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Video iPod with 4 Inch Screen? iTunes Movies?

Chaszmyr said:
A subscription based service is a total scam. What they industry is really hoping for, is that you'll use the subscription based service to watch movies you don't care much about, and then will go out and buy your favorite movies on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD in addition to paying the subscription fee. The only customers that would benefit from such a model are those who enjoy watching a plethora of lousy movies.
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Umm, is it inconceivable to you that there might - just might, mind you - be one or two movies that occupy that middle ground between "that's so good I have to own it" and pure and total drek?

If NetFlix is any indication, people tend to watch a lot more obscure movies instead of just the "blockbuster" crap that tends to be promoted most heavily. Yeah, they also watch the "blockbuster" crap, but gain a greater appreciation for other films because it doesn't cost any more to sample a few indie flicks than to sit all weekend twiddling thumbs waiting for the next batch of new releases on Tuesday. And, in the end, at least some percentage of them decide that they really don't care about the blockbusters so much ...

I have neither the hard drive space nor the money to buy every movie I watch and enjoy. I'd rather subscribe to a service where I can download the movie I want to watch tonight, watch it, and move on to the next. If I found I really loved the movie, then I might end up buying it on DVD to get both higher quality and a more permanent copy. But the vast majority of movies I watch I either don't like, didn't think were that great, or liked and would recommend to a friend but wouldn't want to watch a second or third time. Movies are, frankly, disposable, except for a scant handful. But, if all I did was watch "truly great" movies I'd only watch 1-2 per year!
 
Ya'll need to chill on this $10 subscription model. Unlimited bandwidth usage for ten bucks a month? What exactly would Apple get out of that? Red ink, is all.

Also, if you subscribe, how are you going to move the movies to your iPod? If it's some sort of broadband streaming, that seems terrible as streaming anything is asking for hiccups, especially with the also-lusted-after "720p minimum or it's not worth it" crowd. The whole point of the iPod is to bring your library *with* you, not leave it on your computer. And you can't really flippantly download an enormous movie file on a whim. It takes a while.

At best, I could see a purchase service, with iPod formatted videos (why change the current paradigm?) for $4.99 a pop. Remember, Apple has to cover bandwidth, hardware, techs, and protection money for the studios. If it costs anything less than that for a full length movie I'll eat my hat.
 
fair deal

How's this:

$10 - monthly subscription
$40 - monthly subscription w/ iTheater

iTheater - access to movies that are currently in theater. Positives: this will force movie theaters to do a better job. Since movie pirating has become a problem, here is a legally acceptable solution.

(not including your subscription);
$2 to "rent" the movie (expires in 7-10 days)
$6 to buy the movie (never expires) - forever in your HD, (unless you delete it)

Positives; (no need to explain)

I think this is a fair deal.
 
FaasNat said:
Owning is nice since you can watch whenever you want to. However, there are those movies that I'd like to see, but not neccessarily want to own (or those that once I do see it, definately not want to own).
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With subscription (as opposed to time-limited individual rentals) you can still watch whenever you want. Example: pay $15 a month and anytime you want to watch any movie, download or stream it and watch it.


Thanatoast said:
Ya'll need to chill on this $10 subscription model. Unlimited bandwidth usage for ten bucks a month? What exactly would Apple get out of that? Red ink, is all.
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Yeah, I'd love $10 but it does sound too low IF the quality and selection are good (which they may not be at first).

I think about Netflix--I pay $10 a month for their bottom plan, but that only gets me 1-2 movies a week (which is all the time I want to spend on movies outside the theater anyway). If a service was delivering me potentially 1-2 movies a DAY, then they'd be PAYING a lot more than Netflix. Even subtract shipping, and I think you'd have to pay a lot more for unlimited online viewing.

OR, your online subscription could be limited. Maybe 2 a week or something like that. It's hard to know how the economics would work out. What would Apple have to charge?

Probably more than I want to pay, if the content owners have anything to say about it :eek: (And yes, I agree they should be compensated.)


zap2 said:
Quick Question.. How would a "Click" wheel work on a screen? Like the 3G iPod? With the 4 Buttons uptop?
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I think maybe 4 large separate "buttons"--maybe in the corners so you could know where they without the benefit of the the 3G "feel." Or it could be that you tap a 5G-style wheel to press the buttons, and slide to spin the wheel. Or it could be some totally different interface that Apple dreams up...
 
Twenty1 said:
My biggest concern I would have is that iTunes users (those less tech savy) would not truly understand the difference between their "rented" movies and purchased music. Imagine an iTunes library full of files that you may or may not own... I'm confident Apple could find a way to differ the two types, but they need to do it in a way that doesn't confuse the consumer.
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I think it would be easy enough to make people understand.

You have a purchased songs thing in the playlist section of iTunes. Rented movies would be a logical addition to that list. It also wouldn't be hard to have iTunes do something based on remaining days. Maybe a pop up box before confirming purchase explaining how rented movies work, and how you could find them in the Rented movies playlist.
 
512ke said:
Dumb question but... how much HD space does a downloaded movie take?

(I'm obviously not a pirate.) :)

Personally I love to own my music. I even prefer buying the CD's to downloading.

But I very rarely wanna watch a movie twice (especially movies made these days).

Subscription service or pay per view would be great.
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It all depends on quality.

If you want full DVD quality and encoding, you are talking about 5GB for 2 hours of content. Yes, you can find single-layer (4.something GB) movie DVDs out there, but usually they are both without any extra features AND have crappy picture quality.

DVDs are compressed using MPEG-2. There are many different levels of compression there, but it is also a fairly old technology. On the plus side, the hardware needed to decode it is really cheap.

A download, however, would likely employ a more advanced codec such as MPEG-4 or H.264. These both get much higher quality at lower "bit rates" (how many bits per second; twice the bit rate for the same length of movie equals twice as large a file).

Example:

V for Vendetta trailer in H.264 / 480p (standard definition, but progressive encoding instead of interlaced as you'd see on TV) took 46MB to about 2.5 minutes. For 90 minutes at the same quality that would be 1.6 GB. Not bad. But, is that the quality you'd want to look at for 90 minutes? I'm not sure. Might just be my underpowered Windows box (2.4GHz P4) here at work, but it's pretty jittery for me. On the other hand, it might scroll as smooth as butter on a Core Duo box. Low HD (720p) is more than twice the size. Full HD version (1080p) is 4x as big.

So, yes, the jury is still out on file size. I'd say expect at LEAST 1 GB per hour, perhaps more. Add in 5.1 soundtracks, commentary, subtitles, and featurettes as are common on DVDs and you're looking at 3-4GB minimum for a DVD's worth of content. Remember that this will be "competing" at some level with HD-DVD and BluRay, and 480p will look pretty chunky next to that. For a more competitive HD picture, expect 4GB per hour JUST FOR THE MOVIE, and add 1-2GB for the "standard" extra content we've come to expect with a purchased movie.

Note, of course, that if your download speed isn't 1GB per hour you'll be spending more time downloading the movie than watching it even in SD. Most people on cable or DSL have about half that for total download bandwidth, although a select few might hit that with 4Mbps download speeds.
 
I'd probably pay $10 a month for a service that let me download a set number of movies per month -- say 4 or 5. That doesn't seem like much, but honestly, I wonder how many bottom-level netflix customers do more than that. I'd get the movies right away, and watch them whenever I want. I'd also pay $5 per movie for a "rental" -- something that expired after 2 or 3 viewings -- if they had a selection as big as netflix and the movies were DVD quality.
 
Sign Me Up!

A Subscription service makes sense for me and my family.

We probably rent on average 5 movies and buy 1 DVD each month...we could spend as little as $40/month on video entertainment. (I have not even mentioned the stacks of DVD's we have not watched more than once...).

A subscription service for half or less of what I am already spending, would save me money and give my family greater choice (I hope) of movies.

...as long as my kids can view movies stored on the ipod on the car's screens...Summer travelling would be even better with unlimited programming.:D
 
I dunno, lately it seems like I know a lot more people that use Netflix than go to their local Blockbuster to rent. So I also have no statistics, but anecdotally I would say subscription services for DVDs are *immensely* popular.

soosy said:
Buy Movies: Yes!
Rent Movies/PPV: Yes!
Subscription Service: Meh.

A ton of people buy DVDs. A ton of people rent DVDs. A much smaller percentage have subscription plans (just my gut feeling, no stats to back up). A subscription plan wouldn't hurt, but keep it simple.
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I'm not sure where or when I would ever use a portable video player.

I don't think that I would ever use it at home because I have a laptop with a larger screen.

I bought a portable DVD player once when I was doing a lot of traveling, and I never turned it on, even though I had several movies with me. It just felt kind of weird having one on the airplane.
 
I would definately buy the iPod if it has at least some PDA functionality. If not, I would still strongly consider it.

As for the movie rentals, I think HD content is unreasonable. I'd be happy with SD or even 3/4 the size of SD. I could be convinced (with a little RDF action) that the current resolution is good enough (of course, niether I, nor anyone I know, has an HDTV, so I don't know what I'm missing). Any movie I'm going to rent will be watched once, maybe twice, and that's it. If I really like it, I'll go buy the DVD.

I'm virtually certain that movie purchases will not be burnable, and I'm completely sure that rentals won't be.
 
Ideal Model

This is a la carte enough to appease Jobs and DRM'ed enough to please execs!

Movies are $3/apiece. You get a copy for your widescreen iPod/TV and a copy for your 5G iPod. Movies hang out on your HD forever... until you watch them. Then a timer counts down and after 5 days, the movie dissappears.

This also means that the iTunes Movie Rental Store can debut with a small amount of content (say, Disney only, since Jobs has influence there). Nobody will feel cheated paying a subscription for a tiny amount of content, since its a la carte!



If I were Apple, I'd debut all this stuff in October, along with a $399 stripped-down Mac mini for use mostly with a TV. Think about it:

*6G iPod (Touchscreen) generates buzz for the holidays
*$399 Mac mini pulls in more marketshare for Macs, as people start putting Macs in their living room.
*iTunes Movie Rentals provide the nudge to get both of the aforementioned products.
 
lmalave said:
I dunno, lately it seems like I know a lot more people that use Netflix than go to their local Blockbuster to rent. So I also have no statistics, but anecdotally I would say subscription services for DVDs are *immensely* popular.
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Anecdotally...(sp?)
I live in a building filled with young Manhattanites (a demographic Apple can thank for the roaring success of the iPod)...we have a Blockbuster right across the street, but I can't recall ever seeing a person in my building with a Blockbuster bag. On the other hand, I see Netflix envelopes on a daily basis.

I HATE going to Blockbuster...it's impossible to "browse" for anything older than a month ago, they have hardly any stock of older titles, if any at all. The people who work there are minimum-wage morons with attitude and can't help you find anything anyway. They don't restock the shelves with newly-returned movies quickly, so even when you want to see something that's already been returned, you think it's out. When there are checkout lines, it takes forever to get out of there. I don't even consider it an option anymore. With cable on demand, HDTV movie channels galore, and Netflix, there's really no reason to.

--DT

EDIT: oh, and if I REALLY want to see something right away, Barnes and Noble has free same-day delivery in Manhattan, and they have a really good DVD selection.
 
How could a subscription model work with the iPod? I can see iTunes using it, because every time you play the movie it could check to make sure you're subscribed or something like that.

But when you're movie is on your iPod, there's no way for the iPod to mysteriously check that you're still subscribed!
 
Sounds cool - does anyone know what the Chinese characters say?

Chuck.

Oops, wrong thread :p
 
ethernet76 said:
I think it would be easy enough to make people understand.

You have a purchased songs thing in the playlist section of iTunes. Rented movies would be a logical addition to that list. It also wouldn't be hard to have iTunes do something based on remaining days. Maybe a pop up box before confirming purchase explaining how rented movies work, and how you could find them in the Rented movies playlist.
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Agreed - I think Apple could find a way to do it (and do it better than most companies).
 
ppc_michael said:
How could a subscription model work with the iPod? I can see iTunes using it, because every time you play the movie it could check to make sure you're subscribed or something like that.

But when you're movie is on your iPod, there's no way for the iPod to mysteriously check that you're still subscribed!
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Hate to use MS as an example, but their Janus (?) DRM scheme for subscription music sites requires that the portable device "check-in" with the service on a monthly basis to allow continued play. So for example, you'd load up your ipod with movies, and if you don't sync for a month (unlikely!), you'll be asked to sync to confirm you're still subscribed.
 
ppc_michael said:
But when you're movie is on your iPod, there's no way for the iPod to mysteriously check that you're still subscribed!
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True, but it could check every time you connect the iPod to a computer with iTunes. You could scam Apple all you want, but you'll have to connect it to your computer eventually, whether to charge it or to add music or whatever, and then time's up. I don't think it'd be very hard to accomplish.

[edit] This is assuming there's a limit to the number of movies you can have at once. If there isn't, then DT's solution above would be much better for obvious reasons.
 
Stella said:
the reason ts have been spot on is because recently they've predicted every possible outcome at some point or another!

that, is really, not impressive.
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I think for the most part, ThinkSecret and AppleInsider end up with the right story. I guess the intent of my original post was question how 'reliable' a source could be if they provide you with what appears to be very general information; most of which could be easily inferred from non-secret sources such as patents. :)
 
This sounds really really cool. I think that a subscription only model is not the best way to go. People should be allowed to buy their favourite movies and rent the ones they dont want to keep. The best model is that one that will sufficiently cover both options.

Either way, movie store or not, gimme some of that 4" iPod!!:)
 
ppc_michael said:
But when you're movie is on your iPod, there's no way for the iPod to mysteriously check that you're still subscribed!
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Unless... (wait for it, wait for it!) Unless the new iPod is WiFi enabled!!:D
 
Music vs. movies

Count me as another one who thinks that there's a fundamental difference in how movies and music should be distributed online.

Hasn't Steve himself said it? You may listen to your favorite songs or albums 100 or many many more times in your life, but you're not going to watch your favorite movies (generally) more than ten or so, often a lot less. So it makes a whole lot of sense to have your music permanently and only temporarily have access to movies.

I'm definitely for a subscription model for movies. It would be killer at $10 a month, especially if that's for unlimited films versus only a set number.
 
ppc_michael said:
How could a subscription model work with the iPod? I can see iTunes using it, because every time you play the movie it could check to make sure you're subscribed or something like that.

But when you're movie is on your iPod, there's no way for the iPod to mysteriously check that you're still subscribed!
Click to expand...

The new iPod will have built in WiFi, and connect to the net everytime you watch the movie my 2 cents
 
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