It literally costs no more to make an HD version as it does to make a 4k version today.
Ok, maybe a few thousand more for extra storage, but on a $40-200 million budget, that's not even the coffee bill for a week of production.
I recently did one of those "write, film, edit your short film in 3 days" things and did the whole thing in 8k raw. The longest part was converting it to 1080p for the showing.
4k shouldn't cost more to buy!
Perhaps you didn't take your source files into a commercial grading session that costs between 75-100K per movie to get the home entertainment archival source created as lossless J2k. You may not have those archival j2k files converted into an ML5 mezzanine that you send to the vendor that is making your blue ray releases to create a new encode and add on Dolby Atmos audio (conform, QC). After that maybe you didn't have your work QC'ed both externally and internally for compatibility so that consumers can be assured that what they buy will play on what they own.
That's significantly greater than a few 1000 dollars.
Apple needs to make the movie industry understand what Steve made the music industry understand years ago: the price needs to reflect the reality that the competition is free (pirated). It's basically an example of the fact that if you're not willing to disrupt your business model as the world changes, someone else will.
As fewer and and fewer people "buy" movies, studios will have less incentive to refuse to license streaming rights to their newer and more popular titles, and they will probably just sell to the highest bidder. If we end up with fewer mediocre big-budget movies about superheroes saving the world from destruction, so be it.
I think the the music streaming model seems to be working out pretty well, all things considered. My friends who were making a living with music pre-streaming are still doing every bit as well, but like most recording artists, album sales were always a small part of their income--it's mostly live shows and licensing. And streaming services are probably at least as good as the average record store for helping lesser-known musicians to become recognized.
It's different for movies of course, but as streaming services grow, there will be more money to go around. If studios have to take a chance on an undiscovered talent rather than paying millions to an established star, that won't be so bad. And I'm with Sog on this one--if you have a good story, you don't need a ton of CGI.
huge difference between music and movie business.
Its very difficult to pirate 4k movies. Very difficult. Like 100x harder than music.
You can download a music file in 5 seconds. It takes days to download/upload a 4k movie.
Because of this pirating movies isn't mainstream like how music was.
All of you assumptions regarding pirating 4K are 100% wrong.
No the are not.
4k movie files (the high quality ones) are MASSIVE. They take massive resources to upload/download and host. You also need special software to rip those movies and get past encryption. Most of those programs are grey market and can open you up to virus. Also those download sites are filled with virus.
downloading a tiny music file is 100x easier than a 4k movie.
You'd be amazed how well HVEC compresses 4K video. It's not going to be as bad as you envisage.
Pretty much solidified my choice to move everything to HEVC.
I'm hoping Apple has a video codec converter in iTunes, the way they offer codec conversion for audio.
Yes. I hope they update Compressor with support so I can batch re-encode. I'm moving everything to HEVC and HEIFF.
Me too, haven't been this excited for a while . Don't forget Handbrake can batch encode HVEC now. I was amazed at the HVEC performance going back to the source DV material on archived NTSC data I have it makes H264 look silly, same with source 4K material. Re-encoding H264 obviously is nothing like starting with the non temporal compressed material.
I already have a couple of HVEV video I converted with Handbrake running in iTunes over Home Sharing from a Mac Pro and running fine on an Apple TV current release. It is obviously a hit and miss what is supported as many conversions I did trying various settings from various sources won't, but two worked to my utter surprise. I am pretty certain we will start to see this all come together with golden master of High Sierra and the yet to be released new Apple TV. I also believe we'll see Photos converting the iCloud storage in High Sierra to HIEFF. I also think as soon as the GM of 10.13 lands well see the FCPro X family updates released. Just wish Aperture was there too. /sigh
It literally costs no more to make an HD version as it does to make a 4k version today.
Ok, maybe a few thousand more for extra storage, but on a $40-200 million budget, that's not even the coffee bill for a week of production.
I recently did one of those "write, film, edit your short film in 3 days" things and did the whole thing in 8k raw. The longest part was converting it to 1080p for the showing.
4k shouldn't cost more to buy!
Perhaps you didn't take your source files into a commercial grading session that costs between 75-100K per movie to get the home entertainment archival source created as lossless J2k. You may not have those archival j2k files converted into an ML5 mezzanine that you send to the vendor that is making your blue ray releases to create a new encode and add on Dolby Atmos audio (conform, QC). After that maybe you didn't have your work QC'ed both externally and internally for compatibility so that consumers can be assured that what they buy will play on what they own.
That's significantly greater than a few 1000 dollars.
Because they don't do that on other formats? Source and final files don't change the cost of things! And I don't think Atmos will come to streaming/digital files/home anytime soon...
It literally costs no more to make an HD version as it does to make a 4k version today.
Ok, maybe a few thousand more for extra storage, but on a $40-200 million budget, that's not even the coffee bill for a week of production.
I recently did one of those "write, film, edit your short film in 3 days" things and did the whole thing in 8k raw. The longest part was converting it to 1080p for the showing.
4k shouldn't cost more to buy!
Perhaps you didn't take your source files into a commercial grading session that costs between 75-100K per movie to get the home entertainment archival source created as lossless J2k. You may not have those archival j2k files converted into an ML5 mezzanine that you send to the vendor that is making your blue ray releases to create a new encode and add on Dolby Atmos audio (conform, QC). After that maybe you didn't have your work QC'ed both externally and internally for compatibility so that consumers can be assured that what they buy will play on what they own.
That's significantly greater than a few 1000 dollars.
Because they don't do that on other formats? Source and final files don't change the cost of things! And I don't think Atmos will come to streaming/digital files/home anytime soon...
Actually they do change the costs. In time the costs will come down but it takes longer to encode the UHD source into UHD elementary streams and it takes longer to grade and it takes longer to render and more space to store.
A lot of people still buy movies. Stupid to buy a digital copy when you can buy a blu ray or 4K movie that comes with a digital copy for the same price or lower.
Until I can get movies at the same quality level of Blu-Ray, I'll keep buying them.
Heck, my internet would be barely fast enough to stream h.264 at Blu-Ray quality... (around 30-50GB for a movie)
Not everyone has 60+Mbps connections
Compromises have to be made to squeeze that much data in the limited bandwidth that most people have, even more so for 4K.
Back in the days I was converting my blue-rays to files and I was encoding h.264 files. One blue-ray was taking around 7-8 gigs (movie only, no extras) and I could not tell the difference between those encodes and the blue-ray. You really dont need to have 50g files to keep quality, especially now with h.265.
If you buy on itunes now we get all of the extra files that the blue ray as. I see no reason to continue buying media's anymore.
A lot of the space taken on a blu ray movie is the uncompressed sound files. If you care about uncompressed sound, that's going to be a lot more than 7-8 gigs.
musicians should make the bulk of their money by performing live.
What is the basis of your belief that you can or should dictate how anyone else earns their living, or how their income streams should be configured? Isn't up to the people generating the music to decide how they want to monetize their own work and creations?
You must have really poor eyesight or a very small TV if you can't appreciate the difference between SD and HD on your TV. Heck, it's even pretty obvious on an iPad too.
Actually Mike, my wife and I discovered something similar to what dachar was saying. We have a bunch of pre-HD material in our library (i.e. anamorphic SD). What we found was that once we're drawn into the story, we don't really notice the absence of picture detail. We were surprised to realize just how bad an encoding has to be before it becomes consciously noticeable.
Obviously we prefer HD, but we haven't found SD to be a serious enough issue to hamper our enjoyment of good content. In fact, in some cases, the huge price difference has resulted in me buying an SD version. Family Guy Season 14 is CAD$15 on DVD from Amazon. It's not offered on Blu-Ray. The same season in HD from iTunes is CAD$40! In cases like that I choose to settle for SD because I can't bring myself to pay almost three times as much to get it through Apple's distribution channel.
I kind of figured this would be their play considering the ridiculous pricing of UHD Blu-ray movies.
Also the hype around HDR is approaching 3D TV levels. UHD looks good but rather than pay exorbitant amounts for your media you're better off buying on OLED or high end Sony or Samsung TV with great panels.
Hollywood wants you to believe that a process makes movies look great when in fact it is the panel and processing that determine wow factor with well produced content.
It's not one or the other, it takes both to really appreciate the experience.
Its just like with audio -- you probably won't appreciate the benefits of even the most beautifully mastered recording if you listen on shit speakers, but having great speakers won't magically make a crappy recording any better.
Higher resolution and dynamic range at the source, combined with equipment capable of reproducing it well, will obviously be a better experience than even the finest panel fed with reduced resolution and a constrained brightness range.
A lot of people still buy movies. Stupid to buy a digital copy when you can buy a blu ray or 4K movie that comes with a digital copy for the same price or lower.
This is an example of how I think Apple may sometimes get in the way of its own success.
A couple years ago I shopped for a movie on iTunes and found the price was more than I wanted to pay, so I went to Amazon to check the price of the same movie on Blu-Ray. The Amazon Blu-Ray was less than half the price of buying it on iTunes, and it included a voucher for the digital download! EXACTLY the same as if I had purchased it from Apple, but half the price and I got a disc thrown in. Bizarre and frustrating.
Once upon a time there is this thing call "torrent". Sadly they are all have been killed, especially in Australia, unless you really go to a very dodgy-scam-invested website.
And yes, searching that illusive 4k movies is extremely hard, that's why Netflix is so popular here. Sadly, the choices there are abysmal mostly.
You must have really poor eyesight or a very small TV if you can't appreciate the difference between SD and HD on your TV. Heck, it's even pretty obvious on an iPad too.
Actually Mike, my wife and I discovered something similar to what dachar was saying. We have a bunch of pre-HD material in our library (i.e. anamorphic SD). What we found was that once we're drawn into the story, we don't really notice the absence of picture detail. We were surprised to realize just how bad an encoding has to be before it becomes consciously noticeable.
People have less of a tendency to notice lower quality video than they do of lower quality audio. As you mentioned, it's relatively easy to enjoy a SD movie once you are into it as long as the encode is fairly decent. But if the audio is bad on that same movie you likely won't enjoy it at all.
I own over 200 HD movies on itunes and I can tell you I will not be buying those same movies again just because its 4k. I was expecting a free upgrade of those movies to 4k.
I think 4k should not cost more.... Its the same content, just a different resolution. Hollywood wants to pull the same trick they did when we went from dvd's to blue-rays. Well guess what, nobody is buying physical media anymore, it wont work this time.
1) You had to pay the difference to upgrade your iTunes music but you think the you should get new content for free?
Well, it's not without precedence. I saw this on an Apple TV thread from yesterday:
BTW, I don't know that this actually happened. I only have 1 movie that I downloaded through iTunes prior to 2012. In 2008 I got a free download of Enemy of the State (Will Smith, Gene Hackman) in SD. When I first heard about getting a free upgrade to HD I figured I should check it out for that 1 movie, because why not? Wouldn't you know it, that movie is no longer available through iTunes at all. So I still have it in SD. Oddly, it doesn't even show up in my purchase history. However, when I do Get Info in iTunes and look at the "File" tab it shows I "purchased" it using the same AppleID I use today and gives the date, as expected. It even mentions it is using FairPlay Version 2. So, I definitely downloaded that movie through iTunes and it has never been updated to HD.
I own over 200 HD movies on itunes and I can tell you I will not be buying those same movies again just because its 4k. I was expecting a free upgrade of those movies to 4k.
I think 4k should not cost more.... Its the same content, just a different resolution. Hollywood wants to pull the same trick they did when we went from dvd's to blue-rays. Well guess what, nobody is buying physical media anymore, it wont work this time.
1) You had to pay the difference to upgrade your iTunes music but you think the you should get new content for free?
Well, it's not without precedence. I saw this on an Apple TV thread from yesterday:
1) That would be great, but no customer should be expecting that to happen. Better to be pleasantly surprised than to be let down.
2) Is that article accurate.
"That includes any movies you've previously purchased -- so you can redownload the full 1080p version in iTunes or stream the 1080p version on the newest Apple TV."
It's suggesting that if you bought the SD version from iTS you can now get the 1080p version for free. I don't recall that and the cost difference suggests otherwise. What I do recall is that if you had downloaded the 720p version that you could then re-download the 1080p version at no additional cost because both HD option are priced the same. You change your HD preference between 720p and 1080p in iTunes Preferences.
3) If 2160p will be priced the same as 1080p and there being a similar toggle between download at 1080p v 2160p then I can see this happening (perhaps even something similar for buyers of SD/480p that will now be able to re-download at 720p), but I think it's unlikely that 4K will be marketed as HD in the same way 720p/1080p was for the iTS.
I own over 200 HD movies on itunes and I can tell you I will not be buying those same movies again just because its 4k. I was expecting a free upgrade of those movies to 4k.
I think 4k should not cost more.... Its the same content, just a different resolution. Hollywood wants to pull the same trick they did when we went from dvd's to blue-rays. Well guess what, nobody is buying physical media anymore, it wont work this time.
1) You had to pay the difference to upgrade your iTunes music but you think the you should get new content for free?
Well, it's not without precedence. I saw this on an Apple TV thread from yesterday:
1) That would be great, but no customer should be expecting that to happen. Better to be pleasantly surprised than to be let down.
2) Is that article accurate.
"That includes any movies you've previously purchased -- so you can redownload the full 1080p version in iTunes or stream the 1080p version on the newest Apple TV."
It's suggesting that if you bought the SD version from iTS you can now get the 1080p version for free. I don't recall that and the cost difference suggests otherwise. What I do recall is that if you had downloaded the 720p version that you could then re-download the 1080p version at no additional cost because both HD option are priced the same. You change your HD preference between 720p and 1080p in iTunes Preferences.
3) If 2160p will be priced the same as 1080p and there being a similar toggle between download at 1080p v 2160p then I can see this happening (perhaps even something similar for buyers of SD/480p that will now be able to re-download at 720p), but I think it's unlikely that 4K will be marketed as HD in the same way 720p/1080p was for the iTS.
1) Totally agree 2) Yeah, I have no idea. The one thing I maybe could have checked on clearly isn't helping (re: Enemy of the State) 3) Again, I agree, at least at the start. Maybe years down the road it will even out but it wouldn't surprise me to see 2160p be used as the shining star of the movie watching experience and priced accordingly.
I own over 200 HD movies on itunes and I can tell you I will not be buying those same movies again just because its 4k. I was expecting a free upgrade of those movies to 4k.
I think 4k should not cost more.... Its the same content, just a different resolution. Hollywood wants to pull the same trick they did when we went from dvd's to blue-rays. Well guess what, nobody is buying physical media anymore, it wont work this time.
1) You had to pay the difference to upgrade your iTunes music but you think the you should get new content for free?
Well, it's not without precedence. I saw this on an Apple TV thread from yesterday:
1) That would be great, but no customer should be expecting that to happen. Better to be pleasantly surprised than to be let down.
2) Is that article accurate.
"That includes any movies you've previously purchased -- so you can redownload the full 1080p version in iTunes or stream the 1080p version on the newest Apple TV."
It's suggesting that if you bought the SD version from iTS you can now get the 1080p version for free. I don't recall that and the cost difference suggests otherwise. What I do recall is that if you had downloaded the 720p version that you could then re-download the 1080p version at no additional cost because both HD option are priced the same. You change your HD preference between 720p and 1080p in iTunes Preferences.
3) If 2160p will be priced the same as 1080p and there being a similar toggle between download at 1080p v 2160p then I can see this happening (perhaps even something similar for buyers of SD/480p that will now be able to re-download at 720p), but I think it's unlikely that 4K will be marketed as HD in the same way 720p/1080p was for the iTS.
1) Totally agree 2) Yeah, I have no idea. The one thing I maybe could have checked on clearly isn't helping (re: Enemy of the State) 3) Again, I agree, at least at the start. Maybe years down the road it will even out but it wouldn't surprise me to see 2160p be used as the shining star of the movie watching experience and priced accordingly.
Keep in mind that 4K will likely also have HDR and HEVC. Perhaps lower qualities will also have those as an option, but if I were Apple I'd be weighing the costs of renecoding all those titles and probably just keep all those features for those willing to pay a little extra for 4K+HDR with HEVC. But that's tentavetly speaking, as it would all come down to crunching the numbers to see which action will yield the most profit over the long run, which includes people dumping everything they own in HD so they can re-downlaod fro free to get HDR and HEVC supported files.
Paying more for a 4K disc that costs pennies more and the studio produced? Still pretty bad.
but it makes ZERO sense to charge more when it is APPLE'S SERVERS doing the heavy lifting of content delivery. 4K stresses Apple and not the studio. Therefore it should be Apple's call.
The studio makes one movie and takes the digital master down to multiple resolutions. It's costing them nothing.
$19.99 should be the end of it. If the movie is a 3 hour epic, perhaps it can be a bit more. But most movies are two hours and under.
People are paying out the nose for hardware that has crisp resolution. They shouldn't have to pay again just for the privilege of using that hardware. The theaters already take in the dough with 4k projectors, so the 4k cameras paid for themselves many times over. Then there are the disc sales and rentals that they pay designers and packaging houses to make and then mailing houses (excuse me... "distribution centers") to ship. And they make their money all over again. Then there is the digital sales and rentals and it's a third wave of cash. By that point, there are zero expenses. Their digital partners are bearing the burden. So it's time to stop gouging and let the digital partner hav some input on the price.
Actually they do change the costs. In time the costs will come down but it takes longer to encode the UHD source into UHD elementary streams and it takes longer to grade and it takes longer to render and more space to store.
In the real world, the extra time it takes is not paid. You get paid for the job. And prices are not going up, they are crashing down. The only thing that costs extra is the storage space (which is also coming down in price).
Comments
That's significantly greater than a few 1000 dollars.
I already have a couple of HVEV video I converted with Handbrake running in iTunes over Home Sharing from a Mac Pro and running fine on an Apple TV current release. It is obviously a hit and miss what is supported as many conversions I did trying various settings from various sources won't, but two worked to my utter surprise. I am pretty certain we will start to see this all come together with golden master of High Sierra and the yet to be released new Apple TV. I also believe we'll see Photos converting the iCloud storage in High Sierra to HIEFF. I also think as soon as the GM of 10.13 lands well see the FCPro X family updates released. Just wish Aperture was there too. /sigh
Source and final files don't change the cost of things!
And I don't think Atmos will come to streaming/digital files/home anytime soon...
Actually they do change the costs. In time the costs will come down but it takes longer to encode the UHD source into UHD elementary streams and it takes longer to grade and it takes longer to render and more space to store.
Obviously we prefer HD, but we haven't found SD to be a serious enough issue to hamper our enjoyment of good content. In fact, in some cases, the huge price difference has resulted in me buying an SD version. Family Guy Season 14 is CAD$15 on DVD from Amazon. It's not offered on Blu-Ray. The same season in HD from iTunes is CAD$40! In cases like that I choose to settle for SD because I can't bring myself to pay almost three times as much to get it through Apple's distribution channel.
Its just like with audio -- you probably won't appreciate the benefits of even the most beautifully mastered recording if you listen on shit speakers, but having great speakers won't magically make a crappy recording any better.
Higher resolution and dynamic range at the source, combined with equipment capable of reproducing it well, will obviously be a better experience than even the finest panel fed with reduced resolution and a constrained brightness range.
A couple years ago I shopped for a movie on iTunes and found the price was more than I wanted to pay, so I went to Amazon to check the price of the same movie on Blu-Ray. The Amazon Blu-Ray was less than half the price of buying it on iTunes, and it included a voucher for the digital download! EXACTLY the same as if I had purchased it from Apple, but half the price and I got a disc thrown in. Bizarre and frustrating.
And yes, searching that illusive 4k movies is extremely hard, that's why Netflix is so popular here. Sadly, the choices there are abysmal mostly.
www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2012/3/7/2852583/apple-previously-purchased-itunes-movies-1080p
BTW, I don't know that this actually happened. I only have 1 movie that I downloaded through iTunes prior to 2012. In 2008 I got a free download of Enemy of the State (Will Smith, Gene Hackman) in SD. When I first heard about getting a free upgrade to HD I figured I should check it out for that 1 movie, because why not? Wouldn't you know it, that movie is no longer available through iTunes at all. So I still have it in SD. Oddly, it doesn't even show up in my purchase history. However, when I do Get Info in iTunes and look at the "File" tab it shows I "purchased" it using the same AppleID I use today and gives the date, as expected. It even mentions it is using FairPlay Version 2. So, I definitely downloaded that movie through iTunes and it has never been updated to HD.
2) Is that article accurate.
"That includes any movies you've previously purchased -- so you can redownload the full 1080p version in iTunes or stream the 1080p version on the newest Apple TV."
It's suggesting that if you bought the SD version from iTS you can now get the 1080p version for free. I don't recall that and the cost difference suggests otherwise. What I do recall is that if you had downloaded the 720p version that you could then re-download the 1080p version at no additional cost because both HD option are priced the same. You change your HD preference between 720p and 1080p in iTunes Preferences.
3) If 2160p will be priced the same as 1080p and there being a similar toggle between download at 1080p v 2160p then I can see this happening (perhaps even something similar for buyers of SD/480p that will now be able to re-download at 720p), but I think it's unlikely that 4K will be marketed as HD in the same way 720p/1080p was for the iTS.
2) Yeah, I have no idea. The one thing I maybe could have checked on clearly isn't helping (re: Enemy of the State)
3) Again, I agree, at least at the start. Maybe years down the road it will even out but it wouldn't surprise me to see 2160p be used as the shining star of the movie watching experience and priced accordingly.
but it makes ZERO sense to charge more when it is APPLE'S SERVERS doing the heavy lifting of content delivery. 4K stresses Apple and not the studio. Therefore it should be Apple's call.
The studio makes one movie and takes the digital master down to multiple resolutions. It's costing them nothing.
$19.99 should be the end of it. If the movie is a 3 hour epic, perhaps it can be a bit more. But most movies are two hours and under.
People are paying out the nose for hardware that has crisp resolution. They shouldn't have to pay again just for the privilege of using that hardware. The theaters already take in the dough with 4k projectors, so the 4k cameras paid for themselves many times over. Then there are the disc sales and rentals that they pay designers and packaging houses to make and then mailing houses (excuse me... "distribution centers") to ship. And they make their money all over again. Then there is the digital sales and rentals and it's a third wave of cash. By that point, there are zero expenses. Their digital partners are bearing the burden. So it's time to stop gouging and let the digital partner hav some input on the price.
In the real world, the extra time it takes is not paid. You get paid for the job. And prices are not going up, they are crashing down.
The only thing that costs extra is the storage space (which is also coming down in price).