# Apple Movie Rentals - BAD IDEA!



## imacg5guy (Jan 19, 2008)

EXTREMELY BAD IDEA! its like buying a movie for a couple of quid... a brand new movie, for about what - a pound - (or its like $2 for US) simply, you just get some screen recording software and record the movie, unlike when you go to blockbusters you phoned, emailed you get letters through the post for overdue films or what ever, but how apple suppose to know that your screen recording the movie! its to obvious for Apple to miss!


----------



## ScottW (Jan 19, 2008)

HUH?

I don't get your point. Whats the difference between screen recording and ripping a DVD? Should auto makers not make cars, since they might wreck or someone will die? Should guns not be made, because they kill people?

If people are going to copy, they are going to copy. Apple didn't miss anything. It's the movie companies that take the risk, not Apple.


----------



## imacg5guy (Jan 19, 2008)

well... its copy right... a dummy could do it, whilst unlocking a DVD is pretty hard!you gotta pay for some software to unlock the DVD, but, with movie rentals, download a screen capturing software and it does it - EASY, i suppose apple did take the risk...


----------



## Mikuro (Jan 19, 2008)

Copying a DVD is much easier than using screen-capture tools. There are plenty of free ones, too (and the _decent_ screen capture tools all cost money, anyway). With screen capture tools, you cannot reproduce the frame rate perfectly, and it requires a lot of CPU power, so unless you have a fast system you probably couldn't do it without having the video skip frames. Also, you can't rip the stream directly, you have to convert it (causing quality loss). With DVDs, all it takes is a few clicks to get a perfect copy. You can convert it if you want, but you don't need to.

Apple didn't miss anything here. This is much better for the studios than DVDs.


----------



## lbj (Jan 19, 2008)

Where is Apple's risk?


----------



## icemanjc (Jan 19, 2008)

imacg5guy said:


> well... its copy right... a dummy could do it, whilst unlocking a DVD is pretty hard!you gotta pay for some software to unlock the DVD, but, with movie rentals, download a screen capturing software and it does it - EASY, i suppose apple did take the risk...




Simple, I don't have the time to start and stop the screen capture. It's inconvenient, to edit down what the movie will be.

My opinion for Rentals is, Apple will rule with rentals, till Netflix releases the  player for windows, since they have unlimited online watching of movies.


----------



## chevy (Jan 20, 2008)

iTunes also have unlimited free radios, this doesn't hurt the iTMS business.

Apple could add free TV channels in addition to the free podcasts on the AppleTV without a risk.


----------



## Captain Code (Jan 20, 2008)

You can't screen record a DVD using Apple's DVD player, they don't let you.  It's possible they will do this with iTunes rentals as well.  Either way, I don't get the whole point of your post.  There's always ways around DRM no matter what the companies try.  It's legal here in Canada to rip DVDs BTW if you own them, it's fair use.  It's simple and takes 5 mins or less to start the ripping if you have done it before.  And it is faster than real time.  This does not really have any big impact on the DVD rental business because the 4 rental places in my town are doing just fine.

I think renting a DVD and ripping it, thus getting a movie for only a few dollars, is actually much easier than trying to record your screen.  With screen recording you need a very fast hard drive to capture at 30 frames per second and it takes the entire length of the movie to record it.  Out of the two options, ripping off rented DVDs or ripping off rented iTunes movies, DVDs would actually be much easier.


----------



## chevy (Jan 20, 2008)

And frankly the revolution will be when we'll be able to rip DVDs that way we rip CD. No to act as a pirate, but to use my Mac as a juke box. I rip my own CDs and I buy from iTMS. So why not do the same for movies and series when the price of the hard disk will be low enough ?


----------



## symphonix (Jan 20, 2008)

I'm not quite sure I see your point, G5 guy. If you're saying people will be able to copy movies from iTunes movie rentals, well maybe they will, but then they can already do that from any other source. In fact copying from other sources such as original DVDs is easier, quicker and results in higher quality copies than any screen recording software.

People simply won't copy the movies from iTunes because it would be extremely slow, cumbersome and potentially insecure - after all, Apple places watermark information into the video files identifying which user downloaded the file.

Believe me, it is something that they have put a lot of thought into and wouldn't have been able to get it off the ground unless they could convince the movie studios involved that it was more secure against piracy than other distribution methods.


----------



## ApeintheShell (Jan 20, 2008)

Shut up iMac G5 Guy. Who cares if you can do this?
It does not mean iTunes Movie Rentals is a bad idea. They have iTunes DRM music and lo and behold they have apparently sold close to 4 billion songs.
Next time contribute something with substance instead of telling us the usual complaints. I doubt the iTunes store will loose money because a couple guys are pirating rental movies because they are too cheap to afford $3-$4 movies.


----------



## Captain Code (Jan 20, 2008)

How about you rephrase your response to be less of an ahole.


----------



## michaelsanford (Jan 20, 2008)

chevy, I rip my DVDs to my hard disk using Handbrake so that I don't have to carry them with me while traveling, which I do very regularly with my iBook. And, with Front Row, it is a jukebox! (Allbeit a slow, poorly-designed one, better to use Finder and VLC).

Also, regarding unlocking a DVD... A mechanism to lock DVDs doesn't exist, to the best of my knowledge, at least I've certainly never encountered one. If one were so inclined, I don't see any (technical!) barrier to ripping DVDs from Blockbuster willy-nilly. Naturally, such a practise would be a violation of copyright laws, and so not recommended.


----------



## ApeintheShell (Jan 20, 2008)

Sorry I am in a bad mood. 
Short version: don't pirate iTunes movies using third party software.


----------



## ElDiabloConCaca (Jan 20, 2008)

Hey, I got no problem with ApeintheShell's response -- the original poster posed a very "pointed" question, and ApeintheShell's answer was just as pointed.  No harm, no foul.

And, as ApeintheShell pointed out, "screen recording" is nothing new.  Screen recording a DRM'ed movie won't get you the same quality as the original recording -- just as burning iTMS tracks to a CD and re-importing or using Audacity to record the streams won't get you the same quality as the original DRM'ed MP4.

We've always been able to circumvent DRM on videos and audio files... nothing new here.  It's just that the "legal" ways to circumvent DRM always produce lower-quality copies of the original material instead of producing a bit-for-bit copy of the original material, which is what Apple is trying to protect against.


----------



## michaelsanford (Jan 21, 2008)

ElDiablo, that made me think of a recent experience I had trying to find foreign (Greek and Arabic) music videos from here. I just couldn't find actual DVDs or CDs. What I did find on google were videos on YouTube, taken by putting a camera up to a TV...


----------



## fryke (Jan 21, 2008)

lo-tech. yay!


----------

