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Apple's iTunes Movie Store Hurdles - 2007?

It makes sense for the studios to want $20 - what do they get out of selling it cheaper through Apple? This isn't the music industry - movie piracy is still fairly limited (by bandwidth, resolution and time-of-release), there's no movie-Napster, and DVD sales are still strong.

If the resolution isn't complete bollocks, every iTunes Movie Store sale is a high-margin DVD coming out of their pocket.
 
If it's current movies as in the cinemas, I don't mind paying $9.99 for a view-once deal. Cinema-going is crappy anyway nowadays. If I really like the movie, I will buy the DVD, HD-DVD or Blu-Ray when it's out. And play it will my home theater.

But if it's $9.99 for pre-DVD release, forget about it. I might as well get the DVD at $19.99 - $21.99 for keeps.

I'm not sure about online movie piracy but I heard that you can buy pirated DVDs for less than four bucks in some countries.

The problem with movie studios is greed. If the studios think like a pirate, then piracy will lose out. Why? If you make stuff affordable and accessible, people will buy them. Simple logic. Then the pirates have to offer for free to beat this. Of course, pirates are greedy too.
 
I'm hoping for a rental type service. I have dozens of DVDs that I've never watched more than once. Let me rent a movie for 2 days for 5 bucks, and I'm happy.
 
It will be interesting to see how Apple implements this, as there are many aspects which I see as problem areas:

- low resolution = crappy quality = people not wanting to pay a lot
- high resolution = greater bandwidth requirements + longer d/l times
- some people will want SD, some HD
- some people will want to watch them on their video iPod, some will want to watch them on their MacBook or TV - each group will have their different requirements
- some people will want a rental service, some will not
- Hollywood apprently wants tiered pricing/higher pricing

This should be interesting...
 
Even at 9.99, netflix is a better deal. How many times do you watch the same movie? Most of the time, just once. A song I'm going to listen to a dozen times is easily worth a dollar- the experience of watching a movie is rarely worth twenty.

Of course, I've got no reason to grumble at the movie studios, as it's their loss of money, not mine. There are still great ways to get and watch movies out there, so they aren't stupidly making the media inaccessabile like the music industry has at times.
 
Greedy movie companys...

I think the movie companys are being a LOT too gready here.

You see, when they sell over iTunes, they don't have to cover costs such as the packaging, the DVD itself, shipping, etc. Apple takes the same cut out of the sales that the department/movie store would. They'll be taking a small cut at least, which will be made up by a lot more people splurging on more movies because its cheaper.

It could also come in different kinds. Example:

Choice A) HD quality/format, $9.99 (burnable)
Choice B) iPod quality/format, $4.99
Choice C) Rent for 7 days, $4.99 (non-burnable)
Choice D) 1 viewing, HD, $2.99 (non-burnable)

Would everyone be happy with something like that?
 
If everyone wants to keep pushing this HD stuff maybe they should start referencing that HD-DVDs are $30 per title at Best Buy, not $20. That would make a $15 purchase for HD quality a bit more understandable.
 
I think that the only way that a download movie store is going to fly is if it is tied to some type of really stellar device like a video iPod (not an iPod that plays video like the one now). The movie companies aren't going to consent to DVD reproduction and the public has shown that they don't want to watch movies on their computers (Media PCs anyone?) If you can watch movies on a decent screen on a handheld or plug that device into a dock by your TV to watch movies from it, I think it could be a real success.

But right now there is some pretty steep competiton from the PSP and from portable DVD players. So Apple better come out with something really innovative and with a better screen than their current offerings.

Add in wifi capabilities and the ability to download movies directly onto the device and it could be really cool.
 
$20 for a low-quality download!?

I don't know what movie studios are smoking if they think anyone will pay $20 for an iTMS-quality movie, no matter how "hot" it is. I'll wait for the DVD.
 
I don't understand the logic the studios are using. I mean, sure, tiered pricing I understand - but do these moguls have so on hand cash that they'd pay $20 for a 320x240 file? Okay, dumb question. How about this: what makes them think John Q Public has that kinda money lying around?

I don't even spend that much on the full-res and extras DVD's I buy. Where's my incentive to pay more for less?
 
$20 for a download movie - too expensive. More $ for less content than a similar priced DVD.

No thanks.


azentropy said:
Don't know if this is related or not, but went to

http://www.apple.com/movies this AM and get a "Forbidden" message rather than a "Looking for something at Apple.com?" page...
Click to expand...

Don't get excited by this, nothing new - thats been there for a long time.
 
Thanatoast said:
I don't even spend that much on the full-res and extras DVD's I buy. Where's my incentive to pay more for less?
Click to expand...

Especially when many people download a full ISO rip of a movie and burn it for free, creating a virtually perfect copy to the original themselves - menus, subtitles, bonus features and all. Although I suppose there are people who will always do that, no matter what the price and other circumstances are surrounding a movie store offering such as this one...
 
Object-X said:
So read this:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060621-7105.html
Click to expand...
That article really piqued my interest. I've been a regular Netflix customer for a few years now and I love it. Imagine a netflix box just like a TiVo that would download whatever movies you wanted to watch when you wanted to watch them. Forget cable on demand or TiVo or even an iTunes movie store. That sounds really cool. Who needs to own movies if you can access them when you want to.
 
Truthfully, I only care about 1 thing: resolution. I wouldn't even pay 10 bucks for crappy resolution. And I think the average customer agrees with me. I'd rather have the physical dvd anyways
 
Today my son bought the release of the Hills Have Eyes for $16 at Best Buy. He pretty regularly buys the first release on Tuesdays at this price. The cover is in two layers and has red liquid (simulating blood.) It is a pretty cool cover and of course you get everything on the DVD.

$20 is just ridiculous. Even if it is the full file or one that would look good on your bigscreen.

However, for our money's worth, the Netflix rental model is pretty ideal. The send and return of the DVD's is super fast and nothing could be easier. And the price is right.
 
So are they gonna release the video store with the new ipod or are they gonna release the new ipod soon? What are the chances they are going to release the new ipod soon.
 
They need different pricing though also. As stated earlier the first week at best buy, target and maybe even walmart the new releases start at 14.99. So any downloading service would have to come under that.

But they should also have a price vartiation like : 10.99 Newest and greatest, down to 7.99 for those lamo B movies.

Someone mentioned satilite and that would be sweet and awesome, but really who would go ok I just got my New Power Mac for 4 Grand now I need a 300 satelite also. No offense.

I know of one company that uses cell phone like towers and you get a reciever from them that has a hard drive in it. Its down fall is that it streams movies the newest movies to your hard drive, not the ones you personally want. So if they could figure soemthing out like this where (which is still way off) but having the user only having to buy a add on for 50 - 100 for a antenna, and then being able to make a list of movies to be streamed on to your mac. That would be sweet.
 
Even $9.99 is RIDICULOUSLY too expensive.
Of course, it is "an easy to remember" number, but for $19.99 a month I can subscribe to Netflix and view all the movies I want - and even, god forbid, rip them to my hard drive to be stored for posterity.
The most I would EVER pay for a DRM'ed movie download would be $1.99 - exactly as much as we are being currently charged for TV episodes.
Buying a DRMed file is, IMHO, more comparable to renting a movie, not to buying a DVD.
I think all parties in this debacle are being guilty of greed - yes, Apple, I am pointing my finger at you... :(
 
pilotgi said:
Seems like it's time for another "They're just being greedy" comment. $19.99 for a downloadable, digital copy instead of a physical dvd? That's crazy.

I would think people would just wait a few months until the newness wore off and the price went down.
Click to expand...

The only way $19.99 works is if it comes before the DVD and PPV release windows. I could see some of the people that are resistant to paying $20 for a DVD get much more trigger happy at the opportunity to download "Superman Returns" three weeks after it hits theaters.

Say what you will about shorter release windows encroaching on the box office receipts, movies hit video months earlier now than they used to and IFC has had a few simultaneous releases at theaters, pay-cable HD and DVD. It makes huge, HUGE sense from the standpoint of maximizing the marketing budget, and the theaters make a lower percentage of the theater receipts than they do the later windows.

Hey, the windows for downloading TV shows is next-day, so anything's possible.
 
The exact price won't matter much to me (I watch cable movies, use Netflix, and go to the theater, and rarely want to own a movie), but I find the question of one-price-fits-all vs. variable pricing to be quite interesting.

It's a magnified version of the music pricing issue. Single-tier pricing is much simpler for all concerned, and better reflects the cost of distributing content. Multi-tier pricing better reflects supply and demand and the value to buyers of particular movies.
 
Skaroo the movie studios. I don't care about how much DRM there is in a movie file, all I care about is price. Buying movies ala cart wont work anyway, not like it does for songs, not at $19.99. If Apple made a TV and allowed you to subscribe to a service that can replace cable with shows on demand, then I would pay up to $50 a month for commercial free high quality content when I want to watch it. Anything less is a waste. Who wants to own movies that won't convert to other formats, can't watch without an internet connection, can't get in HD quality? You have to pay again just to back it up to something. You have to pay in the theater, you have to pay to take it with you or watch it on a PC and you have to pay again to own it on DVD. How many movies can you fit on an iMac anyway? This is why piracy does not go down in large numbers. Why should be give them a break when they are gouging us at every turn? I know why, but it is frustrating to see so much greed. Instead of making money from everyone by keeping prices reasonable, they choose to make money from people with higher incomes, because they keep falling for this stuff.
 
Just wanted to say thanks for the laugh, that's the funniest thing I've read all day...
Click to expand...

So where's the movie Napster? BitTorrent? Diffuse, unreliable.

Resolution and bandwidth - I can download a near-CD quality song in less than a minute (320kbps MP3). An hour-long non-HD television show (actually 40-45 minutes) is about 350MB and given the vagaries of BT takes an hour or so. Double that for an SD movie.

Does piracy exist? Yes.
Is it as widespread as MP3 filesharing? No.

Thanks for playing.
 
Object-X said:
I don't care how much it is, if it isn't resolution suitable for my HDTV then it's a waste of money. If Apple only wants to charge $9.99 then that tells me movies will only work on an iPod. You can't even go full screen on your iMac with these movies without them being severly pixilated. So why bother? Give me a HD resolution file and let me stream it to my HDTV or convert it for my iPod, or burn my own DVD; I want control and I would pay full price for it.
Click to expand...

i agree 100%

i think the resolution of any tv shows/ videos from iTunes look HORRIBLE on my 20" iMac... There is no way i would even attempt to watch that rubbish on my 46" DLP.... at that quality i wouldnt buy a movie for $.99 let alone $9.99 or $20.00.

Give me at least 480p or 720P and ill pay 9.99... also let me burn to DVD at least once and im sold. otherwise there in not a chance of me buying anything but music from iTunes...
 
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