Why digital copies are available only on iTunes?

Makeesh

Makeesh

New member
New ski videos are about to come out and most of them are going to be available on DVD/Bluray and iTunes!

I wonder why it's not possible to buy them through another service and without DRM preferably.

So far I managed to download the last 4bi9 movie (All Damn Day) through a service called gumroad.com, The Education of Style from inspiredmedia.tv, The Spotlight Project back in the days, and maybe a couple more... but that's not much compared to the amount of videos released every year.

I also know Level 1 has put its latest videos on Vimeo.

I don't use any of Apple's stuff and I don't think being the only one, so why the vast majority of production companies sell their films only on iTunes?

Cheers
 
Ski companies use iTunes because their distribution is huge, its pretty rare for someone to not have iTunes. It's also very reliable and timeless as well, but they take such a huge cut...
 
That's a good point, but I think iTunes is very restrictive to play a movie on a TV for instance... unless you own an apple tv.

Personally, I play movies from a hard drive that is connected to my tv.

I also use an android tablet and, as far as I know, it's impossible to get something from itunes on android.

I just wished they use a second platform for the people who are not in the apple's world.
 
iTunes generally takes a 30% cut. I wish there was a better competitor but no one really has the same user experience and ubiquity that iTunes has.
 
You can watch iTunes movies with an Android device, but you have to crack the movies with some special Software first.

Question: has anyone every bought a movie on vimeo? Does it work well and can you download it or just watch online?
 
13143031:SDrvper said:
dont know why they dont make iTunes prices higher
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I'm pretty sure the prices are pretty calculated. They want to hit the sweet spot between price and quantity of sales.

People talk about using other download clients a lot but I don't think it would really help that much. 4bi9 did it with Keep Looking because it was a smaller project and then went back to iTunes for Their latest two movies. I think they would have kept doing their own downloads if it was working better.
 
13143008:Makeesh said:
That's a good point, but I think iTunes is very restrictive to play a movie on a TV for instance... unless you own an apple tv.

Personally, I play movies from a hard drive that is connected to my tv.

I also use an android tablet and, as far as I know, it's impossible to get something from itunes on android.

I just wished they use a second platform for the people who are not in the apple's world.
Click to expand...

have you never heard of a hdmi cord?
 
13143099:homestar said:
I'm pretty sure the prices are pretty calculated. They want to hit the sweet spot between price and quantity of sales.

People talk about using other download clients a lot but I don't think it would really help that much. 4bi9 did it with Keep Looking because it was a smaller project and then went back to iTunes for Their latest two movies. I think they would have kept doing their own downloads if it was working better.
Click to expand...

I wish they would do this again. People got freaked out about giving credit card info to a site they had never heard about, so I'm guessing that's why they went back to iTunes. But it was pretty nice because:

A) I got the movie for a lower price than iTunes

B) I actually own the movie, not just renting the rights from iTunes
 
Unless they drop that DRM shit I'm not going to pay a fucking dime on ITunes... and no, I'm not going through all that trouble to CRACK a god damn movie I actually bought.

Fuck apple.
 
I think they should use another download client beside itunes. They can stick with itunes for those who likes it.

Buying a movie and then going through the hassle of cracking it doesn't make any sense.

Like I said, I downloaded the latest 4bi9 movie through gumroad for $9. I got the mp4 file without DRM, I can watch it wherever I want. 4bi9 got there money, everyone is happy!

If they didn't sell enough this way, maybe they should promote it more... I found the download link by chance browsing their website.

It cannot be too much work to upload one file and set up a payment account on a service like gumroad.
 
13143233:SDrvper said:
Ya but they charge more to get the hard copy, and the hard copy makes more money. The connivence of itunes should cost at least the same as the hard copy
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There is more to it though. If one company decided to raise their price above the standard 10-15 dollars, they would make far less sales because all the other ski movies on iTunes would be cheaper. Even if the industry agreed to simultaneously raise their iTunes prices, they would still be competing against the other action sports documentaries (which almost all cost between 10 and 15 dollars.)

13143671:Makeesh said:
I think they should use another download client beside itunes. They can stick with itunes for those who likes it.

Buying a movie and then going through the hassle of cracking it doesn't make any sense.

Like I said, I downloaded the latest 4bi9 movie through gumroad for $9. I got the mp4 file without DRM, I can watch it wherever I want. 4bi9 got there money, everyone is happy!

If they didn't sell enough this way, maybe they should promote it more... I found the download link by chance browsing their website.

It cannot be too much work to upload one file and set up a payment account on a service like gumroad.
Click to expand...

Ski movie companies are actually paying for the DRM. iTunes uses the security of the DRM as a selling point to the companies that put their media up there. As mentioned, iTunes is a platform that almost everyone has. Using it helps prevent situations where the technologically illiterate don't have the right codec/media player to handle different files.

Production companies have put a lot of thought into this and they have reasons for not making the change. I think it will happen eventually but some of these problems would need to be resolved.
 
13143835:homestar said:
Ski movie companies are actually paying for the DRM. iTunes uses the security of the DRM as a selling point to the companies that put their media up there. As mentioned, iTunes is a platform that almost everyone has. Using it helps prevent situations where the technologically illiterate don't have the right codec/media player to handle different files.
Click to expand...

DRM is a stupid thing, it's just annoying and provides a very limited security. That's why it has been dropped on music files.

Moreover, there is no reason to use itunes if you don't own an iphone, ipod or ipad.

And nowadays, I think codecs are not an issue anymore. Most media players can handle all sort of video files.
 
13143008:Makeesh said:
That's a good point, but I think iTunes is very restrictive to play a movie on a TV for instance... unless you own an apple tv.

Personally, I play movies from a hard drive that is connected to my tv.

I also use an android tablet and, as far as I know, it's impossible to get something from itunes on android.

I just wished they use a second platform for the people who are not in the apple's world.
Click to expand...

Virtually every smart TV in the civilized world has Amazon Instant already installed on it. There's actually quite a few movies for free on Prime.
 
13144812:Makeesh said:
DRM is a stupid thing, it's just annoying and provides a very limited security. That's why it has been dropped on music files.

Moreover, there is no reason to use itunes if you don't own an iphone, ipod or ipad.

And nowadays, I think codecs are not an issue anymore. Most media players can handle all sort of video files.
Click to expand...

DRM: stupid to you, selling point to many content creators (not all.)

iTunes is more common than any alternative. Codecs and file formats can be an issue especially between quicktime and windows media player which are the two most common players outside of iTunes itself.

My main point in all of this is that content creators have thought through this extensively and they are still using iTunes for these and other reasons. I'm sure they would jump on a good alternative the minute it became available but it's not here yet.
 
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