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Universal Studios' Movies Now Available on iCloud

The prices of these movies is preposterous, IMO. A lot of this stuff can be had for so much cheaper on bluray. I don't think I have paid more than an average of about $15 per film (Disney Films excluded). If this was more affordable and licensing wasn't as stupid as it is, I would certainly be more open to the idea of going all digital.
 
Icaras said:
Edit: Wow, King Kong Extended Edition is 7.01 GB. :eek:
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7 GB too many. :D

But on a serious note, I'm happy that things are moving in this direction. It hasn't been as quickly as I would have thought or liked... I've been writing about technological convergence and internet distribution for nearly twenty years. But we're right at the doorstep.

My only lament is that since commercial entities have all gone trying to figure out how to dominate the medium, and the blogosphere has become commoditized as well, the signal to noise ratio of this emerging medium is already terrible. There was so much potential for the internet to become the place where information is decentralized and readily available to the masses... unfortunately 99.9% of that information is of exceptionally poor quality.

But you can't put a gun to people's heads and make them prefer PBS programming over the Kardashians... So, it is what it is. At least it's here, available to those who want to use the resource.
 
There are some films I'd buy on iTunes (since they're expensive+rare on DVD now), but I'll wait until they're definitely available on iCloud.

Steam has spoilt me. Buy a game once; download it on any computer any number of times. Not sure why film studios are so strict and games+music aren't.
 
lordofthereef said:
The prices of these movies is preposterous, IMO. A lot of this stuff can be had for so much cheaper on bluray. I don't think I have paid more than an average of about $15 per film (Disney Films excluded). If this was more affordable and licensing wasn't as stupid as it is, I would certainly be more open to the idea of going all digital.
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Agreed. In addition, the quality of Apple's Full HD encoder isn't the best. I too prefer doing the ripping myself from my BD disks and, then, creating an iDevice-friendly H264/stereo version of the rip (see http://www.iphonelife.com/blog/87/p...tion-video-outside-itunes-store-also-new-ipad for more info.)
 
"rise of the planet of the apes" are still missing, but i guess that's a fox movie?does anyone know what the icloud terms really are? If a movie studio pulls out, years in the future, will we lose our ability to redownload, even though we paid for the movies?
 
frunkis54 said:
Why would you need a a 720 version and a 1080 version? i still have the original ATV2 and downloaded the 1080 version and they play fine on it.
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Idk, everyone doesnt have the ATV3 or a 1080 tv.. I dont know what woukd happen if you tried to HOME SHARE stream a 1080p file to a 720p tv... Would the performance be streamless?
 
maroontiger2k9 said:
Idk, everyone doesnt have the ATV3 or a 1080 tv.. I dont know what woukd happen if you tried to HOME SHARE stream a 1080p file to a 720p tv... Would the performance be streamless?
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I don't have the 3rd gen either but i did download updated 1080 copies and they play fine in 720 since thats all the 2gen does
 
I really wish now that iCloud is so great for movies that the studios didn't switch from iTunes codes to ultra violet. I will not give up bluray quality because of my pretty nice projector setup, but it sure would be nice to still redeem codes in iTunes so I didn't have to rip copies of my blurays for streaming around the rest of the house.
 
bedifferent said:
Now, how about iTunes Match for movies? It'd be nice to replace my ripped DVD movies with iTunes movies (depending on quality) as I could with my music. Was nice updating lower bitrate tracks to 256 with iTunes Match. :cool:



Yeah, but you live in the UK. I'd trade with you in a heartbeat. :)

Oh, and Happy Easter everyone!
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What's good about living in the UK? Things are pretty crappy right now with no jobs etc.
 
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I hope Fox, Orion Pictures, TFI and Mirimax come soon, I want to get all my movies off my HDD to save space.

I love being able to steam them to my Apple TV from the cloud.
 
bdkennedy1 said:
Forget it, no way. I won't buy any movie in iCloud. I buy the movie and 2 years from now when Apple and a movie studio start bickering, the studio pulls the movie from iCloud and I get screwed.
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Well, you could always save a copy of all purchased iTunes content locally. I'm sure you backup your critical data just in case "two years from now you might have a hard drive failure". I don't see any difference.
 
wovel said:
Not exactly...if I buy a movie from my Apple TV then it only exists in iCloud. Unless I go and download it on purpose, that is the only place it will exist.

Buying movies on the AppleTV2 (and up). Is what iCloud for movies is all about...
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You can choose to automatically download purchased items to your computer (or iPad or iPhone).
 
Working for Digital Copies?

I expected to see my Back to the Future movies (via Digital Copy from Blu Ray Trilogy) to pop up in Purchased since theyre Universal, but Im still just seeing Star Trek...
 
SteveSwish said:
I expected to see my Back to the Future movies (via Digital Copy from Blu Ray Trilogy) to pop up in Purchased since theyre Universal, but Im still just seeing Star Trek...
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All Digital Copies are working for me. Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, etc.

Apparently, MGM is not included in this.
 
SteveSwish said:
I expected to see my Back to the Future movies (via Digital Copy from Blu Ray Trilogy) to pop up in Purchased since theyre Universal, but Im still just seeing Star Trek...
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Some of us had this bug with regular digital copies when they first launched movies into iCloud. Try re-redeeming the digital copies, that worked for me when it first launched. I confess I don't have any universal movies, so it might not work with these yet.
 
I'm very pleased this is happening now. I lost all my digital copies late last summer when I formatted a drive thinking I had the digital copies on my macbook at the time. Now, when I go into purchases, I can redownload almost all of them!

I've sold blurays that I like but don't love because I knew I had the digital copy. Then I lost them. This solves the problem of having to worry about deleting my copies :).

A big thanks goes out to Apple and the production studios!
 
bdkennedy1 said:
Forget it, no way. I won't buy any movie in iCloud. I buy the movie and 2 years from now when Apple and a movie studio start bickering, the studio pulls the movie from iCloud and I get screwed.
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arn said:
not sure you understand how iCloud works.

You buy the movie, it gets downloaded to your device/machine.
If you later want to redownload it you can in iCloud (if available).

There is no "buying a movie in iCloud". There's "buying a movie" and it happens to be available later to redownload (or not).

arn
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He does have a very valid point Arn. But there's no worry of that. Simply because at the moment and for the foreseeable future Apple will be a profit goldmine. And no one would want to give up the profits associated with it. No one has on the music side yet. And the same will be for movies.
 
Omgitsdesmond said:
Some of us had this bug with regular digital copies when they first launched movies into iCloud. Try re-redeeming the digital copies, that worked for me when it first launched. I confess I don't have any universal movies, so it might not work with these yet.
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Youre right! Redownloading with the code did work! (even though the code has since expired) I hope they fix this bug though because that would stink for anyone who hasn't held onto their codes.

EDIT: For those who have lost their codes. This article could prove extremely resourceful to you!
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/10/lost-the-digital-copy-code-for-your-dvd-heres-where-to-look/

rick98761 said:
Makes me wish I would have redeemed my digital copies.
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I KNOW RIGHT! I just stumbled across a few that I forgot to redeem a couple years back... :(
 
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I know this is somewhat subjective, but are any good movies actually available? :D
 
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