iTunes Rental Pricing Flexibility and Earlier Releases

[Lord Sam]

Thats all fine and dandy, but what about UK movies?

 

[Scarpad]

Interesting. Other movies, however, are definitely being withheld until that thirtieth day, such as Elizabeth: The Golden Age (yes, I've been waiting).

Plus other movies, such as the The Bourne Ultimatum, seem to be missing long after the 30-day mark.

Me too I can't get it from Netflix.

 

[jettredmont]

Alright for you iTune's movie counters, here is the easiest way to find out the total number of movies available in iTunes.

1. Start iTunes
2. Select iTunes Store
3. Select Movies from the store links
4. Under Categories select the All Movies link
5. Now this is where it gets tricky, there are 38 pages with each full page have 21 movies, so we need to go to the last page to see how many movies there are on the last page, so click the U-Z link (which moves us to page 36), move forward to the 38th page.

Alright there are only 6 movies on the last page so we have to do some complicated math.

(Movies per page x number of full pages) + number of movies on last page

(21 x 37) + 6 = 783

That means there are currently 783 unique movies available to either buy or rent from the iTunes store.

Pretty tough to figure out I know, but there you go.

Now I have a quick question, has anyone tried to move a HD movie from an Apple TV to an iPhone on iPod Touch. Is that possible. The reason I ask this is that this might prevent Apple from removing non-HD movies and only off everything in HD.

Either buy or rent is the operative phrase. The PowerSearch includes only those available for rental (it's one of the terms of the search). There are many which you can only buy (A), those you can buy or rent (B), and many which you can only rent (C). Unless I'm mistaken, you're giving us (A+B+C) whereas the pertinent number (1000 by the end of February) is (B+C) only.

That having been said, I'm rather certain that when I looked through PowerSearch a few days after the store opened I also got 385 movies, and at that time noticed at least one movie which hadn't shown up in the "All Rentals" power search.

[Edit: nope, I was mistaken. Previously (1-17), I counted 318 movies, one of which showed up in the "Rentals" search even though it only allowed purchasing. I then searched by "Rating" for all movies (ie, buy + rent) and ended up with a total of 543, which of course excludes unrated movies like Coyote Ugly and Breakfast at Tiffany's. Assuming PowerSearch wasn't skipping movies left and right, Apple's added a little south of 240 movies (240 == added + missed originally because they were unrated) in the past month, which isn't an overly impressive rate, and certainly won't get them to 1000 rentals or even 1000 movies overall by the end of the month! See https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=4774700#post4774700 ].

 

[terjack]

I must be the only person in America who likes the convenience Redbox gives me. I go to work, and their are 6 Redbox machines in a 5 mile radius
of my work.
I go home, and their are 5 Redbox machines in a 10 mile radius of my
house, the closest one is located in a Wal-mart 6 blocks from my house.

The selection may not be more than new release stuff, but when you
just want to watch a movie TONIGHT when you get home, and not
wait for downloads, et al., then Redbox is great. Not to mention Free
Rental Mondays they send to your cell phone, and twice a month they send you Free Thrusday night rentals to your email.

I'm also fortunate to live in a town that has 6 Blockbusters, 5 Hollywood Videos, 2 Hastings Videos, and 2 or 3 mom and pop video stores.
Heck, we just got a Family Video last week, and everything to
rent there is $2 for 1 ( catalog) and $1.08 a night new release.

When Apple and The studios get that convienent, I 'll jump on the
bandwagon.

 

[whatever]

Either buy or rent is the operative phrase. The PowerSearch includes only those available for rental (it's one of the terms of the search). There are many which you can only buy (A), those you can buy or rent (B), and many which you can only rent (C). Unless I'm mistaken, you're giving us (A+B+C) whereas the pertinent number (1000 by the end of February) is (B+C) only.

That having been said, I'm rather certain that when I looked through PowerSearch a few days after the store opened I also got 385 movies, and at that time noticed at least one movie which hadn't shown up in the "All Rentals" power search.

.

The number of movies available to rent as of today on an Apple TV is 360.

I did not give A+B+C as stated by Jettredmont, that would be stupid, because that would increase the number.

I do not recall what Jobs said in the keynote, whether that there will be 1000 movies to rent or 1000 movies available. If he meant available then today that number would be 783. If he meant to rent then today that number stands at 360.

I was pretty clear when I said that there are 783 unique movies which are available to rent or buy (I don't specify how many you can rent or how many you can buy, just the total number of unique movies).

 

[LizKat]

Interesting. Other movies, however, are definitely being withheld until that thirtieth day, such as Elizabeth: The Golden Age (yes, I've been waiting).

Plus other movies, such as the The Bourne Ultimatum, seem to be missing long after the 30-day mark.

I don't know when Bourne's Ultimatum showed up but I rented it off iTunes yesterday after I put the 7.6.1 upgrade onto my Air.

 

[jettredmont]

The number of movies available to rent as of today on an Apple TV is 360.

I did not give A+B+C as stated by Jettredmont, that would be stupid, because that would increase the number.

You are either using some odd logic I can not understand, are misunderstanding what I'm trying to say, or are yourself mistaken.

To restate what I described above, there are two overlapping sets: "Available to Buy" and "Available to Rent". A Venn diagram of two sets will include three regions: "A" for those only "Available to Buy", "B" for those in both sets (available to buy and available to rent) and "C" for those only "Available to Rent".

The facts as of Feb 23, 2007 at 8:00AM PST, as observed from California:

• Power Search on iTunes shows 388 rentals available (150 X 2 + 88). This is (B+C) in my Venn diagram.
• The All Rentals movies link (which I'm pretty sure wasn't there when I looked a month ago, but I might have just completely missed it ) shows 18 pages of 21 (378) and one of 4 on the last page (382 rentals). This, too, is (B+C) in my Venn diagram (like I said, the PowerSearch seems to have some issues, so I trust this number more).
• All Movies on iTunes shows 37 pages of 21 (777) and one of 6 (783 movies). This is (A+B+C) in my Venn diagram.

So, again, quite clearly, the All Movies link is A+B+C. The All Rentals link, using you method above, is likely the most accurate measure of movies available to rent (B+C).

[snipped you stating the above as well ... we're obviously in agreement, even though you apparently don't think so ...]

I was pretty clear when I said that there are 783 unique movies which are available to rent or buy (I don't specify how many you can rent or how many you can buy, just the total number of unique movies).

The problem is the "or" makes your statement imprecise. It could mean (available to rent) OR (available to buy), or it could mean available to (rent OR buy) which is, (available to rent) AND (available to buy) (if I say a movie is "available to rent or buy today" I do not mean that the movie is either available to rent or available to buy and I'm just being mercurial; the choice lies in the hands of the actor, you: you can rent it OR you can buy it).

English is a poor language for precisely defining set intersections. You could be a little more clear by stating "to buy or to rent" to clarify that the phrases are being used as adjectives not proposed verbs, but it's still not a clear way to describe things.

Anyway ... it seems we're in agreement here (see above). There aren't 1000 movies available, to rent or to buy, from iTunes yet, and there certainly aren't 1000 available to rent.

 

[mazurka]

Anyway ... it seems we're in agreement here (see above). There aren't 1000 movies available, to rent or to buy, from iTunes yet, and there certainly aren't 1000 available to rent.

If you lived in Ireland, you would find that there are NO iTunes movies to rent, and NO movies to buy, and not even any tv shows. Hell, we don't even have the iPhone yet....