Video Icons in iTunes 5 Spawns Speculation

[willyjsimmons]

My 2 cents

I'll just add that intel recently announced that they are getting into the 'home entertainment appliance' market.

So, I'd figure we might see an Macintel type 'DVR' gadget that would sit atop your digital tuner or what have you, that would have it's own internal storage, plus the ability to 'archive' what you've downloaded straight to your mac.

At present, most cable subscribers only rent their DVRs.

 

[Object-X]

No money in movie downloads

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.

I respect your opinion, and I don't doubt you are not alone; however, my main point is that Apple won't do it. Why? Because there are not enough people like you that would make this revolutionary. Most people will not want the hassle of downloading, burning, archiving, and maintaining a huge DVD library. If you have to backup your downloads to DVD then why not just recored them with a VCR like DVD recorder?

Someone else made the comment that Apple might offer some kind of Tivo like device, but they won't for the same reason: there is nothing revolutionary about it, it already exits and it is offered by cable companies.

Netflix and Blockbuster offer unlimited DVD rentals. I use this service. But you have to wait for them to show up and you are limited in the number you can have. Video on demand with a Tivo like device will allow you to watch anything whenever you want and eliminate the wait. Once people see how convienent that is most will go that direction. I would.

Someone else said they didn't want to pay for every movie, but it will just become a flat monthly fee like everything else. Cable companies will offer video on demand as part of your cable service once it hits critical mass.

Apple movie downloads would not turn the kind of profit that iTunes music store is doing. Thus I conclude Apple will pass and some other company will offer you what you want. Music videos will just be part of the iPod iTunes experiance.

 

[Doctor Q]

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

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

I detect a difference of opinion about the significance of this information. I tend to think that Apple would be more careful than to leave messages in their code that revealed a secret video store, given that their program messages are routinely analyzed.

 

[MontyZ]

.

 

[hyperpasta]

It's for Music Videos

This is just for music videos. There is no reason to rent/by an H.264 movie in iTunes, that's extreemly counterintutuive.

I also think that video is more suited to streaming to a TV (coughAirport Express2802.11nwithAirVideo) than to watching on a video iPod.

As for music videos, if they sell them in mass quantity they amy want to let iPods play them (coughiPod5Gcough).

 

[FunkSpaceMonkey]

I really don't care about downloadable music videos.. Am I the only one?

 

[inkswamp]

Someday...

Someday, I am going to have to comb through Slashdot's archive and find the comment I made a couple years back where I speculated on this based on some of the things Apple was doing: major leaps with Quicktime, iMovie/Final Cut type stuff, iPod, wireless, widescreen format, DVD burning, wireless streaming, iPod-to-TV photo features, etc. They even appear to have been testing the "pipes" with their trailer download pages.

Most people responded (and have since responded to similar posts) that I was full of it, but it makes a lot of sense and continues to make sense. If Apple views the computer as the hub of the digital lifestyle and movies are going digital, then it's just a logical convergence.

It seems to me that Apple is very definitely setting the stage for a movie/video download store like iTunes where their hardware plays a big role in making it all convenient, and I've been saying as much for a long time. Imagine downloading a movie via a nicely designed interface like iTunes, streaming it to your TV via some Airport Express-type technology or porting it around on your iPod to play on someone else's TV or your computer at work. Imagine being able to buy the right to burn the movie to a DVD for a couple extra bucks.

And there's only one computer company out there who is in the position to do it.

And that same computer company has a CEO who is also the head of one of the most popular and influential animation companies and he can speak the language of other powerful people in the film industry, share their concerns.

Seems to me that it's not a question of if, but when.

 

[coolsoldier]

If Apple does decide to provide movies, I think it's much more likely that they will provide a digital rental service than a purchase service for several reasons:

1. Price. Buying a movie (recent movies especially) costs too much to be attractive to most of the market. To rent a movie to view within a time span of a few days might cost only $3-$5. To buy a movie to keep on your computer and/or burn to DVD is likely to cost $10-$15 (These prices, of course, are speculative based on the prices of renting and buying DVDs)
2. Movie Studios. A movie rental service would be much easier to negotiate with content providers. In fact, several major movie studios have already agreed to let existing (PC-only) online rental services like MovieLink and CinemaNow rent their content to customers; it would be pretty trivial for Apple to negotiate a similar arrangement.
3. Viewing Habits. As has already been mentioned, most movie viewers only watch movies a few times. People may not want to rent music, but the large-scale success of bricks-and-mortar movie rental stores is proof that people are quite content with renting their movies.

All this is pretty trivial, though, because the use of the word "video" instead of the more common word "movie" means that the buttons in the iTunes package probably aren't referring to full-length feature films.

Also, I suspect that the apple.com/movies link is a folder to hold QuickTime movies of e.g. iPod ads, rather than a future web site for a movie store.

 

[bit density]

Also used for podcasts

If you haven't seen Tiki TV yet, search for it on Itunes in the Podcast. Start with Episode 8 and then go catch up from the beginning.

VERY GOOD STUFF!

 

[xy14]

Hmm

In my opinion, Stevey will be creating a new compression format or something, because the way most movies are now, a 90min film would be about 1.5gbs assuming it wasn't hi-def. Maybe, he will make small films to view on the new iPod too. If you watch a movie on an iPod, it doesnt have to be 640x480.

 

[oskar]

iTunes has built up on a logic, sort of a learning curve.
[EDIT]
OK now, this got way too long. Dan.

Didn't want to quote the whole post (#75). Very good points that I agree with, especially the learning curve thing, and that is why I think Apple has to try to see how much demand there is for movies before they actually do something as big as selling them. In the meanwhile they could sell you smaller (music) videos through the iTMS and allow you to download your own movies to your iPod. This could help them see how much demand there was for full-length movies.
A movie store just isn't happening, IMO. Apple has been barely opening it's music store in just some markets all over the world, not to mention that they haven't been able to open all the iTMS they'd like to.
They got bigger problems to handle, like staying in the computer market for the next 6-8 months, until we finally see the light at the end of the tunnel with the first x86 Mac.

 

[alwayscrashing]

All this talk about video on iTunes.....

And yet no one ever seems to complain about the poor quality of the music they already sell!

Surely I can't be the only person who finds 128kbps aac not worth what they charge?

What I want is Apple Lossless downloads that I can burn to a CD then transcode to AAC for iTunes and my iPods. Surely that should come before expanding into movies or even music videos?

 

[~Shard~]

And yet no one ever seems to complain about the poor quality of the music they already sell!

Surely I can't be the only person who finds 128kbps aac not worth what they charge?

The people who downloaded the 500,000,000+ songs don't seem to be complaining...

Seriously, I know what you mean. But, for the masses, rightly or wrongly, it does indeed seem to be acceptable. It usually doesn't bother me either unless I'm listening to jazz or classical. And, I'm classically trained (including my ears!) so yes, I can definitely hear the quality level and know what you mean, but in the end, as I said, it's not a huge deal for me...

 

[Whyren]

I detect a difference of opinion about the significance of this information. I tend to think that Apple would be more careful than to leave messages in their code that revealed a secret video store, given that their program messages are routinely analyzed.

Or they purposely leave it in the code to a) start the rumor mills and drive up the stock price or b) to divert attention away from what's really coming.

 

[NicP]

This may make the RIAA happy, because they're getting even more money for what is basically a commercial for a song (that's what music videos really are) that you can see for free on TV. But, I have no interest in spending more money just to see the commerical for a song and take up hard disk space.

The music videos should just become part of the songs they are selling, because online music needs MORE added-value, not Less. There's already the huge savings of not having to press CDs, print color booklets, put them in plastic cases, ship them all over the world and then stock them on shelves. The money-hungry RIAA keeps wanting Apple to raise the price of individual songs while offering no additional value in return.

Like much of the music being produced, so many of the music videos made today are just total crap anyway. This is why the RIAA doesn't like consumers having the ability to buy a single song from a CD full of crap music, they want to force people to buy the whole lot for one or two songs.

i dont understand why everyone things that video clips are a commercial for the song, by the same logic the song is a commercial for the song by being played on the radio. I can go to my local music store and buy dvds that contain the video clips of songs, am i just buying a disk full of commercials? its the same music but with extra audio so i'm actually getting better value for money than if i had just bought the cd.

 

[Whyren]

All this talk about video on iTunes.....

And yet no one ever seems to complain about the poor quality of the music they already sell!

Surely I can't be the only person who finds 128kbps aac not worth what they charge?

What I want is Apple Lossless downloads that I can burn to a CD then transcode to AAC for iTunes and my iPods. Surely that should come before expanding into movies or even music videos?

Again, it's highly dependent on the type of music you listen to as to whether or not 128 kbps is acceptable, as well as what equipment you're listening through. The main reasons they probably started with 128 kbps was that most people don't care and the fact that most people still don't have high-speed internet connections. A 4 or 5 MB file for many internet users is more than enough to tie up the phone lines for some time. Also, there's the possibility that it's part of the agreement with the record companies: if Apple provided high quality sound files at lower prices, there would be little incentive to buy the actual CDs; thus, the labels get less return on the digital copy, plus they lose money because no one is buying the hard copies they've already paid for.

Apple will probably get higher quality options at some point though, so don't fret. If you're unhappy with the 128 kbps for now, then get a hard copy: then you have full quality, a more secure medium, no DRM, and likely something useful/entertaining/pretty in the included booklet.

 

[~Shard~]

Or they purposely leave it in the code to a) start the rumor mills and drive up the stock price or b) to divert attention away from what's really coming.

I don't think "rumor-creating" is a viable or acceptable reason for leaving code in an application - software development teams and their managers don't like that. Just look at what happened to the guys who built that flight simulator into Excel. Being accused of releasing bloatware, that was the last thing MS needed with regards to their already-tarnished and criticized image.

 

[Kobushi]

Anyone notice that if you go to http://www.apple.com/movies you get a forbidden message instead of a 404 (Page not found).

That is interesting...

Jerry
embraceware.com

yes.. interesting... i wounder if it is a placeholder for the upcoming movies...

Interesting, yes. But I doubt apple is leaving that as some sort of placeholder. I mean, they have their own huge server, there is no reason for a placeholder. It's just a directory. However, apple isn't dumb enough to just leave that there accidently.

I don't think "rumor-creating" is a viable or acceptable reason for leaving code in an application - ......

I dunno, apple is pretty crafty not only when it comes to designing awesome hardware, but I think they'd be willing to go out of their way to surprise the masses. The whole music event seemed kind of sudden as well. Apple could be tyring to lead us all astray by dropping semi-subtle hints. Then, nail us with somthing earth-shattering (let's hope, since without nano, it's been a pretty dry year).

Of course, their R&D department could be dropping lines to see how a vpod would be received. (thus far not good enough to invest in the new product line.) It's not a bad idea to have someone "leak" some info, then have a few agents surf the gossip mills to see what people think.

Hey apple agents: don't even think about making your silly vpod until you make me a new laptop!

 

[modernpixel]

What would they call it?

I've been wondering this for some time. "iTunes" isn't a very universal brand, it specifically refers to music. So the iTunes Video Store is kind of dumb. I wonder if Apple will call it that anyway (when and if it happens) or if there will be a new brand introduced.

They've become so successful and the iTunes brand is so recognizable, I wonder if they regret not naming it something less specific.

Maybe they'll change it to iPod Music & Video Store or some such thing.

iPod Media Store
iPod Shop-o'-Rama
Steve's Emporium of Digital Rights Managed Wonders

Anyone else got anything?

 

[Kobushi]

I think someone else here coined the phrase iFlicks


I dit it.

 

[FunkSpaceMonkey]

If you haven't seen Tiki TV yet, search for it on Itunes in the Podcast. Start with Episode 8 and then go catch up from the beginning.

VERY GOOD STUFF!

After seeing this, I can see the point in having video in iTunes. I still don't think I'd download many music videos though..

 

[ebunton]

This is just for music videos. There is no reason to rent/by an H.264 movie in iTunes, that's extreemly counterintutuive.

I also think that video is more suited to streaming to a TV (coughAirport Express2802.11nwithAirVideo) than to watching on a video iPod.

As for music videos, if they sell them in mass quantity they amy want to let iPods play them (coughiPod5Gcough).

I think that movies don't make sense now... They'll first release a video iPod and wait until average internet access speeds grow above a certain limit before offering full-length movie downloads.

However, it think that the time is just right for music videos. They could simply release an video-capable iPod anytime I think. The screen wouldn't need to be huge, since the initial application would be for short music videos. It another great revenue source - buy the track, and if you love it, buy the video to go along with it.

 

[ebunton]

If Apple does decide to provide movies, I think it's much more likely that they will provide a digital rental service than a purchase service for several reasons:

1. Price. Buying a movie (recent movies especially) costs too much to be attractive to most of the market. To rent a movie to view within a time span of a few days might cost only $3-$5. To buy a movie to keep on your computer and/or burn to DVD is likely to cost $10-$15 (These prices, of course, are speculative based on the prices of renting and buying DVDs)
2. Movie Studios. A movie rental service would be much easier to negotiate with content providers. In fact, several major movie studios have already agreed to let existing (PC-only) online rental services like MovieLink and CinemaNow rent their content to customers; it would be pretty trivial for Apple to negotiate a similar arrangement.
3. Viewing Habits. As has already been mentioned, most movie viewers only watch movies a few times. People may not want to rent music, but the large-scale success of bricks-and-mortar movie rental stores is proof that people are quite content with renting their movies.

All this is pretty trivial, though, because the use of the word "video" instead of the more common word "movie" means that the buttons in the iTunes package probably aren't referring to full-length feature films.

Also, I suspect that the apple.com/movies link is a folder to hold QuickTime movies of e.g. iPod ads, rather than a future web site for a movie store.

An Apple video rental service only make sense IF you have such a high speed internet connection that you could download the video in a snap, watch it and then delete it without any bad feelings.

I don't know about others, but with my putt-putt 1.5 ADSL connection, I'd feel like the bandwidth and time spent downloading the rental movie would be wasted if it had to be deleted after a certain time limit.

 

[alexhooren]

ok this is how i see it all going.

music videos will work, selling quite well as gimic purchases. i know two that would probably reach number 1 in the download chart, 'britney spears - toxic' and 'jessica simpson - these boots are made for walking'. i think you see my logic here...

as for movies, people want to buy not rent. so for $9.99 you purchase a movie, which is at most 1gb in size so not too long to download. that movie is then part of your 'account'. so you can delete it whenever you want and the re-download it free of charge. if a bit torrent type network was used the cost to apple would be minimal. you could also back it up to dvd, so its your choice how you keep it... on your hd, on your ipod, on dvd or stream everytime you want it.

then there would be an accessory for the iPod AV. a dock which plugs into your tv which wirelessly syncs with your pc/mac or you can plug your ipod straight into. the iFlicks Movie Store would allow streaming as you download, so with maybe a half hour delay, you could start watching your film on your tv wirelessly. or you could take your ipod round to a friends and plug it into the dock and watch a film that way.

you could also rent the film for 5 days, allowing pc watching, tv dock streaming and ipod transfer (no dvd burning) for say $3.99. so its your choice to own or to rent.

the tv dock would be a $49.99 accessory, which is basically a normal dock with some extra circuits and aiport extreme, plus a remote. could also play music from itunes, or view photos for iSnaps...

 

[macmax77]

Apple really should try harder in hiding these secrets

Apple should let the secrets out and take advantage of the rumors, use them as a way of marketing