Replace your 720p HD Movies with 1080p?

Maybe I have Great News? I Have about 125 HD movies, half my collection. I Noticed now when puchasing HD content in the fine print info, on the left under the Movie Cover in Movies section of the iTunes Store, It says downloading in 720P and some of the newer movies say that, and then, a comma, 720p, 1080p.

Then I noticed that In the newest iTunes (10.6), in the Prefs, there are 2 places were it asks for your Preferred Resolution! In the 'Playback' section, and Also in the 'Store' section of the prefs. They were set to 720p of course as thats how things Were. But with the New ATV able to push out 1080p You would want your downloads in the 1080p format. By resetting your prefs in those 2 sections of iTunes to 1080p, instaed of 720p, by pressing the 720p and setting your Preferred Resolution to 1080p, when you go to the Movie Store in iTunes, It now says the D/L will be in 1080p!

Here is were it gets pretty fantastic!!! With the New Breakthrough in the Cloud, that is allowing you to Re Dowload most of your Movies (most because a few Studios are not yet on Board) If you erase your 720p issue, when you re dowload the same item, I Believe you would now get the 1080p copy!!!! They are nearly the same size as Apple is using a New compression format that magically has a better picture with no appreciable size increase!

So IF your Ordering the New 'Apple TV', you could get the Higher resolution copy for your new device. Great Going Apple!!!

I don't yet have my New ATV and have not tried this New Neat Service. If it's true, it seems like a Great Christmas gift from Apple!!! But I have several Pre-Orders on call so I went to my account and Were it says 'Manage Your Pre-Orders' cliked on the Pre-Order, Meloncholia, it took me to the page in the Store were the Movie is being sold, when I looked at the Movie there, 720p,1080p, It had the 1080p copy of the movie set to D/L! ... I had pre-Ordered the movie some time before 1080p was available, and it was shown already in my cue at 1080p!!! You must have the iTunes Prefs set up correctly, for this to occur. So I didn't have to cancel the Order in the Pre-Order section and re-buy the movie to get the High Rez item!

So I do believe that IF the movie that you already own at 720p, is indeed available in the Higher Rez Version - check before trying this, by re-looking up the Movie in the iTunes Store, and, seeing if the info in the small print, now says the HD is also available in 720p/1080p. If your Prefs are set for 1080p in the iTunes app you will get the high rez version!!! Older movies like Dune are not available in Higher Rez, yet?. Next week the new Apple TV comes out and probably in time all movies will be available in 720 &1080p

Too Cool for words! Somebody please test this and let us all know if indeed this is True!!!?

AppleTV 2, Mac OS X (10.7.2), Focal CMS 50's,Duet, LED Display 24, iPhone 4

Posted on Mar 9, 2012 9:24 AM

43 replies

hikerboy

Level 1

0 points

Mar 12, 2012 7:55 PM in response to mactechconsulting

Woohoo it works :-)

Mar 13, 2012 8:36 AM in response to mactechconsulting

Keep in mind, that unless you are also upgrading your iPad to the newest model, the 1080p encodes will not transfer to the iPad 1 or 2. I was very excited to update all of my content to 1080p, but stopped as I do not want to have to store multiple versions of the same movie/TV show.

I believe this is a software limitation (the A5 in the iPad 2 should have no problem decoding this content), but it is unclear if/when Apple will modify this behavior.

Mar 13, 2012 9:54 AM in response to mactechconsulting

I was very plesantly surprised to find that this works. What I found in my very limited testing was that my ATV would only play the HD video if it was the only one in my iTunes Library. Even though iTunes showed me the HD-SD tag with the 1080p video in the library, the ATV wouldn't see it. If I removed the SD version then the ATV would see it. Has anyone else seen this behavior or am I just crazy from the lack of heat?

Mar 13, 2012 7:45 PM in response to Michael Allbritton

Yes if tou delete the Whole movie only the 1080p will D/l and then the ATV will play it.but you don't get the HD detail without the New ATV.

Joe116

Level 1

18 points

Mar 14, 2012 6:34 AM in response to mactechconsulting

Thanks for this. You mentioned - just go the New Purchased Items in the Cloud. Why can't I see that on my iTunes window? I just see Purchased...

Any idea?

Mar 14, 2012 8:04 AM in response to Joe116

In The Purchased window are tabs fir all the different types of your media...

Mar 14, 2012 10:24 AM in response to Joe116

What country are you in? iTunes in the Cloud (and specifically movies) are not available everywhere yet.

Mar 14, 2012 10:27 AM in response to Alley_Cat

This is not exactly what you are looking for Alley Cat, but Ars has done a comparisson between a 1080p BRD and an iTunes Store download <http://arstechnica.com/apple/guides/2012/03/the-ars-itunes-1080p-vs-blu-ray-shoo tout.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss>.

The download fares pretty well, but it is, at the end of the day a compressed download. For me, if I were in the market for 1080p downloads though, they would be sufficient.

Alley_Cat

Level 7

20,560 points

Mar 14, 2012 11:19 AM in response to Michael Allbritton

Thanks Michael - I just came across that and was about to post.

One example they show is something that has always annoyed me with iTunes compression - that is banding in dark/bright scenes instead of smooth gradients.

I have only downloaded a single 1080p version of an iTunes programme I had in 720p, and feel it looks a bit softer possibly with more artefact like the above in areas of near solid colour. Can't really judge on a single comparison though.

Joe116

Level 1

18 points

Mar 14, 2012 3:21 PM in response to Michael Allbritton

Toronto Canada

Mar 14, 2012 4:15 PM in response to Joe116

This may help you: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5085

Joe116

Level 1

18 points

Mar 15, 2012 5:37 AM in response to mactechconsulting

Only available in the USA. Hopefully they get it fixed up for us Canadians soon!

psoon

Level 1

10 points

Mar 18, 2012 10:58 AM in response to mactechconsulting

Hello,

I've been following this thread in the hope of learning how to make 1080p movie and tv show purchases from iTunes in anticipation of purchasing the new Apple TV. I have iTunes 10.6 (40) installed on my MBP 2.4Ghz i5 with 8GB ram and am in Canada.

My problem is that I can't seem to follow your direction 'cause, thing are not happening on my iTunes according to your directions even after I ensured the two preference settings are set to 1080p. Hovering the cursor over info section at the purchase section does not bring up anything other than whats already there, searching my 'purchased' section also does bring up any new options. Of course, it could be that none of my previous purchased items are available in 1080p. Could you give a specific example of a movie or tv show thats available in 1080p so that I can try again? Thanks

Philip S

psoon

Level 1

10 points

Mar 18, 2012 11:05 AM in response to mactechconsulting

Whoops! looks like I missed an earlier post explaning that all this fancy 1080P download is currently only available in the US. So, any ideas when its going to be available in Canada?

Philip S

Joe116

Level 1

18 points

Mar 18, 2012 11:29 AM in response to psoon

Hey Philp,

I had an email conversation with Apple the other day. The guy was very helpful and said this ability will likely be available in other countries before we know it. I'm in Canada and I'm looking very forward to it.

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Replace your 720p HD Movies with 1080p?