Think Secret: Apple to Announce iTunes Movie Rentals

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0607itunesmovies.html' target='_blank'>http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0607itunesmovies.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"With three weeks until Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, Think Secret has learned exclusively that CEO Steve Jobs will use his keynote address to announce the debut of movie rentals through the iTunes Music Store. While the announcement will undoubtedly be billed as a further extension of iTunes' dominance in digital media downloads, it represents a coup for the movie industry, which will have succeeded in standing its ground against Apple's pressures to offer consumers the option of owning movie downloads. Apple is said to have ironed out agreements with Walt Disney, Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Bros., and is currently in talks with other major movie studios as well. It's unknown to what extent content will be available come the August 7 announcement, or whether Apple will announce all of its studio deals at that time."</i><br /><br />We've heard rumours about this for some time, but it looks like it's finally happening. I believe Apple will likely execute on this well enough: they've done a good job with iTunes and because it will likely be a part of iTunes, there are millions of people who already know how to use it. The real question for me though is the pricing: Apple has long dismissed the idea of a subscription-based music system, and the 1+ billion songs sold so far are a strong indicator that most people want to own their music. Although with Apple's DRM'd music, the term "own" is rife with irony. At any rate, one could argue that the inverse is true with videos: people are more apt to rent, or subscribe to a DVD rental service such as Netflix, then to buy DVDs (though certainly millions of DVDs are sold every year). <br /><br />The question becomes, then, how will Apple price this system? Will it be only rentals, or will there be an option to buy &amp; burn? I use Zip.ca, a Canadian version of Nexflix, and I really enjoy it - I can rent 11 DVDs per month for $24.95 + tax, which comes out to $2.40 per DVD as my hard cost. So when I have to pay $5+ at Blockbuster for a DVD rental, I feel like it's too expensive. Apple is charging $1.99 for 45 minute TV shows, but you get to keep those and watch them as much as you want. If they charge $2.99 for a movie rental that you can keep for 72 hours or something similar, I think they could really shake up the industry. Questions, questions. Any speculation on what their price point will be, and how it will all work?

[James Fee]

I don't know the price point, nor how it will work. What I do know is it probably won't work in Canada! :lol:

[Phronetix]

I wonder if we're all making assumptions here about this rumor. This is not a WWDC type of release. Apple would plan an unrelated media event, and they still might. This is simply not what developers pay money to see at the WWDC Keynote. The keynote will see an xServe and Mac Pro announcement, lots of goodies about Leopard, a synopsis of where the switch to intel road has been and where it will go, a pro app release, and perhaps the dreaded Roz from Microsoft. And if they release the iMac with a Conroe chip in it, Dennis drops 18 bills that same day.

It will not have the iTunes Movie Store. Mark my words.

I've followed the ups and downs of Thinksecret for a while, and I believe that Apple is trying to fish out the mole who has given Nick dePlume (that's the name he uses on the site) so many accurate leaks. I wonder if they finally did it and dePlume bit on this one - hard. Anyway, this is merely speculation. And no, I don't believe that Steve Jobs ever sanctions controlled releases.

When the store comes, I don't think it'll offer anything more than movies for the iPod. I haven't heard anything about movies with real world resolutions. And how much bandwidth does that eat up? Is it really practical?

[PCKid]

Down here in Australia pretty much all Video Libraries rent DVDs 4 days a week (Mon-Thur) for AUS$1.99 which equates to about US$1.40. Admittedly that's not online but that's a pretty sweet deal. The way piracy is on the net rental over a $1 a movie seems unrealistic. Why should a movie cost more to rent on the net than it can by going to the Video Store? Seems pretty pricey to rent DVDs in the States. If they put more recent movies on for even $4 a movie then I think people who have DLed pirate movies that turn out to be crap quality, poor lipsync or not even the right movie would switch to paying for a top quality avi of a recent movie release. IMHO of course;)

[Felix Torres]

Is it really practical?

Ding! Ding! Ding!
No, it is not practical at any worthwhile datarate.
Not with today's prevalent "broadband" data rates.
Not for living room viewing.
Not if people expect anything approaching the quality of a DVD movie and the timeliness of driving to the nearest Blockbuster's for a disk.
We're talking d/l times in the range of hours...

So what a service like this would have to offer is the one thing none of the services offer so far; depth of catalog. It would have to offer new releases before they hit DVD and old content nobody else offers. And it would most likely have to operate on a queue basis, like Netflix, where you indicate a list of titles you want and they are background-downloaded into a cache for viewing. And then you get charged when you actually start viewing it.

In other words, this is doable, but not by Apple.
Not soon.
Netflix, maybe, since they've been working on the problem for years and already have a semi-deep catalog.
But I think it is more likely a feature for next-gen STBs than a standalone PC-based service.

Oh, Apple might offer VHS-quality rentals at some point.
And I guess the folks buying the iPod videos would bite.
But it is not even going to register on Blockbuster or Netflix's competitive radar. Not a real business. Not today.

BTW, one discovery I've made playing with digital video on HD displays; highly-compressed files don't upscale very well.
Duh, right? High-compression algorithms are, by design, lossy. And, at low display resolutions, the losses aren't noticeable. At larger screen sizes and higher resolutions, though...
Artifact hell.
It is that very "excess" data that lossy algorithms throw out that allows DVD-based video to upscale so nicely to HD resolutions, so I think it is safe to say that any non-HD video d/l business will have to find a non-HD audience because the early adopter audience will likely want HD videos.

Which brings back me take that downloadable video d/ls are going to be, in the near term, more of an STB feature. Cause HD d/l's are going to take a loooonnnggg time.

Plus side; they'll be able to easily charge $5 for a week's viewing.

[sojourner753]

Netflix, maybe, since they've been working on the problem for years and already have a semi-deep catalog.


I wish they would hurry up. I'm itching for a download service that I can use with my SageTV box. I've tried Vongo and MovieLink and neither integrate.

My impression of vongo can be found here (http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10731).
MovieLink was better in that it just plays with Windows Media Player 10.

Perhaps if I can find a way to embed and control Windows Media player within SageTV then it could work.

I'm sure the Apple store will be of no use to me since it will require either an iPod (of which I don't have) or QuickTime. And like it was said previously, if its only formated for a 2in screen, then so much the worse.

I bet the cable ISPs will have a cow when movie download really take off.

[Felix Torres]

I bet the cable ISPs will have a cow when movie download really take off.

Not if *they* are the ones doing it. :wink:

Think of something like Disney's Moviebeam embedded in a Scientific Atlanta HD8300 STB, but with a DVD burner.
Now, consider Scientific Atlanta *has* such a box in testing.

[Jason Eaton]

Rumor. While I think people 'want' there to be legal movie downloads, the supporting structure is not there. So *if* something comes out it will not be in the form that people *want*.

So I guess the thing to do would be to define what the thought is.

If what makes the rumor so appealing is the thought of renting movies for viewing in your living room on the big HD? Your going to be depressed... as mentioned above, practical bandwidth needs (even on broadband) are out the window. Might as well wait for the 120mm disc to arrive from Netflix.

The second part about HD in the living room, does Apple have a machine that does HD video (let alone an out of the box SD video to tv from a computer) part to offer customers? No. Nothing that fits the plug it in mentality for ease of use. So why would Apple create a service that benefits only those outside their selling market. Hate to say it, but if 'Apple doesn't make it, you don't need it' mentality is strong these days from the Apple camp.

So that leaves standard definition, okay a little more doable on todays bandwidth, but as stated with no tv access the *best* that this will offer is video movies on the go for iPod. Not a bad thing if that is your cup of tea but I would place this version of the rumor as the best thing that *could* happen.

Now, because I feel like typing to myself today, would this work? Hard to say but if one were to look at the Sony PSP and its venture into movies, the market for selling portable movies has been less then roses. Early adopters to the platform needed the geewiz bang and gave the segment an inflated boost. However the market deflated because of high prices and inability to watch the movies on anything else. Why pay 20 bucks for a portable movie when you can pay that for a regular dvd in the living room?

Okay but this might be to 'rent' a movie... for an iPod... I would see similar curves to the PSP. High early gee wiz bang renting, but after that? Let me pose the question this way. How often would you feel like watching a movie on a screen that small? How many opportunites would this fufill in your daily life? A handfull of times?

I believe this one is a false starter.