Apple's flood of
announcements this month continues apace today with the addition of
high-def movie purchases to the iTunes Store. Although HD TV shows were previously available to buy, HD movies were
rental-only until now. HD flicks will cost you $19.99, and we're guessing they're the same H.264 compressed 720p quality as usual, so videophiles will probably want to stick to Blu-ray. Purchases will come with both an HD file and an iPod / iPhone-ready SD file, which is a nice touch, and Apple's also promising that HD rentals will now be on the store within 30 days of retail release -- better, but not perfect. It's all going live today with exclusive pre-orders of
Quantum of Solace and
Twilight, but honestly, we're still wondering when Apple will implement subscription video and really take it to Netflix.
posted Mar 19th 2009 5:12PM
Ooooo, I want to watch Quantum of Silence!!
Me too!
Though i hope it's better than "Quantum of Solace" :D
Freudian slip with having engadget stop with the apple posts?
I prefer Solace of the Lambs. Much better IMO!!
@ Kiwi616
No, Freudian slip about the trolls who continue to spam the Engadget boards complaining about the Apple posts.
Don't like? Don't read. Move on. Quit clogging my tubes.
i cant wait either!
tuesday can't come soon enough!!
@Quix
How about taking your own advice? Don't like? Don't read. Move on.
I on the other hand loves this bickering and is already craving for moar!
I think 19.99 is a little expensive for DRM'd 720p content.
We'll I think $30+ is expensive for the same content on a physical disc...At least with the movies through iTunes, I can take it on the go.
You can take the Blu Ray with you as well one way or another. Either through a Blu Ray notebook or ripping the Blu Ray to a drive. Maybe not as easy as iTunes, but you have the added benefit of actually owning the disk and ability to play it at 1080p.
@kal326 - it's really about convenience for me. i'm not going to buy a blu-ray drive for my computer just to rip a disc. we are going to see the same pattern with movies as we did with music. people will eventually copy all their dvds to the computer and then slowly stop buying them in favor of downloading and/or streaming.
I'd rather pay $30 and get a 1080p version and convert it to whatever format I want.$20 for 720p locked down video is way too much.
No popular blu-ray disc costs thirty dollars if you spend five minutes searching around (and you can get most for $15). Stop saying $30 a BD because either you are lying to make a point or you are ignorant.
Now i see why apple doesnt add blu-ray drives in their laptops. Jerks.
To be fair, Blu-ray is locked down too. But I don't think Apple's is as easy to crack, and the video isn't as high as quality as a Blu-ray.
I don't believe the iTunes films have special features (commentary, deleted scenes) so even if a Blu-ray was 30-40 dollars, you'd be getting the video & audio quality, a physical copy, special features, etc.
Way too expensive for a movie that's lower-level HD and includes no special features.
And ......who's going to be the 1st to buy HD content without DRM-attached somehow by the fruity company?
Have you seen the movies you can stream from Netflix? Not the greatest selection. As soon as the STUDIOS let them do it, then Apple should go with subscription streaming.
why would anyone preorder a streamed movie?
because It's not streamed, it's for purchase, jackass. do you even read the post or do you just look at the purdy pictures?
Unless the service pushes the movie to your device(s) upon availability, there is still no useful benefit to preordering a digital download. The only circumstance I can imagine is if you wanted to make a particular set of movies/shows available to download without having to go through the transaction at that time. Any ideas?
Unless Apple will sell the Pre-Order at a lower price than when it is actually released (which I do not believe happens) then I do not understand the point of pre-ordering digital downloads. I mean, it's not like they are going to sell-out of them, is it?
Quantum of Solace
$20 is too much for the quality you get and the fact that you can't sell it back, trade it/loan it or even easily take it to a friend's house to watch.
Better get used to it. Physical media will not be around much longer...
physical media will be around a whole lot longer than you think. 75% of music purchases are still physical media and digital music distribution started way sooner than video.
how do you figure 75% is when itunes is the largest seller of music in the world?
good try though.... : \
Because its not made up, but the results of an actual survey? Just search for it on the internet.
Oh wait, you probably typed it into the search bar on www.apple.com
Go figure...
@Scott, you dildo, Apple is barely the biggest seller of digital content. Though in 2007 the digital sales were only 5% of the total market. And by digital sales I mean all digital sales not just Apple. For further readings see http://www.paidcontent.co.uk/entry/419-digital-music-sales-to-offset-physical-decline-by-2010/
20 bucks to buy an electronic file?? No thanks.
Siiiiiiiilence! I keeeeeeell you!
I'm more interested in movies for my iPhone, but worried about video quality.
I recently bought the new Punisher movie and it looks amazing as opposed to Transformers and V for Vendetta. I wanna know if Apple switches up their recording profiles now and then. What bitrates they use to encode movies, etc.
I know way back when music videos were introduced to the iTMS, the videos I downloaded seemed grainy and made only for viewing on iPods. For the newer videos, however, they look a lot more crisp and clearer for some reason. Just something to think about.
Hmm, I'd rather have the "DRMed" Blu-ray than a "DRMed" digital copy that's lower quality. The pricing differential isn't big enough, and I have a better shot of getting the Blu-ray on sale.
Wow. $19.99 per HD movie on iTunes, $19.99 for a HD movie on Blu-ray, or $19.99 for a Netflix account and stream HD movies for free. Hmmm. Sounds like "Looney iTunes" to me.
$20 is just not going to happen for me.
$20? I can get the BD in all its 1080p video/lossless audio glory for that!
Holy crap, all my Blu-Rays were under $20 (new). Just wait for the sales as they happen frequently at many places like Frys or Amazon. No way will I pay $20 for locked down digital copies that bitch every time I watch them on a different computer...
Should we start a death watch for Blu-Ray? This is the first nail in the coffin.
Apple has the capability to show 1080p trailers, so I'd expect this will happen sooner or later. It's the cable companies resisting the fiber network that is impacting this. Then again, the cable companies could compete with Netflix & Apple with their set top DVRs if they could stream movies to you
I have a few digitally downloaded 1080p movies (from NASA), and they play just fine on my Mythbuntu HTPC. And the digitally downloaded movies won't 'walk off' if I throw a house party like a DVD could. Plus, I don't need to store 100 DVD cases if they are all saved on the hard drive(or on Apple's servers). These downloaded movies are dependent on the hard drive working, but with a big enough Time Machine drive (if you use a Mac system, standard external usb drive for linux), you can always restore from the backup.
No, we shouldn't start a deathwatch for Blu-Ray. Physical media isn't going anywhere because it will always be required to get the highest possible quality for video. By the time streaming and digital downloads catch up to the quality of Blu-Ray, there will be a new format with an even higher resolution. There are people who will buy physical media for the extra features, packaging, etc. and it will always be cheaper to buy DVD/Blu-Ray/whatever than to download and burn your own, if you want to keep the same quality. Death watch for Blu-Ray will not start until the next iteration of physical media is released.
Cable and Satellite companies already have VOD services, so it seems like it wouldn't be much of a stretch for them to compete with Apple/Netflix/etc. My guess is that they are either not allowed to do it for some legal reason or they are already working on it.
Disagree. Blu-ray is the last commercial physical video medium.
Physical media isn't going anywhere. Those of you who seem to think that just because Apple does something like this - the end is near for Blu-Ray? Pulease! CDs are still around and so is vinyl - remember that large disc that CDs were supposed to kill off? There will always be a market for physical media. As long as DRM is an inconvenience and given the fact that people aren't really getting value for money - why would digital files be the death of any physical media? Also remember that the average Joe isn't tech savvy - they want something simple they can pick up and play.
Why would I want to buy an album from iTunes for $10 when I can get that same album on CD from Amazon for $10 too? I can then rip it to whatever format I want - MP3, FLAC with no DRM etc. This is the same for Blu-Ray. Prices are dropping. Why pay $20 online when you can get the physical disc with a 1080p version and extras? If you're willing to do your homework - you can rip it to any format you want to then get it to eg. iPhone etc. Yeah it takes a bit of work, but if you have a decent PC and are willing to do it - nothing is stopping you.
Ya, I think $19.99 is way too much for a 720p video with DRM. Maybe if it were 1080p it would be worth it for the convenience. I would rather spend an extra $5 or so and buy the Blu-ray. At least then I would have the option to take it with me and play it on a Blu-ray-enabled laptop or a friend's Blu-ray player. Not to mention the fact that you could rip it to whatever video format you want. I don't think portability is an issue for HD video because a screen small enough to be portable wouldn't do the the video justice and you don't need anything more than stereo audio for headphones or the built-in speakers on a portable device. I will just skip the whole thing for now.
We need bags of hurt in macs.. not this WTF20bucksofshittyhd.
not to mention some bluray movies come with digital copies (skip the burning process)
$20 does kind of irk me for something of limitless quantity.
Anyone got a link or opinion when it comes to comparing 720p compressed h.264 to an upscaled 1080p/720p dvd?
you know.... dvds are like $5 now...
I have an Apple TV and an upscaling DVD player.
I'd say the HD movies I've rented from iTunes are probably on par
with upscaled DVD. Certainly not as good as Blu-ray.
Nobody is mentioning audio. The audio imrpovement of Blu-Ray/HD-DVD over DVD is arguably larger than the video improvement. It's also what takes up a very large chunk of that physical disk. Uncompressed and lossless audio tracks are very large, larger than the capacity of an entire DVD. Digital downloads will never replace media unless they can get the whole A/V package uncompressed and unmolested in a download, or if home theatres and surround sound systems disappear. I'm not gonna pay the a similar price as Blu-Ray for a blockbuster action movie in HD (albeit compressed and a lower bitrate), minus the booming hi-res audio track. It's half the experience.
It's probably about the same honestly. The DVD may actually look better.
Just to clarify
Here is the old chart on engadget.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/16/itunes-and-apple-tv-rentals-and-purchases-what-you-can-and-can/
So now we can buy shows and movies in HD from iTunes.
Is iTunes and apple tv now equal on all rental/purchase lists?
Can you sync all files back and forth to each other?