Hey there, Hi there, Ho there,
in the stone age of iTunes many of the tracks available in the iTunes Store were offered as copy protected AAC with a 128 kbps compression rate. But then - ages ago - iTunes Plus was introduced: AAC without copy protection and a 256 kbps compression rate. And yes, Disney used the new format for soundtrack releases such as "Disney's A Christmas Carol" or "UP". However, the old material such as the score by Mark Isham for "Eight Below" or Trevor Rabin's score for "National Treasure - Book of Secrets" (at least in the German version of the iTunes Store) were left in their original copy protected, lower quality version...
Sure, many other labels made use of an option which allowed them to replace old files with newer, copy-protection-free, higher quality versions and allow customers to upgrade their purchased files for a small fee ... but not Disney ... until NOW!
I had totally forgotten about the iTunes Plus Upgrade option until earlier today I certainly saw a message on the start page of the iTunes Store informing me that an upgrade was available for some tracks I purchased. To my surprise it turned out the be the score by Mark Isham for the Disney picture "Eight Below"! I don't know about the iTunes Store in the US, but I assume the upgrade should be available there as well.
Interestingly so far there is no upgrade available for the score of "National Treasure - Book of Secrets", but then I hope that it might arrive soon since the the album was gone from the (German) iTunes Store when I checked a couple of minutes ago.
Thought you might be interested...
Dirk
in the stone age of iTunes many of the tracks available in the iTunes Store were offered as copy protected AAC with a 128 kbps compression rate. But then - ages ago - iTunes Plus was introduced: AAC without copy protection and a 256 kbps compression rate. And yes, Disney used the new format for soundtrack releases such as "Disney's A Christmas Carol" or "UP". However, the old material such as the score by Mark Isham for "Eight Below" or Trevor Rabin's score for "National Treasure - Book of Secrets" (at least in the German version of the iTunes Store) were left in their original copy protected, lower quality version...
Sure, many other labels made use of an option which allowed them to replace old files with newer, copy-protection-free, higher quality versions and allow customers to upgrade their purchased files for a small fee ... but not Disney ... until NOW!
I had totally forgotten about the iTunes Plus Upgrade option until earlier today I certainly saw a message on the start page of the iTunes Store informing me that an upgrade was available for some tracks I purchased. To my surprise it turned out the be the score by Mark Isham for the Disney picture "Eight Below"! I don't know about the iTunes Store in the US, but I assume the upgrade should be available there as well.
Interestingly so far there is no upgrade available for the score of "National Treasure - Book of Secrets", but then I hope that it might arrive soon since the the album was gone from the (German) iTunes Store when I checked a couple of minutes ago.
Thought you might be interested...
Dirk