iTunes in the Cloud for Movies Goes Live in 11 New European Countries, Also for TV Shows in France

[charlituna]

Originally Posted by nrose101

I agree. Half my movies I had to redownload a year ago are now gone. I contact Apple and they say there is nothing they can do.

That's because there isn't. Online services are deemed the same as broadcast and when the Studio that made the movie gives HBO or whomever exclusive broadcast rights Apple has to remove redownloading.

The only way to fix it is to get services like iTunes and Amazon seems legally the same as home video ( ie the DVDs etc you buy at Best Buy)

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Originally Posted by Macwick

What they really need to roll out next is an iTunes Match equivalent for video.

IF, and it is highly unlikely, the studios allow it you can bet it won't be $25 a year or up to 25k videos. Try more like $250 for perhaps 2500 videos. Because to them this will encourage piracy rather than purchase. Oh and they will limit redownloads to no better than 720p ever, if not 480p

And they will want it restricted to whatever is in your geographical store with titles blocked if they do one of their exclusive deals and no uploading of videos what can't be matched.

[Lightivity]

Haha, what? So Sweden gets movies in the cloud but not music??

[Skoopman]

You gotta be kidding me. Freaking Moldova has iTunes Match for quite some time and the Romanian idiots still couldn't come to an agreement with Apple? This is nuts, I want my movies and iTunes Match.

[SmileyBlast!]

I hope they find a way to insure that the media you buy perpetual rights to remains available to you,
I'm already seeing reports on here of how people have purchased things and then can't access them with Apple Support not being able or willing to help.

I also heard that Bruce Willis was thinking of Suing Apple over his $3500 iTunes library that he won't be able to Will to his kids. When he dies his collection evaporates. I'm sure that will be the case for all of us too.

That is one reason to buy the physical media version of something.

[SockRolid]

Originally Posted by MacRumors

[...] iTunes in the Cloud support for TV shows remains much more limited, with France becoming just the fifth country to see the feature, joining Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. [...]

Whatever Apple is planning for the TV industry, it has to be a worldwide solution. It will require negotiations with dozens or hundreds of various existing business entities around the world, and is guaranteed to not please every existing business entity that already has a stake in the TV industry.

And it might require some kind of crisis in the TV industry before said entities sign contracts with Apple en masse. Remember the MP3 piracy in the late '90s / early '00s that nearly crushed the music industry? We might need to see either rampant TV show piracy like that or strong internet TV-based competition from independents before the bigger incumbent TV businesses come running to Apple.

Or maybe not. Maybe Apple can show everyone business plan that is absolutely golden. Either way, don't hold your breath. Lots of deals to cut.

But anyway, great news for France. Now there's a good chance that they can watch "Les sous-doués en vacances" on Apple TV through iTunes!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083110/

[Arrakeen]

Still no music in the cloud in Norway.

...just films, apps and books are available for redownloading in iTunes, and automatic downloading on the iPhone is still not possible for music. No matching either.

[Cavepainter]

Originally Posted by HobeSoundDarryl

What you have here is the problem of not really owning the content if you want to do what you are doing. Apple doesn't own this content, the studios own it. And they can stock or unstock the iTunes store as they wish. When the movie is available, you can stream it. When they take the movie out of the store, it's lost.

We don't own iTunes-purchased content at all (instead it's "lifetime license" at best). And if we don't download and store our purchases so that we have no dependency on iCloud, we can lose them at any time.

Buy the BD or DVD and actually own your media in a very full way. Rip it and store it in iTunes just like you ripped your CDs. This gets you almost all of the benefits & niceties of iTunes media management without the whims of the Studios or Apple affecting your perception of ownership. And instead of a "lifetime license" (where others get to decide what lifetime actually means), you actually own it such that you could sell it, will it, or give it away to someone else who could then fully own it too. If it's BD, you also get to decide the quality of the video (rather than the Studio or Apple deciding it for you) and can optionally enjoy a far superior audio track vs. 1992's Dolby Digital standard.

Yes, ripping is a hassle and storage has some cost but trusting a big corporation as caretaker of your media and that caretaker being entirely dependent on what their suppliers of that media want to provide- or take away- is begging for vanishing media and other anti-consumer surprises. iCloud is not the end-all, be-all answer... it's just one option. And a mentality of "stream everything from iCloud" is only music to the ears of those who sell (and increasingly pinch) bandwidth tiers... companies like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Comcast, Time Warner, etc.

But if you just own the Blu-Ray or DVD outright, how is Apple gonna make money off you for the rest of your life on that movie? Terrible idea. You're so old fashioned. Get with the Cloud.

[Akarin]

Am I the only one who finds that iTunes Match is a half-baked service? So far, for music, it is slow. Even on an iPhone 5, browsing a 20k songs library is laggy. On the Mac, the constant "getting your iTunes Match results" that takes a good 5 mins to disappear is seriously nerves breaking.

[HMI]

Originally Posted by Ballis

Scandinavia gets movies in the cloud before we get music in the cloud. Whats going on?!

You're on the other side of the planet. You're supposed to be doing things differently over there. It's a feature!

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Originally Posted by Cavepainter

But if you just own the Blu-Ray or DVD outright, how is Apple gonna make money off you for the rest of your life on that movie? Terrible idea. You're so old fashioned. Get with the Cloud.

Exactly. And it's not just Apple. It's also all of those companies that function as tollmaster between us and iCloud: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, etc. We're going from masters of our own content to buying into this concept of "just let Apple's iCloud take care of our stuff" and trusting a massive corporation as caretaker and other massive corporations to not overly rob us when we want to actually access our stuff in this iCloud.

Apple, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Comcast, Time Warner, et all thanks iCloud users for your (profitable) support now and forever into the future.

[Mike MA]

Originally Posted by Ballis

Scandinavia gets movies in the cloud before we get music in the cloud. Whats going on?!

Cough, Germany, cough....

[aurora21]

And they haven't even gotten i "TUNES" to work seamlessly in the cloud yet. I also have iTunes Match, it's horribly slow! I'm all spotify or Mog.

[Arrakeen]

It's getting better and better: Now I can download movies from the cloud in Norway (still no music!), but only on iTunes on Mac & PC but not on iTunes on my iPad. They are shown under "purchased" but I get the following error message: "This film can only be purchased as part of a bundle"

...as mentioned: the same movie can(!) be downloaded on iTunes Mac and PC.

@Apple: Please fix this, this is frustrating! *pfff*

[kako]

Originally Posted by Macwick

t's a small configuration change, not a new cloud service.

I think you've described every "new cloud service" ever. It's not a new idea, it's a buzzword. Not to say I don't appreciate better online services though.

Originally Posted by Macwick

What they really need to roll out next is an iTunes Match equivalent for video. I have plenty of video that I did not purchase from Apple (ripped DVDs, and tons of home movies).

Apple has a much more liberal approach to music than movies, in terms of piracy etc. They control so much of music, but movie and TV studios have been more reserved.

Their loss. If a studio doesn't have a TV show on Apple TV, or a movie available to rent, I download it and they get nothing.

[macs4nw]

Originally Posted by muzzymate

Wish they would get rid of the 25,000 song limit (or offer selective syncing). Amazon has a 250,000 limit but their web app is terrible. As currently implemented, iTunes Match is completely broken when your library hits 25,001 non iTunes tracks.

Wow, you must have a lot of music, dude. We've only got a 'paltry' 14k.

[soundr]

Great news for Cyprus

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Originally Posted by macs4nw

Wow, you must have a lot of music, dude. We've only got a 'paltry' 14k.

I tried to use iTunes Match, but I had over 25000 songs, so I couldn't even try it out.

[richman555]

I keep all of my iTunes content on an external hard drive. I just reached 1GB with music and movies. While hard drives can fail (knock wood), this seems to be the safest approach for now.

The cloud in its current state isn't really there for backup purposes. It is simply there for convenient streaming of content. For example I can stream to my Apple TV without having to turn on my computer. I can redownload some content, not all of it, and its not all that reliable.

If Apple was smart they would use this for a true full fledged backup solution. They only problem that still could exist is those companies that will not allow their/your content in the cloud.

[kyjaotkb]

Originally Posted by richman555

I keep all of my iTunes content on an external hard drive. I just reached 1GB with music and movies.

You may consider CD-ROM, it is a cool storage medium for your realmedia sounds and mpeg clips. I heard you can plug an external SCSI drive to your Mac, suonds awesome! Don't forget to add an SCSI terminator at the end of the chain. Plus, depending on your hardware, you might not want to burn at faster speeds than 1x.