Video Icons in iTunes 5 Spawns Speculation

[~Shard~]

This is great news, although not surprising. So the million dollar question will be, when?

As for downloading full-length HD movies, I see 2 problems with this:

1) One of the attractions of iTMS and why it works, is immediate gratification. A user wants a song/album, and BAM, he has it in a matter of minutes. Downloading a movie could take ages, H.264 or not.

2) Further to this, there would be technical limitations. The files would be huge, requiring a lot of disk space (on both ends, and yes I realize storage is cheap, but still....). Also, what kind of bandwidth would not only the end user require, but what about Apple's back-end? How would they support thousands of people simultaneously trying to download movies at 100-200 kbps (or whatever their cable/DSL line rates are)? The infrastructure on Apple's part would be intense.

Anyway, just a couple of thoughts. And then of course, there's the not-so-easy task of signing the major Hollywood labels on to provide the content. Because right now, how much truly legitimate and legal content would there be to put on an iTVS/video iPod?

Just my thoughts.

 

[nagromme]

iTunes has been moving toward video for a long time--and already had some for sale. So it's not big news exactly, but it's always fun to see hints of the future hidden in the app Probably just for music videos and other short content for now. Movies? Maybe someday, I'm not holding my breath. (But note that unlike with music, subscription plans DO fit people's habits for movies.)

But video iTunes doesn't mean video iPod. The "analysts" who are so sure the market is clamoring for a video iPod would be quick to jump on the tales of "video iPod poorly received--most users just want music." Which is true.

I'd love video on an iPod just for fun. But I'd hardly ever use it--certainly less than I show people photos. Apple would only want to add it as another "little extra" like photos or the stopwatch. That would be fine. But the media would PERCEIVE it as a some "huge gamble" or something. They wouldn't LET it be a minor feature. And so when people didn't use it much, it would make Apple look bad--even if they never MEANT it to be some big deal.

So I think the hype about video iPods is the very thing that will stop it from happening.

(For now. Someday, with TV-out, the market may be ready to truly demand such a thing--among the public as a whole, not just geeks like me )

 

[Toe]

I really don't see this happening. Why "buy" movies when you will soon be able to watch "on demand" anything you want?

Because Apple will revolutionize the movie industry.

Instead of being able to select from any of the few thousand movies Hollywood wants you to watch, you will be able to buy any movie anyone has made.

That will be downright revolutionary. Think iMovie. Of course, 95% of anything is crap, but well made movies can be distributed without having to, um, "do favors" to movie industry execs.

And stop thinking of movies as ~90 minute features. Once Apple gets them completely out of the theater, they can be ten minutes of 17 hours.

And anyway, I suspect that you won't actually buy... more like renting at blockbuster or netflix. Download, watch, overwrite with the next one.

 

[Toe]

One of the attractions of iTMS and why it works, is immediate gratification. A user wants a song/album, and BAM, he has it in a matter of minutes. Downloading a movie could take ages, H.264 or not.

Streaming download. You can start watching before it has completed the download. Same as with music now.

Also, you're assuming all movies are ~90 minutes. Why not also have 10 minute movies or whatnot? Since you're not stuck paying a fixed price and sitting in a theater, why do movies have to be 90-120 minutes?

 

[shawnce]

cool, and what about a iTunes Global Music Store?

Talk to the various governments (national and local even) around the world.
Talk to the various trade organizations and unions around the world.
Talk to the various "record" companies around the world.
Talk to the various copy write holders around the world.
...etc...

...and get them to remove legal barriers that exist.

Then talk to Apple.

 

[jerrybrace]

iTunes Media Store

As I mentioned earlier - http://www.apple.com/movies - this would tell us for sure that we're just not talking about music videos.

iTMS = iTunes Media Store
iPod + Media

Video/Movies = Hollywood Movies, Indie Film outlet, Music Videos, Video Podcasts

Talk about "Spawns Speculation" - we'll see.

All iPods have color screens now as well. Perhaps iTunes will be able to convert any video type to an iPod video encoding and resolution size (keeping the high res video on your computer). Think the current Mp3>ACC as MOV,AVI,DIVX to iPod Video.

Jerry
embraceware.com

 

[iMeowbot]

Apple has already started bundling music videos with some songs as far back as May of this year.

Exactly, this has already happened, it's not an upcoming secret.

 

[Mike Teezie]

I really don't see this happening. Why "buy" movies when you will soon be able to watch "on demand" anything you want? Besides, how is Joe Consumer going to be able to backup the terabytes of data that his out of control (HD) video collection is going to take up? This is an impossible situation for the general public, not too mention expensive. By the time cost comes down enough to handle it, video on demand will be available via cable and satellite. Trying to manage a large collection of movies and TV shows is impractcial when you can just sit down on your couch, pick the movie or show, and watch it and not have to worry about it.

Movies and music are not the same. Let's face it, have you ever been over to a friends house and seen hundreds of video cassets from their recording addiction? Do they ever watch all that crap? Granted, if they could access it quickly and easily they might, but most movies or shows you will only watch a few times. Why buy them and worry about protecting them when you could just view them on demand when you feel like it? I think Jobs knows the cable companies will undercut anything Apple would do in this area.

Besides, music is going to make Apple a very succesful company in the long run.

Agreed.

So if I could buy movies today from Apple in an iTMS-fashion.....why would I?

Right now we have iTMS. Buy songs, listen to songs on computer - OR - put songs on iPod.

If we had a movie store, we could watch movies on our computer, and that's it.

Problems with having my movies on my computer:

- I've got a big fancy Apple Cinema Display, and movies look really great on it. (h.264!!) But I'd wager that most people don't have displays like many of us here have, because they have no need.
- Even with my display, I want to go into my living room or bedroom to watch movies, where I can be comfortable.
- I work at my computer. I want to go into another room for downtime. Not sit here and think about that website that needs finishing while I'm watching Kill Bill.

These are just some of the bumps in the idea of an Apple Movie Store, I'm sure there are more.

What about this?

Say Apple built a Tivo-ish box. WiFi built in, to connect to your home network. 80 gig hard drive, could really be even smaller.

Instead of Blockbuster, Netflix, or whatever - you download movies into your Mac for $3.99, the Mac sees the Apple-Tivo box as aa mounted disk, and the downloads go straight into the box. And in 36 hours, it's gone. Just like a rental, but without the physical DVD.

The interface is akin to iTMS. You go, browse movies, and hit a "rent now" button.

Piracy wouldn't be any more of a problem than it is now with this method. I can easily drive 5 minutes to Blockbuster, rent whatever, and rip it onto my computer. But I don't.

Download times would be long. But, how long does it take to get a movie from Netflix? A couple of days? And you have to bother with the mail, and all that.

Best part of this idea? Ive gets to whip up a sexy box and a remote!!

What do you guys think?

 

[Yvan256]

What good does it do to sell music videos without the ability to watch them? iPod AV is coming. Probably next year.

iTunes = computer. They can do it without an AV iPod.

 

[MacRumoron]

Maybe porn previews?

Im hoping they will also sell porno videos or maybe free porn clips, i dunno

also, HD format would be great

 

[shamino]

I really don't see this happening. Why "buy" movies when you will soon be able to watch "on demand" anything you want?

Some of us don't like the idea of the entire universe of media becoming pay-per-view.

Besides, how is Joe Consumer going to be able to backup the terabytes of data that his out of control (HD) video collection is going to take up?

Re-read the mesage you replied to. He was talking about burning the movies to DVD. I think it will be a very long time before someone figures out a way for a computer bug/virus to destroy a DVD sitting on a shelf.

... have you ever been over to a friends house and seen hundreds of video cassets from their recording addiction? Do they ever watch all that crap? ... Why buy them and worry about protecting them when you could just view them on demand when you feel like it?

Maybe because I don't want to fork over another $5-10 every time I click the "play" button.

 

[~Shard~]

Streaming download. You can start watching before it has completed the download. Same as with music now.

This would definitely help, but again, I think about the bandwidth requirements, and hundreds or thousands of people doing this simultaneously.

Also, you're assuming all movies are ~90 minutes. Why not also have 10 minute movies or whatnot? Since you're not stuck paying a fixed price and sitting in a theater, why do movies have to be 90-120 minutes?

I agree, and I wasn't assuming actually, I was going of previous comments in this thread about people asking for full-length (even HD!) movies. I think it is more feasible, as you say, to see shorter movies, or even TV shows for that matter available, and I'd definitely like to see this myself.

 

[SiliconAddict]

Took you guys long enough. Was starting to wonder if this would ever going to get posted.

 

[oskar]

What good does it do to sell music videos without the ability to watch them? iPod AV is coming. Probably next year.

when i tried to sync a video podcast (diggnation), i got a message that went something like this:

"error: transfer of [filename] could not be completed because this type of file can not be played on this type of ipod"

if that's not blatantly obvious, what is?

try synching the video cast of diggnation to your ipod, you'll get the same thing

We got Paris Expo coming in just a few days. We might see something new there. The current iPod has seen no major updates in almost a year, except for the change to 20GB and 60GB only. It's about time for an update.

 

[0098386]

iTMS = iTV Media Store

ITV is the name of a 50 year old channel in england i dont think they'd be allowed to use that

 

[oskar]

Old news... move along, nothing to see here.

When exactly did these icons previously appear in iTunes?

 

[shamino]

Streaming download. You can start watching before it has completed the download. Same as with music now.

Also, you're assuming all movies are ~90 minutes. Why not also have 10 minute movies or whatnot? Since you're not stuck paying a fixed price and sitting in a theater, why do movies have to be 90-120 minutes?

Already happening in some parts of the internet. For instance, TheForce.net already maintins a large archive of Star Wars fan films.

 

[Juventuz]

When exactly did these icons previously appear in iTunes?

I think that he's referring to the fact that others sites made same announcement last week when iTunes 5 was initially released.

There are pics of the buttons out there as well.

 

[swissmann]

but i'm still waiting for the "buy full length feature film in high definition" icon

AGREED. Why MPEG-4 why not H.264. It is so much better lets please make the jump.

 

[VanMac]

I really don't see this happening. Why "buy" movies when you will soon be able to watch "on demand" anything you want? Besides, how is Joe Consumer going to be able to backup the terabytes of data that his out of control (HD) video collection is going to take up? This is an impossible situation for the general public, not too mention expensive. By the time cost comes down enough to handle it, video on demand will be available via cable and satellite. Trying to manage a large collection of movies and TV shows is impractcial when you can just sit down on your couch, pick the movie or show, and watch it and not have to worry about it.

Movies and music are not the same. Let's face it, have you ever been over to a friends house and seen hundreds of video cassets from their recording addiction? Do they ever watch all that crap? Granted, if they could access it quickly and easily they might, but most movies or shows you will only watch a few times. Why buy them and worry about protecting them when you could just view them on demand when you feel like it? I think Jobs knows the cable companies will undercut anything Apple would do in this area.

Besides, music is going to make Apple a very succesful company in the long run.

Disagree.

I buy DVD's all the time now. I have well over 100. I would love to buy the movie online for say $7.99 and back it up to DVD media. I would likely buy 2 per week.

 

[shamino]

AGREED. Why MPEG-4 why not H.264. It is so much better lets please make the jump.

H.264 is part of MPEG-4. See Apple's description of H.264. Specifically, note the following:

QuickTime 7 features a state-of-the-art video codec called H.264, which delivers stunning quality at remarkably low data rates. Ratified as part of the MPEG-4 standard (MPEG-4 Part 10) ...

What has been colloquially known as "MPEG-4" is actually only one possible CODEC supported by the spec (MPEG-4 Part 2). Note the wording of Apple's comparison:

... H.264 delivers the same quality as MPEG-2 at a third to half the data rate and up to four times the frame size of MPEG-4 Part 2 at the same data rate. ...

 

[oskar]

I think that he's referring to the fact that others sites made same announcement last week when iTunes 5 was initially released.

There are pics of the buttons out there as well.

Oh, I thought it was just one of those posts where someone is just saying "who cares"?

I don't think we'll be seeing the whole movie business deal in iPods or in iTunes for a while. However I do think Apple will make an video-capable iPod soon.
Maybe Apple will focus only on letting you playback music videos from the iTMS and your own small content. I believe iPhoto got this feature in iLife '05. If that were the case, it would probably mean that you could be able to playback pretty much anything on the iPod.

 

[bankshot]

Boo!

Someone needs to be the strict parent and tell Apple they can't play around with movies until they fix all music playback issues. "No dessert until you finish your dinner, Stevie!"

Heh.

 

[Proud Liberal]

Because right now, how much truly legitimate and legal content would there be to put on an iTVS/video iPod?

Just my thoughts.

I guess I have a completely different "vision" of a video iPod...I don't think it would be so much for downloading movies from iTunes. Rather, I see it as a device where you could load converted Tivo programs/ripped DVDs to the iPod, much like what you can currently do with the Archos AV400/700 players.

Just my opinion/2 cents/own personal wishlist!

 

[Cooknn]

A Hi-Def VOD movie store like iTunes would be the next killer app. That being said, we're still waiting for the 970MP Quad Power Mac that was revealed in monster.app via CHUD tools last March as well. Could still be a while for either of these hidden jems to show up on the streets