Apple quietly enables movie purchases from Apple TV
By Darren Murph 
posted May 1st 2008 8:57PM
posted May 1st 2008 8:57PM
posted May 1st 2008 8:57PM
The percentage of sales people that recommend Samsung HDTVs.
Salespeople are also becoming less likely to recommend LCD sets over plasma sets, which goes against the industry trend.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
-1_thumbnail.jpg)
Please, give us back NBC. I WANT BATTLESTAR!!!
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
Then you will need *cough* bittorrent *cough*.
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
There's gotta be some ridiculous proprietary catch with this.. Steve wouldn't have it be this easy.
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.
yeah flyby, I'm sure the studio that actually produced the movie does not want to make the most profit.
@ Adam
Read Flyby's comment again - at the expense of the customer, not the movie studio.
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...
For those keeping score at home: Adam proven correct, Stevo proven wrong.
@Craig
Guess what. 1080P content is compressed as well. All video content is compressed. ALL.
@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.
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
*One hour* of uncompressed 1080P footage takes up 700 gigabytes.
What are you running on? Holographic storage and smack?
i bought cloverfield like 3 hours ago.
this is not a 'ENGADGET IS SOOOOO LATE!!!!111!!! ZOMG' comment
just saying.
YAY Apple!!!
Finally thwy are giving people more options!
This could be the beginning of a very good trend
But then again, probably not
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.
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.
I agree
15 bucks??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
I would pay that much for a HD movie, but Standard Def? Absolutely no way. Sorry Apple.
not to mention the torrent store ...
not that I go there N.O.
Piratebay had dead cheap prices :P
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.
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.
Again, Vudu wins out because the a/v quality is far superior.
$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
Let me check......no still don't care.
You made need a faster processor or more RAM for that brain of yours. Still, you made the right choice. Commodore 64?
quietly?
they announced on the website, sent an email, released it through other broadcasting channels....i guess if you call that quietly...
I can't wait to try this out
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.
ass-u-me
Is that US only? What about Europe? I live in Germany...
To me sounds like time have come to buy the Apple TV thingy.
ebay maybe?
Why? Apple does make some good products, I just don't think this is one of them.
Reader:
I dunno. Makes an OK MythTV frontend
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.
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.
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.
what are you trying to hog the whole screen.
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
It does seem high, but remember it is in line with OnDemand prices, hopefully compitetion will bring these prices down.
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.
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.
Not if they are HD they won't.
@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.
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????
I guess 'majortom' doesn't own books, either.
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.
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!