? I'm purely talking about ease. I don't go to the Theatres expecting to see all the 'extra' bonus material there. I go to watch the film. Just matching the experience. And if I want to share the experience, I ask them along, I dont buy them tickets so they can go some other time.

Originally Posted by urkel

Bandwidth requirements. iTunes DRM. Inability to lend to family/friends. File quality etc.

Actually agree with first two, and even mention that as a draw back DRM = licensing. Bandwidth...that is neither Apples (or Amazons or any other providers problem)...the ATV wouldn't exist if it wasn't possible, and this discussion would be happening either. Bandwidth exists where it does, and where it doesn't, again, this discussion isn't relevant.

Originally Posted by urkel

Make a digital download half the cost of physical and ill throw away my BD drive, but for now iTunes is a cool but crippled experience.

Hell yes. Full agreement that alot of the content is over priced for what you get. Is all my content from the iTunes store? Of course not. My own DVD & BR rips plus elsewhere. Because of the price. Some I'm willing to pay what they're asking, others, not so, and I'll hunt out a bargain.

But regards crippled....I accept limitations, like sound, like full BR quality, because we all know, at this point in time, regardless of how good your connection is, full BR quality enmass over the wire, just isn't possible. But that iTunes to ATV experience, whilst far from perfect, is currently, better then a lot of other offerings.

Originally Posted by urkel

And whats with this idea that you need to wait by your mailbox like a dog or going into a store to pick up a movie is some sort of humiliating experience? Not everyone fears physical movement.

Gee, Amazon must have a helluva good front end store. Never been to it myself. Whats it like?

Originally Posted by urkel

You know why Apple no longer uses that mantra? Because it's no longer true. Apple makes great hardware but for the last few years their software and services have been mediocre at best (which is why their current restructuring is so exciting and necessary).

Yep. Agree the restructuring is welcome. But really, can you point to any one other company that can come close to the Apple experience in ALL areas? Not just one aspect of the business, but across the board experience? Never saying they're perfect. Never have been, but c'mon, who else even gives them a reasonable challenge across all areas at the same time? Its whats behind the term 'ecosystem'. Not one other company has it to the same extent.

Do I still think that they're products 'just work'? Hell yes. I've still yet to experience the traumas from Apple that I lived with in the Windows world for 15 years every time a new piece of hardware was added to the environment.