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$9.99 Mission Impossile 3 makes me wonder why digital doesn't go on sale more often.

KittyKatta

KittyKatta

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 24, 2011
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Did anyone buy Mission Impossible 1, 2, or 3 on iTunes? They are currently on sale for $9.99/ea which is the first I've seen movies get discounted. So I'm curious of everyone's feeling on it. Is this going to be a common trend or a rare promotion?

For me, this was my first digital movie purchase and I bought MI3 and it was a fantastic experience. Click to buy, download to iTunes, download digital extras and stream to Apple TV. If they can manage to get more quality HD movies to the $10 mark or lower then I'd gladly ditch physical media for digital. :D



BTW. While we're talking movies, if you buy an SD version, can you pay the difference later for the HD copy? Some titles don't have HD versions yet andi don't want to wait.
 
They definitely do need to lower the prices of the movies available on iTunes to get more people to switch. The sale of the Mission: Impossibles is a fairly decent price, but I picked up the first three in a set for $19.99 on Blu-Ray when the fourth one was being released in theaters, and I think the set is still that price. So not only are you getting the best quality, you're getting a physical copy of the film you can rip to your computer with the proper drive. So while they charge $10 a pop for a digital only copy that has no manufacturing, shipping and other fees, you can get a physical copy for less than $7, make your own digital copy, and have the physical version for safekeeping and if you want the best quality possible. I can't see digital sales taking off until they fix that massive discrepensy.
As far as your question goes, unfortunately that's not possible.
 
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I completely agree with this. I haven't bought anything on iTunes, because I can't rationalize paying more for something that I can ONLY play on certain devices, can't let friends borrow, can't ever resell, etc... But I want to go digital.

I agree that there should be more sales on digital copies, and I think that the SD/HD differentiations should go away completely. Just buy the movie and you can choose if you want to download it in SD/720/1080 depending on your needs. The artificial limitation is just dumb.

Then the movie prices should be more like $15 for new releases and $10 for movies that have been out a while. Maybe even have a "Sale" section of movies for $5 that would rotate every week. Oh yeah, and sequels should be able to be bundled together for cheaper.

Edit: I might actually purchase one (or some) of these MI's for $10, to get me started on iTunes purchases. Haha, so thanks for the heads up!
 
i too would love to switch only over to digital, but it can be much to frustrating to manage all the files since they take up so much space, not to mention the cost difference seems to make it more expensive. I've mainly switched to iTunes for TV seasons that i would otherwise buy on DVD but movies just isn't practical yet.
 
PlaceofDis said:
i too would love to switch only over to digital, but it can be much to frustrating to manage all the files since they take up so much space, not to mention the cost difference seems to make it more expensive. I've mainly switched to iTunes for TV seasons that i would otherwise buy on DVD but movies just isn't practical yet.
Click to expand...

Why are TV seasons more practical? Do they cost less than their physical counterparts?
 
I've moved my entire DVD and TV Season to digital. Things that used to collect dust on my bookshelf now get watched since going digital.

There is a lot of data to manage but I moved to a Drobo which takes care of backup for me and makes expansion a breeze...just wonderful.
 
iTunes as a set of sale movies every week - usually for $4.99 but I think that is the SD version.

Some studios are now allowing Movies to be streamed, just like TV shows. This cuts way down on the local storage requirement.

I have purchased maybe 20 movies through iTunes since I got my first AppleTV, but It is pretty rare that I do so now. It has to be a really good movie that happens to be on sale at this point. For anything else, I just rent. You can usually rent at least 3 times for the purchase price, and for me that's a better deal as I don't watch many movies over and over again.

Digital is different. With instant delivery from the cloud, ownership is less important. It's not like I have to go down the block to pick up a disc I want to watch anymore.
 
Mad Mac Maniac said:
Why are TV seasons more practical? Do they cost less than their physical counterparts?
Click to expand...

two reasons: they're often the same price, not higher, and with the season pass you get to download episodes as they are aired so its convenient at least to not have to wait until the season is over to get the set.
 
I too am switching to digital.

I've held firmly onto physical media over digital for so long, wanting the 'best experience'.

But I'm fed up of a) having shelves upon shelves occupied with boxes b) having to wait a lifetime for the friggin' movie to start (adverts, menus, blah blah) and c) having to circumvent copy protection to make them portable.

Yes, digital is sub blu-ray quality but I'm going for convenience now!
 
KittyKatta said:
Did anyone buy Mission Impossible 1, 2, or 3 on iTunes? They are currently on sale for $9.99/ea which is the first I've seen movies get discounted. So I'm curious of everyone's feeling on it. Is this going to be a common trend or a rare promotion?

For me, this was my first digital movie purchase and I bought MI3 and it was a fantastic experience. Click to buy, download to iTunes, download digital extras and stream to Apple TV. If they can manage to get more quality HD movies to the $10 mark or lower then I'd gladly ditch physical media for digital. :D



BTW. While we're talking movies, if you buy an SD version, can you pay the difference later for the HD copy? Some titles don't have HD versions yet andi don't want to wait.
Click to expand...

Working in Hollywood I've come to notice that most studios would rather stifle technology than discount the latest trends... Rather than look for new ways to make money on the same product they would rather just bury it. Like how they are with selling/renting movies. If the studios weren't driven by greed over intelligence they would have created a rental system much like Netflix or iTunes ages ago in their own ecosystem. But they chose to stick to the old ways relying on pushing their more "controlled" and understood technologies than going head on into tomorrow. Devices like the ps3 should have been the forefront of this movement years ago but it is to this day behind on the latest features because of their own bureaucratic issues.

Need an example? Crackle (a Sony owned streaming service) to THIS DAY does not have a dedicated hi def app on the PS3... You can only watch it through the web browser and it is a pixelated mess and a pain to navigate through. A decent app is on every other machine. Why are you not putting it on your own...

Not to mention Sony purchased crackle before google ever bought YouTube. Why it never surpassed any of it's peers is insane to me.
 
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The longer the big wigs at the movie companies insist on high digital pricing, more and more people will be driven to piracy.
 
I have bought so many digital copies of movies & tv shows recently that it is embarrassing to think of just how much I have spent

But in the last week or so I have started reigning in and will continue as such until prices drop.

Some movies being anywhere close to $18 is a total joke.
 
I'm finally nearing the end of ripping all my DVD's (oh god the sweet sweet beautiful end) and now have 200ish movies and about 80 series of TV shows and I love being digital!

I am buying the odd thing from iTunes as I want it, but I have to limit myself as it is pretty expensive. I don't mind paying near Blu-Ray price for a new film in HD, but the biggest issue is that the price drops on physical much much quicker than digital because stores need the space for new stuff, where as digital just sits there on a server.

Before Netflix launched in the UK I wanted to work my way through 24. Most seasons are like £25 and there are eight of them (I think). So that's a £200 outlay for the whole thing. Now when those DVD box sets launched they were £40 each, so at a glance (and from an executive somewheres perspective) that's a deal. But the reality is that my local HMV DVD store had the complete collection box set on their shelves for £60. The whole thing.

I couldn't bring myself to pay £140 over the odds just for digital, but I have promised myself I won't buy any more DVD's, just Blu-Rays for my absolute fave films. Thank god Netflix launched while I was deliberating, offering up all of the series for like 5.99 a month!!
 
I stopped purchasing DVDs a few years ago and only use iTunes and now only HD unless it is something really good like the Dark Knight. My older ripped DVDs actually have much worst quality than the SD stuff on iTunes.
 
PlaceofDis said:
i too would love to switch only over to digital, but it can be much to frustrating to manage all the files since they take up so much space, not to mention the cost difference seems to make it more expensive. I've mainly switched to iTunes for TV seasons that i would otherwise buy on DVD but movies just isn't practical yet.
Click to expand...

I'll use Arrested Development as an example of my problem with buying TV on iTunes.

iTunes - $80 for 3 seasons and no extra features. No resale. No sharing. Limited device compatibility.
DVD - $45 for 3 seasons with all available extras and commentaries
Netflix - $7/mo includes all episodes of AD and much much more
Hulu - $0 Streaming

This also goes for many shows like 30 Rock, Simpsons, The Office, etc where you can buy the DVD season box sets with a bunch of extras for $15 a season, stream them online for cheap, or pay $2.99/ep $30-50/season for a DRM locked iTunes copy.

People out here are the ones who understand the convenience of pulling up a show from the Apple TV, but it's even priced out of our hands so how are normal people ever going to accept buying digital copies at these prices. What they really need to do is put out seasons of old shows for $10. I may never watch Lost again, but I was enough of a fan at the time that I'd gladly buy the entire show anyway. Not cashing in on stuff like that to lure people into digital purchasing seems like a missed opportunity.
 
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striker33 said:
The longer the big wigs at the movie companies insist on high digital pricing, more and more people will be driven to piracy.
Click to expand...
Its sad that so many kids today are growing up with piracy being the norm, but I cant say I blame them for it. The industry has made being "legal" extremely inconvenient.

$20 iTunes HD Movie
- Can only play on your account
- Cant lend to friends
- No possible resale
- No/Limited special features

$12 BluRay Movie
- Can play on any BD player
- Can be loaned to friends
- Will resale easily
- SD Version included for mobile devices
- Full extras and special features

$0 Torrent HD Movie
- Can be played/shared with any computer
- Can be re-encoded to any device

Obviously people on this forum can appreciate the convenience of a digital library but being legal is an inconvenience over being a pirate. So we have the dilemma of figuring out if its worth it for a convenient, but crippled, iTunes HD movie or if we should just get a cheaper BluRay and consider ripping the movie for the AppleTV convenience. And we're adults! Do you think a teen is going to have that moral dilemma or will they just grab a torrent?

Doing the right thing shouldnt be such a huge inconvenience.
 
Let's all put this in good perspective:

If you rip movies yourself, you must factor the following:

1) Time it takes to rip a movie title.
2) Storage space required per movie title
3) How to stream this (either using iTunes home sharing or DLNA/NAS type setup)
4) How to share this with other people not in the same house
5) iOS device support (from remote locations)

Now the truth is: You will most likely 95% of the time, watch the same movie twice or three times AT MOST in one year. That's really based on the movie you really like, etc.

You can rip your entire DVD collection with over 300 movies and get huge TB HDD space to store it all. But then you have to consider that you have to stream it somehow and also what do you do when you are not home and want to watch a movie? Sure you can copy it onto your iOS device, etc.

I agree the pricing on the digital content stuff should be cheaper than physical media but these movie studios are crooks. If iTunes offers more "BUY" products, I'd consider buying them since you can have the movie online and watch anytime from anywhere on any iOS device.

Rather than having to maintain a library collection (what if your hdd fails and it will eventually), do you really want to make a backup of your 2TB+ collection? It just makes more sense if you can pay a one time price and have apple deal with the backend of hosting/streaming that movie for you.

Most of the movies I have collected for the past 10 years I rarely even watch again. It's just like music, you get bored of the same song and you rarely bother to play it again. That's my own personal perspective and I know some people eat the same foods daily for 10 years and not even get bothered by that.

On a different subject: I feel software should be the same way. Pay a subscription fee and get software to use. Sort of like a rental system. I highly suggest games be these same way: pay a subscription and get the games to play rather than paying $60 for a game that is outdated in a year. If companies are smart, they would charge a netflix like monthly rental and offer this payment plan since they will be collecting money regardless if you play a game or not.
 
Anti-Lucifer said:
I agree the pricing on the digital content stuff should be cheaper than physical media but these movie studios are crooks. If iTunes offers more "BUY" products, I'd consider buying them since you can have the movie online and watch anytime from anywhere on any iOS device.
Click to expand...
I think I figured it out and the solution Id like to see almost already exists. ;)

1) Buy Physical BluRay that comes with Digital SD Copy
2) Go to download digital SD copy like normal by authenticating through iTunes
3) When you authenticate with iTunes you get a "Upgrade to HD for $5" option.

This works for all sides. Studios double dip by chargingus twice for the same movie. Apple sells more AppleTVs because there a benefit to more customers who want a solution to stream their HD movies to their tv. Consumers get both the digital and physical copies at affordable prices without resorting to piracy. Win-Win-Win. :D
 
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I agree with the OP. I think it's important to understand that iTunes does not sell movies. They simply sell access to it. So on top of paying more for something you can do less with, you don't even own the copy and Apple could cite your account for a TOS violation and you'd lose all your content.

IMO, digital videos should be half the cost of a discounted Blu-Ray disc, since I am getting quite a bit less for my money.
 
The US and UK iTunes stores have had a few different titles on sale in HD recently and it's been nice for a change. I would agree that a physical copy is almost always a better deal especially if it's at a lower price because it will likely include more content. This is assuming you don't mind ripping it yourself and the storage requirements aren't a problem.

However, when a 1080 digital version is on sale for a lower price and still includes all of the special features then I think that's a pretty good trade off for the convenience.

As an example: Kill Bill 1 & 2 were on sale for £4.99 while the BD's are £7 each. This is a title with no special features so the only difference is the price and (to some degree) the compression used on the transfer. Both are the same cut of the movie and both are 1080p. The digital version has the benefit of using a smaller amount of storage space, it includes an SD version of the film and it has no region restrictions. The BD version has the benefit of better compression/bitrate, uncompressed audio and no requirement for storage space on your HDD. In this case - and its just one example - the digital copy is cheaper and has different benefits that might be a better fit for some people.

I hope they continue discount 1080 HD movies because, depending on the title even I would prefer a cheaper option to buying/ripping the BD.
 
davwin said:
However, when a 1080 digital version is on sale for a lower price and still includes all of the special features then I think that's a pretty good trade off for the convenience
Click to expand...
Maybe UK iTunes get more sales but the reason I even made the thread was because a $10 quality movie is extremely rare.

Anyway, Despite how silly it is to call DRMd files a "convenience", I totally agree and wouldn't mind paying a reasonable price for iTunes movies. but the problem for me is that even if the pricing was closer then the "value" is still so far apart.

For example, I was going to buy a $15 kids movie on iTunes because it had iTunes Extras but when I compared it to the $12 DVD then I saw the iTunes version was missing a lot of special features as well as the "Bonus Sing along DVD" content. Digital should mean we get more access but for some reason we're getting much less.
 
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I have an all digital collection now, took me many hours to rip all my dvd's and blu rays, but it is totally worth it. I can stream this stuff from anywhere with great apps like Plex or AirVideo. Plus if need be I still have the physical discs for my dedicated stand alone players.

IMO digital copies is the way to go and the future, but not at it's current prices. Not when I can go to Target or Best Buy picks up 5 movies for $20 and then rip them all to my HD as well.
 
Send this to apple

Hi, I noticed the other day on the news that apple was boasting about their achievement at attaining $100 billion cash at the bank, and well done.

As a long time loyal customer of Apple products, I find it hard to digest that no reward or gratitude is offered back.

I see that despite the enormous profits Apple have achieved in recent years, there is still no end in sight to capitalizing on the market.

I feel that a prudent step forward to securing the consumers loyalty is not to display the evident extortion that exists.

Let me explain. $100b cash and we still have to pay nearly $30.00AU to own a digital copy of a movie. Far more costly than at a store ($19.99), which provides a disc and a cover and has overheads on lease etc.

So, as I do truly believe that this email will never be acknowledged and that all I’m doing here is pacifying the need for self-gratification to the fact that at least I said something.
I do however hope that one opinion can at least generate some awareness at a corporate level, to see that people have a greater awareness today of capitalizing and greed, this awareness has produced a modern idiom now known as milking, and more so we are aware that we are being milked.

I know what you’re thinking, what of the stocks we have shareholders that want to see profits.
Sure, I agree. But have we considered volume turnover. How many people don't buy the product because of the price?
I believe that at $30 there are 10 buyers and at $15 there are a thousand.

Could be wrong, but like an oxymoron, I could be right. Think about it and do something about it.
 
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