What's the deal wit the release??

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Hi!

I heard that Star Trek Into the Darkness will come out this month digitally or something, weeks ahead of a DVD Blue Ray release. How does that work? Don't most Blue Rays come with both Digital and Ultraviolet copies, included? why would I guy this twice? If I but the digital copy in August, did I already prepay for the physical copy?
What is the reasoning behind this?

 

[talfe'anhar]

I think it just depends on how anxious you are to see the movie again. I bought the digital download AND the DVD, and I will buy the 2 disc set when it comes out, because I'm a long-time Trek fan and I don't want to wait for the DVD to arrive at my house. I'm willing to watch it on my Kindle just to get my fix!

 

[WarpFactorZ]

Because some will pay the extra $ just to watch it "before" everyone else. PT Barnum was on to something.

 

[Lord Garth FOI]

Because if you have an xbox360 and or PS3 you would be downloading the actual high def film on your device hard drive to watch on your HD tv
Those including myself going with this option are in effect getting the blu-ray a month before it hits stores
I actually prefer this option nowadays as I am tired of stacks of disks on my shelf. Gave away about a 100 DVDs and some blus I never watch to Goodwill today

It's a blu-ray or DVD without the disk and its the future of home movie watching

 

[Sparky]

Because if you have an xbox360 and or PS3 you would be downloading the actual high def film on your device hard drive to watch on your HD tv
Those including myself going with this option are in effect getting the blu-ray a month before it hits stores
I actually prefer this option nowadays as I am tired of stacks of disks on my shelf. Gave away about a 100 DVDs and some blus I never watch to Goodwill today

It's a blu-ray or DVD without the disk and its the future of home movie watching

I don't really get this approach when it comes to movies. A digital download is like watching youtube. The quality of a digital download movie is so inferior to what a physical Blu-Ray disc offers. Your mileage may vary, but I can tell the difference between a Blu-Ray and say an iTunes, Ultraviolet or HD Netflix movie almost instantly. If it's a movie I want to own, I want to own it in the best possible quality available. In this day and age, and at a reasonable price point, that means Blu-Ray.

If there is a movie that I am interested in and didn't watch it in the theater, I may rent it off of iTunes or VOD it from my cable provider. Otherwise I am quite content to wait until it appears on Netflix, or just shows up on TV. If it is a great movie and I want to own it, I buy the Blu-Ray so I can enjoy it again in the best quality available.

Ironically I am the exact opposite with music. I never buy CD's. In fact I'm amazed that CD's are still around. The tech is only 6 or so years younger than VHS tech, and with the loudness wars the quality today is arguably worse than it was 30 years ago. The last CD I bought was the 2 disc limited edition deluxe soundtrack for Star Trek (2009). Before that I think it was something from the mid 2000's. Other than that one CD I am digital only. I ripped all my CD's and sent them to iTunes match. That Star Trek CD is currently the only CD that I still have. The rest were like you, given to goodwill.

Ok tangent over, back to movies...


If the Blu-Ray movie I'm buying has a digital copy, I use the code to give a friend the movie. I rip the disc so I can watch it on my portable devices. I'm not going to pay money for a digital copy of a movie whose DRM can be revoked at any time. At least iTunes lets me download DRM free copies of my music that I store as backup in the cloud. (in higher quality that I originally ripped it at. 128kb mp3....that was so stupid of me.)

So far no download service can do that for movies. I can rip a higher quality version of a move then they currently provide as a download or stream. Why would I pay for only the inferior DRM'd product, when I can have better quality with 2 minutes of physical work?

 

[Lord Garth FOI]

No actually the quality of an HD digital download on Xbox or ps3 is exactly the Same 1080p
If you stream only the movie may be prone to whatever quality of Internet connection you have
And no ridiculous stacks of DVDs to trip over and use as coasters

 

[BeatleJWOL]

Not quite. The bit rate on digital downloads is not necessarily as high as Blu-ray.

 

[Lord Garth FOI]

It depends on the source but close enough on the current crop of hdtvs thru a quality download like Xbox or ps marketplace

 

[drumvan]

does the digit download version released today have any bonus footage or is it movie only?

 

[USS Intrepid]

Has anyone gotten the digital version yet? Doesn't seem to be available in the UK iTunes store yet.

 

[Lord Garth FOI]

I did at the Xbox live marketplace in 1080p
Looks beautiful on my 72" Mitsubishi

There is bonus content as well but you have to download a free new Xbox app mirror view or something like that
Then you an access bonus features during the film just like a blu-ray
Haven't gotten around to that just yet watched 20 min of the film last night as the download wasn't available on the west coast until 11

 

[USS Intrepid]

Hmm, guess we're not getting it in the UK today then. Oh well.

 

[CorporalClegg]

I got my digital version off Amazon late last night. I stayed up 'till 4am to watch it.

It was awesome.

 

[decc]

Really torn about whether to wait for the BR/DVD combo... Does anyone already have the iTunes copy and wouldn't mind listing all the special features/extras included?

[Best I've been able to tell, looks like the digital download includes The Red Planet, Enemy of My Enemy, and Brawl by the Bay, but no mention of the other featurettes that are listed for the BR/DVD disc set. That said, the iTunes description also lists a 2h42 "exclusive, enhanced commentary" track w/ JJ Abrams and crew (but not cast), which doesn't seem will be included on the BR/DVD versions..]

 

[Kemaiku]

"September 2nd" for the UK iTunes release.

 

[Cinema Geekly]

No actually the quality of an HD digital download on Xbox or ps3 is exactly the Same 1080p
If you stream only the movie may be prone to whatever quality of Internet connection you have
And no ridiculous stacks of DVDs to trip over and use as coasters

Unless your a cinefile. HD flicks coming straight off of a blu-ray disc run around 10-20GB per movie.

I have a small collection of around 250-300 movies and TV shows.

That is an awful lot of drive space to take up on my console just for movies, so say nothing of any games.

I know why they are doing the digital release early, but the era of the disc is FAR from over.

 

[MacLeod]

Because if you have an xbox360 and or PS3 you would be downloading the actual high def film on your device hard drive to watch on your HD tv
Those including myself going with this option are in effect getting the blu-ray a month before it hits stores
I actually prefer this option nowadays as I am tired of stacks of disks on my shelf. Gave away about a 100 DVDs and some blus I never watch to Goodwill today

It's a blu-ray or DVD without the disk and its the future of home movie watching

And just how many hours/days are we supposed to wait for a movie plus all extras such as audio commentaries to download?

NOT everyone has a fast enough interent connection to stream SD never mind HD.

 

[geneo]

I don't have stacks of dvd's to trip over. All mine are conveniently stored in a notebook kind of dvd cases that hold 110 dvd's. DVD's will be around for a long time I think because there are too many people in this country who cannot have access to the bandwidth necessary to watch movies or even youtube. I know an entire community that still uses 56K modem dialup and Juno for their email because that is all that is offered.

 

[Lord Garth FOI]

Because if you have an xbox360 and or PS3 you would be downloading the actual high def film on your device hard drive to watch on your HD tv
Those including myself going with this option are in effect getting the blu-ray a month before it hits stores
I actually prefer this option nowadays as I am tired of stacks of disks on my shelf. Gave away about a 100 DVDs and some blus I never watch to Goodwill today

It's a blu-ray or DVD without the disk and its the future of home movie watching

And just how many hours/days are we supposed to wait for a movie plus all extras such as audio commentaries to download?

NOT everyone has a fast enough interent connection to stream SD never mind HD.

You don't have to stream it you can download it directly to your game system hard drive and watch it when ever you want

 

[Lord Garth FOI]

No actually the quality of an HD digital download on Xbox or ps3 is exactly the Same 1080p
If you stream only the movie may be prone to whatever quality of Internet connection you have
And no ridiculous stacks of DVDs to trip over and use as coasters

Unless your a cinefile. HD flicks coming straight off of a blu-ray disc run around 10-20GB per movie.

I have a small collection of around 250-300 movies and TV shows.

That is an awful lot of drive space to take up on my console just for movies, so say nothing of any games.

I know why they are doing the digital release early, but the era of the disc is FAR from over.

Different strokes
If you want to collect disks then that's great but get used to top films being released far earlier digitally the industry can charge the same price to own the films and they don't have to pay to print disks and packaging, same thing happening with contemporary books and of course music
And Microsoft and apple have been kind enough to sell invisible hard drive space as well in the form of clouds
Hard drive space not gonna be a problem very soon