iTunes Movie Rentals to be Announced at WWDC?

[mdelaney123]

For this to work:

1. The movies will have to be able to play on a TV. I would even say they would have to be hi-def...

2. A Rental system would have to allow me to buy/download when I want, and then watch it when I want, with the ability to pause for a week or more if I want. (None of this having to watch it 24 hours after you download it.)

The people I have spoken to about this just don't want to watch a video on an iPod type device. We all have TiVos, Video On-Demand, Windows Media Center, etc. Most people don't want to watch a movie on their computer...

Apple has a opportunity here to really beef up Front Row, adding TiVo functionality, Movie downloads, etc... Really make the Mac a media hub. I hope they do it... I have Windows Media Center. It is lacking in a few areas, namely it doesn't record HD well yet... But it is close to being really good.

Our Tivo went on the fritz and we missed a Survivor last season. The next day, I went to CBS.com, paid $0.99 and downloaded it to our media center PC. We then watched it via our Xbox 360 hooked up to our 60" HD TV. The picture quality was better than broadcast, and there were no commercials. My wife was really impressed at how easy and seamless it was. (Note: My Media Center PC does not have a tuner card, so we don't use it for streaming videos. It is a gaming PC that came with Media Center...)

I really hope Apple gets this right!

 

[supremedesigner]

This is bulls***! IF they want to do that way, then it's their loss! That is really stupid. I'd rather buy DVD instead of renting their cheapstake movies!

 

[PeteyKohut]

List of things I don't want to hear one word about at the WWDC:

iPod
iPod nano
iTMS
iMac
Mac mini
MacBook.

The WWDC is now and always should be a professionally focussed conference. All technical, nerdy and Pro stuff - Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, Pro Apps, OS X development.

All the other stuff can be updated in their own little events or quietly on the online store on or around the WWDC if needs be but the actual event should be totally professional stuff. That's why the developers pay the big bucks.

You know...I am inclined to agree with you. However, if you really are a hard core Apple guy as I am (and it sounds like you are too) you also might own stock (as I do!) and at this point, Steve can release anything he wants that might boost my portfolio. I agree it should remain "techy", but this hasn't been a great year for Apple. We need SOMETHING!!! FAST!

 

[chuckiej]

They are not going to announce this at WWDC. Just cause its the next big event does not mean anything. They would certainly give this its own event.

 

[bigmc6000]

Good idea

I think it'd be a good idea. What most people in here seem to forget about is that there are millions of people who don't have DVD burners, much less DL DVD burners. Also, if the quality gets much more than 480p we're talking about quite a few older computers not being able to play it back very well. I think my 1.5GHz Powerbook is technically (according to apple) limited at 480p so if there's any slow down or jerkiness to get it to 720p I'm not a big fan of that.

I think rental is a good idea - I've gone to blockbuster a few times and I've even watched some films from my cable company just because I didn't feel like going to blockbuster. But if they can make the price good (1.99 or 2.99 tops) it'd still be cheaper than either of the options I just listed and it'd be whole lot easier to do it.

I like download to buy for music but I'm with a lot of people on here in that if I want to own a movie I'll just go to target the day it's released and get it for $16.

One more thing - you don't want Steve to win this round because the studios would require an absurd pricing model. Look at the universal store - 29.99 for new releases?!?! If you want the DVD just go to Walmart or Target etc and get it way below MSRP otherwise the movie companies are going to make apple do what the retails do - take a loss on every single one sold and I really don't think Steve would be down with that...

 

[Keebler]

interesting

i'm not too surprised if this holds true.

1. renting a movie make sense if it's a good quality. you don't buy the movie when you go to a cinema. for someone like myself, a stay-at-home Dad, i often want to hit the theatre, but with 2 kiddies and a home business....not alot of time....but i could dload a movie while the kids are eating lunch/having a nap and then watch it later hey, it just bleeds further into developing an impatient society ie. . I want it NOW

2. of course the movie execs don't want ppl to buy a dloaded movie b/c dvd sales are insanely massive. dvd sales/marketing are now part of the ENTIRE movie process starting at pre-production. they want us to spend the $20 - $30 per dvd and higher for box sets

3. I believe Jobs doesn't want to push the movie execs. they see how the music biz just fought with jobs over trying to increase prices. they want to hold the upper hand imho.

4. i'm joining the whining about not releasing tv shows/movies in other countries. i'm in canada and would love to dload tv shows which i don't get a chance to see. i understand there are legal implications, but i would think that a lg amount of the groundwork would have been done with the music? (I know there may be different issues, but it's driving me nuts

Either way, i hope apple does something. they need to lead the charge. people want it.

cheers,
keebler

 

[DougAdams]

I think it highly unlikely that the WWDC will be the launchpad for anything so consumer-oriented. The highlight of the WWDC is the Leopard preview. Apple needs developers on board for 10.5 and nothing's gonna over-shadow that.

 

[ShavenYak]

Until they at least come close to matching the model that Mac The Ripper, Toast and Blockbuster 3 dvd postal rental gives me, I'll have to decline the Studios kind offer regarding rental rather than ownership.

Yeah, and I'm not going to buy another new car until the auto manufacturers match the deal I can get with a coat hanger, screwdriver, and pair of pliers.

Just because it's cheaper to obtain illegally doesn't mean you're getting a bad deal when you acquire it legally. And it sure as hell doesn't make it right. Of course, it's obvious that concepts like right and wrong don't matter much in modern society.

 

[mi5moav]

I actually prefer the rental method. I have so many movies I've bought over the years and on average I've watched them maybe 3 or 4 times. Yes, some I've actually watched 5 or 6 but alot of those now are shown on Network, and with HD tv and tivo I won't buy any new ones. But we still rent(for free, from our library) anywhere between 6 to 8 movies a week. So, if the new itunes video store can rent rent movies at .99 cents for a 3-5 day unlimited viewing I'm in. At 1.99 I might rent a few at 2.99 I really doubt it. at 4.99 no way in hell.

I still don't understand how QT is capable of doing this since Apple hasn't really implemented any kind of DRM into there players(fairplay, is a joke)

 

[applekid]

Good news and bad news. Movies good, rental bad if not offered with sale. However, if rentals are cheap, I'd probably just as soon rent so i could buy the physical disc which would be much higher quality anyway.

If rentals go for like 99 cents for a given amount of time, I'd probably try the movie with a rental and go out and buy the DVD if I want a high-quality movie with all of the extras that I could always rip. For a lot of the iTunes shows, I might buy an episode, but I usually just rip them from my DVDs to have high quality rips on my computer and a separate rip if I want to transfer them to my Palm (got no video iPod...)

As long as the pricing and rental term is fair, this should be a decent system. It definitely should be close to 99 cents a day. The cheapest physical movie rental service I can think of is RedBox which is $1 a night. Maybe Steve worked out a good deal to do a buck or two for a week.

 

[mrgreen4242]

Well, I'll chime in to agree with a lot of you...

1) it HAS TO BE 480p widescreen or better. 480p would be acceptable - it's better than DVD (roughly the same overall image info, but it's a progressive source material, so no pulldown being done in the player, meaning just a tad nicer images AND it's not NTSC color, so you get an improvement there).

2) it needs to be on my TV, and that doesn't mean buy a $400 iPod to do it, either.

3) it needs to be cheap. I get all the movies I want from Netflix for under $20 a month. The only reason I would use this service is to get something right now on an impulse. which brings us to...

4) downloads can't be overnight. Should be able to start watching within half an hour, otherwise I'll go to video store and rent it for $2.50 on DVD.

Now, the only thing that could excuse any of these requirements would be...

5) release movies that are just out of theatres, but not yet on DVD. There's a market for that with people who don't like going to the theatre (expensive, noisy, etc) but don't like to wait for DVD.

#5 would excuse #3 and 4, but #1 and 2 are pretty non-negotiable for me.

I know, I'm asking for fast, cheap, and high-quality, where it's normally pick two, but there are already many options out there that make you pick two... Apple needs to provide all 3 if they want to sand out in the crowd.

 

[JosiahPB]

Unless paying for movies with a 320x240 resolution with stereo sound is your thing....

 

[Keebler]

forgot one thing

i forgot to mention the use of bit torrent technology.

i wonder, and hope, that apple will use this somehow. i'm too techie, but remember a few months back, apple bought a data storage warehouse. what if they designed some sort of torrent system where your dload would come from multiple sources? that would surely make it faster?

now, i'm not saying this is the be all and end all, but it's intriguing to see if it would work.

it would be one of the only ways to make high quality stuff dloadable in a timely fashion. is it possible for them to also have some sort of a 'restart' or 'pickup' dload service so if something happens with your connection during dload, that is picks up where it stopped??

i wonder....

 

[SPUY767]

Lets see how they make this happen, movies are big downloads (or so im told ) people wont like spending a lot of time downloading a file only for it to become completely useless a while later. But if it increases the content in the iTMS then so be it!

A 3 Meg Connections is sufficient to stream Apple's HD trailers in 1080i. I really don't think that there would be a problem buffering a movie for ten minutes or so and then playing it all the way through, especially if they were 720p.

 

[Chundles]

Yeah, and I'm not going to buy another new car until the auto manufacturers match the deal I can get with a coat hanger, screwdriver, and pair of pliers.

If you're good with the pliers you won't need the screwdriver.

 

[i.Feature]

So, if the new itunes video store can rent rent movies at .99 cents for a 3-5 day unlimited viewing I'm in. At 1.99 I might rent a few at 2.99 I really doubt it. at 4.99 no way in hell.

100% agree with this. Right now i can walk into the video store and get 3 dvds for $5(canadian) for 3 days. I can rip them to view later if i don't get around to them in the 3 days (I almost alway delete the ripped files within a week, i don't need to keep em).

It has to be cheap. Cause it'll be in no way "instant gratification" or more convient then driving walking to the video store.

 

[jrv3034]

For me, rental is good. I don't want to own a sub-par-quality movie. I'll download it and watch it, and if I want to keep it then I'll buy the DVD.

The downloads should be no more than $1.99 to keep me from walking to Blockbuster. Any higher, and it's just not a good enough deal, what with the low quality, etc.

 

[bigjohn]

Only way this works is if Apple makes the movie available for download/rental a week or two before DVD release (or earlier, like hotel PPV). Otherwise, I'll just *obtain* it elsewhere.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

[Fast downloads] would only be viable via streaming, and that won't happen because you can't stream to an iPod.

Therefore, we can expect a big download. I imagine the movies will be the same quality as can be found currently in the store. . .

Not ture. Apple could do a movie stream per rental, and let the CPU capture and convert it into a high-res iPod playable file. This way, after an hour or so you'll have a file playable on your iPod's lower res screen, or you can choose to watch it on the computer with a higher quality right away.

 

[mambodancer]

Rentals ala NetFlix

The assumption is that the movies will be downloadable. It's entirely possible that Apple may follow a model like netflix. Have an online DB of thousands of movies that you can review online, read reviews and member comments, and then rent the movie and have it shipped to you like Netflix and Blockbuster. Return it when you have watched it. Order and buy brand new and used DVD's. Charge a monthly subscription service. Maybe Apple will buy Netflix?

Additionally, if Apple does provide the option of at once delivery via downloads then I don't think they need to provide DVD quality as a download (though resolution options and a price structure to match would be nice-being able to watch HD-DVD on my Mac would be great)*.

I like the $9.99 price point for movie downloads that you can keep if they are DVD quality and I'm sure Steve will continue to fight for this. This isn't much different than what the Columbia DVD movie club offers now when you consider the number of movies that you get - for their member offer you can buy 7 DVD's for an average price of $3.90 each. Movies sell from Columbia starting at $14.95 to $19.95 and they always have some kind of special offer-buy one at regular club prices, get your next DVD for 50% off.

This would be another step toward dropping cable TV for me altogether. The $45 a month I'm paying to rent TV and movies from Comcast is a great incentive to cancel cable. The quality of cable downloads (record to VCR) isn't so great and if I'm downloading TV I still have to deal with commercials. I'd much rather do the "movie and TV on demand" thing through my computer.

And yes, I finally got rid of my TV, CD player, amps, tape drive, DVD player, VCR and entertainment console in favor of listening and watching through my computer system. I love not having that hugh piece of furniture crammed full of electronics and cabling in my living room!

 

[easy4lif]

I don't mind renting movies so long as its a model like netflix. Anything I really want to keep, I'm going to get on DVD and encode myself. but if its the latest releases maybe wtch once to see if I want to buy.

 

[backupdrummer]

I hope the rental thing is true--I don't want to own. I'm not with Steve Jobs on this one (assuming the rumors are true that he opposes rentals).

Owning music downloads fits my habits/needs. Owning movie downloads does NOT. The vast majority of movies I watch I never see again. And I don't want to store big movie files long-term. And I don't want to pay a higher price! Lower the price and make it short-term. I like that better.

I completely agree. When it comes to movies I watch 15% of my movies more then once a year and the rest I watch once maybe twice.

I like the a rent/buy model at the price of 3.99/9.99

 

[HDnut]

Yikes........

I guess we will all become big fat jelly fish at this rate, I like getting in my car and interacting with other people . Pay per pay is BS, look at XM and Sirus radio, a joke. Oh we won't have commercials, and now most of the channels do, and I can see this happening on downloads, you get the download and the first 10min is Ads. Plus I have better things to do than sit in front of my computer all day long, do that enough at work and when I am taking a break like now What the Movie industry needs and music industry needs is a huge shot of quality not quantity, I can't think of too many movies and or music CDs that I would want to buy right now, or even rent.

 

[wwworry]

Who's to say a person won't buy some movies (like for their kids) and rent some others? Maybe a person has netflix but wants to something right away. My point is that it's crazy to say that there is only room for one kind of delivery method or pricing model.

Also it won't cost Apple that much to implement if the studios are doing the mastering and they add another category to iTunes. Why not? To get up-in-arms about this is like complaining about another brand of soap.

 

[Booga]

Won't anyone think of the Internets' poor pipes?

In the music business, Apple has taken advantage of people's willingness to give up some sound quality (ie MP3 and AAC formats) in exchange for ease of use in buying and using the music. I don't expect the movie service to offer HD, at least not for most movies. I expect they'll do the same thing they did with music-- actually offer slightly LOWER resolution than DVD in exchange for a very convenient package.

That's how Apple got the music industry on-board, and it would offer a great story to the movie studios, who are constantly worried that the higher and higher quality formats mean they're "giving away their masters". Instead, people may be very willing to buy lower quality copies as long as it's extremely convenient.