iTunes Movies and general Apple TV chat

So the one "confirmed" case of a film being taken away, may not even be correct :rotfl:

The plot thickens :D
 
I haven’t had stuff disappear and I heavily favour digital these days due to the consistently high price of physical media (particularly 4K), but in my opinion it’s pretty awful to find that your purchased content can just be removed, and then be told you’re not entitled to a refund for it. It’s a purchase, and clearly labelled as such, rather than a rental. And the view that you only rent a 4K film in effect, even though films are repeatedly advertised as being available to buy in 4K, is another area where I think the content providers need to be more upfront / fair to the consumer.

When the BBC shop closed I got a full refund of the small amount of video I purchased. If the content is taken away, in my view you should get a refund, or a proportional refund if you’ve watched it already.

If a studio suddenly decided to remove their content on a digital platform, and that platform said something along the lines of ‘all your [Studio X] films are gone and you’re not entitled to a refund’ people would be up in arms about it, and rightly so.

PS all the above said with obvious recognition that compared to all the horrendous stuff going on in the world at the moment, this is very minor!
 
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Don't disagree with any of that.

I still have a massive bee in my bonnet about the whole 4K stuff being advertised and sold as 4K yet hidden away in the small print we apparently only buy the HD version.

What can we do about it? Sod all, basically. Other than hit them in the pocket and stop buying...yeah, right, like that's ever going to happen :laugh:

We still only have one confirmed case of a title that's been removed, which may now turn out to be fals anyway.

Wrong as it is, in my opinion, the risks are so low, they aren't worth worrying about.
 
I had the discussion about films disappearing with someone on Facebook last night and I said the price I pay for films - under £5 I don't care if I lose a film as I'm looking at it like renting from blockbuster back in the day.

I used to spend £20+ on every 4K disc release and sometimes triple that on a steelbook, I've sold off a lot of my collection but still have thousands and thousands of films sitting on shelves and in boxes that I cannot be bothered to search through to watch a movie.

One big benefit is if I don't like a movie and I've paid £3-£4 for the digital it doesn't matter as much as paying £20 for a film that I'd be lucky to get back a tenner for after ebay/PayPal and postage fees.

I can also let family access my films through YouTube and ATV boxes which is another bonus, my children all have an ATV box so I don't have the worry of discs getting scratched or lost as well.

good points. I’ve also had to replace a couple of discs in the past that somehow Picked up a scratch.

I think I’ve got around 400 titles and occasionally watch but loads I haven’t even clicked on. The chances of me even noticing something temporarily missing is almost non existent. I didnt know about con air until I came on the thread and it had come back by then.

cant also begin to imagine how many CDs and Cassettes I lost in the past!
 
Oh and also don’t forget, you can download and make copies of your purchases. I can’t be @rsed and I’m prepared to take the risk In exchange for convenience and cost savings.
 
good points. I’ve also had to replace a couple of discs in the past that somehow Picked up a scratch.

I think I’ve got around 400 titles and occasionally watch but loads I haven’t even clicked on. The chances of me even noticing something temporarily missing is almost non existent. I didnt know about con air until I came on the thread and it had come back by then.

cant also begin to imagine how many CDs and Cassettes I lost in the past!

Like you, if it hadn't been reported MIA on here, I would've been none the wiser about Con Air, despite waiting forever for a price drop to buy it, it's unlikely I'll be watching it anytime soon and by which time, it would've been back anyway.

Oh and also don’t forget, you can download and make copies of your purchases. I can’t be @rsed and I’m prepared to take the risk In exchange for convenience and cost savings.

Yeah, but what if you download everything and your harddrive gets corrupted and you lose it all?:D
 
Oh and also don’t forget, you can download and make copies of your purchases. I can’t be @rsed and I’m prepared to take the risk In exchange for convenience and cost savings.
That was another part of the discussion last night, he said he rips all his films to his hard drive and streams them to his ATV box and I should do that rather than buy them on iTunes, my reply was - that's too much effort 🤣

I also can't be bothered with having to have a pc/laptop running with several hard drives just so I can stream a movie , AppleTV is convenient for me.

Also if you download from ATV it's only HD isn't it.
 
Has What We Do In The Shadows been removed? I own that and it plays fine and is in my library but the one in the store says I have to buy it. Has anyone who 'lost' it actually checked their library to see if it's there?
According to the reviews on the current listing, the original listing was removed & wasn’t available to play anymore. Maybe they’ve added it back since those reviews.

I have a handful of films that have been delisted (& new listings added) which still play fine for me from my library.
Eg
The Dark Knight (US iTunes code from 2008 BD)
How to Train your Dragon 2 (US iTunes code from BD)
The Wolverine theatrical (now relisted as extended version) via Flixster
Fast & Furious 5, 6 & 7 (all extended cuts only via US iTunes codes)
Little Mermaid (US iTunes code from BD)
 
Like you, if it hadn't been reported MIA on here, I would've been none the wiser about Con Air, despite waiting forever for a price drop to buy it, it's unlikely I'll be watching it anytime soon and by which time, it would've been back anyway.



Yeah, but what if you download everything and your harddrive gets corrupted and you lose it all?:D
I have that problem at the moment with a 1TB drive that has all my old TV shows from the 70's-90's on that mostly cannot be purchased on disc :(
 
Also if you download from ATV it's only HD isn't it.

Are they?

I am not backing up and I can’t play them via the network to a fire stick (apple tv app) anyway. If they advise that then may as well just use plex and not bother contribute to the system.

Obviously its good to have some physical stuff on hand when the rare time the internet goes down for hours.
 
That's correct, Apple don't allow you to download in 4K, even if you bought the 4K version of a movie...you can only download it in HD
It’s not that Apple don’t allow it, it’s the studios that don’t allow it.
That’s how 4K at HD prices came into being, the studios said we couldn’t have 4K as download and keep so Apple said well in that case you can’t charge any more than the maximum quality what you are allowed to download and keep.
That agreement was accepted by all except Disney that 4K is only available as a stream as and when available and thus any existing HD purchases will gain that 4K upgrade at no extra cost.
That’s why if you disable Quick Start you only get HD as buffering content counts as a download.
 
As far as I can see you can only download copies in 720p quality so it's not even HD (1080p), never mind 4K, I'm pretty sure that would look rubbish and 'pixelly' on a big 4K screen.

I'm unable to download via my PC to test things out, as I switch between UK and US accounts repeatedly to make purchases, so can't tie the itunes app to just one account.

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Has What We Do In The Shadows been removed? I own that and it plays fine and is in my library but the one in the store says I have to buy it. Has anyone who 'lost' it actually checked their library to see if it's there?

i bought it twice then asked for a refund. I thinks appeared on the store in some guise 3 times now and the first one has disappeared.
 
As far as I can see you can only download copies in 720p quality so it's not even HD (1080p), never mind 4K, I'm pretty sure that would look rubbish and 'pixelly' on a big 4K screen.

I'm unable to download via my PC to test things out, as I switch between UK and US accounts repeatedly to make purchases, so can't tie the itunes app to just one account.

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What device is that?
On a PC you can definitely set it to download in 1080p HD.
Edit>Preferences>downloads>download full-size HD

Isn’t it the case that you can still buy from either account on the PC? It’s just that you can only download/play films directly on the PC from one account every 90(?) days. Double check what the warning message says - I’m pretty sure it’s just downloading/playing that gets locked.

You could just ‘backup’ your films from one account & switch to ‘backup’ the other account after 90 days, & repeat switching every 90 days? This shouldn’t stop you from buying from both accounts, I believe.
 
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For me, most of the appeal of digital movies is being able to stream them on any device, anywhere (providing if I have wifi of course). If I buy a movie, it gets removed resulting in no longer being able to stream and I have to rely on a downloaded file, I might aswell just use the 1400 movies I already have on my nas that were acquired by other means...

I want to buy and stream, NOT buy and download a copy. 99% of the movies I buy on iTunes I already have copies on my nas of. Personally, I'm paying for the convenience of streaming.
 
regarding Black Book, 101 responded.

I've spoken to someone in our digital team about this, and they told me the following: When you purchased the title it was on the account of Kew Media, who 101 Films, along with many other companies, used as an aggregator for their digital content. Kew Media went into administration earlier this year and as their account was stopped by iTunes, 101 Films had to re-load the film to the platform so I can only presume that when iTunes removed their films it disappeared from your library.

Have you contacted iTunes about this? Your transaction was with them. I’m not sure if this situation is covered by their T&Cs, but we have no control over their platform, so there's no way for us to add a film to your library.
 
regarding Black Book, 101 responded.



Have you contacted iTunes about this? Your transaction was with them. I’m not sure if this situation is covered by their T&Cs, but we have no control over their platform, so there's no way for us to add a film to your library.

That's exactly as it should be. If it were a physical copy then the shop you bought it from would be responsible, which is exactly how it should be with digital, no matter what Apple might say, you're contract is with them, it was them that sold it to you.

Unfortunately I don't think the law has caught up yet as regards digital stuff.
 
That's exactly as it should be. If it were a physical copy then the shop you bought it from would be responsible, which is exactly how it should be with digital, no matter what Apple might say, you're contract is with them, it was them that sold it to you.

Unfortunately I don't think the law has caught up yet as regards digital stuff.
yeah - can't fault their response - it's fair enough.
 
Exactly right. iTunes (or whoever the platform is) sell it to you, and if they can’t provide it any more they should refund it or provide a voucher etc.
 
We all know how it should work, but Apple will just hide behind their T&Cs no doubt and there's not much we can do about it, wrong as it is.

Even if they just credited the £1.99 or whatever it is to re-buy at the moment, that would be something, just as a matter of goodwill.
 
Exactly right. iTunes (or whoever the platform is) sell it to you, and if they can’t provide it any more they should refund it or provide a voucher etc.
Except all us numpties agreed to the terms that content can be removed without prior warning.
Until the time comes that someone is willing to take the bull by the horns and get things changed with regards to digital ownership then unfortunately we’ve all got to just accept it for what it is.
Currently you really only have two options, the first is to just accept the pitfalls and carry on or the second is to turn your back on digital and go back to physical.
 
Or do what we do, moan about it on here and keep on buying regardless :D

Isn't there something in law that say T&Cs have to be reasonable or something? Being able to remove content from our libraries that we've bought doesn't sound reasonable.

It may or may not stand up in court, but who's got the money to go up against Apple for something that cost at most, probably less than a tenner?
 
As far as I can see you can only download copies in 720p quality so it's not even HD (1080p), never mind 4K, I'm pretty sure that would look rubbish and 'pixelly' on a big 4K screen.

I'm unable to download via my PC to test things out, as I switch between UK and US accounts repeatedly to make purchases, so can't tie the itunes app to just one account.

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