iTunes Movie Store Rumblings

[MacRumors]

Variety has posted an update on negotiations between Hollywood execs and Apple on the rumored iTunes Movie Store. According to the report, negotiations are still ongoing with Hollywood execs, who don't know whether to regard Jobs as a friend or foe.

"He came in with a lot of bravado and said, 'We set our mind to what we were going to do in the music business and revolutionized it, and now we want to do the same thing with film," recalls one studio person close to the talks for movie downloads.

Movie execs anxious to beat piracy are debating how much power to give Jobs, who recently was successful in strong-arming music executives into sticking to a flat $.99 (USD) pricing model per song. Movie execs are hoping to have a tiered model, whereas Jobs is insisting that movies be sold at an easy-to-remember $9.99 (USD).

On March 14th, Apple made its first full-lenth TV movie feature available on the iTunes Music Store at $9.99 USD. The movie seemed to indicate that much of the technical groundwork had been laid for iTunes movies, with only content left to be obtained.

Also complicating the deals: The studios are working out terms with a host of other distributors, including Amazon, Movielink and BitTorrent, in part to make sure that one company does not dominate. It seems that none of the studios wants to be first in making a deal with Apple. Disney would be the logical leader, but even they are cautious, fearing it will look like in-house synergy rather than a business decision.

Movie studios have been rolling out their own movie services in past months, including Starz's Vongo (subscription-based) and Universal's own download-to-own store.

Update: There appears to be two similar versions of the original story floating around the web. This Forbes mirror adds that the agreements may be in place by the end of the year.

 

[lonepilgrim]

Movie studios have been rolling out their own movie services in past months, including Starz's Vongo (subscription-based) and Universal's own download-to-own store.

If Universal has its own store, does that mean that Universal movies won't be on iTunes? (Not that it's going to matter to me here in the UK.)

 

[skoker]

I say meh. Downloads of even TV shows take longer than it is to watch them!

 

[Core Trio]

unless the movies download at a high enough resolution for me to watch them on a TV (enjoyably) then I still wont be buying anything other than dvds. I have yet to purchase any video content on itunes, aside from videos that sometimes come with albums

 

[ezekielrage_99]

US$9.99 a movie I'd prefer to buy the DVD and rip it to my iPod.....

 

[68134]

_

 

[AidenShaw]

unless the movies download at a high enough resolution for me to watch them on a TV (enjoyably) then I still wont be buying anything other than dvds. I have yet to purchase any video content on itunes, aside from videos that sometimes come with albums

Agree - if they are as bad as DVDs are, it won't be worthwhile.

For 1080p movies in a non-proprietary format, I might be a customer. For "480i", no way...

 

[technicolor]

No way in hell.

TV shows are as far as I would go, and Ive only gotten 2..the price isnt worth it.

 

[ezekielrage_99]

Agree - if they are as bad as DVDs are, it won't be worthwhile.

For 1080p movies, I might be a customer. For "480i", no way...

That's why I like ripping my own DVDs I know what quality I am getting. (and it's always good )

 

[aricher]

Again the quality would need to be there. The 128 audio quality keeps me from buy music from iTMS. I'd hate to see Apple step up to the plate with anything less than high-def. DVD-style extras would have to be included of course.

 

[Deepdale]

Not a chance.

 

[AidenShaw]

That's why I like ripping my own DVDs I know what quality I am getting. (and it's always good )

You mean that it's just as bad as the original DVD, don't you?

You can't replace the information that was stripped from the film during the lossy MPEG-2 conversion for the DVD.

 

[medea]

Ever watch one of the shows that are available on iTMS on anything other than an iPod? The quality is horrendous and they would need dvd quality to get most people interested. Also you would not get the extra features from a download which means that they would probably not be able to offer foreign releases which would require either subtitles or dubbing. Of course they could release the title with the subtitles already tacked on but if they took that route I believe they'd go with dubbing which is of no interest to me but unfortunately is the choice of most American morons.

Don't get offended by the American morons thing unless you are a moron that happens to be American and walked out of The House Of Flying Daggers because you didn't know you were going to have to read.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I dunno about you guys, but I just bought my latest movie off of amazon.com... it was a whopping $5 used. Ripped it to my hard drive with high resolution, and put the DVD into storage. Sure, it was an older DVD that I got, but it's going to take a LOT to get me to spend twice as much for less content+quality.

a true video player would be nice too... do you remember when the instant-on for DVD and mp3 playing was a fad in laptops. No need to boot Windows to watch your DVD's or listen to music. That's what apple needs..an OS X-less way to play DVD's on your portable (basically frontrow, but without OS X's overhead and distractions)

 

[DTphonehome]

You mean that it's just as bad as the original DVD, don't you?

You can't replace the information that was stripped from the film during the lossy MPEG-2 conversion for the DVD.

Are you suggesting that they will remaster movies in HD for the store? No way that will happen.

 

[birch25]

if the quality stays the same, there's no way i'll be buying anything. we're on the onset of high-def movies and apple offering 320x240 (or whatever it is) would be a significant step in the wrong direction. if they sold them in 480p, i'd be very happy and more than willing to give them $9.99!

obviously that would drive up the amount of bandwidth used at the store, but that problem could easily be aided if the rumored bittorrent features of the next itunes/10.5 are true.

they're gonna have to do something special if they want to drag me away from netflix.

 

[Porco]

I would consider it for an occasional film that was deleted or not released on DVD, if the quality was decent (DVD resolution) and the price was right ($9.99/£5 is still a little steep IMHO... if it was closer to £10 in the UK then forget it).

So probably not.

I do agree with having a set rate for all tracks/films though. When you go to watch a film at the cinema, you don't get charged more for popular films, or more for films that cost more to produce, so I don't buy this argument from the music and movie industries that they 'need' to have tiered pricing - it's just greed, like Jobs has said, especially when the money they make on music/would make from movies is much more profit per sale than it is on physical products as it is.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Also you would not get the extra features from a download which means that they would probably not be able to offer foreign releases which would require either subtitles or dubbing.

I long for popular formats that can do 5.1 sound instead of 2.0, and the ability to add sub-titles and such to video.

EDIT: I suppose you could somehow add metadata to an mp4 or m4v file for subtitles. You know, a script in the metadata, and somehow keep it synced with the time.

 

[liketom]

in a heart beat i would buy movies from the store

if only UK had it

 

[johnthevulcan]

in response to frame work

If the world would stop caring about piracy we would all be downloading from one another without bandwith or down server issues. and you better trust to believe apple plays no games when it comes to charging po' folk money. but they also have a knack for doing things right.

AND IF BITTORRENT CAN DO IT SO CAN GOD (JOBS)

 

[bommai]

The movie studios want $19.99 for new releases

If you guys think $9.99 is too much, the movie studios want $19.99 for new releases. I don't understand this. I think it is pretty certain that the download movie quality won't be better than 480p DVD. I can get new releases at Walmart, etc for $14-$15. Why would I want to pay $19.99 to download a DRM'd version.

 

[crees!]

"The movie seemed to indicate that much of the technical groundwork had been laid for iTunes movies" not true at ALL! when you say movies this must mean terabytes upon terabytes not just a one gig movie!

Dude, there's no way a single movie will weigh in at a terabyte. You know how big that is right? Do that math. Sure, add up hundreds or thousands of movies and you get terabytes but your comment to the quote doesn't make sense.

 

[liketom]

If you guys think $9.99 is too much, the movie studios want $19.99 for new releases. I don't understand this. I think it is pretty certain that the download movie quality won't be better than 480p DVD. I can get new releases at Walmart, etc for $14-$15. Why would I want to pay $19.99 to download a DRM'd version.

i would pay a mixed price model

Just like DVD's are

new releases - £15.99
old has been releases £7.99
Classics £4.99


to be fare , i don't really care that they cost the same as DVD's do - remember with HD-DVD and that other one thats blue are going to be around the £19.99+ mark so digital download will be slightly cheaper but alas not the same quality ,well no where near the same quality

maybe for £19.99 for download would also mean download + DVD in post ?

that might work


just start the movement apple

 

[hvfsl]

BluRay has the ability to include iPod and HD versions of movies on the same disk. Unless the iTunes service is going to have movies in HD, I don't see myself buying any off iTunes.

 

[soosy]

I'm afraid I wouldn't be interested in anything less than a full DVD experience (480p + menus/extras).

And with Blu-Ray/HD-DVD arriving this year, I may not even be interested in that....

But I'd REALLY like to see Apple deliver a movie store. If they can work it out with the movie execs, they can all make some mad $$$.