HBO Coming To iTunes? [Now on iTunes]

[GotPro]

Your dream is to pay twice as much as cable/satellite for 1/2000th of the content, with no local or live programming even available at all?

Yes it is, actually... for a lot of us.

You don't do the math very well.

I just turned OFF my Satellite.

I was paying $120 / month = $1,440 a YEAR.

I watch the following shows... and pretty much NOTHING else.

House
Discovery Channel (Mythbusters, etc.)
History Channel
Tons of Movies.

I've got an antenna for my local channels, I have netflix for my movies...

So I have an Apple TV... and I can purchase about a DOZEN season passes for about $350-$500 which will give me about a THOUSAND hours of content that I WANT to watch... and as I only watch a small bit of TV a day... it's a SUBSTANTIAL savings...

Even without the season passes... If I watched a dozen tv shows a week... (which is WAY more than I'd EVER watch... I MUCH prefer watching movies)... That's still less than I was paying for Satellite. And with Netflix... I have all the movies I could ever want to watch and with iTunes / Apple TV I have all the TV I could ever want to watch...

And for the local channels, I have an antenna. So... that's a ton of shows for free right there.

CABLE and SATELLITE ARE THE LARGEST CONSUMER RIP OFFS BAR NONE.

The industry IS HEADING for A-LA-CARTE service... and I, for One, can't WAIT until it gets there

 

[mrgreen4242]

Sopranos and Rome are $2.99 each. Rome looks like a good show I might have to check it out, its a 1 hour show so $2.99 isn't bad.

Rome is good, but just rent the DVDs... I don't get the buying TV shows from iTunes thing. $2 per episode (now $3!) will get you pretty close to the DVD purchase price of the box set. I can rent all 5 discs in a season of Rome for $5, maybe $12 if it's brand new, at a video store.

My thinking is that if you are a big fan and want to own the show, the DVD while the same or maybe a little bit higher priced is still a better buy - there's no real trick to copying them to your iPod any more, and you can watch them on your TV simply, lend them to friends, etc etc. You get a slightly better video quality, far superior sound, and special features which presumably you want since you are a big enough fan to spend $30+ on the show.

If you aren't a big fan, renting them is much more affordable, and you will probably get the same amount of enjoyment out of renting as buyinng, but for a fraction of the price.

If I could RENT TV shows, I would be all over it, though. Not sure what sort of pricing structure I would feel is appropriate though. Maybe a single viewing of each episode of a season for $8-10?

 

[mrgreen4242]

Y
CABLE and SATELLITE ARE THE LARGEST CONSUMER RIP OFFS BAR NONE.

The industry IS HEADING for A-LA-CARTE service... and I, for One, can't WAIT until it gets there

Well, I wouldn't agree with that. Cell phones, text messaging and data plans in particular, are the biggest consumer rip off. Bundling of channels is a pretty big rip off, but to a degree I can see where the industry is coming from - it's expensive to put together a new channel and you need to be able to guarantee a certain potential audience size to make it worth it to even try.

In any case, if my a-la-cart you mean individual purchase of programs, I think you are right, but not if you mean a-la-cart cable plans where you get to pick your channels. There's no incentive for the cable providers or content producers to ever offer that service, and if the government makes them they'll just combat it by spreading their top tier programming over all their affiliated channels.

 

[severe]

Yes it is, actually... for a lot of us.....

I think this is a pretty solid alternative.

By the way, Cable has to be the worst. I finally switched to Satellite a few months back, and couldn't be happier. And the cost is nearly half of what I was paying with Cable (for more HD content, etc). As I mentioned earlier, I would happily toss HBO if I could get the shows I'm looking for, but I do enjoy having access to a lot of other HD content with my satellite service.

So yea.. you can have the best of both worlds. Cut your Cable and Satellite service costs in half and pull the rest from iTunes, à la carte. I don't think I'm ready to make as bold a move as GotPro, but I do see it working for him.

Though prices are a bit high for these episodes at the moment.

 

[slate1]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 7.6) Alltel HTC Touch)

I'd have an easier time accepting the higher price if it meant a higher resolution file. Like a video itunes plus format. It kills me that they cripple the video quality just to insure compatibility with fifth gen ipods.

 

[plunar]

In any case, if my a-la-cart you mean individual purchase of programs, I think you are right, but not if you mean a-la-cart cable plans where you get to pick your channels. There's no incentive for the cable providers or content producers to ever offer that service, and if the government makes them they'll just combat it by spreading their top tier programming over all their affiliated channels.

See, i just don't get this argument. either a channel is profitable or it is not. food channel, between it's commercial revenue (which is a whole 'nother load of bull considering it is paid tv) and subscriber fees should either survive or die based on its offerings and the market. it's repulsive that the business is structured in such a way that a few, minority set of anchor channels offset the losses for the such a huge bulk of garbage out there. it's god damn social welfaring of the media industry at the expense of the consumer.

i don't understand the cable business model, and i don't care to try. our home uses dish network – we get about 10 channels, half of which are flavors of hbo, half of which are local networks, for about 30 bucks, all in HD. i'd drop the locals if i could too – i don't know if i'm getting cynical as i get older (at 27) or but grey's anatomy and Lost have deteriorated to substandard entertainment for teenage girls. needless to say, the writers didn't get a damn ounce of sympathy from me.

Except entourage. was a bit pissed about that, since that show is what convinced me to subscribe to hbo to begin with...

 

[FoxyKaye]

Woke up this morning, got yourself a gun...
Ah crap - too late for all that. At least HBO still has The Wire.

 

[GregA]

If I could RENT TV shows, I would be all over it, though. Not sure what sort of pricing structure I would feel is appropriate though. Maybe a single viewing of each episode of a season for $8-10?

Yes, TV show rental would be great.

And for the local channels, I have an antenna. So... that's a ton of shows for free right there.

CABLE and SATELLITE ARE THE LARGEST CONSUMER RIP OFFS BAR NONE.

The industry IS HEADING for A-LA-CARTE service... and I, for One, can't WAIT until it gets there

AppleTV plus a good DVR would do it for me. Or AppleTV with integrated DVR, of course.

Remember though that online downloads are going to boost our data usage heavily, and ultimately the cable and dsl providers are going to make more money on heavy online TV users... we're just lucky (for now).

See, i just don't get this argument. either a channel is profitable or it is not. food channel, between it's commercial revenue (which is a whole 'nother load of bull considering it is paid tv) and subscriber fees should either survive or die based on its offerings and the market. it's repulsive that the business is structured in such a way that a few, minority set of anchor channels offset the losses for the such a huge bulk of garbage out there. it's god damn social welfaring of the media industry at the expense of the consumer.

It's not that at all, but it can look that way. It is the economic model that the cable companies have chosen though, and they could easily choose a different one.

Think of this GROSS simplification of the issue, though.
1) I watch scifi, but never food or documentaries.
2) My friend watches documentaries, but never scifi or food.
3) My uncle watches food shows, but never scifi or docos.
We all complain that we don't watch 2/3 of the channels, so should pay far less. However, if I stop paying towards food and doco channels, and my friends stop paying towards my scifi channel, the scifi channel still needs to make its money to make new shows, so although I save on doco & food I'll have to pay triple for just the scifi channel.

So if we moved to "a la carte" we would be paying the same but for fewer channels and shows (the exact ones we like).

People understand this with ACTUAL all-you-can-eat smorgasbords. You pay a cost and can eat anything you want. You can't say to the restaurant "I don't plan on eating over half of what you're offering, so I'd like to pay half". If you want that, you go to the a la carte menu, and unless you're not very hungry at all you end up with less variety but exactly what you want, which you pay more for.

 

[SPUY767]

what a god damn rip off. for $3 bucks i can rent a dvd or blu ray, get high def, 5.1 sound, and 2-6 episodes... for the price of what they're charging for one show?

pass.

Much anger there is within you. Where are you getting Blu-Rays for 3$? With tax, they run more than 5$ where I live. And for the love of pete, watch the language.

 

[jackbenimble4]

Aww, where's Entourage? That's probably the only show from any studio I'd buy on iTunes.

 

[joeshell383]

Yes it is, actually... for a lot of us.

You don't do the math very well.

I just turned OFF my Satellite.

I was paying $120 / month = $1,440 a YEAR.

I watch the following shows... and pretty much NOTHING else.

House
Discovery Channel (Mythbusters, etc.)
History Channel
Tons of Movies.

I've got an antenna for my local channels, I have netflix for my movies...

So I have an Apple TV... and I can purchase about a DOZEN season passes for about $350-$500 which will give me about a THOUSAND hours of content that I WANT to watch... and as I only watch a small bit of TV a day... it's a SUBSTANTIAL savings...

Even without the season passes... If I watched a dozen tv shows a week... (which is WAY more than I'd EVER watch... I MUCH prefer watching movies)... That's still less than I was paying for Satellite. And with Netflix... I have all the movies I could ever want to watch and with iTunes / Apple TV I have all the TV I could ever want to watch...

And for the local channels, I have an antenna. So... that's a ton of shows for free right there.

CABLE and SATELLITE ARE THE LARGEST CONSUMER RIP OFFS BAR NONE.

The industry IS HEADING for A-LA-CARTE service... and I, for One, can't WAIT until it gets there

Actually I do math quite well, thank you.

Take these new HBO offerings. On DirecTV, HBO costs $14 or less per month.

Let's see:

Four episodes of one show with DRM and less than DVD quality for $12

or

One full month of 7 channels of HBO + 2 HBO HD feeds for $14 or less,
that I can record and do with as I please

Which makes more sense?

(and Cable even offers HBO on Demand with an HBO subscription)

 

[hexonxonx]

I wonder why only Season 1 and half of 6 of the Sopranos are offered for now
I would gladly buy all the seasons right now if they were offered. I'm sure they eventually will be offered but till then, I won't buy. This is another show I have never seen yet.

 

[zedsdead]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 7.6) Alltel HTC Touch)

I'd have an easier time accepting the higher price if it meant a higher resolution file. Like a video itunes plus format. It kills me that they cripple the video quality just to insure compatibility with fifth gen ipods.

I completely agree. The newer movie purchases are not crippled anymore. I recently downloaded Cloverfield, and it was the new Rental Anamorphic encoding.

Not sure if the widescreen HBO stuff is anamorphic or not.

Apple really needs to make it standard, and put 5.1 in the SD stuff. There is no reason not to.

 

[GregA]

I recently downloaded Cloverfield, and it was the new Rental Anamorphic encoding.

What's this new encoding?

and put 5.1 in the SD stuff. There is no reason not to.

Yeah, 5.1 in SD just makes sense.

 

[zedsdead]

What's this new encoding?



Yeah, 5.1 in SD just makes sense.

Traditionally on purchases, Apple has used 640xN encoding to ensure compatibility with all devices (the only device holding this back is the 5th gen ipod, that it, and Apple needs to move on). The rentals are encoded using the same 640x480 res, but are Anamorphic to create 853xN files. The quality is almost on par with DVD. 5.1 can be done in SD, look at Handbrake.

 

[northy124]

Alright HBO is on iTunes with decent pricing as well, You get a $20 saving if you buy per season than if you bought the DVD not sure how much you would save if you bought by the episode..I'll do the math later.

Anyways back to downloading Deadwood.

 

[slate1]

Traditionally on purchases, Apple has used 640xN encoding to ensure compatibility with all devices (the only device holding this back is the 5th gen ipod, that it, and Apple needs to move on). The rentals are encoded using the same 640x480 res, but are Anamorphic to create 853xN files. The quality is almost on par with DVD. 5.1 can be done in SD, look at Handbrake.

The problem is that there's no way to tell if it's anamorphic or not. For example, the TRAILER for the Disney Movie "Eight Below" is anamorphic (854x480) but the movie upon purchse is still 640x352 and looks like crap.

hmmm - I just thought of something - I wonder if there's a correlation between a movie being offered for rental in HD and the purchase option being anamorphic...

 

[zedsdead]

The problem is that there's no way to tell if it's anamorphic or not. For example, the TRAILER for the Disney Movie "Eight Below" is anamorphic (854x480) but the movie upon purchse is still 640x352 and looks like crap.

hmmm - I just thought of something - I wonder if there's a correlation between a movie being offered for rental in HD and the purchase option being anamorphic...

I agree. Apple needs to post the resolution speck on the website.

 

[sbarton]

Here's hoping for even OLDER content; Not Necessarily the News, the Appointments of Dennis Jennings, First & Ten, Dream On . . . . . man am I dating myself here.....

I'm with you, but the studios are seriously @!!$# in the head with their pricing. I mean seriously, wtf is going to pay $29 bucks to watch (ONE) season of I Dream of Jeannie??

TV shows are simply WAY WAY WAY overpriced at the moment on Itunes. I know they need to start somewhere, but they need to be a bit more realistic.

But then again, I live in a world where Comcast can sell a single WWE pay-per-view even for $39 and make a killing. Truly, it makes me want to vomit, but hey no ones forcing them to buy it.

 

[sbarton]

Yes it is, actually... for a lot of us.

You don't do the math very well.

I just turned OFF my Satellite.

I was paying $120 / month = $1,440 a YEAR.

I watch the following shows... and pretty much NOTHING else.

House
Discovery Channel (Mythbusters, etc.)
History Channel
Tons of Movies.

I've got an antenna for my local channels, I have netflix for my movies...

So I have an Apple TV... and I can purchase about a DOZEN season passes for about $350-$500 which will give me about a THOUSAND hours of content that I WANT to watch... and as I only watch a small bit of TV a day... it's a SUBSTANTIAL savings...

I was with you till you said "about a THOUSAND hours". Most prime-time shows only do at best about 20 shows a season. So best case you'll be getting about 240 hours of content for your seasons passes. Or am I missing something?

 

[hexonxonx]

I'm with you, but the studios are seriously @!!$# in the head with their pricing. I mean seriously, wtf is going to pay $29 bucks to watch (ONE) season of I Dream of Jeannie??

TV shows are simply WAY WAY WAY overpriced at the moment on Itunes. I know they need to start somewhere, but they need to be a bit more realistic.

This week, not only did I buy season one of I dream of Jeannie, but I bought the two seasons of 21 Jump street and the last four seasons of 24. 24 is selling for just under $40 a season. I'm sure I'm not the only person in the world who thinks this is a good thing. I haven't turned on my TV in about three weeks now.

 

[SDLSteve]

My dish network bill is $120 a month non HD but have every movie channel. I don't rent movies and don't go to the movies a lot (two small children) so I average the cost of my outside entertainment to inside entertainment and its a pretty good deal in my opinion. As a teacher and before kids, I used to ruin the blockbuster all you can watch plan for $30 I'd watch one-two movies a day on that plan so needless to say I didn't have the same package back then (I think the bill was $75)