Fox and Disney iTunes Movie Rentals, 24 Hours Only?

[madmax_2069]

$2 - $5 for only 24 hour rental, a bit much for a short period of time.

it might be worth it if it was like a 2-3 day rental. i think $0.99 for a 24 hour period sounds allot better then $2 - $5 for only 24 hours.

 

[elgruga]

NO facts, just idle speculation.
Time range is 24 hours to 30 days.
Price range, so far, is .99c to $5.

I'll wait until its announced - it will only be in the US anyway, as usual 'Free Trade' is a lie.

 

[EagerDragon]

I'd rather have a rental solution where I pay monthly and have a list built up. Then on down times when the computer is resting at night it downloads 3 of the newest ones. Once I remove them from my computer or return them to iTunes the next three begin.

I like this type of solution, movies are downloaded automatically from a list I selected, they are ready to go, I can watch once or a hundred times, when I "virtually return one", another one from my list is scheduled for download.

Very reasonable, only weak point is that I may change my mind as to what order I may want to watch the movies, so I have to rearrange my list and return one of the ones I downloaded even if I have not seen it yet.

But otherwise very workable.

 

[elgruga]

You'd try to argue with someone trying to give you a free pancake. It's included in the cost of the rest of my breakfast! But to each his own. I'll enjoy the pancake at no additional cost.

Of course the digital cable costs money, but Comcast could either not include as much free, er... no-additional-fee on demand programing or none at all and just leave it as pay only. So it's included (although they could just take it all away at any time)... and one way to talk about it - I think accurately - is that it is included for no additional cost. You can call no-additional-cost whatever suits you.

NO.

You are not correct when you think 'free' is the same as a no-cost add-on.

The costs of services is what you actually pay for them. If the company delivering the service chooses to call one of the components 'free', but you cant have it unless you buy the rest, it is clearly not free.
Its just a marketing ploy designed to attract the unwary, the greedy, the stupid, by using absolute concepts that have zero meaning.

Why dont you go to the restaurant and ask for the free pancakes, without the rest of the breakfast?
They will happily give you a plate of pancakes and no money will change hands. NOT.

ITS ONLY FREE IF NO MONEY OR SERVICES CHANGES HANDS!

Free is a concept that has so many meanings it is meaningless; like truth.

If you are involved in the Law (another meaningless concept, BTW), I suggest you switch to Marketing.

Those guys love to talk in absolutes, when no such beast exists.

 

[wightlight999]

i think its vague

it doesnt say whether or not you could even put the rental on your ipod

ill bet you can have it downloaded on your computer for only 24 hours
but you can keep it on your ipod, as long as you dont plug it into itunes

 

[EagerDragon]

the bittorrent protocol is not illegal...that's like saying that http is illegal. people routinely break copyright law using bittorrent clients...i will leave the discussion as to whether those copyrights laws in their current form are reasonable for another time.

just because you find its use distasteful doesn't mean that you should ignore its impact on the online rental market. if apple puts on the blinders in this regard this rumored rental service is in big trouble.

The protocol is perfectly legal, using it to upload or download movies by other than authorized distributors is illegal.

Apple is not run by a bunch of stupid, brain dead people.


I am not sure why Apple needs to take such practice into more consideration than they did 1 to 3 years ago. That practice been going on a while now. It is more of an issue when purchasing movies via iTunes than it would be over renting movies over iTunes.

It is already part of the equation, I am sure Apple studied that form of illegal distribution and determined how it affects Apple, before they sold the first movie and revisited that subject before they started negotiations for rentals.

 

[andy721]

yet

yet another mac money hungry Co.
Stupid Idea, way to go, lets get on with the macpro specs and the new apple LCD rumors.

 

[law guy]

NO.

You are not correct when you think 'free' is the same as a no-cost add-on.

The costs of services is what you actually pay for them. If the company delivering the service chooses to call one of the components 'free', but you cant have it unless you buy the rest, it is clearly not free.
Its just a marketing ploy designed to attract the unwary, the greedy, the stupid, by using absolute concepts that have zero meaning.

Why dont you go to the restaurant and ask for the free pancakes, without the rest of the breakfast?
They will happily give you a plate of pancakes and no money will change hands. NOT.

ITS ONLY FREE IF NO MONEY OR SERVICES CHANGES HANDS!

Free is a concept that has so many meanings it is meaningless; like truth.

If you are involved in the Law (another meaningless concept, BTW), I suggest you switch to Marketing.

Those guys love to talk in absolutes, when no such beast exists.

Bad Elgruga.

 

[Cleverboy]

Bad Elgruga.

Not biting, I see. Nice. Someday I'm going to resolve to only speak in haikus.

~ CB

 

[law guy]

Not biting, I see. Nice. Someday I'm going to resolve to only speak in haikus.

~ CB

Yep. I do feel for Canada not getting the iTunes services quickly, though. I do have some cross boarder documents from time-to-time with a company in New Brunswick and simply getting everyone to agree that the French and English translations of the contract are both accurate can be time consuming.

 

[~Shard~]

$2 - $5 for only 24 hour rental, a bit much for a short period of time.

it might be worth it if it was like a 2-3 day rental. i think $0.99 for a 24 hour period sounds allot better then $2 - $5 for only 24 hours.

I think it depends how you approach it. If you are wanting to watch a few movies over the weekend, let's say, but don't know which ones in which order and when exactly, then yes, obviously a 24-hour time limit is prohibitive. However, if a person treats it as a VoD service, and only goes to rent a movie when he/she actually wants to watch it (assuming quick d/l times, etc.) then a 24-hour rental period is not unreasonable in my opinion.

They key there of course is that not only would Apple would need to implement things properly on their end to ensure fast content delivery, but the end user would also need to have enough bandwidth available to make everything work smoothly. Sitting down after dinner and saying, "Hey, I'm going to rent a movie and watch it right now" is great, but if you then need to wait a significant amount of time for the download to complete, this is obviously less desirable.

 

[robanga]

IMHO to compete with brick and mortar, blockbuster and netflix you need to offer a longer than 24 hour window. Sometimes you watch a movie 2-3 times during a rental period. I've rented from Xbox Live and this is one of the issues that keeps me from renting more movies from MS. Interestingly MS gives you an indefinite time period to watch downloaded TV episodes. That I like and have purchased a lot of those. My neighborhood blockbuster is likely to continue to see my business.

 

[~Shard~]

Sometimes you watch a movie 2-3 times during a rental period.

Really? I would think people like yourself would be in the minority, but perhaps I'm mistaken... Whenever I have rented a movie I have only ever watched it once, and know many people who do the exact same.

Regardless, Apple cannot cater to everyone, since obviously everyone has different needs and wants when it comes to this type of service. It will be interesting to see the details once they are released.

 

[robanga]

Really? I would think people like yourself would be in the minority, but perhaps I'm mistaken... Whenever I have rented a movie I have only ever watched it once, and know many people who do the exact same.

Regardless, Apple cannot cater to everyone, since obviously everyone has different needs and wants when it comes to this type of service. It will be interesting to see the details once they are released.

I would probably agree with you that I am in the minority there, but then again it would be an interesting survey. I think we are more likely to watch movies multiple times if they are kids movies particularly, we bought the movie "Elf" a few days ago and I think they have watched it 4 times. It would have been the same if it was rental

 

[~Shard~]

I would probably agree with you that I am in the minority there, but then again it would be an interesting survey. I think we are more likely to watch movies multiple times if they are kids movies particularly, we bought the movie "Elf" a few days ago and I think they have watched it 4 times. It would have been the same if it was rental

Good point - I think the numbers would change when involving kids movies.

Good idea about the survey - I'm going to submit it to MacPolls and see if they post it.

 

[seedster2]

TV is doomed to be a niche product

What is compelling about having to

1) Buy the device for 300-400 buckeroos
2) Play in low resolution (not true 720P)
3) Non dolby digital surround
4) Having limited movie choices

While you could continue to use your DVD, Tivo, OnDemand services and watch up to 1080P, full digital surround, choice of every movie, and no unnecessary interface to mess with.

Apple better break out some big guns otherwise this thing will continue down the path of irrelevance.

 

[~Shard~]

TV is doomed to be a niche product

What is compelling about having to

1) Buy the device for 300-400 buckeroos
2) Play in low resolution (not true 720P)
3) Non dolby digital surround
4) Having limited movie choices

While you could continue to use your DVD, Tivo, OnDemand services and watch up to 1080P, full digital surround, choice of every movie, and no unnecessary interface to mess with.

Apple better break out some big guns otherwise this thing will continue down the path of irrelevance.

I agree - right now it just seems a bit too restrictive and catering to a niche market. It has potential and I know many people who have one and are happy with it, but long term I think Apple will indeed need to make some adjustments.

 

[poppe]

I like this type of solution, movies are downloaded automatically from a list I selected, they are ready to go, I can watch once or a hundred times, when I "virtually return one", another one from my list is scheduled for download.

Very reasonable, only weak point is that I may change my mind as to what order I may want to watch the movies, so I have to rearrange my list and return one of the ones I downloaded even if I have not seen it yet.

But otherwise very workable.

True, but don't you kinda have to already do that with Netflix/Blocbkuster.

 

[firstapple]

I like the idea of this. Only takes 24hrs to watch a movie anyways... Just download it right before you are ready to watch it. Better then driving out and renting it, then forgetting to take it back and getting charged more...

 

[~Shard~]

I like the idea of this. Only takes 24hrs to watch a movie anyways... Just download it right before you are ready to watch it. Better then driving out and renting it, then forgetting to take it back and getting charged more...

As I previously mentioned, this would be along the lines of the VoD approach we have with our TV service - instead of driving to Blockbuster or what have you, users can simply rent a movie online for immediate watching, have access to it for 24 hours and only pay $4.95. As can be seen in this thread though, not everyone wants that type of a rental model and has different needs and wants, which is totally understandable.

 

[BTW]

I will go for 24 hours for 2 bucks a movie. Who needs to keep a rental for 30 days anyway.

I'd go for that too if it is 24 hours from first viewing. I wouldn't get rid of my Netflix membership just yet though as 2 studios is not enough. All the studios with their entire libraries need to have their content available so I can dump Netflix.

 

[~Shard~]

I'd go for that too if it is 24 hours from first viewing. I wouldn't get rid of my Netflix membership just yet though as 2 studios is not enough. All the studios with their entire libraries need to have their content available so I can dump Netflix.

I hear ya, that definitely would be the ideal situation. Unfortunately, I don't know how likely that is - at least not for starters...

Guess we'll find out more in a couple weeks!

 

[donlphi]

thats pretty much what Comcast charges for their movies on OnDemand :/

Not only is that what Comcast charges, but it is also the amount of time you have to watch it.

I don't see what the big "negative" votes are for.

 

[jaw04005]

Interestingly MS gives you an indefinite time period to watch downloaded TV episodes. That I like and have purchased a lot of those.

That's because you "purchase" those TV episodes not "rent" them. Big difference.

 

[neutrino23]

Movies are shot at 24 fps anyway. That's what really bugs me. I can see 24 fps, so movies always look jittery to me. Being in a theater is like going to watch a strobe light in my face. At least they blur the frames together when they move to NTSC TV on DVD's. When they pan the camera in these new "reality" movies it makes everything so blurry you can't read anything anymore. I only go for the immersive experience.

I agree. 24 fps drives me nuts, especially when they pan the camera. However, movie fans claim they like this. They say that 60 fps or higher somehow loses the feeling of getting lost in the story.