upgrading to HD on iTunes?

[EJT501]

Is there a way to upgrade your videos in iTunes to HD?
for instance: I bought the SD Star Wars bundle when it was first released, but now i want the HD versions, is there a way with iTunes to pay the price difference and upgrade?

[Zu Nim]

There should be, but there isn't. If you had recently purchased it you might be able to get refunded and then repurchase the HD version, but 3 months may be too long.

[Discombobulate]

You pretty much have to buy the title again.

I've not bothered.

When 4K comes out it will be the same again.

I might buy the odd title again but not my entire collection.

[Krizzle1]

Originally Posted by Discombobulate

You pretty much have to buy the title again.

I've not bothered.

When 4K comes out it will be the same again.

I might buy the odd title again but not my entire collection.

Im assuming by then they'll have realised people won't be willing to pay twice for a movie (just to upgrade to 4K). I think the average consumer will be fine with HD (720p/1080p), so they might create an 'Update to 4K' option for movies to push the new 'thing', lets hope so

[Wasgo]

Originally Posted by Krizzle1

Im assuming by then they'll have realised people won't be willing to pay twice for a movie (just to upgrade to 4K). I think the average consumer will be fine with HD (720p/1080p), so they might create an 'Update to 4K' option for movies to push the new 'thing', lets hope so

The problem is that people have historically paid multiple times for better video.

For music, the early digital copies sold were worse than CD copies, and the newer ones are better, but still worse than CD. We weren't paying for remastering, we were just paying a fee for better encoding. That's not really the same with video.

[Dunk the Lunk]

Originally Posted by Wasgo

The problem is that people have historically paid multiple times for better video.

For music, the early digital copies sold were worse than CD copies, and the newer ones are better, but still worse than CD. We weren't paying for remastering, we were just paying a fee for better encoding. That's not really the same with video.

Except on iTunes they did offer an upgrade fee when they went from copy protected 128kbps tracks to unprotected 256kbps tracks ('iTunes+'). I think it was 30 pence per track in the UK?

Apple will want to do something similar with HD to 4K but it will be up to the studios whether they agree to it.

[Zu Nim]

Originally Posted by Dunk the Lunk

Except on iTunes they did offer an upgrade fee when they went from copy protected 128kbps tracks to unprotected 256kbps tracks ('iTunes+'). I think it was 30 pence per track in the UK?

Apple will want to do something similar with HD to 4K but it will be up to the studios whether they agree to it.

And yet, there was no fee when Apple went from 720p to 1080p. I think you have it exactly backwards - the fees are the from the content providers, not Apple. (Apple didn't even want DRM, so why would they charge to get rid of it?)

[Dunk the Lunk]

Originally Posted by Zu Nim

And yet, there was no fee when Apple went from 720p to 1080p. I think you have it exactly backwards - the fees are the from the content providers, not Apple. (Apple didn't even want DRM, so why would they charge to get rid of it?)

Erm maybe I didn't make my point very well but I agree with you totally. However Wasgo seemed to be suggesting that you had to pay for everything twice when they upgraded the music quality and this clearly is not true. It is the content providers/studios who will decide whether a HD to 4K upgrade is free, a cheap add on or full price.

[Wasgo]

Originally Posted by Dunk the Lunk

Erm maybe I didn't make my point very well but I agree with you totally. However Wasgo seemed to be suggesting that you had to pay for everything twice when they upgraded the music quality and this clearly is not true. It is the content providers/studios who will decide whether a HD to 4K upgrade is free, a cheap add on or full price.

No, I said the studio was willing to charge a smaller upgrade fee because it was the same content, just the encoding varied. Same for 1080P versus 720P.

4K and 1080P aren't just an encoding change.

[Dunk the Lunk]

Originally Posted by Wasgo

No, I said the studio was willing to charge a smaller upgrade fee because it was the same content, just the encoding varied. Same for 1080P versus 720P.

4K and 1080P aren't just an encoding change.

Yeah but as far as vast majority of consumers are concerned 4K is just an upgrade in quality. Most consumers don't know about encoding, or 2K or 4K masters etc.

In the iTunes ecosystem consumers are used getting upgrades either for free or for a small fee. This includes things like:

Music quality going 128kbps to 256kbps - small upgrade fee
'Mastered for iTunes' remastering of music albums - free for some albums (eg Beatles back catalog)
Video audio going from stereo to 5.1 (and now 7.1) - Free
SD video quality going from c.320*176 to 640*352 to 853*460 - Free
HD video quality going from 720 to 1080 - Free

The only exception as pointed out has been SD to HD. However for the vast majority of purchases this was an active choice. SD was only available for 16 months before they started selling HD video. Since then you made your choice - choose SD or HD on purchase and have to stick with it. When 4K launches I think there will be a consumer backlash on iTunes and the other popular download services if they don't offer an upgrade route which is seen as 'fair'.

[blurayfriend]

I would love for them to do this. Unfortunately, they either never will or will get greedy. I think most people's upper limit for a movie they already bought would be at most the difference between the two prices. When iTunes charges more for some movies than you would pay for the blu-ray WITH a digital copy included you know something's wrong.

[Rik1138]

Some studios are doing it on their own... They'll update the feature with HD (especially if they are trying to add Extras to it), they just don't tell you in any way... You just have to figure it out.

Disney will upgrade your SD movies to HD if you link your iTunes acct with Disney Movies Anywhere. It doesn't work for every movie, but all of Pixar films upgraded to HD with Extras after doing that..

[Jakdonark]

So if I redeemed codes at the time they only gave SD copies, but now give HD copies, is there some way I can reclaim them? I checked back and a good chunk of the Universal 100th codes only redeemed in SD, but if redeemed now they would be HD. I know that works for Disney titles if you have DMA and redownload (which doesn’t work up here in Canada, unfortunately), but how could I do that for other brands? I just picked up the steels for Mummy and Blues Brothers and both have DC codes, so I could just reclaim those ones to get HD but if there is a way around that I wouldn’t be wasting the code. it would be nice so I could give the code to someone else.

[Zu Nim]

Originally Posted by Jakdonark

So if I redeemed codes at the time they only gave SD copies, but now give HD copies, is there some way I can reclaim them? I checked back and a good chunk of the Universal 100th codes only redeemed in SD, but if redeemed now they would be HD.

You can get in touch with Universal and they should give you new HD codes to replace your old SD redemptions. Be prepared to take a lot of photos, and you'll need to know what the SD codes were.

[Jakdonark]

Originally Posted by Zu Nim

You can get in touch with Universal and they should give you new HD codes to replace your old SD redemptions. Be prepared to take a lot of photos, and you'll need to know what the SD codes were.

Hopefully it's better than with fox. I've had problems with their iTunes titles "expiring" and only giving uv, and with every email back it seems like no one reads back and I'd get a different answer every time. So far I've always been able to get it straightened out but it takes a week or two of back and forth emails. My old codes are all stored alphabetically and if I look at my list of iTunes redemptions it has an HD icon next to the ones that originally redeemed in HD.

Some like jaws and ET redeemed in HD right from the start, but there were a bunch that didn't. And in the last year I've redeemed a lot of old universal codes and every one redeemed in HD. And I think I read somewhere that it was confirmed it was doing that too.

Do you suppose if I emailed Disney I could get my old SD copies upgraded too? I mean they are doing it stateside anyway. I'm not sure what the holdup is bringing DMA to Canada.

[Evil]

Originally Posted by Jakdonark

So if I redeemed codes at the time they only gave SD copies, but now give HD copies, is there some way I can reclaim them? I checked back and a good chunk of the Universal 100th codes only redeemed in SD, but if redeemed now they would be HD.

You might want to try redeeming those old codes again. Some were refreshed when the redeems changed from SD to HD. They might redeem again and in HD this time.

[MtGiraffe]

Originally Posted by Zu Nim

You can get in touch with Universal and they should give you new HD codes to replace your old SD redemptions. Be prepared to take a lot of photos, and you'll need to know what the SD codes were.

I emailed Universal with photos of all my SD digital codes (I have 14), and they said they couldn't do anything for me. I also tried re-entering the codes on iTunes and on universaldigitalcopy.com, but none of that worked. It said either "this code has expired" or "this code has been used." Is there a link to the site where Universal made this offer? I haven't been able to find it anywhere except mentioned in these forums.

[bthumble]

Wish iTunes would allow you to upgrade SD to HD at a reduced price.