Apple TV (etc) quality debate for films


What has that to do with owning something you cannot download. TRy selling a 4K film you bought from Apple. Do they get your iMac as a free bonus and are you willing to also give them your iTunes account as part of the deal?

Also note, this isn't a game and neither will we be members of the EU in a few months time. Has Boris said what he'll be doing about it?

iTunes sell you the rights to watch and listen, they do not sell you the files or the content. You cannot resell these rights and you own nothing apart from those rights awatded you by Apple.
 
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What has that to do with owning something you cannot download. TRy selling a 4K film you bought from Apple. Do they get your iMac as a free bonus and are you willing to also give them your iTunes account as part of the deal?

Also note, this isn't a game and neither will we be members of the EU in a few months time. Has Boris said what he'll be doing about it?
That was a direct reply to snake79 re: situation with games (see quote).
 
I am a huge ATV fan and have purchased 100's of cheap itunes movies, however I've seen several UK people on forums complain that their copy of "What We Do In the Shadows" was deleted from their itunes library after the distributor removed and then reissued the film.
I recently got into digital movies on iTunes with the release of Movies Anywhere and got an ATV4K. How common is it for movies to be removed from your cloud library and is it a big enough problem to make buying movies on iTunes not worth it? : appletv
And what is most worrying for me is that (I believe) they weren't aware of anything having happened to their movie until they tried looking for it in their library.
That’s interesting. Had a read of the reviews & seems to be true.
I have quite a few films in my library that are no longer available to purchase or have been replaced with another listing in the store and all are still accessible, but they are all from the big studios.

If one of the big studios was to pull their films from Apple & everyone lost loads of films, then I’m sure the T&C would be tested in court.

Does a big studio want that sort of backlash/possible boycott from something like that? Even if they stopped Apple from selling any of their films going forward, the backlash (to the studio) of not letting millions of people not watching stuff they’ve already bought would be considerable.

Most of my digital stuff is MA anyway, so I have the same purchases accessible on multiple service anyway, youtube even if it came to that.

As said previously (or another thread) I’m still physical media 1st, but am enjoying using digital as well due to the flexibility of MA. Also, I have been burned by random discs no longer working for unknown reasons, so even with physical there is a risk of losing your content as well & having to rebuy (HD-DVD rot anyone?).
 
Does anyone actually know of any titles that have been pulled from sale on Apple/Amazon, & then removed from people’s libraries, rather than just hearsay that ‘you lose access if rights expire’?
Happened a lot with purchases from Microsoft. Their book and music stores both closed.

The day the e-books stopped working

Microsoft's eBook store: When this closes, your books disappear too

Microsoft will soon shutter its music store and streaming service, move users to Spotify – TechCrunch
 
I buy discs, but basically treat them as rentals. Selling them on quickly after I've seen at a cost of a few pounds after postage and drop in value. I'm thinking of going all digital. Is there any difference between rakuten TV (which my soon to be purchased LG C9 has an app for) and Apple TV, which will require me buying an Apple TV 4k. So less ideal.

Hi
I recently got into 4K streaming too, due to some exceptional deals on price, certain titles being pre released on digital and frankly I have run out of storage (with boxes of DVDs and now Blu-ray a taking up my garage).

I started with Rakuten on my LG OLED and was initially impressed by the PQ. However, after accumulating a number of titles, I tried watching them on my projector via a Rakuten app on my Xbox and also a laptop. It was only then that I realised Rakuten only streams 5.1 via smart tv apps. Rakuten via any other device is limited to stereo only. This is a total dealbreaker for anyone with an older TV or projector.
Shortly afterwards I bought an ATV, which I am enjoying and it’s size makes it super portable, so it’s easy to take the unit and hook it up to a spare hdmi in any room of the house.
In terms of PQ, I’m very happy with it. I can easily tell the difference in audio on my 7.1 setup (UHD Blu-ray is far punchier / defined), however in most real life use cases (watching films with family and friends) it doesn’t justify such a huge price differential to me any more.
I also have suffered from many a scratched disc from use by the kids. Something I don’t need to worry about anymore with digital.
 
I've no idea why this needs a long thread + the usual fake news about disappearing films. IF you want to watch 4K films in great quality often with DV/Atmos then spend £180 on an ATV 4K box or maybe soon just a TV app. If you do want lossless audio then spend the same on a 4K disk player instead, but you'll end up watching a third-half as many films for the same money. At the end of the day its content that matters, and for that streaming is the winner.
 
I've no idea why this needs a long thread + the usual fake news about disappearing films. IF you want to watch 4K films in great quality often with DV/Atmos then spend £180 on an ATV 4K box or maybe soon just a TV app. If you do want lossless audio then spend the same on a 4K disk player instead, but you'll end up watching a third-half as many films for the same money. At the end of the day its content that matters, and for that streaming is the winner.

Agreed, but there's also the option of Cinema Paradiso. You can get 6 4K discs a month for £10.50, of unlimited discs for £13 a month. You lose the instant gratification of streaming, but from a cost and quality standpoint is a pretty good deal.
 
I don't understand why its often viewed as an 'either/or' with streaming and physical - its rarely viewed as 'both' (outside of a few on here who say they'll buy the discs for those few films they really want to keep).

Streaming doesn't have all the content for me, not by a long shot - sure, for the modern studio films they might, but the likes of 88 Films collections of slashers and Italian films are nowhere near any streaming/download services and even when the likes of Arrow films do get released either to buy or via their own Amazon channel, its more often than not sans all the amazing extras that most collectors buy the discs for. The Criterion collection - you need a VPN to watch the Criterion channel from the states, so easy but faff...….anything outside of the mainstream and the streaming selection takes a real hit, probably as you might expect.

But also, the price of digital continues to plummet - I picked up season 1 of Game of Thrones in HD for $1.99 (in fact scratch that, they even gave me a coupon to reduce that price by 15%!!!!) this morning. I have the physical blu's already, but at that price, its worth it to have a digital backup for travelling or ease (when watching season 8 I bemoaned the lack of time to watch all previous seasons leading up to it, even though I was spending a huge amount of time in hotel rooms watching rubbish Netflix guff). I also picked up the new Godzilla King of Monsters for less than £7 - again, I always planned on buying this on 4K disc, but its over 6 weeks away from a UK release and the reviews are giving me pause for thought: drop £7 on it, if its rubbish, no harm no foul - I still have the film for subsequent viewings where I may soften on it; if its amazing, I can wait until the film drops in a 2 for £30 offer and I've not paid anything for the digital version. Back to the OP topic, the quality now is such that I'm willing to pay THIS amount for THIS quality.

I know that in essence I'm buying things twice (the studios love me!) and in an ideal world I'd just rip all my discs and run my own digital collection. But at nearly 3,000 films/TV shows, the time it would take to do this and the cost of storage needed is massively prohibitive.....but its an option should I suddenly win the lottery and/or get fired from work!!!!!

As many have said, its horses for courses like with most things - physical media may well be on its last legs as a mass market proposition, but it will never go away because too many still pay relatively high prices for it and will continue to do so (who ever saw the resurgence of vinyl coming?), however we will likely see a reduction in the type of films made available on it.

And yet I can't help but feel the current digital ownership market bubble will soon burst - these low prices can't continue, driven as they are from people selling codes that come with discs: how long will it be before studios wake up to this and either start charging more for films with codes, or likely stop providing them in the disc purchases? We've already seen the UK codes in discs virtually stop altogether (its only really Lionsgate now that continue to do this) - possibly due to the Flixster/UV situation so it may start up again in anger November time.....but possibly not.

Anyway, we just have so many options to rent/buy movies these days, its great to have a choice that pretty much meets all our needs - disc rental services offer up the quality at a reduced price (but doesn't come with ownership, obvs); physical media offers security and quality, but at a price; and digital purchases offer convenience and price with the right level of quality, but comes at a risk of future ownership rights...…….its a far cry from only having a single VHS rental shop at the corner of the street isn't it?
 
Agreed, but there's also the option of Cinema Paradiso. You can get 6 4K discs a month for £10.50, of unlimited discs for £13 a month. You lose the instant gratification of streaming, but from a cost and quality standpoint is a pretty good deal.

Cinema Paradiso is a great service but I changed back to regular Bluray from 4K as the bonus features are nearly always limited to the regular Bluray and I hated missing out on them. I really wish they would send out both discs as a single rental.
 
Just to add, if anyone gets chance, rent/buy the iTunes Atmos version of Godzilla King of Monsters - the sound on that is one of the very best I've ever heard from a streamed movie. The bass extension is out of this world on this one, so anyone still on the fence about the quality of streamed films from a sound perspective, give this and go and listen for yourselves. Sure, the disc may well go deeper, louder, fuller......but this is one hell of a soundtrack...….:eek:
 

For me, Microsoft would never feature for me as a service I would trust to exist in a while, and not one I would ever buy into. Whilst Apple can be an uncertain future, I trust it more at the moment to be around for a while. Risk I am willing to take.

Digital rights for consumers still needs a lot of work. Buy once, yours for life. I think the legislators are behind technology in some cases.
 
Just a few thoughts from me on this discussion. I buy a reasonable number of 4K discs (although I also make use of Cinema Paradiso for the ones I wouldn't necessarily buy) and tend to do this exclusively for big films or high-quality remasters (such as 2001).

I recently purchased an ATV 4K and have been pleasantly surprised with the streaming quality but I would say that it still looks like streaming and is not yet on a par with disc. I recently rented "Us" and some of the very dark scenes were prone to a lot of macro-blocking and pixellation (for reference, I have the ATV hardwired to my router, which is a 300mb full-fibre connection). As many have said on here, the sound quality is still a bit 'thin' compared to uncompressed audio. Daylight scenes in the movie (in fact 90% of the movie) was almost indistinguishable from what I would expect from disc, so it was pretty close overall but still a few obvious issues related to the (lower) bitrate.

That said, I noticed yesterday that ATV has the recent 4K remaster of "Don't Look Now" at less than a tenner, versus nearly £30 for the disc. Given that the sound quality is never going to be fantastic for that film, even on disc, I have to say that this looks like a very tempting prospect. I have seen a number of other older films at good prices for a 4K HDR version, so I do expect the number of ATV purchases to increase in the near future.

Although not a hard and fast rule, for me I would say that any film I'm prepared to watch on a plane, I would be happy to rent or buy from Apple. For those movies that I would never watch on a plane (such as "Avengers Endgame"), it would be disc all the way for me.
 
Cinema Paradiso is a great service but I changed back to regular Bluray from 4K as the bonus features are nearly always limited to the regular Bluray and I hated missing out on them. I really wish they would send out both discs as a single rental.

They sometimes offer second discs, but I guess only when the second disc doesn't contain the movie.
 
Streaming is not too bad... for the moment. When everyone will try to watch 4K content then speed will go down, and hence quality. So I hope the BD en UHD BD are not dead by then. I hope they do not start throttling cabled networks ! https://techxplore.com/news/2019-08-wireless-networks-throttling-video-streaming.html


US networks though? I expect there are bottlenecks where "unlimited" can get issues in the UK but fibre to cabinet has certainly increased bandwidth available, the back haul is always getting increased. You can buy networks with bandwidth that will make your eyes water, obviously not for the consumer unless you win the lottery.

Getting fibre to the premises will be a big thing, no effective limit on the glass, just the kit on the end of it. Imagine HD no compression, 4k with advanced codecs but running a high bit rate, higher than disk, I hope not far off and I hope the network copes. I am sure they can.

I watched the 4k Champions League from Cardiff. No issues what so ever. Not sure what the take was but they would have been putting out HD as well.
 
Just discovered this thread and not read it all so forgive me if it’s already been discussed but, what about sky’s UHD quality?
 
The same story gives you all that you neec to know,

If Apple lose the right to distribute a film then they will cease distributing it regardless of whether or not you bought it.
But the story is about a guy who moved countries and kicked up a fuss because a couple of the films he owned weren't available in the country he moved to. They were NEVER pulled. The same thing still happens to physical media when it's distributed by different companies in different countries...
 
Just discovered this thread and not read it all so forgive me if it’s already been discussed but, what about sky’s UHD quality?
I have never had Sky for a reasons, but wondered how the UHD content is delivered, I assumed it was fibre?

BT has a service for content where you can get an app to continue plying films when you leave BT. OK, no 4k but at least you keep what you buy (as long as BT can make it available). I think?
 
Just discovered this thread and not read it all so forgive me if it’s already been discussed but, what about sky’s UHD quality?

I have Sky Q with UHD and whilst I feel it is good quality to look at, you have to remember to download the UHD version of your show (recording will only happen in hd as uhd isn’t broadcast) so for example every week at the moment I am having to download The Blacklist after the show has aired and just delete my original recording.

The downside with sky mostly is the lack of HDR and I presume WCG so this meant that I stopped my movie subscription as I don’t think UHD in its own is worth it, hence opting for Apple TV 4K and getting the fuller experience.
 
It's simple, if you want the ultimate in picture/audio quality, go for the disc if you're prepared to pay the premium that comes with that.

To me (and certainly my wife) however, the picture quality between a 4K stream of a film and a disc is negligible. That's my own take and delighted with the image/sound that I see on my B7. Not here to convince people otherwise. Certainly wasn't complaining watching Endgame in 4K DV on the MA app.

I could go full digital and probably be very happy doing that, but the lure of the MCU/Superhero/Star Wars films will always have me buying them on disc and then I'll buy the digital codes for them as well. We all have our vices, this happens to be mine.

I use both formats and love both formats. No need to have to pick a side in this debate.
 
Oh, and in regards to Apple/iTunes removing content - I've had my digital collection for about 6 years now, have about 450 films in there, haven't lost a single one and see no reason to lose any sleep about my films going anywhere anytime soon.
 
It's simple, if you want the ultimate in picture/audio quality, go for the disc if you're prepared to pay the premium that comes with that.

To me (and certainly my wife) however, the picture quality between a 4K stream of a film and a disc is negligible. That's my own take and delighted with the image/sound that I see on my B7. Not here to convince people otherwise. Certainly wasn't complaining watching Endgame in 4K DV on the MA app.

I could go full digital and probably be very happy doing that, but the lure of the MCU/Superhero/Star Wars films will always have me buying them on disc and then I'll buy the digital codes for them as well. We all have our vices, this happens to be mine.

I use both formats and love both formats. No need to have to pick a side in this debate.
What's the MA app?
 
I have Sky Q with UHD and whilst I feel it is good quality to look at, you have to remember to download the UHD version of your show (recording will only happen in hd as uhd isn’t broadcast) so for example every week at the moment I am having to download The Blacklist after the show has aired and just delete my original recording.

The downside with sky mostly is the lack of HDR and I presume WCG so this meant that I stopped my movie subscription as I don’t think UHD in its own is worth it, hence opting for Apple TV 4K and getting the fuller experience.
Yeah, having to download UHD on sky is a pain. You just reminded me to download this weeks Blacklist. I see it’s episode 13 so for the past 13 weeks we have to remember to download in UHD!
 
Yeah, having to download UHD on sky is a pain. You just reminded me to download this weeks Blacklist. I see it’s episode 13 so for the past 13 weeks we have to remember to download in UHD!

Must be a better way for Sky to do it you would have thought! I think Elementary is also UHD this season from memory so there is some good stuff but it's just remembering to do it all the bloody time! And why o why are they so late to the party with HDR, could it just be that it isnt implemented yet for TV shows, no excuse for the Movie experience though of course!
 

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