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Given that blurays are generally over $25 here in Canada, $20 for a 4K that is stored on the cloud I could live with. But it won't be there in Canada!

Its just digital media, do they realized that if they dropped it a little they would sell more? I don't advocate illegal activity, but that's where high prices drive people...

$20 USD = $25 CAD on iTunes.
 
Another cancerous thing is copy protection and annoying DRM.
Like, come on. We all know that someone will manage to rip it anyway.

The only ones having issues with DRM are your own paying customers which get annoyed and frustrated.
Add un-skippable ads and 2 minutes of FBI warnings into the mix and I've lost 10 minutes of my life before the movie has even started.

Piracy is free and manages to deliver a better user experience than any DVD or Bluray.
It's obvious that studios can't compete with the free part, but at least offer better user experience instead of worse.
Use a program called Tuneskit, it will rip the DRM out of iTunes movies. I use it for all of my purchases and then put them into Plex.
 
Hollywood has no sense of value. They've lived under the protection of IP monopoly for so long that they can't get their heads around the idea that providing value results in better returns.

Exactly. I think even Apple understands that to make lots of money, it has to be reasonably priced, otherwise people turn to pirated versions. Sell them for $15 and they will sell more than 10 times the number of movies that they sell at $30. Corporate greed is the ugly side of capitalism my friends.
 
I think all of these companies want more in revenue than what people want to pay for it. Why if at&t, Hulu, YouTube, Sony and sling can all negotiate streaming tv deals and Apple can’t do the same over a span of how many years? There’s something going on.
 
I hate blu-ray. I would prefer to get it off iTunes and not have to deal with the extra hassles and my time to rip of blu-ray myself.
Honestly worth it for the extra boost in quality; something like 3 GB from iTunes vs. 30 GB from BluRay for the same film. Definitely notice less compression blur while watching the Blu-Ray version, but it does take up a lot more storage space as well.
 
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Movies these days just put me to sleep. I prefer half hour shows on various topics, such as you find on PBS. I figure very few people will align with that idea, but it is what it is.
 
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Fun fact: If you calculate the selling price of VHS tape movies in 1980, it works out to $100 - $200 in today's dollars.

True facts: VHS tapes in 1980 were priced to sell only to rental stores. They weren't priced to sell to the end consumer (because it was expensive to mass produce the tapes then). And, in today's dollars it's more like $300-$500. (VHS movies cost between $150-$200 in 1980). The first VHS movie targeted for consumers to buy was "Star Trek II : The Wrath of Kahn" in 1983 for $40.00 ($100 today).

From Wiki:

Paramount released The Wrath of Khan on VHS and Beta in 1983. The studio sold the VHS for $39.95, $40 below contemporary movie cassette prices. It needed to sell 60,000 tapes to make the film as profitable as other tapes, but sold 120,000. The successful experiment was credited with instigating more competitive VHS pricing, an increase in the adoption of increasingly cheaper VHS players, and an industry-wide move away from rentals to sales as the bulk of videotape revenue.[99][100]

Please, investigate what you are talking about before saying something is a "fact."
 
Honestly worth it for the extra boost in quality; something like 3 GB from iTunes vs. 30 GB from BluRay for the same film. Definitely notice less compression blur while watching the Blu-Ray version, but it does take up a lot more storage space as well.
Exactly, this is why I buy my Blu-ray discs, for both the audio and video quality.
Audio streaming is now at best Dolby Digital 7.1 + "where available". When you buy physical media, you can get Atmos or DTS HD or Dolby True HD.
I always make sure I buy the Blu-Ray+ DVD + Digital pack.
 
As prices increase, so does the temptation to pirate movies.

As an old guy, I remember when the Studios were so terrified of VCR's, they charged $80 to buy Terminator (also making Blockbuster a business...), and movie piracy was off to the races!

When the price went to $20 or $15, most people thought, "hey, it's cheaper to stay home, and that's how much a night out costs anyway... might as well buy it."

Apparently greed, and I don't use that word lightly, overcomes sense.

(From a frustrated purchaser of the Star Wars movies 4x...)
 
Digital content is the same price as physical, yet has no manufacturing or transport costs, nor chance of overstocking that need clearing at a loss, and has negligible storage costs in comparison. The customer gets a worse deal as well with fractured viewing options for all owned content, lower quality, and no resale options. Digital content is rarely at a price I will pay (although I have bought some when the price was right). I think the same is true for many. Prices need to be lower.

You sir, are quite correct. 20 strikes me as a little expensive, 30 laughable. This is the digital age, CD's and DVD's prices were artificially inflated, trying to do the same with digital is ridiculous.
 
Heh, I won't pay 20 for a movie, much less 30...on itunes. I may get a 4k bluray for 30 but it has to be worthwhile.

Meh, let them, I wont pay 20 now, sure as hell are not going to pay 30. They can keep them.

20$ for a movie!? Jeez. Nope

i'd pay 5 for 1080, 10 for 4K. Maybe 15 for same day theater release.

This sort of exemplifies the studios' thinking. Some people won't pay much, if anything, for a movie. Studios don't care about these customers because they aren't gettable - it's a waste of time.

Instead, studios go for the people that have always been willing to pay full retail because they will probably pay more. If someone was willing to pay $20 when iTunes first started selling movies nearly 10 years ago and are still paying it, those people are most likely willing to pay $30 for a 4k movie today.

The movie industry has two business choices to grow revenue: convert more people into paying customers by offering great value while lowering the ASP of existing customers, or try to raise the ASP of existing customers by ignoring those that aren't willing to pay. I think companies like Netflix and Amazon have chosen option 1, but most traditional studios are choosing option 2.
 
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I buy A LOT of movies on VUDU. Their UHD titles are $30. I have not bought a single movie at that price. They recently had their first sale on UHD titles. Like 20-30 UHD movies priced at $20. I bought one movie in that sale. Meanwhile, they regularly have sales on HD titles for $5-7. They regularly have sales on recent HD releases for $10.
 
Studios want $50 to rent a movie 17 days after release...?

Absurd.

This was covered by another article about a week ago.

50% of the users on here said what you said, the other 50% said "The other half obviously haven't got kids"
 
Unless I have a 90" TV and am sitting within 10 feet of it, my (and most of the human population's) eyes can't tell the difference between 2160P and 1080p. On a 60" TV at 10 feet the human eye can barely tell the difference between 720 and 1080. I don't know why all the excitement for 4k. Are other homes set up so their main viewing area is 5 feet from their TVs?

https://www.cnet.com/news/why-ultra-hd-4k-tvs-are-still-stupid/
 
This may have been mentioned, but I never understood why Apple didn't allow people to credit the rental fee against the purchase price for, say, 24 hours. How do you really usually know if you want to purchase a movie until you watch it, and then paying twice (rental and purchase) seems insane (more insane...).

I always thought they would sell a lot more movies if they allowed this credit. No? Yes?
I most certainly do agree, an option like that would make a lot of sense. Probably something else that Hollywood has rejected.
 
Wow. I’m surprised at most of the answers I’ve read here (not every page). I guess I’m in the camp that some are saying movie studios are looking for. I buy my media digital. Mainly for the fact it’s quicker than going to the store, I have Apple everything (watch, phone, iPad, rMacBook, ATV4) so the media is always accessible, and I don’t foresee myself switching from Apple in the near future. Even if I did, I’d just keep an ATV around for my movies.

I think $20 is pushing it...4K or not. My cut off is generally $14.99 currently. Even then, it has to be a movie I REALLY want. $7.99 gets me almost everytime and $9.99 entices me if I know I’ll watch it more than once.
 
I most certainly do agree, an option like that would make a lot of sense. Probably something else that Hollywood has rejected.

This! Usually why I don’t buy a movie unless I’ve already seen it in theater, or at a friend’s house. Occasionally I’ll accept the recommendation of someone, but it’s such a risk. Plus, the rental costs aren’t exactly cheap everytime.
 
Exactly at $30 I might as well get a disc that has better picture quality and that I can either resell or lend out to friends/family (which means lost sales for the movie studio). The digital version needs to not only be about instant gratification it needs to either have the same picture quality or a lower price, and honestly ideally both.

Agreed I may as well buy the Blu Ray
 
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