Apple Unveils HD Movie Rentals

[LeeS]

This may be the wave of the future:

http://www.macworld.com/article/131486/2008/01/liveupdate.html

[LeeS]

More details:

Twentieth Century Fox and Apple announcedDigital Copy for iTunes, which provides customers who purchase a DVD with an additional Digital Copy of the movie. Just like movies purchased from the iTunes Store, an iTunes Digital Copy can effortlessly be transferred to iTunes and then viewed on a PC or Mac, iPod with video, iPhone or on Apple TV. The first DVD to make its debut with iTunes Digital Copy is the Special Edition DVD premiere of the Family Guy "Star Wars" parody, "Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest," which is being released in stores today. Fox and Apple are planning to deliver many more DVDs with iTunes Digital Copy this year.
• Movies available 30 days after the DVD release. 30 days to start watching, 24 hours to finish.
• "With the new Apple TV and iTunes Movie Rentals, movie lovers can rent DVD-quality or stunning HD movies from their couch with just a click of a button," said Jobs. "No more driving to the video store or waiting for DVDs to arrive in the mail."
• Apple has lowered the price of Apple TV to US$229 for the 40GB model, and for $329 for the 160GB model.
• The new Apple TV software will be available as a free automatic download to all Apple TV customers later this month.
• iTunes Movie Rentals featuring movies from all the major movie studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Lionsgate and New Line Cinema. Users can rent movies for as low as $2.99 and watch them on their Macs or PCs, all current generation iPods, iPhone and Apple TV. iTunes Movie Rentals launches today and will offer over 1,000 titles by the end of February, including over 100 titles in stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound which users can rent directly from their widescreen TV using Apple TV. iTunes Movie Rentals are priced at $2.99 for library titles and $3.99 for new releases, and high definition versions are one dollar more with library titles at $3.99 and new releases at $4.99.

[BGLeduc]

I am very interested to see what the quality is like. I have had a ATV since it was released last year, and look forward to the free software update.

Methinks this is going to be more like HD-Lite rather than the real deal, but I will probably give it a shot.

Brian

[LeeS]

I wonder about quality as well. Not sure less than 1080 will cut it but it may depend also on how friendly it is to receive the movies.

I am also impressed with the Mac Air laptop.

[Ken_McAlinden]

Of course, if you have a DVR with HD Pay Per View from your cable or satellite company....

Regards,

[Eric B]

:laugh: Wow...Apple should have gotten some advice from Circuit City :laugh:

[LeeS]

Of course, if you have a DVR with HD Pay Per View from your cable or satellite company....

Regards,

Well maybe. Apple has a good track record at taking an existing idea and implementing it as easy to use as possible.

[scottabs]

:laugh: Wow...Apple should have gotten some advice from Circuit City :laugh:


That was my thought. Very similar to the failed Divx program.

[El Bacho]

The HD rentals are 720p and are Apple TV only, apparently due to piracy concerns (computers running iTunes are not always HDCP compliant)

[Claus]

This may be the wave of the future:


If everyone has a fast bandwidth. ;)

[Shawn1968]

Nothing like watching HD on an iPod or iPhone :sigh: At that screen size, could you even notice the difference vs. standard definition?

[LeeS]

Shawn,

I think this is more of an AppleTV product overall.

[Chip Z]

Of course, if you have a DVR with HD Pay Per View from your cable or satellite company....

Regards,

You can rent HD movies with your Xbox 360 as well. I only tried it once but it worked pretty well. Quality was certainly better than DVD but not bluray. I think the Xbox offerings are slightly more expensive than the Apple HD movies. Maybe this will push the price down.