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Digital Copies won't update to HD?
- Thread starter insomnie
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I think thats absurd. Especially since all the new Apple devices play HD content. All the digital copies look like crap.
Why is it absurd? When you bought the Digital Copy, it was at SD resolution. Why would Apple upgrade you to HD, when .... A) you didn't pay for HD and B) you didn't buy it from Apple?
Apple is only allowing you to upgrade your iTS 720p purchases to 1080p. The difference there is that you bought it from Apple. As of yet, I don't think Apple is upgrading iTS 480p files to 720p/1080p. Hell, they didn't upgrade the original 320x240p files to 480p either.
Sounds like digital copies should fall under iTunes Match. Apple will gladly give me better quality audio, so why not video?
Well, for one, Apple no longer sells 128kbps music. (note- I do know that they still have 128kbps files on the servers).
Second, as I've said above, Apple will upgrade your 720p movies to 1080p, for free. What they aren't doing is upgrading files that you've bought elsewhere (in SD) and allowing you to stream them in HD.
I'd be willing to bet that the studios don't want that to happen. After all, what does it matter on Apple's end. If they're letting you stream movies that you have a legit Digital Copy, what does it matter to them if it's SD or HD. In fact, if they did stream them in HD, it would be a bigger selling point for the aTV.
I see what you're saying, but if Apple already updates music not purchased in iTunes, digital copies could be as well (for a fee). I also agree it's gotta be the studios not wanting it.
Look at it this way, would you expect to walk into a shop with your DVD and expect to get a free upgrade to the Blu-ray?
Umm, I never said anything about free. I said digital copies should be under iTunes Match, which is a paying service. I'd even pay more than 25 a yr to upgrade my copies.
iTunes Match is for music.
sounds like you are confusing iTunes in the Cloud with iTunes Match - 2 entirely different things.
you want your SD digital copy that you bought to be upgraded to HD for free.
I'm not confusing the two. I know what each is. Sure, Match is for music but why can't digital copies be apart of it? Once again, I don't want it to be updated for free. I want TO PAY and have iTunes scan my library for digital copies and upgrade them to HD if iTunes has them available. Just like Match does with music.
you best ask Apple that. no-one here can answer that question for you.
all we can tell you is what the service currently offers, and it doesn't offer what you want.
I agree with the OP. I was excited to go through my digital copies and put them on my Apple TV only to find out they are standard def. If I buy a Blu-Ray, anything that comes with it should be in HD including the digital copy. If I buy a DVD and get a standard digital copy, that makes sense.
I hope that future digital copies change to being HD. They really should do that. I'm not expecting past digital copies to be upgraded, but it would be nice, even if there was a small fee attached.
Maybe Apple will give away a 1080p movie soon in a promotion to show people what they offer. There does seem to be quite a lot of apathy to a product that has generally been described as "not as good as Blu-Ray". Short of that, upgrading some digital copies to HD will show Blu-Ray users how close it is.
The iTunes movie service might get a better uptake if potential customers get to experience it. Digital copy owners are people interested in HD.
Maybe Apple will give away a 1080p movie soon in a promotion to show people what they offer. There does seem to be quite a lot of apathy to a product that has generally been described as "not as good as Blu-Ray". Short of that, upgrading some digital copies to HD will show Blu-Ray users how close it is.
The iTunes movie service might get a better uptake if potential customers get to experience it. Digital copy owners are people interested in HD.
As far as an iTunes Match service for movies, I doubt it would ever happen.
The service would be of limited value if it's just used for getting your legit Digital Copies upgraded to HD and available for cloud streaming. Would Apple/studios allow for matching ripped movies? Would they allow for uploading unmatchable ripped movies? I don't think they would.
I think the best we will get is that the studios allow for all Digital Copies to be available for streaming in SD. I am hoping that they allow for streaming in HD, but I doubt that too. I'm sure Apple wouldn't mind the extra hit in bandwidth, but the studios have no vision and they would fear this.
ft
The service would be of limited value if it's just used for getting your legit Digital Copies upgraded to HD and available for cloud streaming. Would Apple/studios allow for matching ripped movies? Would they allow for uploading unmatchable ripped movies? I don't think they would.
I think the best we will get is that the studios allow for all Digital Copies to be available for streaming in SD. I am hoping that they allow for streaming in HD, but I doubt that too. I'm sure Apple wouldn't mind the extra hit in bandwidth, but the studios have no vision and they would fear this.
ft
I realize this an old thread, but I came across it while looking for something else....
In any case, they will upgrade to HD if it's Disney and you link Disney's new Movies Anywhere to iTunes. The code that came with the Tron: Legacy 3D / Classic combo set set I got only gave me the SD version in iTunes copied off the DVD it came with. I entered the code in Disney's site, linked it to iTunes (which they gave me The Incredibles in HD for free to do) and then both cross-referenced each other (i.e. Disney/Marvel movies I bought in iTunes are now available in Disney's player and vice-versa) and Disney gave me both Tron: Legacy and the original TRON in HD in iTunes (SD version is still there as well). This would apply to all Disney titles. Thanks Disney. Poo-poo to the other companies. This is now 2014. All digital copies should be in HD now, not SD. Yeah, it's pretty darn simple to dump Blu-Rays on a Mac to MKV (with MakeMKV) and then you can encode into anything you want with Handbrake or whatever. But it does take time and you need a Blu-Ray drive, of course.
One of the many reasons I started skipping the middle man and just started buying movies digitally from Apple. Just wish there was an upgrade option for older movies I have in SD like Apple offered for iTunes Plus upgrades a few years ago.
I think Apple will try to make this happen when 4K is introduced on the Store. When the Store when from SD to HD(720) there were a lot less people (and also fewer countries around the world) invested in it. When it went from 720 to 1080 it was a free upgrade.
I think they'll face an out cry if they try to make people pay full price again when 4k becomes available. Hopefully like you say we'll just be charged the difference or a flat upgrade fee. But the final decision will be the studios (unfortunately).
My primary problem with buying movies from Apple on iTunes is that they are encrypted, which means if I ever want to move away from the Apple eco-system some day, I'll LOSE ALL my movies in the process. If I buy a Blu-Ray and rip/encode it myself, it'll play on just about anything out there and can be re-ripped and encoded to another format if need be in the future as well since I still have the original disc (e.g. I could re-encode with 7.1 DTS Master Audio in the future if I needed/wanted it). The downside is it does take time/effort to encode your own movies, even if you just rip them intact to play through XBMC. Hard drive space may be relatively cheap, but even my new USB3 Blu-ray drive takes 15-45 minutes per movie to just rip the main feature. Encoding typically takes another 40 minutes or so (with a Quad-Core i7). I just bought like 30+ Blu-Rays in the past two weeks alone. I have my Mac encoding while I sleep at night, but I still have to come in and switch the discs while ripping every so often first. If I encode for 720p now (current projector is limited to 720p), I'll find myself re-encoding later at 1080p, but at least I can do it. Even if you buy them on iTunes, you have to re-download them in 1080p and that also takes time, but at least it's relatively hands-free.
It'd be nice if Apple would at least update their M4V container to handle 7.1 audio and DTS for that matter (MKVs with DTS work very well in XBMC, though). The meta data feature on M4Vs is excellent, though. XBMC is quite horrible about how it gets its own movie data (i.e. you have to follow a naming convention and then download the information using scrapers). Of course, you still have to get the meta data in the M4V to begin with, but it's simple as pie with MetaZ (which thankfully is VASTLY more stable than MetaX ever was).
I can't disagree with most of what you said. I was a big BD supporter before the format war was over. But now the benefits outweigh the drawbacks to me. The quality is not superior or even equal to BD, but it is good enough to not make me cringe every second. I also don't like not technically owning the media and not being able to share it very well without entering my info on someone else's ATV. If I could easily loan a couple of videos per month to friends, it would make a huge difference. Also, iTunes Extras need some work. Why no audio commentary? Why no availability on ATV or iPads?
Despite all that, I don't have to keep up with discs any more, I can buy movies early, I can easily download or just watch them on any Apple device, and no more FBI warnings and previews for the other 20 things Disney wants you to buy before seeing the thing you just bought.
I'm hoping the next big update for ATV involves a lot of these changes. Apple seems to be more and more making money on media and software purchases, so it knows it has to keep improving.
The ironic thing is that iTunes Extras have been available on the original Generation 1 AppleTV for many years and I think iTunes music plus album extras as well. I have NO IDEA why the newer AppleTVs have never gotten support for them. I can only chalk it up to pure laziness. It's like they simply don't care about their own formats. The only good thing I can say about iTunes movies is that they have a LOT more HD movies than are available on Blu-Ray. I just picked up Cloak & Dagger (the '80s one with the ET kid) in HD for $5.99 on iTunes (lucked into it as it were since it wasn't advertised as being on sale or anything that I can tell). Most of the old Disney Classic non-cartoons (e.g. The Cat From Outer Space, The Apple Dumpling Gang, The Kid Who War Tennis Shoes, etc., etc.) are not on Blu-Ray for some odd reason (WTF is Disney waiting for; their catalog isn't THAT big!) but they ARE available in HD on iTunes (at like $18 each, but then Disney Blu-Rays are typically $30 and don't drop unlike 9/10 the older movies I've been buying on Blu-Ray for $4-10 each (most $7.99). You can't even get a movie ticket for that!
BDDrive (Mine is a Memorex USB3 one I got on sale for $50) + MakeMKV + Handbreak + Subler = Any Format You Want. It's very easy to do and doesn't take THAT much time unless you buy dozens of movies at once (and I've been buying a half dozen at once lately). I've even got a Mac Blu-Ray Software Player for free that works perfect with full menu support now ("Mac Blu-Ray Player"). The free version only outputs stereo, but that's all I have on my den/desk setup anyway (2.1 Klipsch setup which sound pretty awesome for a mere $150 for computer speakers). The full version has 5.1 optical/hdmi output (one player even has 7.1 support advertised now. The days of Macs being left behind in Blu-Ray are over. You just need to buy your own external drive. It's not hard. You can then watch or rip at your leisure. And yes, you can add commentary tracks to M4V files if you want and sub-titles as well in multiple sets even).
I got an external BD drive last year and went nuts on ripping stuff I own. What's amazing now is I seem to have trouble ripping plain DVDs but very few problems with BDs. I'm using the software flow you mentioned. It's nice to rip the old stuff, but for new i would rather just go through iTunes. No new discs to lose, I can download the files at any time, and -- the clincher -- I can stream the stuff anywhere. Movies are acquire often cheaper through iTunes, and I can be pretty patient on most TV shows.
Maybe Apple buying Beats will mean a lot of changes to its media offerings, including a lot of innovations in sharing and quality. I would love to see a move toward better-sounding music files. Some 5.1 DTS audio would be great, although I'm guessing this isn't a huge priority with how much people use earbuds and headphones.
I think it's just a matter of finding the right settings. I don't use the defaults (heck the default for ATV Gen1 is SD only in Handbrake. A 22 or 23 RF setting will do 720p just fine for 1st Gen ATV without a CrystalHD card and 95% of the time the quality is fine, IMO). For DVDs, the question is first whether the contents are video or film (sometimes they store movies at tv conversion rates for some reason). I just ripped/encoded the BBC Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy DVD set and it's interlaced video. The best setting to deal with that most of the time in my experience is to add a decomb filter. That got rid of all artifacts (I just save a setting with it added) and it looks perfect now. You don't want to use that on anamorphic/film material as it can sometimes cause other artifacts.
I tried Requiem as someone suggested so that iTunes purchases can play on other non-Apple players. It doesn't work at all in Mavericks due to what appears to be a Java incompatibility with the newer versions of Java. Fortunately, I have a Netbook with Snow Leopard on it still and it works fine there. Contrary to what Apple might think about DRM, this makes it MORE LIKELY I will buy movies from Apple in the future, not less likely (as DRM pushes me away purchases, not towards purchases since I don't want my movie collection made worthless some day many years from now if Apple goes under or whatever). iTunes does have a lot of movies in HD that are not available on Blu-Ray, after all (e.g. most of the old Disney catalog are only in HD on streaming and digital online services, not Blu-Ray).
OMG I'd almost forgotten about those terrible aspects of physical media. It's been quite a while since I fumbled with a piece of aluminised plastic in order to watch a movie. And how glad I am. Those adverts are major annoyances when you just want to watch the movie you've paid for. Good riddance to them.