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Apple Announces Release of HD Movie Sales and Rentals via iTunes

TuffLuffJimmy said:
that's practically the price of a bluray...

... Why would you pay for a hi-def download when you could get a better quality DVD?
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Have to say I agree....I'm quite disappointed on the quality and prices.

$19.99 for a 720p movie? You're kidding, right? When I saw that HD was finally available, I thought it might be time for me to finally get that AppleTV I've been eyeing....but then I saw the prices.

And $5 to RENT it? You're kidding, right? I get 3-at-a-time Blu-Ray discs from NetFlix for $17.99, so if I cycle through them only twice in a month, I'm getting 6 full-HD (1080p) movies for what I'd pay $30 through iTunes, and for lower-quality. Oh, and with that, I get unlimited streaming from Netflix of over 10K movies (granted, most are older, but still...).

I'm as much of an Apple fanboy as anyone, but c'mon guys...let's at least make it price-competitive, please!!!
 
PCMacUser said:
Thanks. My data cap is 10Gb, so that means two movies per month and that's all. I think I'll have to stick with optical media for now.
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Ouch. That's going to be the bigger kicker, if ISP's get more aggressive with bandwidth caps.
 
"pay per byte" is the future

polaris20 said:
Ouch. That's going to be the bigger kicker, if ISP's get more aggressive with bandwidth caps.
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I think that we'll see more and more ISPs moving to a either tiered pricing ($ for 10GB/month, $$ for 50GB/month, $$$$ for 250GB/m) or direct "metering" and "pay per byte".

Even low quality video is a bandwidth hog, and it only makes sense to make those who are using more bandwidth to pay more.
 
Sehnsucht said:
Where do you get them? I thought HD DVDs weren't made anymore. :confused:
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Over 400 titles on Amazon. Cheaper than Blu-ray, too, and brand new.

Movies today generally suck eggs (CIP, the "_____ Movie" trash and related pop-cultureesque films), and HD DVD had a lot of classic (read: GOOD) movies on board before it died. When I get the hankering for a new one, I can find virtually anything I want.
 
started my HD "QoS" download about 30 min ago (11:30p monday)... cant wait to try it out (in a few hours lol), AND it comes with a DL of the SD version....
 
sccaldwell said:
Have to say I agree....I'm quite disappointed on the quality and prices.

$19.99 for a 720p movie? You're kidding, right? When I saw that HD was finally available, I thought it might be time for me to finally get that AppleTV I've been eyeing....but then I saw the prices.
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Given new DVD movies are often $20 also, I'm not sure what's so horrible about getting a 720P HD movie for $20, especially given BD movies are $25-30. If you need 1080P or want extras, yes, it makes sense. But that doesn't make the Apple movies completely out of line. I would agree that $15 would be more attractive to me, though. Actually, just having something to actually buy (A stinking lousy dozen or less movies to start? Why even bother is my reaction; I want movies like the Matrix and Star Wars in HD. I doubt I'll see those for months, maybe YEARS, even though many are or have been available to rent on ATV already. I guess they can't get "permission" to sell 99.9999% of all movies given the insanely low number of movies available on the announcement day)

And $5 to RENT it? You're kidding, right? I get 3-at-a-time Blu-Ray discs
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I guess you don't get out to actual video rental stores much these days (at LEAST that much for a new release DVD, let alone BD) if the only comparison you have is a subscription based model, based entirely on usage and requiring 1-2 days to get a hold of your movie, which just plain SUCKS for those of us that want our movies NOW. I don't even want to have to go drive to the video store to get it in a half hour. The best thing about renting movies from Apple is it's ready to play in less than 1 minute and yet the HD quality is about 3x better than the cable PPV HD movie I rented awhile back (which was very blocky compressed; I see NO obvious compression artifacts in ATV HD rentals. For all the talk about heavy compression, it's a load of BS, IMO. They look pretty darn good in that respect).

I think if Apple would offer $10 HD movie sales for older titles and $15 for new titles, they'd sell like hotcakes. They probably should knock a buck off rental prices across the board and they really should consider a subscription model for movies and even more so for TV shows (I don't want to "OWN" tv shows; I wouldn't mind renting them for 50 cents an episode or $1 for HD episodes). The worst part is if the movies don't sell and rentals don't take off they might assume there's no interest instead of concluding their prices are too high. I see nothing wrong with offering 720P downloads, but I agree that they should take into account the lack of a physical medium, lack of extras and the lower resolution when figuring the prices, which is why I suggested $15 instead. Sub-DVD quality sales should be under $10, IMO. $5 sales seem to do well when they offer them and that's why rentals should start at $1.99 for sub-DVD and $2.99 for 720P HD, IMO.
 
AidenShaw said:
I think that we'll see more and more ISPs moving to a either tiered pricing ($ for 10GB/month, $$ for 50GB/month, $$$$ for 250GB/m) or direct "metering" and "pay per byte".

Even low quality video is a bandwidth hog, and it only makes sense to make those who are using more bandwidth to pay more.
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I think the real problem (at least here in the States) is that the problem is not so much the amount of bandwidth people use, but rather how woefully inadequate broadband is compared to other parts of the world, namely Japan.

If we had their infrastructure, no one would be worrying about bandwidth caps.
 
Tallest Skil said:
Over 400 titles on Amazon. Cheaper than Blu-ray, too, and brand new.

Movies today generally suck eggs (CIP, the "_____ Movie" trash and related pop-cultureesque films), and HD DVD had a lot of classic (read: GOOD) movies on board before it died. When I get the hankering for a new one, I can find virtually anything I want.
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Are you still on your HD-DVD kick? Not all films nowadays are ***** and when older movies come out for BR, they not coming out HD-DVD.
 
polaris20 said:
I think the real problem (at least here in the States) is that the problem is not so much the amount of bandwidth people use, but rather how woefully inadequate broadband is compared to other parts of the world, namely Japan.

If we had their infrastructure, no one would be worrying about bandwidth caps.
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And "pay per byte" is a good and fair way to generate capital to fund the infrastructure improvements.
 
Tallest Skil said:
Over 400 titles on Amazon. Cheaper than Blu-ray, too, and brand new.

Movies today generally suck eggs (CIP, the "_____ Movie" trash and related pop-cultureesque films), and HD DVD had a lot of classic (read: GOOD) movies on board before it died. When I get the hankering for a new one, I can find virtually anything I want.
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Hee hee, you mean "suck major ass"!!! :D

That's awesome! I'm on Amazon all the time but never noticed those before. :cool:
 
AidenShaw said:
And "pay per byte" is a good and fair way to generate capital to fund the infrastructure improvements.
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Possibly, but equally that could deter widespread adoption of large digital movie (& game/software, etc) downloads. Particularly if it in reality means "overcharge per byte".
 
Sehnsucht said:
Hee hee, you mean "suck major ass"!!! :D

That's awesome! I'm on Amazon all the time but never noticed those before. :cool:
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You guys seriously need to get over yourselves. HD DVD is dead. There will be no new titles, and, amazingly, new movies make up the bulk of purchases.

I owned three different HD DVD machines and 50 titles. I had a variety of problems with discs skipping on every machine, especially with the combo disc titles.

I was a big proponent of HD DVD back in the day, but after experiencing the additional reliability for playback with Blu-Ray (no skipping, lockups, pixelation or dropouts) I am 100% converted.
 
$19.99!!!

:D

Why would anyone in their right mind pay that much for DRM restricted, "feature only" HD versions of movies?

It's beyond a joke and only fanboys would pay that kind of money for it just so they've got it in their iTunes library or on their Apple TV's anaemic hard drive.

Using Quantum of Solace as an example, I looked on froogle for the cheapest price:

BluRay: £16.99 (-15% VAT and converted to USD $11.13)

# 'Another Way To Die' Music Video
# Trailers
# Bond On Location Feature
# 5 Featurettes - Start of Shooting - On Location - Olga Kurylenko and the Boat Chase - Director Marc Forster - The Music
# Crew Files

Compared with Apple's "Feature Only" Download: $19.99 (+ 15% VAT and converted to UK Pounds £15.76)

It may only be £1.23 difference but what your missing out on is more than worth the extra cash even if it's for the psychological affect of physical ownership of a blu-ray disc, let alone all the extra's you may only watch once but get anyway.

Also the difference between 720p and an anamorphic DVD played through a decent scaler doesn't even justify the extra cost when the blu-ray disc is full 1080p HD
 
AidenShaw said:
With estimates of $120 billion and above to expand capacity, I suggest that the ISPs probably don't have the necessary capital.
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Looking at what Comcast alone brings in, I still disagree. But whatever. ;) I personally think it's more along the lines of them not wanting to give up an ounce of profit to increase the speeds and area of the networks.
 
polaris20 said:
Looking at what Comcast alone brings in, I still disagree. But whatever. ;) I personally think it's more along the lines of them not wanting to give up an ounce of profit to increase the speeds and area of the networks.
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Comcast's net income is about $2.5B/year - a bit short....

Also note that the problem isn't solely at the last mile with the local telco/cable companies. There's a huge problem with backbone bandwidth, so getting 100 Mbps into the home isn't going to solve everything unless the local telco/cable company has terabit uplinks to the backbone.

(10,000 homes at 100 Mbps is 1 Tbps)
 
AidenShaw said:
Comcast's net income is about $2.5B/year - a bit short....
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But you're saying an extra $10 a month or so for tiered bandwidth is going to help? If ISP's are so far off to generate enough capital, then minor bumps in caps per tier isn't going to help that much either.
 
polaris20 said:
But you're saying an extra $10 a month or so for tiered bandwidth is going to help? If ISP's are so far off to generate enough capital, then minor bumps in caps per tier isn't going to help that much either.
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At that tier, it would be about $2B/year for Comcast - nearly doubling their profit.

And I didn't say $10 - I didn't suggest a tier price. Something like a $1 per GB per month does sound appropriate, though, for the first tier.
 
AidenShaw said:
At that tier, it would be about $2B/year for Comcast - nearly doubling their profit.

And I didn't say $10 - I didn't suggest a tier price. Something like a $1 per GB per month does sound appropriate, though, for the first tier.
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My point really is that the cable companies are already so incredibly overpriced as it is, that adding the caps and accompanying tiers would be kind of insulting. On DSL for instance, I pay less than half of what my in-laws and parents pay on Comcast.

Of course I don't know what Comcast's operating costs are, nor do I know what other cable companies' operating costs are.
 
i personally dont care for "extras" anymore... dont add value to me if im not watching any of it. and most of it is nothing new or special or interesting to me. a few comments? meh. outtakes? how they did it? honestly- wooptie doo. and my tv isnt 1080 so thats a waste too right now. so an occasional HD download isnt a big deal to me. ive never been afraid to try something anyways.

sure, having the bluray disc as a hard copy, and putting the movie on a comp for an instant library is ideal to me. but i still cant remember the last time i watched any extra "features"

either way, as consumers, were ALL boned. whether its the ISP's, the studios, or even bluray tech, its only a short time till were having to buy the next HD format bc it offers 2x the resolution, etc... its all part of their plan....

so, regardless of what you prefer to buy, you're still getting cheated out of having the full experience, and yet you're still paying for that lesser experience
 
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