Disney Boosts iTunes Quality
“A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one…” Yes, you can now watch Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars, Marvel’s MCU, and many other classic Disney films in glorious 4K HD.
Disney Films In 4K?
John Archer, consumer tech guru at Forbes, reported:
Today… iTunes users in the US have been contacting me to say they’ve started to see a large number of Disney titles – including its Marvel and Star Wars films – suddenly appearing in 4K HDR. In fact, some titles are also appearing with Dolby Atmos soundtracks, while the HDR is available in both standard HDR10 or, for people with TVs capable of handling it, Dolby Vision. And as always with iTunes, all these AV upgrades have appeared at no extra cost.
Why is this strange?
Late To The 4K Party
Well, for years, Disney was missing on the 4K front.
While most film studios have long been onboard with Apple’s 4K HDR support, though, there’s been one massive hold out: Disney. For the past three years, since Apple first started offering 4K movies with the launch of the first Apple TV 4K box, all titles owned by Disney – including its library of animated classics, its Marvel movies, its Pixar movies and the Star Wars series – have only been available on iTunes in HD resolution and standard dynamic range.
Frankly, it’s enough for a guy like me, who has made an almost total transition to digital to think about getting a 4K-capable television.
Why Wait?
Archer added one interesting note:
Neither Apple nor Disney have released any background information on what led to Disney’s iTunes change of heart. What’s more, the move actually seems quite surprising this late in the day, given that it had been widely conjectured that one of the reasons for Disney holding out against offering 4K HDR on iTunes was that it wanted to keep such premium presentations for its own Disney+ streaming service.
Maybe.
And another interesting note, this time from 9to5mac.com, said:
What’s also important to keep in mind is that this is not the first time 4K badges have appeared alongside Disney films in iTunes, but this time it appears to be on purpose. Last year, 4K badges appeared next to Disney films in iTunes, but were quickly removed.
Pardon the pun, but “stay tuned.”