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Apple Compromising On iTunes Movie Terms?

There are 4 things I wish movies & TV shows had on iTunes:
-Chapter markers so you can easily skip a section, though the scroll bar thing is fairly easy
-Full HD 1080P resolution & 5.1 surround sound
-Give the FULL movie/episode. Not just a clipped down version
-the special features from DVDs
The last one is a big one for me. I like listening to the audio commentaries, watching behind the scenes stuff on DVDs. Plus, it's really annoying when you're paying pretty much the same price as the DVD but w/ lots less quality & features. Plus, I've found quite a few movies & TV shows where they're missing quite a few scenes from the DVD. That's just awful! And they're great scenes, too. Example: I have the DVD version of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home as well as the iTunes version. In the DVD version, there's a really great scene (probably the best scene in the whole movie) where Kirk & Spock are on a bus w/ a punk rocker type & Spock gives him the Vulcan nerve pinch. That whole scene is missing in the iTunes version. :(
 
Agreed with guzhogi.

I would probabley actually buy movies & shows from Itunes if i could get all the commentaries & behind the scenes stuff. I don't want to pay full price and still be getting less then the actual DVD
 
zelmo said:
I just can't see Apple agreeing to a price hike for new releases, unless it is to prove to the studios that there is a limit to how much people will pay for a download.
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Since Apple has tens of millions of customers, each might use the rental service once or twice a year, which might seem like great income to a small company but pennies to the movie producers.

Ultimately, executives will ruin iTunes digital delivery platform for movies just as they did for Walmart.

If this deal is announced at Macworld, it will be interesting to see how Steve feigns satisfaction. Likely he will be about as enthused as when the Moto dancing maniac introduced the original Rockr phone.
 
Any word on TV shows for rent? I'm adicted to watching TV shows on my iPhone on the train ride- its turning into a $4 a day addiction! I'd love some sort of unlimited purchase/rental plan too...
 
MacRumors said:
... the same day as their DVD debut. Businessweek states its unclear if Apple will increase...
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The word "its" is not equivalent to "it's". "Its" is possessive, and "it's" is a conjunction of "it is". I wish people knew how to use proper grammar. :eek:
 
zelmo said:
Most new release DVD's can be found at some b&m retailer for $14.99 to $16.99, and for that you get a optical copy, a nice package and maybe a booklet. Why would I pay the same amount to download? I just can't see Apple agreeing to a price hike for new releases, unless it is to prove to the studios that there is a limit to how much people will pay for a download.

hohum
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Even now when you buy a movie from iTunes you don't get the features that come on a DVD- features, extra scenes, etc. Even on Pixar movies you don't get the "out takes". We can't blame Apple for this either- its the studios wanting the money and not caring about the experience. Give me less for the same price? Thats no different from the current status quo- people will still be buying, ripping, and selling.
 
how to make this work

what Apple needs is to make the 4$ rental price apply to purchases.

imagine if you rent a flick for $4, and like it, and then you get all 4 bucks toward buying the film.

then imagine that if you don't buy it, you still get some smaller amount. like $.50 toward buying any other film.

a hand full of rentals later you can own the films you really like for less, get a preview (so to speak) and even get some small credit for just renting.

now add a usb plugin dvd drive that can burn your bought movies as data files that only your computer or AppleTV can read, and you fix the small drive issue on the AppleTV.

that would make a serious dent in blockbuster and netflix. shame i bet the studios would freak out.
 
I could care less about the rentals, since nothing works better for me than Netflix (and iTunes doesn't even come close to their selection). But the proposed purchase price is absurd. I buy my DVD for $12-$15. I won't pay any more than that. Personally, I wouldn't pay more than $10 for a digital download. Which I guess is why I've never purchased a movie off iTunes. Increasing the price will ensure that I never will. I'm cheap, I guess.
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3B48b Safari/419.3)

It's about time apple bent on pricing. Sitting at home after work, and renting a movie on my apple tv without de-icing my car...is worth a few extra bucks for me. To everyone freaking out about the rental thing...relax, apple is a smart company that knows WAY more about business and strategy than we can pretend to. Relax, have a scotch, and wait for macworld.
 
The 24 hour thing seems to be working with some success for Amazon's unbox. I hope Apple uses a similar pricing strategy - where certain movies are discounted end of week.
 
There is not a shred of good news out of this, other than the notion that - one day - iTunes will support worthwhile movie rentals. For now, the pricing/terms on DVD purchasing and renting - if the rumor holds true - are asinine. No one benefits.
 
Good god, listen to some of you people. Whining and crying about "only 24 hours" for the rental.

Here's an idea. I know this is going to shake some of you to the core, disturb your entire life's outlook and belief in god, but...

How about not purchasing the movie until you're ready to watch it? *GASP*

Times are changing. No longer do you have to go to Blockbuster and stock up on 3 or 4 movies and plan your weeknights watching them before they have to be returned. If you suddenly say "I'd like to watch Goodfellas tonight," you go to your computer and download it, then watch it. If on the other hand, you don't want to watch your movie until the weekend, then you (*warning: brilliant idea follows*) don't download it until the weekend!

Sure, Redbox is cheaper. Not as easy, but cheaper. If you want to go that route, nobody's stopping you.

I see nothing wrong with the proposed rental services iTunes will (hopefully) offer.

The movie purchases, though? Yeah, iTunes is gonna get creamed. Way too much money for something minus the DVD, the DVD extras, the quality, and the versatility of playing at many different locations.
 
I'm glad the grammar police showed up. This board was getting unreadable with all the its being confused with it's.:rolleyes:

Everyone already owns DVD players so who cares how much they cost or did cost (thats not even relevant).

OnDemand is the same price and its already linked to my TV and its in better quality even if its not in HD and it usually is.

The problem with 3.99 for 24 hours is the quality is worse than whats currently available, its not any more accessible and it's not any cheaper. This will be a huge failure.

The better solution is to package a free digital copy of a movie with each physical DVD you purchase. that will move movies along.

the rental idea is a joke unless the price comes down, the period gets longer, or its a subscription service.
 
mozmac said:
Why rent for $3.99 when you can do Redbox for $1?
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I was about to post the same thing. Sure, I don't have to get off my couch to rent from iTunes, but the Redbox is about 3 minutes from my house. I may not be guaranteed that every title will be in stock, but it's also very rare that I suddenly must watch one given movie, right now without any flexibility.

To me, this seems like the movie industry hedging their bets to ensure that iTunes doesn't rule movies like it does music. I can buy a higher quality DVD at Target for less than $17, and I can rent for cheaper than $4 elsewhere. The convenience factor of iTunes is offset by the very steep prices.

Go the other route -- $1 rentals and $5.99 purchases, and it's a no brainer.

The movie industry should hire a 1st year economics major to teach them about pricing for volume sales.
 
azentropy said:
$4 for 24 hours will flop bigtime.
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24 hrs is ridiculous. Say I want to stop a movie halfway and watch the next night. Or, decide to watch the extras the next night (which they need to include digitally, imo).

What's the point of limiting to 24 hrs anyway? Only a handful of people will pay AGAIN if they want an extension, while a huge amount of people will be pissed off at the limitation. No sense.
 
I'd rather pay $4 at iTunes than $4 PLUS gas and hassle at a physical rental store.

I won't do it often unless the selection is good, which I expect to take time. And I'd certainly be happier with $3, or $2, or 50 cents :)

Whether it's one day or more won't matter much to me: I watch movies once, and returning them "in time" is a non-issue with downloads.

It would be nice, in the event of unexpected emergencies, if the 24 hour countdown did not start at purchase/order, but started when you actually sat down and hit Play. Or some such allowance for the unexpected.

Of course I don't like ANY rules/limits, and don't like paying ANY money... but I do want online rentals, and can accept that a compromise may be needed to at least get this started.

And once started--and successful--hopefully Apple can lobby to change the terms for the better, as they did with music.
 
levitynyc said:
As opposed to buying a DVD player or VCR which cost like 800 bucks.
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You really need to do some price comparisons before you shop.

In fact, I'd venture to say that you would have a hard time finding a standard def DVD or VCR player for half that.

Unless, of course, you have a time machine that will take you back to 1975...
 
The 24-hour thing is probably correct, seeing as home ppv has been an all-day ticket sort of thing for a while now. That is, as long as it is indeed an all-day ticket and starts when you start watching the movie, not for just a 1-time showing or starting when you bought the movie and commenced the download.

As for more studios and higher prices for purchases, you can forget that. Even if the rentals are a rather-high $3.99, that would still kill even a $14.99 purchase price for most movies. Apple would have to institute an "upgrade" for people who rented the movie, liked it, and decided to keep it at full price - then it would probably work.

I'm still holding out for $2.99 rentals though...
 
Small White Car said:
I liked Roughly Drafted's idea for rentals:

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/12/07/how-apple-could-deliver-workable-itunes-rentals/

It's like Netflix. I pay Apple each month for 2 or 3 "empty slots" on iTunes that I can fill with any movie I want. The movie stays there until I download another one to replace it. It's exactly like how Netflix sends me a DVD and I get another one once I send it back.

Too bad they're not going that route.
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That really is a brilliant idea. Copies a system that is already working quite well.


guzhogi said:
There are 4 things I wish movies & TV shows had on iTunes:
-Chapter markers so you can easily skip a section, though the scroll bar thing is fairly easy
-Full HD 1080P resolution & 5.1 surround sound
-Give the FULL movie/episode. Not just a clipped down version
-the special features from DVDs
The last one is a big one for me. I like listening to the audio commentaries, watching behind the scenes stuff on DVDs. Plus, it's really annoying when you're paying pretty much the same price as the DVD but w/ lots less quality & features. Plus, I've found quite a few movies & TV shows where they're missing quite a few scenes from the DVD. That's just awful! And they're great scenes, too. Example: I have the DVD version of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home as well as the iTunes version. In the DVD version, there's a really great scene (probably the best scene in the whole movie) where Kirk & Spock are on a bus w/ a punk rocker type & Spock gives him the Vulcan nerve pinch. That whole scene is missing in the iTunes version. :(
Click to expand...

Agreed. Even with a Netflix like rental system, I most likely wouldn't be interested given all the things you're not getting versus a physical disc. And buying is definitely out.
 
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