The standard ad-free plan drops the cap on 4K, and will only allow two streams

Warner Bros. logo Discovery for Max is “the one to watch”. But if you want to watch movies or TV shows in 4K Ultra HD – or stream content on more than two devices at once – you’ll have to pay extra starting next month.

Max this week began notifying subscribers to its ad-free Standard plan, priced at $15.99 per month (or $149.99 per year), that the service will no longer include 4K titles — with “Full HD” at 1080p as the highest resolution available — and that They will be able to stream on only two devices at once (down from three previously).

From now on, 4K content will only be available on Max’s Ultimate Ad-Free plan, which costs $19.99 per month (or $199.99 per year) and offers the ability to watch up to four simultaneous streams. WBD introduced the final tier last May, touting the availability of more than 1,000 movies and episodes in 4K UHD, a roughly eight-fold increase from what was previously available on Max. The company also noted at the time that 4K content would eventually not be available on standard.

Max’s Ultimate Ad-Free tier also supports Dolby Atmos content on compatible devices and allows up to 100 offline downloads (versus 30 for the Standard plan).

“On your next billing date, on or after December 5, 2023, your subscription price will remain the same, but some features of your plan will change,” the message to Max subscribers says. “You can still stream all your favorite blockbuster movies, new original movies, and popular series. Or even switch to the Ultimate Ad-Free plan to unlock more features.

When announcing Max’s Ultimate category earlier this year, Sudheer Sirivara, executive vice president of global technology platform at Warner Bros., said: Discovery: “We understand the value of delivering a cinematic playback experience to our users, and to that end, we’ve implemented more advanced workflow technologies that allow us to release more 4K content in a faster, more efficient way.