I don't really understand all this discussion (on several threads and not only your statement).
Maybe I'm missing something and please let me know if I do.
I never get discount on a 4K disc if I previously bought the same movie on Blu-Ray, DVD or Laserdisc a couple of years or weeks earlier.
Isn't it great to save $2 when you already own it?
I happily bought the same movie for full price several times on Laserdisc and later the same movie again on DVD and later on Blu-Ray and later on 4K disc and now on Kaleidescape. The only time I got discount for already owning the movie was the latest on Kaleidescape. When I bought in 4K disc no one cared I already owned it on Blu-Ray (and several other formats)
What am I missing?
This isn't a pre-recorded media format that is released in stores with extras, packaging and all other sorts of things. This is a digital file and is comparable to other services offering digital files.
Let's look at Paramount recently. Upgrade pricing for stuff like Indiana Jones and The Godfather was like $5-7. Now I am looking at upgrade pricing for some other recent catalog titles:
Enemy at the Gates: Upgrade price is $17.99. The only thing that changes with this is the video quality, period. No other packaging, special feature or audio like you may have with a new disc release. If I look at Enemy at the Gates on iTunes (digital delivery service) the upgrade price is FREE if you already own the title. But even outside of that, if I wanted to outright buy this movie on iTunes from scratch for the 4K HDR version, it is $4.99.
Another example is Stardust. Another 17.99. Free upgrade in iTunes, but even to buy it outright costs less than the UPGRADE in K.
Nearly at the same time we see Varsity Blues with an upgrade price around $7 from the same studio. Again, catalog title, same studio but nearly a $10 difference in upgrade cost compared to these other catalog titles?? To buy the movie in 4K HDR outright on iTunes is $4.99. Sound familiar? So why a nearly $10 discrepancy on K for a movie that is clearly the same cost to Digital distribution outlets from the exact same studio??
Mousehunt, a catalog kids movie costs $34.99 new on K for a 4K version. That is $20 more than the equivalent title on iTunes and $10 more than new day and date titles we've been seeing from Paramount like Top Gun Maverick. Again, HOW DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE TO ANYONE let alone sit well with them. Elizabeth town is exactly the same thing and the list goes ON AND ON AN ON.
If prices for studios were more consistent it probably wouldn't be as big of a deal, but that is far from the case and Paramount is probably becoming the worst in this regard. If no one says anything about this, how will it get resolved? When Indiana Jones came out people were trying to figure out why upgrade costs were so high on it. Same thing with Lord of the Rings (that was a clusterF if I've ever seen one). A day or two later K corrected the upgrade price to where we typically saw it from them. This has happened SEVERAL times in the last year, so how do we know that we are not seeing the same thing here? Obviously if K was on the ball with pricing stuff we wouldn't have seen the same issue several times like we did already this year, so how do I or anyone else know that this isn't just more oversight?? I'm placing this ball fully in K's court because at the end of the day it just looks like gouging to me. I love my K system for performance (I own a Strato, Alto and two Terras) but that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore what looks like nearly blatant pricing issues for content. Especially when as a consultant I have clients all the time asking if they should be investing in K and are already balking at the hardware costs. I'd hope that I can tell them that once they get past the high hardware cost of entry there was consistent and competitive pricing for software, but I keep seeing reasons for that to not be the case.
