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Apple Holds Sale on Movie Collections in U.S. iTunes Store [Updated]
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I just got off of a chat with apple support, and this may have already been brought up, but the studios set the price for the movies. I've been trying to buy the Harry Potter collection for $10, and it has been flipping to $60. And I guess this isn't really an apple or itunes issue.
Not necessarily. I see where that's likely the case for most users, and I do use it that way sometimes, but I also have a library of movies where I place my rips and downloads in and stream across my house to avoid any buffering issues.
I get that there's a value in Apple "storing" the movie for me, making it accessible from any device any time, but considering the tremendous amount of bandwidth used by their business model anyway, I hardly consider that it's worth an additional $5-$10 per movie. The bandwidth costs are built into their business model. And convincing me to buy a technically inferior product (more compression, less options) over the physical disc requires offering me a perk I can't get with the physical product: 1) a lower price, and 2) accessibility. Plus, the costs are really set by the distributors and have nothing to do with Apple or bandwidth or anything like that.
Most movies offer the digital version anyway when you buy the disc - even if it's SD, that's fine for mobile device viewing for most people, and I'm using the BR rip at home, so buying the BR is still the best choice when I'm forced to choose between $20-$25 total for the rental + digital purchase vs $20-$25 for the rental and then subsequent BR purchase. Apple loses the sale to Amazon (or WalMart or Best Buy or whoever has the BR cheapest) despite being my first choice for consuming the movie, despite being the creator of the device I ultimately consume the movie through regardless. Either way, I'd even consider up to $20 for a digital movie (since a blu-ray, especially a new release, is typically $25 or so, depending on the title and the store).
I still stand by my idea of a rent->own conversion within the 24-hour rent period (I wouldn't allow the conversion past that period - it'd be strictly for users who have rented the movie and liked it enough to buy it within that window.) Would it cannibalize the market of buyers who purchase movies blindly without seeing them first? Maybe, but how many more sales would be made by accommodating the consumers who would make that impulse purchase after watching the movie? I think the numbers of blind purchases would be pretty low. Obviously going off my own experience here, but seldom do I buy a movie sight-unseen. I've either seen it at the theater, or rented a movie first (or seen it in... other ways) before I buy it. It has to be a really, really highly rated film and have had many friends and family suggest it for me to buy it without first seeing it.
Having kids, I don't get out to the theater that often, so if I knew I could rent a movie with the option of applying that money spent to the purchase of the movie, I'd both rent AND purchase more often. The only consuming practices potentially damaged by allowing this option is the aforementioned blind purchase, and the serial renters - and if you know you like a movie enough that you'd want to see it again, then why would you rent it again? It's like going to Six Flags - if you know you're going to go more than 1x a year, buy the season pass.
Case-in-point: rented a movie for my kids a couple weeks ago, for $2.99 (maybe $3.99, one or the other.) They liked it, we liked it, and the option to buy the movie was only $12. I felt that for $16 or so combined, the movie was worth the purchase. No I couldn't apply the rental cost towards the purchase, but the pricing on both was low enough that combined it made sense, and I knew we'd (they'd) watch the movie again enough times to pay for itself.
Again, I know that pricing is pretty much set by the distributors and not Apple, but it seems that Apple could still sell the movie at the distributor's price by doing the conversion within the rental period.
I would venture a guess that these prices reflect not only Apple's ideas but also the studio's wishes as well. And I got the Harry Potter collection last night because oddly enough, I was only going to watch one of them and buy it individually. Imagine my surprise!
Ok, I guess I missed out on the $9.99 bundles. Harry Potter is not even on it anymore.
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Exactly, 1080p should be STANDARD by now. With SD given for mobile use.
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Regardless of who's fault it is movies are still too expensive on iTunes, and there are hardly ever any decent sales.
I also think its ridiculous that we are still getting charged a premium for HD. How long have blurays been around now, about 7 or 8 years?
Exactly, 1080p should be STANDARD by now. With SD given for mobile use.
there is no direct connection between the itunes cloud and your home. apple has to peer with other networks to dump their data onto their networks. that costs money, usually based on the amount of data you transfer. most of the itunes content is hosted by akamai, and they pay the ISP's for the data they transfer
i understand apple has these costs, but the only advantage of digital vs physical now is less clutter
i understand apple has these costs, but the only advantage of digital vs physical now is less clutter
Lethal Weapon Bundle is posting US$19.99 which is more than the DVD that contains them all. I saw it for $10 in the B&M not long ago but I already own the single DVDs. I should just rip them and get it over with. I already ripped my HP, LOTR and Star Trek move collections of DVDs.
Bundles are: LOTR @ 18, Bourne 1-4 @ 30, HP @ 60, X-men 1-4 @ 25, Alvin & Chip, Star Trek movies 1-10 @ 50, Blade @ 18, Matrix @ 18, Lethal Weapon, Austin Powers @ 18, Hangover 1-2, TMNTurtles 1-3, Aurthur, Cinderella Story, Back to the Future @ 20, Jurassic Park @ 20, Scarface/Casino @ 13, Underworld @ 30, Charlie's Angles @ 13, Spiderman 1-3 @ 20, Die Hard 1-5 @ 40, Taken @ 13, Ice Age 1-3, Night at the Museum @ 13, Godfather @ 20 and Mean Girls/Clueless.
Bundles are: LOTR @ 18, Bourne 1-4 @ 30, HP @ 60, X-men 1-4 @ 25, Alvin & Chip, Star Trek movies 1-10 @ 50, Blade @ 18, Matrix @ 18, Lethal Weapon, Austin Powers @ 18, Hangover 1-2, TMNTurtles 1-3, Aurthur, Cinderella Story, Back to the Future @ 20, Jurassic Park @ 20, Scarface/Casino @ 13, Underworld @ 30, Charlie's Angles @ 13, Spiderman 1-3 @ 20, Die Hard 1-5 @ 40, Taken @ 13, Ice Age 1-3, Night at the Museum @ 13, Godfather @ 20 and Mean Girls/Clueless.
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Right. Because BluRay works on all my portable devices, including my TV, iPod, iMac, Mac Mini, iPhone, and iPad(s).
AND BluRay includes instantaneous replacement if I ever lose the original, right?
Is that a good deal in America? I picked up all 3 films in a Bluray boxset for £7 about 6 months ago!
I thought I'd have a look through these films and they're all overpriced. Police Academy collection part 1 is £18 in SD. Or you can buy the whole thing on DVD for £8. And why is a collection in 2 parts when all the films are already available?
At least music on iTunes is comparable to store prices. And it's not like you get anything in addition to the films, you get less for the price. And that's kind of shocking! (as someone who has never ventured onto the iTunes movie section in the past)
Oh man, I can't believe I missed getting every Harry Potter movie for $10. Guess I need to get up earlier. Grr, come on Apple, give me a chance!
Well all you need there is a £40 bluray player per TV, instead of a £99 Apple TV per TV.
I picked up a free HD TV show from iTunes during a Christmas giveaway event but it won't play on my iPod Classic (2008). Whereas all my films on physical media play on my 2006 PS3
.And if you don't want to lose them you can always do a backup. DVDs are very simple and I think there's a convertor for blurays too. Just incase you want digital download levels of backup security.
That's interesting to know, but it still makes my point, which is that the cost of the movie shouldn't be, and I don't believe is, influenced by bandwidth considerations. If you want to run a digital shop, you're going to consider bandwidth into your operating costs, not your price-per-movie cost (which again, is likely set by the distributor anyway.) Blu-ray sales aren't directly affected by the cost of making the disc, the case, printing the cover, and wrapping it in cellophane - at least not in a way that is directly visible to the consumer. If you want to sell movies, it's the cost of doing business.
In a way, though, that almost neutralizes the biggest argument towards digital copies being cheaper: if we aren't actually paying more for a movie based on how it's delivered to us, and the prices are set based on the perceived value of the content being provided, then why should digital copies be any less expensive? /shrugs/
It was never my main point anyway. I'll still harp on the "rent -> own" option not being available and its potential to increase both rentals and sales. Whether it's Apple or the distributors who prevent this from happening (because I'm confident I'm not the first to think of it) I believe they're missing an opportunity.
Not unless you wait for a sale price down to $9.99, which I usually do for the older titles I'm trying to collect back into my library. And at that point, it's only about 2.5 x the amount to make the purchase worthwhile, which isn't bad at all. Go out and get a 20% off iTunes gift card, and these prices get even better.
Convenience, iCloud support, and a cleaner house with less clutter for me. Oh and never having the risk of losing a blu-ray or having it stolen. I just don't want to deal with physical media. It's nice to know that if my house ever burned to the ground or drowned in a flash flood (please god forbid), my collection will be alive and well on iCloud.
Not a chance. No 1080p support. No iCloud support. I've stopped buying blu-rays three years ago (with the exception of the random japanese animation movie, and oh yes, Star Wars. Come on Lucas. Bring it over to iTunes already
).Which I find fine, personally. People who don't want to own physical media will always find value in the cost, which is competitively priced in my opinion.
I enjoy watching my 1080p iTunes movies and TV shows right on my 55" LED HDTV in my living room just fine, thank you. The quality is comparable to blu-ray and in my opinion, looks and sounds amazing on a big screen HDTV.
Blu-ray will always have better quality, yes. But in my opinion, it's marginal and insignificant.
If you paid sales tax on Amazon you actually paid a little bit more than just buying it on iTunes, right? Also, iTunes will have a sale on it down to $9.99 eventually.
But anyway, I liked your idea of being able to buy the movie with the difference in price after you rent it. I've had the same experience myself a couple of times. Apple could set a limitation on this too if it scares content providers. For example, since you only have 24 hours to watch a rented movie once after clicking play, they could make it where you can have kind of like a "Complete My Album" type system, where you can pay the difference in price to fully purchase it, but it would have to be within that 24 hour period. I would love for this to happen!
I disagree. It hasn't bothered me for the last 3 years that I've been buying heavily into iTunes content for similar prices to blu-ray and I'll tell you why. Both are competitive formats, both each with strengths and weakness that may or may not appeal to certain particular groups of customers. Of course as a consumer, I'd appreciate lower prices (who wouldn't?), and I wouldn't complain either way. But as I've repeatedly stated above, I value the convenience of iCloud and not having to own the physical copy over buying blu-ray. Did I mention that I think picture and sound quality is pretty great too? Ever since iTunes jumped on the 1080p bandwagon, I've been really pleased with the quality. There's another thing going for digital and that's exclusivity. Many hot new releases are getting 2 week exclusive releases ahead of their blu-ray counterparts. For example the Hobbit Extended Edition will be arriving end of October, versus the first week of November for blu-ray. Being a huge LOTR fan, I'll gladly put my $20 down on day one and will be enjoying it earlier than expected.
As for blu-ray, there are a bunch anal tech geeks out there that will argue numbers with you, like bitrate, color accuracy, compression, etc. And that's cool too. Hard core folks are always going to want perfect, pristine quality. Seriously, I used to be a huge blu-ray buff myself. But really, it's no more different than arguing why the iPhone 5 only has 1GB of RAM versus the Samsung Galaxy S3 which has 2 gig of RAM. For some, it's about user experience over hard specs. As an example of this convenience, on occasion, I'll drop by my parent's house for a visit, load up their Apple TV, log in my Apple ID, and immediately available is my entire collection to choose from and for us to enjoy for the evening. Gone are the days where I would have to think about what movie to bring over to a friend's or family member's house. And if they don't have an Apple TV, you could always bring an Apple digital AV adapter.
So really? Ultimately to each their own. I understand why many people still go for blu-ray, but I don't find the prices of iTunes out of line at all. In fact, they've gone down over the last few months, ranging from $14.99 to $17.99 for many new releases now. Of course, some box office heavy hitters, such as Star Trek Into Darkness and Man of Steel are always going to come out at $19.99, but all these titles now come standard with iTunes Extras, Dolby Digital 5.1, closed captioning, and with more and more english and multi-language subtitle support. I think it's really an awesome time to go digital.
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This is the first time I've ever gotten to take advantage of a sale/pricing error. $9.99 for all the HP movies in HD. It was a no-brainer. I even took a screenshot of the "purchase history" showing the $9.99, in case Apple wants to come after the people who bought it legitimately (even if it was Apple's and/or WB's error).
We'll call it an early gift from Apple and the least they can do for my upcoming purchase of a *new* MBP.
We'll call it an early gift from Apple and the least they can do for my upcoming purchase of a *new* MBP.
Funny, I did the same thing. I saw that $9.99 was charged to my cc so it should be good now.
Because I store videos on my storage media drive and play them through windows media center with media browser as a front. It's basically a digital library I can access anywhere in the house.
you can buy a blu ray with a digital copy and redeem it in itunes
otherwise DVD's from 15 years ago play in all blu ray players. and they will play in the upcoming 4K players as well. that's decades of compatibility right there
who knows what is going to happen with digital copies in 20 years? itunes is a growing business and in these cases its always customer oriented. once revenue/profits stop growing every company starts finding ways to charge customers more money
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This isn't correct anymore. There are several studios that have started including HD copies with their blu-rays, and I suspect this will become more common in the future.
See here for a list of all the movies: http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=212961
109 and counting...
Oh that's great. I stand corrected then. It's been a while since I've purchased one with a digital copy. Great for blu-ray owners for sure!
I paid $5.99 for the rental, plus tax, and would have paid $14.99 for the purchase on iTunes, plus tax; purchasing the blu-ray did also charge me tax (remember the good ole' tax free days on Amazon? sigh.) If you take out the rental, which - let's face it, the rental was consumed and gone, get to that in a minute - then I did pay more to own the movie by buying the blu-ray than I would have had I purchased the Apple version. (I'll continue this train of thought below.)
Thanks! I totally agree that there should be, and likely would be, a limitation as to how you can do it - I think that the 24 hour rent period would be realistic, in case I wake up the next morning liking the movie more than I did when I finished it (it's happened... a lot), but regardless, I think it would be a consumer-friendly implementation that would be a revenue booster. I just can't really see a downside to the idea. (I did submit it to the Apple feedback site, in case someone was going to suggest it - which is sort of hard to find for iTunes store topics.) Even from a consumer psychological perspective, had the movie been priced at $19.99 to buy digital but my $5.99 rental been applied to the purchase, I'd of done that over buying the physical copy.
(I apologize for chopping up your quote, but I wanted to address several points without taking up a whole page - seems we both tend to use a lot of words when making a case for something.
)Yeah, I sort of talked myself out of that one later, when I made the case that AFAIK they don't work in a charge for the physical distribution of the movie (we aren't "taxed" for the physical disc, the case, the printing of the artwork, the shipping to the store, the fuel, etc) and therefore shouldn't, and I believe don't, charge based on bandwidth considerations. The cost of the movie is based on the value of the content, not the sum total of the cost of creation and distribution + arbitrary profit. Now... if distributors treat movie distribution the way AT&T treats cell phone subsidies, and the $20-$30 cost of a movie DOES include the physical costs of the business, then... I do think that the digital version should be less expensive. I am too ignorant on the actual business model to say for sure one way or another.
And I own several Apple movies, actually. In the case of the one I just bought for the kids, they're able to take their devices to my in-laws and toss it up onto their apple TV to watch over there. Similar to your example, I've also gone over there and logged in with my account to watch movies. And despite the legality of the licensing, prior to moving a couple of years ago, I ripped all my DVDs and sold them off so I wouldn't have to keep up with the footprint of all that physical media. I have a home media library that's accessible from any Apple TV, parentally controlled for the kids, and love love love having online access to content, so believe me I agree with the value.
I agree that the quality of downloads has really stepped up, but even with an 18mb/s u-verse pipe I still sometimes get random hiccups that cause a movie to pause and buffer for a minutes. It's rare, but it happens. And I've also bought a couple of movies from the apple store that seemed to not handle the compression as well as others, where on a blu-ray it's not been an issue. It's usually seen in really dark scenes, and it tends to depend on the quality of the flim to begin with (my wife and I watch a lot of horror so it's usually in the indie horror films), but renting the same movie on disc later on (or watching a friend's disc) has shown that the gradient or pixilated effect isn't there on the disc. I don't know why that is, but it is. Paranormal Activity 4 was that way - it's a rare example of a movie we bought sight unseen because we're a fan of the series and wanted to grab it during the "early release" before it was available to rent. Watching it later with friends on the same TV but with a disc, the dark areas didn't have the same issue.
As far as the tech specs of a digital download vs a blu-ray disc, I'll be the first to tell you that I'm all about the experience. If I can't tell a difference, I don't care that there's a difference. BR may have higher bitrate and less compression etc., but if it's imperceptible by the human eye/brain, then who cares? I do require my movies have surround sound, but again - at some point I can't discern between a slightly compressed product vs a nearly (or completely) uncompressed one. I know people who INSIST there's a difference and that it's noticeable. /shrugs/ Not saying they're wrong, just saying I can't tell.
On the downside, I can't let a friend borrow an Apple Store movie, nor can I borrow a movie from a friend. I'll only buy the physical copies of movies I REALLY like, but that also means I want to share those movies with friends and family. As much as I'd like them to all come over and experience it on my setup, that's not always possible. In my situation, I'm getting the best of both worlds because I'll rip the BR and store it, then only watch the digital file, and often enough the movie I'm buying comes with a digital copy as well. In the past they've not always been HD versions, but that does seem to vary with the distributor (and don't get me started on downloads that "expire" - seriously?) On movies where I don't have a digital download available, I'm missing out on having the movie stored in the cloud, which I agree is a HUGE value (I currently subscribe to iTunes Match because I want the same accessibility and backup of my music, which is arguably less valuable than my movie collection, especially with Spotify etc available now) but I also back up my digital movies to a second drive and could, theoretically, store the physical media at my in-laws or something if I was worried about that too much. Again, not as nice or as elegant as in-the-cloud. And again, many of the movies do come with a digital copy that, if worse came to worse and my movies all DIAF, then I could live with even an SD version of a movie in the cloud until insurance paid for my replacements.
All in all, though, I agree with you. The digital option is a great purchase, the backup and accessibility is a fantastic value, and with the additional extras increasingly being added with the digital purchases, the content is matching up to a disc purchase. I'd love to see an "iTunes Match" for film one day - not sure we will, but it'd be nice.
Honestly, I'd have more faith in a digital copy being updated to be compatible than I would with a piece of hardware continuing to have backwards compatibility with older media. I'm not familiar with the 4k players coming out, but I do know that DVD and BR use different lasers, and I'd imagine 4K would as well... at some point it'll be determined that adding all those extra lasers isn't cost effective. I mean, look at console gaming systems. It used to be status quo that a new system would have backwards compatibility with the older games. It's taken a whopping 1 generation of systems to throw that expectation in the garbage. Now you're expected to keep your older device if you want to play older games.
I know that right now with consoles the digital purchase expectations are that digital purchases will not be compatible with newer systems, but IMO that's insane. When you're talking about digital distribution, you're getting to the heart of what the distributors and license holders have been saying for years: you don't own that movie/game, you're just licensed to consume it. The fact that you are holding a disc means nothing, that was simply the primary distribution method. With digital, as a consumer I'm expecting that my license carry across platforms, and that if I purchase that license it be good for whatever platform the media is capable of being consumed on. At the very least, it should either be an option when I purchase, or a lesser "upgrade" option later on. I shouldn't be expected to purchase the same movie or game for different systems if the content and experience are the same.
It isn't where we're at yet, but it's where we should be headed, if we as consumers insist upon it becoming the status quo. Since the physical barrier has been removed, then there's no reason a license for content should be restricted. Steam has an excellent business model for this: buy a game, and if it's mac AND pc compatible, you can install it on either. You can install it on as many machines as you wish, too, so long as it's only being played from one at a time. It's all tied to my account. Upgrading your system to increase the resolution doesn't cause the game to cost more, aside from DLC, patches to improve performance are included with the cost. Why can't film distribution be similar?
Anyway, my point is that I wouldn't put so much faith in the backwards compatibility of physical media, just because *right now* that's the case.