Yes, but only for really old, obscure (and mostly bad) movies and some British TV shows.
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More Studios Signed on for iTunes Rentals?
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tv and iTunes needs to be able to offer HD content more than ever now.
That is the one point about
Looks even worse on a 55" 1080p Plasma
"2006 is the year of HD"
"2007 is the year of HD"
Who wants to bet Steve is gonna say "2008 is the year of HD" at this MacWorld?
In light of the recent failures and/or lack of meeting expectations of other online video vendors, Apple making the move to video rentals makes the most sense in our throw away world. Physical rentals have been around and been very successful for many years. Therefore, there shouldn't be any pricing structure issues or hurdles to really get over. NBC pulling out of iTunes was just a dumb move that they will soon regret and one day they will be back. I mean, what if all these studios and companies felt this way about Blockbuster way back when and all tried to do it themselves. (selling and rentals) We need a one-stop shop and iTunes will prevail. 2008 will be an exciting year for Apple. Apple is poised to do to the movie industry what they have done to the music industry...
Question from a non American
So, as the XBOX 360 was mentioned here, I have two simple questions:
What is the current resolution in iTunes Store? How's Microsoft's Live business doing in the US?
I just got the dashboard update in Germany. Microsoft now also starts offering movies over here. Granted selection sucks and I'm not good at converting M$ points to money, but...
Hey, I could download all three Matrix and 300 in 720p resolution now
Comes in quite handy, til the format war is won
So, as the XBOX 360 was mentioned here, I have two simple questions:
What is the current resolution in iTunes Store? How's Microsoft's Live business doing in the US?
I just got the dashboard update in Germany. Microsoft now also starts offering movies over here. Granted selection sucks and I'm not good at converting M$ points to money, but...
Hey, I could download all three Matrix and 300 in 720p resolution now
Comes in quite handy, til the format war is won
Resolution is just a number. You can deliver higher resolution with more compression so that the file size stays the same, but in the end the image quality can actually get worse. We have watched Spiderman-3 (boy, talk about a bad movie) at a friend's 46'' HDTV on BluRay. The chromatic noise was very high and compression artifacts were quite distracting. Neither of us are very picky, either. We watched a few other movies that looked much better.
Just because a box tells you 1080p does not mean it is actually good quality.
Just because a box tells you 1080p does not mean it is actually good quality.
Netflix
"Heroes" is neither old, obscure, a movie, nor British. And it was available the day after it showed.
The problem is the video quality was pretty poor. There is no way to say "I'm willing to wait a few hours for the download if you give me good quality."
"Heroes" is neither old, obscure, a movie, nor British. And it was available the day after it showed.
The problem is the video quality was pretty poor. There is no way to say "I'm willing to wait a few hours for the download if you give me good quality."
I hope The Financial Times (or whatever earlier rumor) got the pricing wrong though. I'm not renting a movie for 30 days.
On a side note, I hope they get some classics into their library so I don't have to keep stalking TCM's movie schedule.
On a side note, I hope they get some classics into their library so I don't have to keep stalking TCM's movie schedule.
HD content irrellavent
dispite the hue and outcry for HD on these and other forums HD remains economically irrelivent to todays retail video market. The presence, or absence of HD content on an iTunes rental service will be far from
the top of the list of critical features. Breadth if content, price, ease of use will be far more important.
dispite the hue and outcry for HD on these and other forums HD remains economically irrelivent to todays retail video market. The presence, or absence of HD content on an iTunes rental service will be far from
the top of the list of critical features. Breadth if content, price, ease of use will be far more important.
As much as I would like to see HD content -- 720p would be fine -- the masses would probably be happy with something less-than.
I agree with much of what this author says... http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/12/04/why-low-def-is-the-new-hd/
Fine! (If they're captioned.)
Okay, I can live with the demise of television and DVDs, but the problem is that Apple does not caption their own video tutorials or television commercials, and almost no one selling television shows or movies on iTunes Store is providing captions either. Come on! The ADA mandated captioning decades ago. I'm a sign language interpreter and I'm passionate about accessibility, but I'm not just rooting for the underdog here. I happen to rely on captions when I watch television in gyms, bars, airports, and other public places. Even at home, when the soundtrack and special effects are louder than the dialog, I rely on captions because I refuse to blast my ears just so that I can understand what people are saying.
This lack of captioning on Internet-based video is inexcusable and needs to stop, especially as it's replacing traditionally captioned media such as television and DVD.
I'm a Netflix customer, and as a Mac user I cannot access their Internet movie content. I'd love to rent movies from iTunes, but I won't do it unless they're captioned.
Okay, I can live with the demise of television and DVDs, but the problem is that Apple does not caption their own video tutorials or television commercials, and almost no one selling television shows or movies on iTunes Store is providing captions either. Come on! The ADA mandated captioning decades ago. I'm a sign language interpreter and I'm passionate about accessibility, but I'm not just rooting for the underdog here. I happen to rely on captions when I watch television in gyms, bars, airports, and other public places. Even at home, when the soundtrack and special effects are louder than the dialog, I rely on captions because I refuse to blast my ears just so that I can understand what people are saying.
This lack of captioning on Internet-based video is inexcusable and needs to stop, especially as it's replacing traditionally captioned media such as television and DVD.
I'm a Netflix customer, and as a Mac user I cannot access their Internet movie content. I'd love to rent movies from iTunes, but I won't do it unless they're captioned.
I think it has to be $3.99 or less with at least a 3-day window to be viable, but $2.99 or less, at least a one-week window, and at least 720p to really take off. If they did that and added proper 5.1 audio support to the AppleTV, I'd probably rarely ever go to the theater again.
I also wouldn't really mind a variable pricing structure, something like:
$5.99 new release, less than 3 months old and simultaneous with theatrical release.
$2.99 3 months to 18 months.
$1.99 older than 18 months.
I also wouldn't really mind a variable pricing structure, something like:
$5.99 new release, less than 3 months old and simultaneous with theatrical release.
$2.99 3 months to 18 months.
$1.99 older than 18 months.
No. I believe Sony has annouced that for their European PSN service but not here in the US. It is rumored though. I have no clue about their Asian markets.
I have downloaded one movie trailer to my PS3. It was in HD (for Underworld 2) and looked absolutely gorgeous!
Besides movie rentals, Apple needs to offer HD movie content. Use their a going to take a few hours to download but it is worth it in my opinion.
So of you say this (really movie downloading in general) is going to kill off Blockbuster, Netflix, Blu-Ray, or HD-DVD? Why? Because I just don't see it.
Even if Blockbuster and Movie Gallery die off, there will still be plenty of local video stores renting movies. People still will use Netflix. And Blu-Ray picture quality absolutely ROCKS!
Personaly I don't have a video capable "iAnything", but if I did then watching a movie on a screen as small as iPod or iPhone is my last choice.
I am going to still buy select Blu-Ray movies and rent as many as I can (my local Blockbuster has most of the latest flicks that come out on the format). I will probably buy plain DVD's for the select films that I want to own. But for some movies, I will buy or rent from iTunes.
Apple will release it for the u.s and drag their feet over licensing for other parts of the world just like they did for Music and TV content.
Considering other movie download providers haven't faired so well, I'm interested to see how Apple will do... and if there is any new hardware for content delivery ( yes, there is AppleTV but expensive and lackluster ).
Average price
What's the average price for an online movie rental? It's around three bucks right? And how are they going to combat tools that could easily rip it, like AudioHijack and video screen capture apps? Hmmm, I'm having some doubts, any ideas?
What's the average price for an online movie rental? It's around three bucks right? And how are they going to combat tools that could easily rip it, like AudioHijack and video screen capture apps? Hmmm, I'm having some doubts, any ideas?
I'm all for a variable price structure. Simultaneous release with theaters will unlikely happen any time soon, but if you stage it say 1 month after the theaters it might work. Keep the price the same as theaters. Don't know how many movies I've waited for DVD release to see them, so meet us part of the way.
No, but with all that fire power and gameplay he has better things to do than worry who might allow an unknown resolution to be bought sometime next year. IMHO
That is a great article. Thanks.
I own two Toshiba HD DVD's and 1 Blu-Ray in my PS 3. I prefer the menus in the HD DVD more than Blu-ray otherwise they are virtually the same,
but it sure would have been nice not tobe forced to own two players just to see a new release.
I think the downloadable content in LoDef, SD, and HD will render all of my HD players DOD.
They kind of did.
When it first became possible to record movies on videotape and especially when rental started in earnest, the movie studios all tried to stop it. They lobbied to make it illegal to record a TV show and took it all the way to the Supreme Court in the US. Fortunately, they lost. They also set the price of early digital recordings like LaserDisc at hundreds of dollars (per disc!), in order to "pay for the lost cost of copying" and similarly tried to levy fees against videotape recorders and blank tape for the same reason. They lost that deal too.
Unfortunately, today's world is severely tilted against even the *minimal* rights the consumer had back then and leans much more towards the rights of the corporations than it does the rights of the individual. So in today's world they have actually won some of these fights. For instance, most people are under the mistaken impression that any copying is illegal now (it's not), and the corporations have actually been successful in levying fees against digital players and media to make up for this mythical "lost income."
In any case, I would not rejoice over this news until we see the price they are going to charge for the privilege of watching media in this new system.
I strongly disagree with anyone who asserts that resolution isn't relevant.
After watching what the currentTV does on my friends 42" 720P LCD, I was disappointed. The same rationale applied to music distribution cannot be applied to video.
I would much rather rent from comcast or my local video store than subject myself to blurry $5 rentals
Update the hardware because the UI is already there. Just take a look at movie trailers on a PS3 if they need a benchmark.
After watching what the current
TV does on my friends 42" 720P LCD, I was disappointed. The same rationale applied to music distribution cannot be applied to video.I would much rather rent from comcast or my local video store than subject myself to blurry $5 rentals
Update the hardware because the UI is already there. Just take a look at movie trailers on a PS3 if they need a benchmark.
1080p would be nice for those of us with either Aluminum iMacs or HD CInema Displays (and HD graphics cards).