AppleTV for online Movie Rentals?

ajhill said:

With AppleTV to be sporting some new features. What are the odds that Steve Jobs starts a online movie RENTAL business at $.99/movie. You'd keep a list of movies and while you're at work the AppleTV would download you movie(s) one or two at a time. Kinda like Blockbuster, but without all those pesky trips to the video store to return the videos.

At $.99/rental (a favorite price point). I could probably save money over Blockbuster and when I go on vacation I wouldn't be paying for a subscription that I wasn't home to use.

Any thoughts on a iTunes Video Rental Store?

Any thoughts on the other coming features?

Alan

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Yeah, sorry, not going to happen. People would find ways to hack and keep the movies. Regardless that subverts the movie store, and studios are already reluctant. So, yeah, no on so many levels.

Ever since apple tv was announced I have been hoping for this, I would pay anywhere from $.99-$3.99 per rental.

roland.g said:

Yeah, sorry, not going to happen. People would find ways to hack and keep the movies. Regardless that subverts the movie store, and studios are already reluctant. So, yeah, no on so many levels.

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How is this a no on so many levels when Amazon is doing it? Please provide me links that says movie companies don't want online rentals.

roland.g said:

Yeah, sorry, not going to happen. People would find ways to hack and keep the movies. Regardless that subverts the movie store, and studios are already reluctant. So, yeah, no on so many levels.

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Has Apple's DRM on the movie files currently on iTunes been hacked? I don't think so...

roland.g said:

Yeah, sorry, not going to happen. People would find ways to hack and keep the movies. Regardless that subverts the movie store, and studios are already reluctant. So, yeah, no on so many levels.

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Totally agree. If they start renting on this then they will never sell another movie. The economics simply don't add up.

If they rented at $.99 for a week, a day, etc, then you would be able to rent the movie 9 times before you have bought it, how many films have you watched 9 times ? not many i guess.

The Netflicks approach works due to the fact there is a time lag while the item is in the mail. They make money as people forget to send back the item, and never cancel the subscription. It is a great model, reader digest have done it for years.

Rentals

I don't know why people are saying, "no". Amazon and LOVEFiLM are already doing online rentals and Netflix is about to start. Someone already pointed out that hacking hasn't been a problem (so far) and even if it does, Apple has a quick turnaround to fix this problem like it does with its music.

As for the money side of things, surely any money is better than none. The reason why movies haven't taken off like wildfire on iTunes is because of the less than DVD picture quality, no surround sound, can't burn on DVD and no extra features. If there was a rental model, nobody would mind these shortcomings. The studios won't miss out because if people like the movie they have rented, they can buy the DVD/Blu-ray/HD DVD.

The other option is keep the existing movies for a rental model and sell high definition versions with extras on iTunes.

If they introduce movie rentals, studios will benefit as they will get some money and more if they later buy the DVD and Apple will by selling more AppleTVs

210 said:

The reason why movies haven't taken off like wildfire on iTunes is because of the less than DVD picture quality, no surround sound, can't burn on DVD and no extra features.

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The reason it hasn't taken off is b/c of lack of studios/library and that Apple TV hasn't been out that long. The resolution may factor into it a little bit.

I think it would be nice if you could rent a movie for, say, $3 or $4... and then if you like it you could decide to keep it by paying the difference.

Movies

Yes, but I don't see why anyone would buy an iTunes movie when a DVD is so much better, regardless of how many movies are in the iTunes Store

rockstarjoe said:

I think it would be nice if you could rent a movie for, say, $3 or $4... and then if you like it you could decide to keep it by paying the difference.

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I am going to buy one, but I have an Xbox360 that downloads great HD movies. I just got done watching Blood Diamond. It was perfect. With great sound. If Apple cannot come up to this standard I will not buy or later rent any movies.
I want to see my pictures and my ITUNES music. Sure hope they give it a bit more effort on the HD and sound department.

Yeah the xbox360 solution is nearly perfect (only flaw being that their library is too small) and Apple seriously needs to copy it. $5 or 6 to rent a movie in full HD quality, and you can begin watching it within 5 minutes of clicking download. I will never buy an appletv to watch VCR quality movies (that I have to buy for $10 or 15!) when this option is already sitting in my living room.

Another big advantage of the 360 is that I can browse through the options from the couch and never have to get up to go to the computer to download.

I know I risk the wrath of the board for saying Microsoft does anything better, but in this case there is no debate.