Chaos Walking | redeemed on older Mac OS and was told 720 resolution maximum

[willbfree]

I have never seen this happen before, but today, iTunes warned me when I redeemed my digital code for Chaos Walking (from the 4K UHD BluRay package) that on my particular older Mac OS, the title will only download in 720.

Note I am saying download, not stream. I'm only concerned with the download option here, since, like many collectors, I collect rather than assume Apple will always be in business to stream to me.

Nothing I have ever purchased from Apple, or any code I have redeemed through Apple, has ever downloaded as anything other than 1080. Of course, 4K titles have always been limited to 1080 when downloading, that is expected. But this is a first time I've seen a download limited to 720.

I have a couple ideas why this could be.

1) This could merely be some weird decision that Lionsgate (owner of Chaos Walking) made about their digital redemption codes provided as a slips of paper in disc packages. It might just be this film company, it might just be redemptions of digital codes. If I had bought Chaos Walking direct from Apple (rather than buying the discs and redeeming the code) maybe it would have downloaded in 1080 even on my older OS, just like all other purchases and redeemed codes do.

But another idea is more likely and more troublesome:

2) Some older Mac OS and their corresponding older iTunes are kept around by some people (cough) because with them it is easy to remove the protection that prevents these purchases from streaming to every device in one's home. (So I've heard.)

Apple may have gotten wise to this, and may be getting rid of the ability to download in 1080 on older OS as a preventative measure. I.e., they may be making the file so unappealing as to be pointless to download.

Hopefully this is just one weird occurrence. But, need to hear from people to know.

I'd be interested in hearing from others who bought Chaos Walking, or redeemed Chaos Walking, on more current Mac OS. What downloaded from the cloud when you chose to download? I got a 3.85GB file measuring 1280x534. It should have been a 4.28GB file measure 1920x801.