How do you upgrade HD titles from Movies Anywhere in iTunes?

Hello Everyone,

Before calling the Apple TV a POS please refer to the terms and conditions. To say this makes the whole AppleTV a POS is preposterous. The TOS clearly state that:

• Any movies purchased in HD on a participating MA service will only show in iTunes on HD.
• If there is a 4k reciprocal agreement, and that movie was purchased in 4k on another service, then it will show up in 4k on Apple's service.
• If the movie is purchased in 4k and there is no reciprocal 4k agreement, it will show up in iTunes as HD.
• If the movie is purchased in 4k and is not available in 4k on Apple, then it will not show up in 4k on iTunes.
• You must reauthorize Movies Anywhere every two years. Regardless of where you purchased the movie. There is always a possibility that any participating retailer or studio may pull out thus leaving you with a library of "Movies Somewhere"
• Lionsgate, MGM, Warner Animation, and Paramount are not a part of Movies Anywhere. Even movies part of the participating studios have exempt titles. Example: Dreamworks and Warner Animation have a handful of movies that are ineligible in any format.

What is unclear is if:

• ALL reciprocal agreements fall outside of Movies Anywhere's domain. In other words, it's between Apple and another party or parties. What is not clear is if the movie studio also gets a say. (For example, The movie may be available in 4k through VUDU and also through Apple. In most cases I've seen them show up in 4k on Apple. Such as Harry Potter. )
• Whether movie studios can override any reciprocity agreements between retailers. In other words, Sure Apple and VUDU allow 4k reciprocity but Warner may decide "these movies here may be reciprocal but not these movies." In other words, when will can they decide one day that all the DCEU movies are exempt and intelligible for reciprocity between Apple and some other retailer.
• Who has the last say: From my POV, Ultra-Violet may have the first say about reciprocity. The "Movie Studios" may have a second say in how the movies are delivered or if they are reciprocal. Finally, it appears Disney, who owns Movies Anywhere, has the final say. They are like the supreme court in this agreement. If Disney declares no reciprocity for a title, regardless of studio, then there is to be no reciprocity.
• What the final say will be with 4k, 4k UHD, and 4k UHD HDR.

VUDU has a poor UHD selection. Somehow they have an agreement to distribute the 4k versions for Disney. However, you will find outside of this agreement, Apple has a larger selection of 4k movies.

Possible Solution: At one time I had all Harry Potters showing up as 4k because I was dumb enough to buy through VUDU. Those no longer show up as 4k and I too must decide if I wish to repurchase them. The question is how? Some movies are like brand new purchase. If I unlink my iTunes account, the movies will still show up but new purchased will not so unlinking may not be an option unless I remove it from my library. (Have not tried this or the gifting of 4k)

Bottom Line: I will get all 4k Harry Potters at some point. I own 7 movies and 4 of them are 4k. I will no longer buy movies from VUDU, Alphabet Play, Amazon, Microsoft, Fandango or any other retailer that does not offer free 4k upgrade. I will likely buy my movies on iTunes since Apple TV versions of Prime and Vudu offer 4k or 4k UHD. So if my account is unlinked I will still have a way to play 4k or 4k UHD somewhere.

So basically the sales pitch that got me to buy an Apple TV 4K was baloney! If I would have known I wouldnt have gotten it. Most of my digital collection was from the days where you had to go to some website that belonged to the studio to get a digital copy of your movie. Putting the code into iTunes never seemed to be an option until recently. And what really ***** is that at one time, some movies did show up as 4K. But then they changed them back to HD. Basically what I buy or have on Apple digitally I can’t trust, they could change it all to SD if they wanted and I can’t do anything. I have been a loyal apple guy for a long time, but this is ridiculous. There should be a easy way to upgrade to 4K... Looks like discs are still the way to buy movies.

Well this is hugely irritating, especially since Apple had upgraded everything to 4k and now all of a sudden it's not 4k anymore. On top of that stuff that I did buy in VUDU in 4k does not play on Movies in 4k as they claim it will.

This is so frustrating, I'm in the same boat. Several movies aren't available in 4k on iTunes so I bought them on Vudu in 4k hoping that when Apple gets their stuff together, hopefully I'll have it in 4k in iTunes.

What I've been doing is using the Vudu app from my Apple TV 4k to be able to watch movies in 4k since Apple is obviously not going to fix the issue anytime soon.

Word of caution with the first approach. If you "gift" yourself a movie, it doesn't port back to Movies Anywhere in UHD. It will show as a new purchase in MA, but the purchase history will say "iTunes HD".

I understand your issue. There is no way to directly buy movie again in iTunes so you get the free upgrade to 4k. It is a huge glitch in the iTunes system. If bought anywhere but iTunes such as Vudu or another site, it goes into iTunes as HD but no option to upgrade or buy 4k. Vudu even allows you to rebuy a movie you already own in HD and get 4k.

I have found 2 workarounds.

1. From desktop iTunes, buy movie as a gift. Code is se t to you, enter code and it will give you a purchased version and thus it upgrades to 4k.

2

Assuming there is a digital code, but it directly on a code website and then input code into iTunes, then you have bought iTunes copy and upgrade to 4k.

Hope this helps.

Note that Movies Anywhere does not currently support 4K.

Try playing the 4K title outside of Movies Anywhere, but from Movies. It will probably allow ‘play’ instead of ‘purchase’, as it is already bought. With a few exceptions, most HD titles will be available in 4K as the same purchase.

I think you explained it very well, as I got the same meaning from your last post.

You already have access to the 4K version with iTunes if that version is available, just not with Movies Anywhere. The iTunes Store will not let you buy what you already purchased (and that is a good thing). If the exact title is available in HD and 4K, then it is the same purchase. Which version is streamed to you depends on your devices (Apple TV 4K with 4K tv is needed for 4K titles).

I can verify what BlakkMajik3000 and LaLaLaM are stating as true, happened to me with Dark Knight. LaLaLaM did you get this resolved with iTunes support? What was the resolution? Gauging whether I should call or not.

It’s not a glitch. I called Apple and they confessed that they will only give you 4K upgrades to movies purchased directly through them and they’re not even offering 4K versions of most Disney movies in release day like Avengers or Star Wars. I really feel like they marketed this Apple TV 4K promising all this 4K content and half the movies I want in 4K aren’t available in 4K in iTunes. I feel so tricked into buying this Apple TV that doesn’t let me watch movies in 4K unless it’s not Disney or it was available in 4K for a limited time. I wasted so much money in there store cause I’m selling this POS.

J.lopez,

Thank you for all of the research you did. I like many others above am also frustrated about this. I too had several titles show up in 4K at the movies anywhere launch but then at some point revert back to HD. I was so pumped when this first happened...it changed my entire viewing habit’s tremendously. I just spent 30 mins on hold last night with Support to no avail. (No one came back on the line after they transferred me to an APTV expert :-/ ) I know that Disney is going to be launching their own streaming service soon so this is where I believe we will get the chance to view/purchase their titles in 4K. My ultimate hope and goal would be for Eddie Cue and his team to see this thread and come up with a program, at a fair price, where those of us can upgrade our current HD titles to 4K that are available on the iTunes Store. I understand that there are agreements, licensing, etc. Issues so I believe this would satisify most of us. I am constantly watching for deals on iTunes so I can ”Gift” myself the movie again at a lower price. While I am at it, I’d also love to see a Disc To Digital program on iTunes as well. I recently did this on VUDU and although some of the titles did not port over to iTunes, having them on the APTV VUDU App was nice. Thanks again for the time you took to spell this all out!

Hello,

I do appreciate you all taking the time to delve deeper into these issues that are "plaguing" our digital movie collection. Not trying to make matters more complicated, but for anyone who has an iPhone X, it is true that your device is capable of playing films (purchased from other retailers, mind you) in the 4K (or rather, HDR) format. Even though the title is listed as "HD," it is a proven fact that when you download more recent titles (i.e. Dunkirk, Blade Runner 2049, etc.), one will notice that the amount of GB space used in a device is nearly double the typical amount for HD quality downloads.

I can only hope that this will be solved someday, when other retailers decide to follow Apple's route in upgrading previously purchased HD titles to 4K (for free, if we're lucky). Otherwise, everything stays as is, based on replies that are already on this thread.

Im going to vote for POS as well. Ive been an Apple fan for about 10 years, and I just cant get behind apple saying to the world "we upgrade your movies for free!" and then have so many stipulations that you end up with about 1% of your library upgraded. My particular library consisting of 100 Disney movies has ZERO upgrades (despite titles like Cars 3, Coco, Incredibles being available on VUDU). Also, for some other random "coincidence", virtually every one of my favorite Sci-Fi movies is available on VUDU in 4k and NONE on itunes. And someone here mentioned that some movies are streaming in 4k even though there is no indication of the movie being available in 4K? Well that would make Apple even dumber then I thought.