Marketplace
Lost (TV Show), HD Seasons 1-6, DRM-free, for $26.99 each for download on the Australian iTunes Store.
Previously (just last week) they were $45 (Season 1) to $75 (Season 6). I don't know why they are so cheap now. Maybe a Christmas casual worker screwed up. It's a great show and this is a perfect opportunity to get involved with it or for a re-watch.
Update: It seems most people prefer buying this as a DVD or Blu-Ray boxset. For most people that's probably the better option, but when I actually started thinking about how I reasonably am going to rewatch the 6 seasons (84 hours of footage) my thinking was this:
- Watch it all, uninterrupted, without changing between 36 discs.
- Having it digitally to watch on a phone/tablet/computer. Can you imagine ripping all that content to your computer to watch from? That would be insane. It would take days of computer time and a few hours of labour. Think about renaming the 125 files with proper titles and sorting them into folders for seasons, which iTunes does when it adds them to your library. For me, it is worth paying the slightly higher price, so instead of the $70 Blu-Ray that's available from the UK, I paid $50 extra to have "someone" do that work for me. And it's all easily accessible directly from a list on my computer. That's the benefit of digital distribution, and yes it is slightly more expensive but for me, way more practical. Keep in mind-
- TV shows are now all DRM-free, in a standards-based format (MP3-encoded MPEG-4 file. Sensible 1.3GB per episode.)
- You can redownload any TV Show from iTunes as many times as you like should you lose your library, on any device.
- I can watch it anywhere I have my iTunes library, be it my computer or an external hard drive, or an Internet connection by streaming through iCloud. I do not need to lug around a suitcase full of discs to Tahiti.
- I can watch it on my Mac (so don't have a PC) without buying a Blu-Ray drive. To watch it on a bigger screen, the Mac and probably most PCs these days, connect directly to HDTVs via HDMI and allow Screen Mirroring. You can even control playback with an iOS or Android-based Remote App that supports chapters and can display episode information on the phone screen.
For me, digital download makes it much more versatile. I know that's not for everyone, but a set of 36 BluRay discs is completely unusable for me. It's not really a bargain to me if it takes me a weekend to rip the contents of the discs to my computer.
Just because it's on iTunes does not make it bad. Slightly hipster, but a lot more user friendly.
Some notes:
* HD Episodes (Seasons with Standard Definition episodes are $24.99)
* Total cost of entire series of Lost is $160. With your usual 25% iTunes Gift Card discount, this ends up being $120. The DVD Box Set currently sells for $129 at JB Hi-Fi. Sure you miss out on the pretty packaging, but for many people, having them on a hard drive is much more convenient. You can now stream TV shows to different devices too, and they even play from where you left off (as of the new version of iTunes this week)
If you are thinking of getting into it, some guy made a video called Lost in 3 Minutes explaining the show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HWECQa23Cs
The only downside is you'll probably need another hard drive to house all the episodes. I have you sorted: http://www.officeworks.com.au/retail/products/Technology/Dat…
Buy them now. And start being a Lost nerd like the rest of us! And come up with your own crazy theories that show people how weird you are.
I would rather get them on blu-ray at cheaper price rather than from iTunes
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Complete-Seasons-1-6-Blu-ray/dp…