Apple quietly enables movie purchases from Apple TV

We can't say we're too terribly fond of purchasing movies on a proprietary set-top-box (à la VUDU), but for those with no real attachment to physical media, Apple's looking to hook you up. Aside from announcing that day-and-date DVD releases were coming to iTunes, Cupertino has also enabled its Apple TV to purchase full-length films; prior to today, users could only rent them for a window of time. Details are pretty scant at the moment, and we're not even sure if HD films can be purchased (or if a premium is added on), but feel free to fire up your box and let us know how it goes in comments below.

[Isaac @ May 1st 2008 9:01PM]

Please, give us back NBC. I WANT BATTLESTAR!!!

[vdogg89 @ May 1st 2008 9:43PM]

the reason they didnt feature this on their Homepage is cuz they don't wanna take up their precious real estate for the new iMacs, where they will undoubtedly restrain from updating the homepage for months

[Aguiluz @ May 1st 2008 9:43PM]

Then you will need *cough* bittorrent *cough*.

[doctorSpoc @ May 2nd 2008 1:11PM]

i know it not BlueRay, but even at $20 it's not $30 like lots of blueRays cost either... you can also rent them for much less as well

[ReeseKill @ May 1st 2008 9:12PM]

There's gotta be some ridiculous proprietary catch with this.. Steve wouldn't have it be this easy.

[flyby @ May 1st 2008 9:20PM]

they're probably gonna jack the price up for HD movie purchases to like $20 or something. Whatever it is, it will probably be VERY lucrative for Apple at the expense of the customer.

[Adam @ May 1st 2008 9:27PM]

yeah flyby, I'm sure the studio that actually produced the movie does not want to make the most profit.

[Stevo @ May 1st 2008 9:45PM]

@ Adam

Read Flyby's comment again - at the expense of the customer, not the movie studio.

[CraigJ @ May 1st 2008 11:12PM]

Apple gets between 25% and 30%. The studio gets the rest... So, lucrative for Apple, yes. Super obscenely lucrative for the studio...

I love the Apple TV concept, but until I can play back uncompressed 1080p content at 30 FPS I'm not interested. Doesn't have to have a Blu Ray drive in it, just let me pull the files off of a server...

[Doug @ May 1st 2008 11:37PM]

For those keeping score at home: Adam proven correct, Stevo proven wrong.

[Josh @ May 2nd 2008 12:22AM]

@Craig

Guess what. 1080P content is compressed as well. All video content is compressed. ALL.

[CraigJ @ May 2nd 2008 12:53AM]

@josh. No kidding. DVD is MPEG2, not sure what BluRay is (H.264?) Anyway, The files you get from Apple are considerable smaller, because they use additional lossy compression. On a 60" screen you can tell the difference between the 30GB BluRay content and the compressed file you get from iTunes.

[Tim Brown @ May 2nd 2008 6:56AM]

All distributed video is compressed. If you had 15 minutes of uncompressed SD footage, it weighs in at 25Gb. Not even a BR disc could hold an entire uncompressed SD movie, which would weigh in at around 150GB

[eggothewaffle @ May 2nd 2008 6:58AM]

*One hour* of uncompressed 1080P footage takes up 700 gigabytes.

What are you running on? Holographic storage and smack?

[austin @ May 1st 2008 9:10PM]

i bought cloverfield like 3 hours ago.

this is not a 'ENGADGET IS SOOOOO LATE!!!!111!!! ZOMG' comment

just saying.

[flyby @ May 1st 2008 9:12PM]

YAY Apple!!!

Finally thwy are giving people more options!

This could be the beginning of a very good trend

But then again, probably not

[Curtis Prime @ May 1st 2008 9:13PM]

I briefly browsed through the movie section on my Apple TV this evening. I didn't seen any movies that could be purchased in HD (even one that was available for rent in HD). Truthfully this update and announcement was "lame". I want to more movies in HD quality to rent. Of the ones I have rented so for, the quality of the video and sound was great (not excellent as with Blu-Ray - I have tons of BD movies).

@Isaac: I too want NBC to come to their senses again. If their sister (Universal Motion Pictures) organization is allowing its content to be both sold and rented in iTunes, then why not NBC produced TV shows.

[Joe @ May 1st 2008 9:15PM]

Since when have you not been able to? I purchase TV shows all the time, but never tried purchasing a movie through the Apple TV. Once all movie studios get on board with releasing rentals on the same day, and not just purchases, then the Apple TV will truly rock.

[flyby @ May 1st 2008 9:17PM]

I agree

[kingofwale @ May 1st 2008 9:18PM]

15 bucks??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

I would pay that much for a HD movie, but Standard Def? Absolutely no way. Sorry Apple.

[webon @ May 1st 2008 9:30PM]

not to mention the torrent store ...

not that I go there N.O.

[CUBSWILLWIN @ May 1st 2008 10:11PM]

Piratebay had dead cheap prices :P

[Franssu @ May 1st 2008 11:35PM]

I thought the same thing (the ARE YOU KIDDING ME part) when I saw the price. I remembered that the last HD-DVDs I bought were 12.99. And they're HD. 1080p. On a physical medium.
Yeah, I know it was a fire sale and all, but anyway I wouldn't pay more than 10 bucks for a movie download in HD. And the HD better be good.

[Curtis @ May 1st 2008 9:19PM]

I should add I would prefer to rent 720p HD movies 7 out of the 10 movies i want to watch. I don't know about Vudu or the XBox Live service, but the the quality of 720p of iTunes HD movies clearly is better than Cable HD.


This announcement is nice but if you going to permantely own a copy of a movie then buy it on Blu-Ray if you got a BD player. Else don't bother.

[This Is My Name @ May 1st 2008 9:25PM]

Again, Vudu wins out because the a/v quality is far superior.

[redace42 @ May 1st 2008 9:30PM]

$15 is way to much to charge for a Digital copy of something, especially since thats the about the same price of a dvd. If there smart they would make it cheaper than that giving people a better reason to buy it rather than the whole "you don't have to get into your car and go to the store to buy it" reason

[Laughing Man @ May 1st 2008 9:39PM]

Let me check......no still don't care.

[Brendan Sheehan @ May 2nd 2008 1:32PM]

You made need a faster processor or more RAM for that brain of yours. Still, you made the right choice. Commodore 64?

[B707 @ May 1st 2008 10:25PM]

quietly?

they announced on the website, sent an email, released it through other broadcasting channels....i guess if you call that quietly...

[El Taco @ May 1st 2008 10:00PM]

I can't wait to try this out

[mlb @ May 7th 2008 8:28PM]

I checked and I do not see any movies for purchase in HD. For instance, I am Legend is available for rent in standard for $3.99, rent in HD for $4.99, or purchase for $14.99. I'm assuming the purchase is just standard def.

[Josh @ May 2nd 2008 12:25AM]

ass-u-me

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ May 1st 2008 10:03PM]

Is that US only? What about Europe? I live in Germany...

To me sounds like time have come to buy the Apple TV thingy.

[CUBSWILLWIN @ May 1st 2008 10:12PM]

ebay maybe?

[Reader @ May 2nd 2008 3:49AM]

Why? Apple does make some good products, I just don't think this is one of them.

[James @ May 2nd 2008 5:29AM]

Reader:
I dunno. Makes an OK MythTV frontend

[freediverdude @ May 1st 2008 10:22PM]

I browsed through the HD section on the Apple TV also. Some were available for purchase (most actually), but some weren't. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to which ones (like same studio, some had a purchase button and some didn't).

My two questions are, if you purchase, is it in HD (it doesn't say either way), and if you purchase on the Apple TV, does it sync back to iTunes and become part of your library or is it stuck on the Apple TV forever.

[Bloobie @ May 2nd 2008 12:42AM]

Yes, it will sync back. You cannot purchase HD movies on the Apple TV (right now), but what you can purchase is the movie in widescreen iTunes format, which will sync back and play on the iPod/iPhone as well as computer.

[Mark @ May 1st 2008 10:29PM]

I noticed that the movie Saved! was available to rent for .99
even though it's just a standard def rental it's a good deal
for a pretty cool film that's worth a view.

now pricewize.....
I agree that SD (Standard Def)movie purchases at 14.99
seems pretty high, I'd be more likely to buy it if it were around 10....
or if after renting it for 3.99 i could pay a little extra to own it/keep it.

and as for HD owning vs renting - since the BD movies
are still like 30 bux I'll still consider renting movies....
i've rented a few, I own a few, like 5 BD movies
and have proably rented just as many.

The Apple TV really is perfect for snow days,
or days at home with a cold
or if my nephews are over I can order up Ratatouille
or whatever.......I can literally browse them through movies
with PREVIEWS like this - boom. and I don't
have to worry about where the other kid
went or if he can't tell what the movie is from
the box artwork.

I want to know if I buy a Standard Def movie
on the Apple TV can i get it onto my iPhone?
Am I allowed to move it to my iTunes library
on my Mac? if so then the purchase price
is a little better.... 10.99 for that :)

as for the picture quality....
the SD movies don't look sooo bad,
I've bought a few and don't mind it that much.
Shooter is pretty clear, better than SD content
from DirecTV that's for sure. But when it comes
to HD the best picture is either DirecTV HD
or Blu-Ray.

[BK @ May 1st 2008 10:52PM]

what are you trying to hog the whole screen.

[Bismark @ May 1st 2008 11:06PM]

Seriously, you can go to your grocery store if you're in CA and rent a movie from DVDPlay for $1.50 (.75 on Wednesdays). At the very least, Apple should lower their rental prices to 1.50...their current pricing scheme is ridiculous

[Miles @ May 1st 2008 11:36PM]

It does seem high, but remember it is in line with OnDemand prices, hopefully compitetion will bring these prices down.

[MBS @ May 1st 2008 11:07PM]

Sorry, the studios will never ever let these movies that are offered day-and-date to the dvd release off the set-top-box. It will definately not sync back to iTunes.

[N8! @ May 2nd 2008 12:13AM]

Your movie will absolutely sync from the TV. Consider the simple fact that you could buy the very same movie in iTunes and then sync it to your TV. The sync works both ways.

[Josh @ May 2nd 2008 12:24AM]

Not if they are HD they won't.

[BuddyBoy @ May 2nd 2008 4:33AM]

@Josh

Yes but you can't BUY the HD movie only rent it.
You can't rent the HD movie on iTunes so it makes sense the HD rental won't sink back but a bought SD movie does.

[majortom @ May 1st 2008 11:09PM]

I either go to the movies or rent from Netflix. I rarely want to see a movie twice. I really do not understand owning movies. That said, anyone want to buy some betas????

[Dude @ May 1st 2008 11:35PM]

I guess 'majortom' doesn't own books, either.

[Mark @ May 2nd 2008 12:37AM]

I accidently voted you +, so I must comment. That is a really stupid comment. Owning movies is nothing like owning books. Which, if you stopped buying celebrity magazines and National Enquirer you would know.

[BuddyBoy @ May 2nd 2008 4:54AM]

Yes, I have to agree stupid comment, majortom not owning any movies has nothing to do with wither or not he owns books and has no relevance to this article.

@majortom
I have quite the opposite opinion on movies, I love to watch many movies again and again, I have some movies that I actually wore the VHS tape out!