Thanks to “Owen G.” who spotted this.

If you want the full resolution Mater Tall Tales without the Disney Channel bug in the corner, now you can buy them on iTunes UK. You can even buy Heavy Metal Mater which still has not premiered in the US.

That’s the good news portion.

(as you can see, resolution so sharp, you can practically see iron shavings) 🙂

If you live in the UK, of course, the process is easy.

You can buy the entire set (“Season 1”) in regular SD resolution for £4.99 or each individually for £1.49.

You can buy the entire set (“Season 1”) in HD for £11.94 or each individually for £1.99. It should be noted that even though it doesn’t seem to indicate anywhere, when you buy the HD set, you get the SD ones also included so you really get 12 separate files not just 6.

Again, if you live in the UK, the process works like usual. Just click HERE.

If you do not live in the UK – hold your horses – do NOT CLICK yet.

Because of licensing – the exact same movie or song may be sold by a different company outside the US so you are regionally restricted as to which iTunes store you can access AND this is VERY IMPORTANT.

You need a couple extra steps in order to access the UK iTunes Store.
You cannot use your US* credits or credit card with your iTunes account.
Someone in the UK cannot just buy it and email it to you.

* Or any other country but since most of our readers are from the US …

So, if you still want to view it and or buy it – you will need to spend a good 20-30 minutes in prep time before entering the temple with the golden idol at the end – be wary of poison darts and a giant rolling rock … READY?

If you do plan to buy the set, then read through it once and go to STEP FOUR – get that squared away and then come back to STEP ONE. 🙂

STEP ONE

You need an email address that is NOT currently your iTunes signin. If you don’t have one, get one from Google or Yahoo or where ever. Note – a .Mac/.Me “alias” account will not work – only the “main” one will.

STEP TWO

Launch iTunes. Presumably it will launch into your current account – for most of you, the US iTunes Store, for others – if you are in a country with an iTunes store …

STEP THREE

SIGN OUT of your current ID login. (Click on the little arrow next to your name – top right) and select SIGN OUT. The menu will now read SIGN IN. Click on it and this drop box appears.

Click on CREATE NEW ACCOUNT.

You will be presented with this legalese page …

The ONLY IMPORTANT thing here is to CLICK on the little arrow that says (in this case), you are not in the US (or whatever country your account currently is in).

You will be presented with a ginormous list of countries, select the UNITED KINGDOM and viola, the UK iTunes store will load.

(what the front page looks like now)

Okay, that was the EASY PART. 🙂

Now, if you just want to view the CAR TOONS-MATER TALL’s PAGE, you may now click HERE.

If you want to buy them, it’s a WHOLE ‘NOTHER STORY. Throw me the idol, I’ll throw you the whip.

STEP FOUR

The easy thing is if you are a world traveler or an expat and you have a UK credit card you are set OR if you have a close relative-friend who is willing to gift you the amount (either £4.99 or £11.99), you can log into that account (that you just created) anywhere in the world and redeem your ‘credit.’

But presuming you do not – the simplest thing to do is buy an UK iTunes card. You can find them on eBay – the smallest amount is £15 or at the current exchange rate – @$23 USD. You can generally find them on eBay selling for not much more than the “printed” rate – so don’t spend too much. Just search eBay for UK iTunes card.

(BTW, at today’s exchange rate, that would make buying the SD versions of the 6 films @$7.39 and the HD & SD set of 12 @$17.75).

They can simply email you the redemption code – no real point in waiting for a card to arrive a week later when all you need is the code.

STEP FIVE

So, you can’t do anything until you have the STEP FOUR accomplished but when you are ready. Now CLICK on SIGN IN – right side of iTunes). Click on NEW ACCOUNT and follow the steps to finish creating an account. Don’t forget your new signin name and password – very important!  Remember to use an email that you are not already using on iTunes. ANY email is fine, they do not verify if it’s a UK email BUT you will need a UK address. Obviously if you are using a credit card (or a BT thing), you need your address to match your account so again, if you have a UK credit card (or the BT thing), you are set. But even if you are using an iTunes card ONLY – you need a UK address & phone. Since there is NOTHING for Apple to match it against if you are redeeming an iTunes card, any reasonable quasi-semi-demi legit address and phone will do. How you find such an address and phone number with an area code is your choice (cough, cough, internet) nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

I was never here.

Then click OKAY and once you have the redemption code verified  – you will see your ‘credit’ next to your new signin name.

If you’re not at the Mater Tall Tales – Car Toons page, you may now click HERE.

STEP SIX

You can decide whether you want just the SD set (looks great on iPhone!) or the HD-SD set together.

Again, the HD set does not say that you get both set of shorts – but you get both the HD & SD versions.

The SD (regular) versions are of course playable on your Mac or PC and your iPod & iPhone while the HD version is playable on your Mac or PC but NOT the iPhone-iPod.

Though presumably it  WILL play on the iPad (I’ll let you know on Tuesday if it works) 🙂

Just click on the appropriate BUY SERIES.

STEP SEVEN

After it downloads, click on any of them to play. The files-movies are assigned to the computer you downloaded them to but you can also copy these movies-files to another hard drive in the house but it will ask you to authorize that computer by asking for your UK iTunes login and password – don’t worry – you only have to do this once and ALL the files associated with are authorized (s0, no, you do not have to authorize each film).

Also, keep in mind while the files can only be authorized to be viewed-played, etc on 5 computers, you have NO limit on ipods, iphones or ipads to load them onto. So, you can only load these films on 5 computers in your household but if you have 10, 50 Apple portable devices, you can load them these on all of them.

Again, because of DRM, you cannot make them “DVD’s” or sell them or even give them away because on any new attempt to play them on a DIFFERENT computer will require authorizing them. Hence, you cannot really load them onto a friend’s ipod-iphone-ipad because unless they do not auto-sync, it will get wiped on the next sync.

STEP EIGHT

If for some reason, “PURCHASES” are not synced, just drag from your PURCHASES folder to your MOVIES folder if you have auto sync set, then at the next sync, it will auto load.

If you manually sync and load media, just drag and drop onto your “portable device” in iTunes and it will copy them to the TV SHOWS area. These are considered TV Shows which is nice as it only takes one line in your iPod-iPhone Video Library.

STEP NINE

Enjoy.

STEP TEN

Take a nap – I did after this exhaustive dance through the iTunes landmine.

So no, you do not need an Apple portable device – these will play fine on a Mac or PC and no, I do not know if there will be a US version?  It seems logically but when? These just seemed to appear, no real big marketing-advertising campaign so they could appear in the US tomorrow or never :-/ … I presume pricing will be about the same – maybe $14.99 and $7.99 is USD if they ever appear?

Thanks again “Owen G.” Good luck all!