Purchased HD iTunes Movies Now Downgraded to SD Full-Frame

[bgillander]

I noticed that a movie I had purchased (the original Black Christmas) was showing the purchase button again in iTunes so I checked my purchased movies and it was there, but now in Standard Definition Full-Frame even though I had paid for HD widescreen. So I did a bit of searching and saw that several others such as Swiss Army Man and the Unbearable Lightness of Being were the same, available in my purchased movies as SD, but still showing the buy button in the store even for the SD version.

According to Apple (Canada) Support, they are just a storefront and the studio can do what they want and I should have downloaded copies. Since I bought them to stream from the Apple TV when I’m travelling, that isn’t helpful and I find it amazing (and criminal) that Apple doesn’t hold the studios to account to keep the higher quality in the library since they happily charge extra for it.

I noticed that most were movies I bought to check out later because they were on sale for a low price, so it seems like the studios drop the prices just before the films switch distributors, then substitute a crappy version to their library after, which seems like a scam to me, and Apple should prevent that as it makes them look bad (and complicit). I know I have now stopped buying most films from iTunes because of it. If I have to download backups, I’d rather just buy the disc (and maybe get a digital copy as a bonus so at least it doesn’t bother me as much if it switches resolution after the fact, which seems to have happened with a bunch of eOne films.)

Anyone else have this issue, or is this just an Apple Canada thing?

 

[russell_314]

I noticed that a movie I had purchased (the original Black Christmas) was showing the purchase button again in iTunes so I checked my purchased movies and it was there, but now in Standard Definition Full-Frame even though I had paid for HD widescreen. So I did a bit of searching and saw that several others such as Swiss Army Man and the Unbearable Lightness of Being were the same, available in my purchased movies as SD, but still showing the buy button in the store even for the SD version.

According to Apple (Canada) Support, they are just a storefront and the studio can do what they want and I should have downloaded copies. Since I bought them to stream from the Apple TV when I’m travelling, that isn’t helpful and I find it amazing (and criminal) that Apple doesn’t hold the studios to account to keep the higher quality in the library since they happily charge extra for it.

I noticed that most were movies I bought to check out later because they were on sale for a low price, so it seems like the studios drop the prices just before the films switch distributors, then substitute a crappy version to their library after, which seems like a scam to me, and Apple should prevent that as it makes them look bad (and complicit). I know I have now stopped buying most films from iTunes because of it. If I have to download backups, I’d rather just buy the disc (and maybe get a digital copy as a bonus so at least it doesn’t bother me as much if it switches resolution after the fact, which seems to have happened with a bunch of eOne films.)

Anyone else have this issue, or is this just an Apple Canada thing?

I've never had this issue. I always tell people keep personal on site and off site backups of anything you consider important. I'm not perfect and of course broke this rule and paid a significant price with data loss.

Something similar happened with Amazon where they remotely accessed customers e readers and deleted books from them. Amazon refunded those customers but it made a point that unless you have a physical offline copy it's not yours. I suspect Apple would have given you a refund if you pushed the issue.