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4K iTunes Content Limited to Streaming Only, No Downloads
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Out of interest how did you ever have enough? Unless you intended to watch the same movie several times over in the same month you’d always hit your cap
What a ridiculous comment. 4K is simply a matter of popping online or visiting the high street and buying a 4K tv. A 25mb+ internet connection is at the mercy of the local infrastructure and politics and in many places won’t be available for 10 to 20 years.
This is a stunning disappointment. I for one have never enjoyed streaming video on the AppleTV. I like to download and play from my library, which has always provided a flawless experience. I’m actually pretty bummed about this.
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Agreed. I may cancel my preorder. This would be a first for me. Not happy at all.
4k is also simply a matter of getting a blu ray player and popping in a 4k disc for those that can't get good internet speeds. simple solution.
having to get a spare computer/NAS to store 4k movies and leaving it on to stream it to TV isn't a good experience.
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the amount of people that owns a drobo with 5x 10TB just to store 4k videos because their internet sucks so bad that they can't stream is pretty small. unless your internet can stream fine, then you may as well let Apple store the 4k videos for you and leave your drives doing something else. or if you bothered to get all of that hardware, you may as well build your own set top box with airplay support. you aren't the typical customer that Apple is going for.
i didn't even mention anything about month data caps, what are you talking about?
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that's not the point. if you have to leave your internet downloading overnight to "prepare" your 4k hdr streaming experience for the next day because your internet sucks, and leave a computer/NAS on to beam it to your TV, you're better off grabbing a bluray and queueing up your netflix deliveries. better experience, at least in Apple's eyes.
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This is really a major fail,
I am receiving the AppleTV 4K today, but I will send it right back.
I never bought a movie in iTunes because of the price/quality compared to a BluRay disk, but with 4k being a better price then a disk I was planning to finally switch to iTunes for my movies.
not being able to download and have it as backup is just fail, and I'm certain licensing deals will change, and my 4K movies will not be able to play anymore, and the sole reason I hate streaming content.
you never "own" the digital movies, just a license to watch until licensing changes.
I hope the 4K streams get cracked soon, and all will be available in MKV format
UHD BluRay discs have the same issue though, they won't play 4K video if you're not connected to the licensing server. So if that server is taken offline you will lose your 4K content.
Probably, but in 1 or 2 years my 4K disk can be ripped to my hard drive, instead of the online content not being available anymore
Well this sucks big time ☹️☹️☹️.
Updated iTunes it clearly offers 4K movies, it’s plastered all over the front page advertising banner.
But I am deemed not suitable to stream as I don’t have an Apple TV.
My Mac mini is more than capable, streams 4K from Amazon and 4K YouTube and others, my 4K TV is directly connected to my Mac, my internet at 78gbps can handle streaming just fine but Apple is preventing me from doing so for artificial reasons, I can only assume to try and force me to purchase the Apple TV.
Unless they sort this mess out ASAP then to be honest it maybe time to move away and cut the Apple cord completely.
Not happy.
Updated iTunes it clearly offers 4K movies, it’s plastered all over the front page advertising banner.
But I am deemed not suitable to stream as I don’t have an Apple TV.
My Mac mini is more than capable, streams 4K from Amazon and 4K YouTube and others, my 4K TV is directly connected to my Mac, my internet at 78gbps can handle streaming just fine but Apple is preventing me from doing so for artificial reasons, I can only assume to try and force me to purchase the Apple TV.
Unless they sort this mess out ASAP then to be honest it maybe time to move away and cut the Apple cord completely.
Not happy.
Why somebody else should decide what should we do and how should we do it? Give us options - we will decide by ourselves, thank you.
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I'm not sure how 4k upgrades for free and 4k for the same price as HD is "going out of their way"?!?
Do I like that they are doing it that way, no. And by "they" I mean the movie industry, NOT Apple.
I pre-ordered the Apple TV 4K, and it'll be delivered today. I'll most likely not open it and just return it to my apple store. If I can't download the 4K movies to watch offline, I don't want it. I have plenty of storage space to keep the movies on. I wish apple would at least give the customers the choice. Heck, I would even be willing to pay an extra $5 for the ability to download the file (although I know I'm probably in the minority on that one). I re-purchase the 4k Apple TV when downloading is available.
Why can't you watch it on your iMac 5K? (My Mac doesn't make me download movies to watch them, it can stream them.)
So how does that work? You download a movie and watch it over and over so that you don't go over the limit? You download one movie every 3 days to build up your stock of stored movies? You download them are work?
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No. Heck, I assumed I could delete my 1080p movies and download them in 4K.
I thought 4K replaced 1080p for all purposes so I assumed clicking “play” from the store with no download would stream 4K.
You can't download movies on the Apple TV now. So why are people turning this into such a big deal? Sure you can dl movies in iOS, but watching a 4K movie on an iPad or iPhone is stupid, IMHO, and correct me if I'm wrong but can you even stream 4K and HDR from an Mac to your TV? Again, like mobile devices, imho watching 4K/HDR content on a laptop and monitor is also stupid. You might as well stick with 1080p. Again, my own personal opinion, I don't know what your eyeballs see.
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No, people steal content because they are THIEVES and in this case there's no consequences to being a criminal.
Stop trying to justify it and act like you are cool, or a "rebel." You aren't "Robin Hood," you are just a thief and no matter what content providers do you will ALWAYS find a reason to hate it and continue to steal it. Because you think you are ENTITLED to it.
The reason studios are so strict now is because people like you condone and glamorize piracy and they have to go to extreme lengths to rightly protect THEIR intellectual property. They spend hundreds of millions bringing you entertainment, but because you can't get it for $1 or FREE, however you want it, you think it's ok to just steal it.
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No, people steal content because they are THIEVES and in this case there's no consequences to being a criminal.
Stop trying to justify it and act like you are cool, or a "rebel." You aren't "Robin Hood," you are just a thief and no matter what content providers do you will ALWAYS find a reason to hate it and continue to steal it. Because you think you are ENTITLED to it.
The reason studios are so strict now is because people like you condone and glamorize piracy and they have to go to extreme lengths to rightly protect THEIR intellectual property. They spend hundreds of millions bringing you entertainment, but because you can't get it for $1 or FREE, however you want it, you think it's ok to just steal it.
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You seem to believe this is a choice Appple had to give. It may very well be the content owners’ stipulation. May just very well have been the trade off for getting retro upgrade of previously purchased content to 4K. I am sure the content owners lost out on that one.
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I think we suffer from short term memory. It was Steve Jobs who changed the ATV to a streaming only device. If memory serves correctly, he stated customers don’t want to manage their libraries. His vision was to move everything to the cloud.
If you just can't stream it because your internet is poor, or you simply prefer to DL then I understand why you would cancel. But to say you have great internet, but the fact that you can't DL because it hits the CAP makes zero sense.
Please tell me you understand that DL a video uses the same amount of data as streaming does.
Uh, I'll field this one for you.
Because Google and adore are in competition with one another!
(As in, no iMessage or FaceTime on Android).
There is a big difference between watching 20-30 movies a month versus downloading 20-30 movies a month (just numbers for illustration purposes). A person/family can very easily watch a higher number of movies that what they’ve bought within a given timeframe. So I’m this case, if you buy 1-2 new releases a week and download them at time of purchase, then watch those plus an additional 4-6 previously purchased movies in that same week you’re only using the 1-2 movies’ worth of data on your trip to your cap.
If everything is streaming, then each week, regardless of when you purchased the 5-8 movies you’re watching, you’re using the full amount of data for that batch on your trip to your cap.
You don’t have to watch the same movie several time over in the same month for this to make sense...