iTunes Movie Rentals Beyond 24 Hours

[jettredmont]

The viewer has just as much right to dictate their terms of viewing (and enjoyment) as I have in how I want my work seen and interpreted. Just as I have the right to drive my car with all the windows down and the AC on in December, I listen to the manufacturer's advice and roll up the windows and try the heat. While this right exists, I may be sacrificing some quality or feature along the way.

Of course. Obviously movies are written and edited to be viewed in a solid chunk (without any obvious exceptions). How important this is varies from movie to movie, as you've noted.

Again, though the options available as I see them are:

1. I just don't watch movies, ever, because there is a ~10-25% chance they will be interrupted. At the very least, don't watch "good" movies, ever.

2. I reorganize my life so that disruptions of higher-than-0-priority do not ever occur (on a 1-100 scale, movie watching, as a form of passive entertainment, ranks in the 1-10 range of importance). This likely means selling my kids into slavery and quitting my job, and is rather unlikely.

3. I "re-prioritize" my life, realizing that movie watching is the One True Activity and therefore takes precedence over all the other possible disruptions in my life. While not sold into slavery, the kids will likely be somewhat upset by this, but of course they will understand. It's just not something I personally agree with.

4. I rent movies from a 24-hour rental place, and get dinged with having to re-rent the 10-25% of the time my viewing is disrupted.

5. I instead rent movies from a more flexible place at the same cost and essentially identical convenience (YMMV), and don't get dinged when 10-25% of the movies I watch are disrupted.

Both 4 and 5 acknowledge the reality that I will be disrupted in some fraction of the movies I watch, and of course I take likelihood of disruption into account when choosing the particular movie for the evening. Other than avoiding the medium altogether, or "changing my priorities" so that all interruptions take a back seat to the movie-watching experience, it seems #4 and #5 are the best options. From a money-wise perspective, and again with the major caveat that renting from Apple TV is generally no more convenient for me than Blockbuster (mail and store access), I'm obviously going to pick unrestricted over draconianly restricted.

Opening the "window" from 24 hours to something more reasonable (say, 36 hours even), drops the % re-rent ding to something closer to 1-5%, which makes the "convenience" aspects of AppleTV more compelling in some situations. Opening the window to ~1 week drops the penalty to significantly less than 1%, and then the convenience aspect becomes the decider between the two.

I'm sorry some people find this "whining". It all just boils down to a simple informed-consumer choice.

 

[BigHat]

Okay, I'm single and find the 24 hour limit to be a pain in the butt. You don't have to change diapers for this to be problematic. I have a crazy work schedule and heavy social engagments to juggle.

I have rented 4 movies thus far and failed to finish two of them. Both times I was unpleasantly surprised to see that I missed the 24 hour window.

Now, I'll be the first to admit this board has more than it's fair share of whiners and I don't consider myself to be one of them. I know the terms, I wasn't cheated, etc. My only point is that sometimes one gets home late and would like to watch a movie but needs to hit the rack before it's over. Other times, I"m tempted to switch back to broadcast TV to catch the election returns or the news, etc. Anyone ever get home so tired you dozed off during a movie? Sorry, I have.

IF Apple gave us 36 hours or so, I truly believe I would rent more movies from them than I plan to with this 24 hour rule in force.

By the way, don't give me this 24 hour pay per view analogy. I bet most people "Tivo" them and watch them much the same way as we'd like to with Appple TV.

 

[jettredmont]

I'm glad you feel that way, because you should be spending time with your kids instead of watching movies (or television). My priorities are fine... thank you very much. If I rent a movie and something comes up that keeps me from watching it, I just pay extra to keep the movie or return it. I don't whine about having to pay another buck or two if it works out better for my schedule.

The jest about you fixing your priorities was in jest, of course ...

In any case, first, it's not a buck or two if/when the movie gets interrupted: it's four. Four bucks 10-25% of the time increases the average cost of the rental from $4 to $4.40-$5, and the variability/unpredictability of pricing also obviously increases. This makes the service somewhat less compelling.

Again, though, while I may be "whining" here, in truth I would not whine about having to pay a buck or two more: I'd just avoid the service altogether. "Whining" here is a not-overly-effective way of making it known why Apple's not getting rentals, at least from me (and judging from the overall volume of complaints about this 24-hour window, I'd guess that this same reasoning applies to a significant minority of potential customers).

Note also that this very forum topic was about the 24-hour window having a workaround (which is nice, but doesn't make up for the fact that it is there), and the "whining" about the 24-hour window seems to be largely in response to comments early on about there being effectively no window at all. Again, it is helpful to remember that this workaround (keeping the movie paused for the day until you unpause it the next, making sure you don't switch over to watching photos or listening to music on your AppleTV, or turn it off, etc) doesn't really address the problem well.

In any case, back to our regularly scheduled bickering.

 

[hotshotharry]

I'd rather be called a whiner for expressing my terms than be a dense, closed minded ***** who calls people whiners for expressing their opinions.

People have every right to state their opinion that they'd like longer rental periods, too bad some people can't possibly understand this... It is them i feel sorry for ...

It would seem to me that the people who would like longer rental periods are of the vast majority, so when it finally comes, i dont want to see all you people who didn't want the longer rentals to come here and whine the rental periods are too long!!!!

until then ......

 

[schimanke]

The 7.6.1 update fixes my way to extend the 24h-limit of iTunes movie rentals which I posted in these forums a few days ago... :-(

 

[dane989681]

Well at least you're finally trying to make a sensible argument now instead of your initial intolerant rant. For that alone this discussion was worthwhile!

 

[tonyshucraft]

Is this going to end up being a failure of a system.

WIth PPV's and VOD offered by most cable and satellite providers, is there a reason for this besides HD? I mean look at DVR's You can use them to keep the movies as long as you want. And you can always record onto your hard drive(At least I think it's legal but that would be like saying recording onto a tape from TV is illegal(same proccess, different device)

 

[pgwalsh]

Is this going to end up being a failure of a system.

WIth PPV's and VOD offered by most cable and satellite providers, is there a reason for this besides HD? I mean look at DVR's You can use them to keep the movies as long as you want. And you can always record onto your hard drive(At least I think it's legal but that would be like saying recording onto a tape from TV is illegal(same proccess, different device)

Well I hope Microsofts, Vudu's, Apples, Netflix and anyone else's online movie rentals succeed. More competition and hopefully better pricing for the consumer.

With the internet and OTA tv, I have less and less reason to subscribe to cable or satellite. In fact, if I had a set-top-box that had access to all TV shows over the web in HD, I'd really be set, then I could just buy or rent whatever I wanted to watch. Perhaps we'll get back to the days where we can watch TV for free and the commercials pay for the programming with the ability to opt-out and pay to watch commercial free. Hmmm

However, this is all probably a pipe dream if we don't have net neutrality.

 

[TravisReynolds]

I like the pause option, that way you can watch it like over a week or so

 

[lawrencehare]

Well, the odds are that nothing will come of this but I am most disappointed by this ridiculous 24 hour requirement, thank the stars for NetFlix! Our kids are grown and gone but we sometimes work late, we dance, I am at the gym and we are often busy on the weekends. What I would like - VERY MUCH APPLE - is to be able to start a movie on, say Tuesday after dinner, watch an hour or so to relax before bed; can't finish it Wednesday as I am at the gym, but maybe Thursday if all goes well - if not, then I'll finish it Friday. But Apple says no!

I have a Home Theater, a fully wired house ready for downloading movies, and FIOS, T2 download speeds - all ready for movies, but with limits like this it will not happen - at least not from Apple. Why the Netflix model cannot be used I do not know. Let folks download a movie and then watch it whenever and over as many nights as they wish. Or if a limit MUST be imposed, let it be five days, a week.

It's like the iPhone. I was all ready to get one but if I cannot pop in a local SIM in Europe when I am over there, then why bother? Luckily there is Sony Ericsson.

I for one cannot see why these limits are imposed, are we criminals? And it seems to me that the Apple TV could easily ensure that a movie is not copied. Verizon works fine, I can record a movie and spend as much time as I want watching it on Verizon's DVR. I cannot copy it or duplicate it, and I don't want to.

I'd love to get an Apple TV and an iPhone, but with these seemingly arbitrary limits it shall not happen. It is disappointing and infuriating - and I do not think Apple is listening - sort of thing Microsoft would do, but there it is. Other companies DO listen and it is to them that my money will go, until Apple decides to listen to its customers and treat them like adults.

Lawrence

 

[matticus008]

Other companies DO listen and it is to them that my money will go, until Apple decides to listen to its customers and treat them like adults.

They listen to the studios, for sure. All digital rentals are 24 hours from everyone who offers them. If you're not going to be able to finish in a night and don't want to use the pause button, then you'll just have to continue renting actual discs, where the time limit is up to the rental store.

It's funny you should mention that they should treat its customers like adults; seems to me they are: don't buy something you don't plan on using, or take the consequences of that. I think there should be a $1 extend-the-rental option, but new releases are still 24-hours at most video stores, and people have dealt with that for 20 years just fine. The price of a rental and a late fee in 1990, adjusted for inflation, is more than double the current rental rate. Times have changed. Renting the movie is cheaper than going to it (by almost half exactly), and you can't pause a theater, either.

 

[davidy]

24-hour limit

The way I see it is that you have a choice - Either buy a DVD for $15-$20, rent it from iTunes for $3.99 and accept their limitations, rent it from a video rental store with their limitations, or go to a theater for a current movie.

I realize that everybody's viewing habits are different but I would rarely start to watch a movie if I didn't project having enough time to finish it. True, there may be events that interrupt the experience but few of these are more than a few minutes (bathroom, make popcorn, etc.) Why should the event be any different from going to a theater? You go, you watch the movie from start to finish and then it's over.

The convenience of being able to take a break in the middle is the reason it only costs $3.99

I don't know of any movies that are as long as three hours. I think anyone can watch any movie in one evening without spreading it out over a second day.

 

[Burk]

24 hours - way too short

Thanks for analyzing this issue. This 24 hour clock is a total deal-breaker for me. We can take a couple of weeks to watch a movie, watching a few scenes one weekend, then putting it aside for the week, then returning the next weekend. Great movies can be savored this way.

Apple should just do the netflix thing and allow rentals to last as long as you need to watch, and expire when you get more material. This model is still a fail as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Pwenntina]

Does the rental movie delete completely from your whole iTunes account. Can anyone be able to see it after your done watching it and it says delete the movie?

 

[midwestfisherma]

I went to the Theater and spent over $20 with food and in the middle of the movie I left and came back 3 days later to discover my ticket was no longer valid.

These scenarios about 24 hours not enough time to watch a 2 hour movie is a joke.

Hello!! You spend more time bull****ing in Mac Forums than you do watching a movie.

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