I was hoping that Apple would reveal an Apple Movies subscription model like Apple Music at the forthcoming event when the 4K ATV is released.
Do consumers really want to own movies anymore?
Surely music subscription services like Spotify and Apple Music have reduced the amount of music piracy significantly because the subscription is reasonably priced.
The same model for movies would surely help reduce movie piracy.
I tend to agree, I know the family DVD collection is collecting dust in my theater room, My daughter and her friend dusted off the Star War movies and binged watch them over the last few week, but they said they rather stream them since it pain to load them into the player.
I think Apple needs to take on Netflix and Hulu, and provide Live Stream, On demand, and pay as you consume or el a carte content, I would buy in and dump everything I have today.
it may discourage content creators investment in quality films and music.
I don't believe that to be true. Films are recorded generally in resolutions higher than 4K anyway so there is no extra work involved in releasing the film in 4K. Red is 4K, IMAX is 6K with a maximum of 12K. Therefore, releasing a 4K film is no more expensive than an standard HD film. So why should they charge a premium?
Apple have to store the larger files so should it not be down to the storage company as to how much extra they want to charge?
Increasing prices just increases piracy or decreases the number of people who watch the film in 4K and also slow the uptake of 4K TV's in the home.
I was hoping that Apple would reveal an Apple Movies subscription model like Apple Music at the forthcoming event when the 4K ATV is released.
Do consumers really want to own movies anymore?
Surely music subscription services like Spotify and Apple Music have reduced the amount of music piracy significantly because the subscription is reasonably priced.
The same model for movies would surely help reduce movie piracy.
i tend to agree, I know the family DVD collection is collecting dust in my theater room, My daughter and her friend dusted off the Star War movies and binged watch them over the last few week, but they said they rather stream them since it pain to load them into the player.
I think Apple needs to take on Netflix and Hulu, and provide Live Stream, On demand, and pay as you consume or el a carte content, I would buy in and dump everything I have today.
The problem is the Balkanization of streaming media; even the Studios are going in big with their own streaming platforms, and throw in all of the others, and the reality is that it is too late for Apple, or any other entity, to fix.
Which is fine.
Apple, Amazon and Google already are curating these streams, rentals, and downloads through their media players via their voice assistants, and we will end up managing subscriptions in lieu of or in addition to, Cable.
I have both AppleTV and FireTV, neither of which I use much, preferring to watch on my iMac and iPad Pro. I'll probably buy the next AppleTV for HDR/Dolbyvision when I get around to upgrading my television, and I will end up downloading 4K, but rarely, instead relying on Netflix and Amazon as my primary streaming media, and iTunes for downloads.
I think that the Studios should do what they want with media. Ultimately, consumers will decided what they want to watch, at what quality, when, and at what price, and they will still use Rotten Tomatoes to decide what to risk their money on, and will still use Apple, Amazon and Google to curate.
Surely music subscription services like Spotify and Apple Music have reduced the amount of music piracy significantly because the subscription is reasonably priced.
Probably. But most musicians I know are making a lot less money than a few years ago, as streaming royalties add up to pennies, where in the past they sold lots of CDs at $15 a pop.
Unless they sold them at shows for themselves, they were not making $15.00 a piece for CD sales. Artists average about 6.6% of what the CD is sold for from what I've read. This can go up or down depending on who else they need to pay ( songwriter vs writing their own material ). So split that .99 ( %6.6 of $15.00 ) between 4 people in a band... still pennies per cd. Even a one man act isn't making nearly as much as they should.
This is a two-headed coin. While paying less for media content is nice for consumers (and Apple will profit more if iTunes is the go-to for movies) it may discourage content creators investment in quality films and music. It's already tough for music performers and writers to make a living from streaming songs, and studios may suffer from ever-cheaper movie streaming as well with big-budget productions making less and less financial sense, especially as theater visits are declining.
The problem they will have is with Apple having a least a two-prong approach to forcing their way, reduce old-line studios and production houses profits by demanding lower prices while trumpeting the benefit to consumers (!), and at the same time using some of the Apple $B's to start their own shows and movies to compete with and replace them. IMO bending now would seem to play into Apple's plans to be the major force in video too just as they were in music.
Big Budget does not equal great movie.
Some of my favorite movies have been small/middle budget.
this is more about Studio greed.
If the studio's focused more on great stories and less on star power and sequels, the industry would be on much stronger footing.
How many film downloads are HD and how many SD? It will be down to the consumers to choose which video size and price. If the price is too higher then there will be few purchases of 4K.
I usually purchase SD videos as to my eyes they don't look much if any different to HD on an iPad or TV screen. A small file size is quicker to download to an iPad for later viewing. Also SD tends to be cheaper. Would l pay 3 times the price for 4K which probably is too big to download to my iPad or choose 3 SD films for the same price? Probably l will stick with the cheaper SD.
If you can't see the difference between SD vs HD on a TV something is wrong with the TV or your set up ( coax instead of HDMI ). A proper HD picture is immediately recognizable against a SD picture. On an Ipad maybe not as much, I can sort of see where you are coming from with that.
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.
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.
most people I know that are heavy on bit torrents have unlimited internet connection. Not really an issue imo. I have unlimited myself because we are heavy on netflix, its only $10 per month extra.
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.
Your kids friends are living the risky life. Studios are tracking torrent sites like hawks. Especially those with high quality video. Unless you use a VPN and hide your tracks you will get into big trouble eventually. Using a VPN is not mainstream at all.
I am all for the enforcing of software and content piracy, but I have yet to see anyone get arrested or being fine for that. Its not working...
Thieves are thieves. The price of something doesn't really matter. It's all about the thrill of stealing. Then use price as the rationale for thievery. According to reports almost 3 million thieves illegally streamed the Mayweather/McGregor fight.
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.
Thieves are thieves. The price of something doesn't really matter. It's all about the thrill of stealing. Then use price as the rationale for thievery. According to reports almost 3 million thieves illegally streamed the Mayweather/McGregor fight.
indeed. I see people pirating $1 apps on there phone....
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.
if it takes a long time to download a pirated 4K movie, it's probably going to take pretty long to download a 4K movie that is not pirated, too, and if a significant portion of the public wants 4K enough to pay for it, piracy of 4K will become more common too.
This year I start the process of digitizing everything.
I don't have a lot of Blu-ray movies but I'm going to encode them to HEVC wrapped as MKV and they'll reside on a NAS running Plex Server with a Plex Pass. Unless iTunes has a major update and modernizes i'll centralize my music, re-ripping to ALAC.
I'll likely purchase a few UHD movies but 80% of my movie library purchased online are movies that cost less than $10. Hollywood always launches with dreams that everyone wants to spend a bajillion bucks on their product and then reality hits. When I go into Best Buy the UHD section is well stocked and there are generally few people looking through the selection if any at all.
Steaming has taken over. I see more Roku, Fire Sticks and Chrome Casts selling versus high end Blu-ray players.
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.
if it takes a long time to download a pirated 4K movie, it's probably going to take pretty long to download a 4K movie that is not pirated, too, and if a significant portion of the public wants 4K enough to pay for it, piracy of 4K will become more common too.
Don't lose sight of the fact that Apple was instrumental in moving people from piracy to legitimate customers with $.99 songs in iTunes. Yes, there are always those that refuse to pay $.99, but Apple (Steve) made it easy, quick, and reliable. The cost at the time was considered reasonable. If Apple can do that here with 4k, they will succeed. There are a *lot* of sources for movies now - there's a lot of competition.
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.
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.
If you or anyone else is buying UHD today, there isn't any certainty that you are getting the dynamic range in the panel for HDR, whatever the panel type.
The Consumer Electronics Industry made it easy to deal with that; hardware branded UltraHD Premium supports HDR 10 bit as a minimum. with some screens supporting even more bits through Dolbyvison and other proprietary formats.
Myself, I would be happy to see 14 bit UltraHD Premium screens at a reasonable cost, as the is considered the standard range of the human eye viewable simultaneously.
I'm not seeing the "hype" associated with HDR; it really does provide a significantly improved viewing experience. You need HDR media and an HDR screen for the best viewing experience at 4K.
This is a two-headed coin. While paying less for media content is nice for consumers (and Apple will profit more if iTunes is the go-to for movies) it may discourage content creators investment in quality films and music. It's already tough for music performers and writers to make a living from streaming songs, and studios may suffer from ever-cheaper movie streaming as well with big-budget productions making less and less financial sense, especially as theater visits are declining.
The problem they will have is with Apple having a least a two-prong approach to forcing their way, reduce old-line studios and production houses profits by demanding lower prices while trumpeting the benefit to consumers (!), and at the same time using some of the Apple $B's to start their own shows and movies to compete with and replace them. IMO bending now would seem to play into Apple's plans to be the major force in video too just as they were in music.
You're kidding. Right? Have you seen the sort of bank the studios make on tentpole films?
Have you seen the sort of losses studios incur on duds? Especially when a tentpole flops?
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.
if it takes a long time to download a pirated 4K movie, it's probably going to take pretty long to download a 4K movie that is not pirated, too, and if a significant portion of the public wants 4K enough to pay for it, piracy of 4K will become more common too.
Don't lose sight of the fact that Apple was instrumental in moving people from piracy to legitimate customers with $.99 songs in iTunes. Yes, there are always those that refuse to pay $.99, but Apple (Steve) made it easy, quick, and reliable. The cost at the time was considered reasonable. If Apple can do that here with 4k, they will succeed. There are a *lot* of sources for movies now - there's a lot of competition.
They were… with music. So far they've failed to do anything remotely the same with streaming video content in over a decade.
Maybe when they had that iTV demo for content owners back the landscape was dim, but the Apple TV wasn't released in until 2007 which is the same year Netflix started to stream content. However, in the last decade things have changed dramatically and Apple is only getting into things that Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, YouTube, and others have been doing for years.
It would be great if we could see something happen but Apple's model has been rental and purchase, not subscription. Even Apple Music seems to show Apple being late to change, but I think that's not a big concern over Apple not being able to get a shoe-in with content owners for a subscription model.
So my question to you (anyone) is: If Apple couldn't make this happen with SD/480p, 720p, or 1080p content over the last decade, then why should we expect them to be able to do it next month with 4K/2160p+HDR? I'd love to see it happen, but the odds seem staked against it.
Comments
I tend to agree, I know the family DVD collection is collecting dust in my theater room, My daughter and her friend dusted off the Star War movies and binged watch them over the last few week, but they said they rather stream them since it pain to load them into the player.
I think Apple needs to take on Netflix and Hulu, and provide Live Stream, On demand, and pay as you consume or el a carte content, I would buy in and dump everything I have today.
Films are recorded generally in resolutions higher than 4K anyway so there is no extra work involved in releasing the film in 4K.
Red is 4K, IMAX is 6K with a maximum of 12K.
Therefore, releasing a 4K film is no more expensive than an standard HD film. So why should they charge a premium?
Apple have to store the larger files so should it not be down to the storage company as to how much extra they want to charge?
Increasing prices just increases piracy or decreases the number of people who watch the film in 4K and also slow the uptake of 4K TV's in the home.
Which is fine.
Apple, Amazon and Google already are curating these streams, rentals, and downloads through their media players via their voice assistants, and we will end up managing subscriptions in lieu of or in addition to, Cable.
I have both AppleTV and FireTV, neither of which I use much, preferring to watch on my iMac and iPad Pro. I'll probably buy the next AppleTV for HDR/Dolbyvision when I get around to upgrading my television, and I will end up downloading 4K, but rarely, instead relying on Netflix and Amazon as my primary streaming media, and iTunes for downloads.
I think that the Studios should do what they want with media. Ultimately, consumers will decided what they want to watch, at what quality, when, and at what price, and they will still use Rotten Tomatoes to decide what to risk their money on, and will still use Apple, Amazon and Google to curate.
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.
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.
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.
I don't have a lot of Blu-ray movies but I'm going to encode them to HEVC wrapped as MKV and they'll reside on a NAS running Plex Server with a Plex Pass.
Unless iTunes has a major update and modernizes i'll centralize my music, re-ripping to ALAC.
I'll likely purchase a few UHD movies but 80% of my movie library purchased online are movies that cost less than $10. Hollywood always launches with dreams that everyone wants to spend a bajillion bucks on their product and then reality hits. When I go into Best Buy the UHD section is well stocked and there are generally few people looking through the selection if any at all.
Steaming has taken over. I see more Roku, Fire Sticks and Chrome Casts selling versus high end Blu-ray players.
The Consumer Electronics Industry made it easy to deal with that; hardware branded UltraHD Premium supports HDR 10 bit as a minimum. with some screens supporting even more bits through Dolbyvison and other proprietary formats.
Myself, I would be happy to see 14 bit UltraHD Premium screens at a reasonable cost, as the is considered the standard range of the human eye viewable simultaneously.
I'm not seeing the "hype" associated with HDR; it really does provide a significantly improved viewing experience. You need HDR media and an HDR screen for the best viewing experience at 4K.
Maybe when they had that iTV demo for content owners back the landscape was dim, but the Apple TV wasn't released in until 2007 which is the same year Netflix started to stream content. However, in the last decade things have changed dramatically and Apple is only getting into things that Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, YouTube, and others have been doing for years.
It would be great if we could see something happen but Apple's model has been rental and purchase, not subscription. Even Apple Music seems to show Apple being late to change, but I think that's not a big concern over Apple not being able to get a shoe-in with content owners for a subscription model.
So my question to you (anyone) is: If Apple couldn't make this happen with SD/480p, 720p, or 1080p content over the last decade, then why should we expect them to be able to do it next month with 4K/2160p+HDR? I'd love to see it happen, but the odds seem staked against it.