# Movies on iTunes?



## aved (Sep 7, 2006)

Apple Nears Deal for Feature Films on IPod
Plan Has Major Studios Divided
By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 7, 2006; Page D05

Apple Computer Inc. will soon begin selling feature-length movies online for viewing on its iPod devices, according to Hollywood sources, as the company hopes to duplicate its success with selling music through its iTunes digital store.

The service could be announced as early as Tuesday, when Apple has scheduled a "special event" of an undisclosed nature.

Apple's plan has roiled relations between Hollywood studios and big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which sell millions of DVD movies and see Apple's online distribution as a threat, said sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations were ongoing. As a result, most of the studios are not joining Apple in its rollout but may join later.

The major studio fully on board is Walt Disney Co., for which Steve Jobs, an Apple co-founder, sits on the board of directors. The Disney studios include Touchstone Pictures and Miramax Films, and the group's releases include the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, the "Scary Movie" series and "Finding Nemo." It is unclear whether all Disney studios will supply movies to iTunes initially.

Executives of Vancouver, British Columbia-based Lionsgate Films said in an investors conference call this month that their company would begin selling movies on iTunes by the end of the year. Lionsgate is a small, independent studio but has produced the current box-office hit "Crank," as well as the "Saw" horror hits and the Showtime television series "Weeds," which iTunes already sells.

Other studios, such as Universal Pictures and Warner Bros., are not participating in the initial iTunes movie rollout, as details regarding movie pricing have not been worked out. Analysts are speculating the movie downloads could run as much as $14.99 per film.

Apple sent e-mails Tuesday inviting members of the media to an event in San Francisco on Tuesday. The invitation includes no specifics but hints at its purpose by showing an Apple logo in front of crossed searchlights and the slogan "It's Showtime."

Even though Apple's iPod was not the first -- nor, some argue, the best -- digital music device, the iPod and the iTunes Music Store kick-started the legal online music business by introducing an attractive, easy-to-use player and a simple, affordable way to buy songs. Analysts estimate that nearly 60 million iPods have been sold and 1 billion songs have been bought.

Apple added $1.99 video downloads of television shows and sporting events to its iTunes service in October, and the venture has experienced modest success. For example, ABC reports that more than 3 million downloads of its hit drama "Lost" have been sold on iTunes. As Apple struggled to fill holes in its music library, complicated digital-rights issues have been keeping iTunes' video library thin.

Though sales of digital songs through iTunes and other online services bolstered a music industry crippled by illegal downloading and high CD prices, Apple's reluctance to vary its 99-cent pricing has rankled some of the major record labels.

Apple's movie plans face similar resistance in Hollywood, which partly explains why most major studios have not signed up to contribute to the new iTunes service. The major movie and television studios have made billions of dollars on sales of DVDs over the past decade -- studios now get more money from DVD sales than from box-office receipts -- and are hesitant to disrupt the revenue flow by offering movies for sale online. The studios also would like to be able to vary online movie prices.

To further complicate matters, Wal-Mart is talking to movie studios and technology companies about the possibility of offering its own movie-download service, a company spokeswoman said.

So far, Apple's video offerings have been limited to half-hour and hour-long television shows and edited versions of sporting events. The iPod with the most storage space-- 60 gigabytes -- holds 15,000 songs or 150 hours of video. Storing a number of two-hour feature films would require even more space on the iPod's hard drive, so it is possible that Apple will roll out a new iPod with greater capacity. Also, the iPod's current 2.5-inch screen may prove too small for viewing feature-length movies, so a larger-screened iPod may be in the offing, as well.

Apple makes little money on song sales -- as much as 70 cents per song goes to the music company that holds the rights and to the musicians in royalties -- but the company has used iTunes to propel sales of the iPod, which costs as much as $399. Apple shipped more than 8 million iPods in the quarter ended in July, a 32 percent increase over the previous year, the company said.

In a note to investors, Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research Inc., said he anticipates that Apple will also use the Tuesday event to roll out an upgrade to the iPod Nano player and an Apple "smart phone."


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## Trip (Sep 7, 2006)

Thanks for posting that, aved. It made for a great read while I take a break from homework.

I'm excited for the movie service and I'm pretty upset about the studios that are fighting against it. I know I would rather buy, and download, movies directly to my HD rather than go to my local store, buy a used version, and then rip it to my computer. Saving that much travel means a lot to me now that I'm constantly working or studying for school. The price tag does seem reasonable as well. Obviously not very affordable for a few selection of people, but one or two movies will most definitely be downloaded to my computer.

...That is, if the service really does make it's debute this Tuesday.


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## Satcomer (Sep 8, 2006)

This proves to me one thing, analyst are just as poor as any of us Mac users at Apple speculation. The one thing you can count on is Apple's stock going up until September 11th then tanking on September 12th.


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## pantosj (Sep 9, 2006)

Let me get this right, they expect people to pay $15 to download a DVD movie that could be picked up for free at the local library or rented for $3 at the video shop and then copied?

The market won't bear such folly.


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## aved (Sep 10, 2006)

pantosj said:


> Let me get this right, they expect people to pay $15 to download a DVD movie that could be picked up for free at the local library or rented for $3 at the video shop and then copied?
> 
> The market won't bear such folly.



Yeah I think the only chance of making it successful would be to offer movies before they are released on DVD.


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## Trip (Sep 10, 2006)

I don't agree with that theory, pantosj. I think that people with pay to have it downloaded. Like I said in my previous post: I'll occasionally buy from an online movie store if I don't want to (or can't) take the time to drive to the library/redbox/store.

It seems more convenient to me (and I'm sure there are millions of others out there that will agree) to just click "buy now" on an online store than to drive to the local redbox, type in a code (to get the movie for free), drive back home, spend an 20 minutes ripping the DVD, and then driving back to drop off the movie.

_I guess what it comes down to_ is individual needs and wants. While there may be thousands of people who prefer to get the movie for free at the library, there are equally thousands who prefer to download it from Apple.


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## MnM (Sep 11, 2006)

I love the idea of buying and downloading movies online. My main problem is quality and size. I have a full screen 32 inch television(many people have larger tvs- 42,50 inch wide screen etc) where I play music videos i downloaded from the itunes music store. I play the video on the ipod and then using the apple av cable to play it to the tv. The video quality is extreemmely poor when stretched to 36 inch. Even on my 20 inch apple display the quality is bad when stretched.

If i'm going to pay 15 dollars for a movie, I should be able to watch it on my ipod and my tv with quality being good in both areas. its no longer a movie for my ipod, its a movie for home(tv / computer). It will become and online video store and so quality should not just be for your ipod. 

The main problem with this is the download size and bandwidth. Apple will try to give you a quick download to save on bandwidth which will result in lower quality. I hope apple does not do this and use part of my 15 dollars to pay for more bandwidth and give me higher quality. These days just about everyone has cable/dsl so I see no reason why we shouldn't have higher quality. I put up with it for a 3 min music video but can't see myself watching something like that for 2 hours.


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## fryke (Sep 11, 2006)

Only because one *can* "get" a DVD from a library and copy it to his/her computer doesn't make it legal, btw. - and you have to take this into account. Also: Only because you don't think you'd ever use a service doesn't mean it wouldn't work. Heck: Those DVD rental services exist for years, I've never used them - because I want to own a DVD - and still they somehow survived. 

I personally hope that videos would be at _least_ 640px wide, because that's the least acceptable resolution for viewing stuff on a bigger screen. I don't expect them to go HD (720p), but DVD resolution would be nice. If this is going to be 320*240px iPod 5G resolution, I don't expect it to be a big hit, either. But they're not dumb, are they.


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## Trip (Sep 11, 2006)

Only problem with such high resolutions is download time.


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## fryke (Sep 11, 2006)

Well, they can't really make movie files less than 100 MB in size and have good quality at the same time. I'm sure this is an issue, but they can create 500-700 MB files with "good-enough" quality, I'd say.


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## MnM (Sep 11, 2006)

Then again if they give good quality(huge file to download). What if I'm i'm a consumer planning on just watching the movie on my ipod and I do not need that much quality? That I would rather have tons of movies at an acceptable pixel for my ipod and that alone. Rather than just a few movies that are really high quality when I only look at them on my ipod? 

My point is 
High quality = less movies on ipod/ good for tv
low quality = more movies on ipod / bad for tv

to address this problem, when the user goes to buy a movie, he or she should have multiple resolutions to pick from. You simply pick your resolution and download it. If i only look at them on ipods i pick small res. If im a tv guy I choose huge res. Simple as that. I guess we'll have to wait and see.


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## chevy (Sep 12, 2006)

Trip said:


> Only problem with such high resolutions is download time.



As long as the download is faster that the flow that goes into the reader, it's ok. This is what we experience now with the Front Row trailers.


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## Satcomer (Sep 12, 2006)

Well the Apple Store is now offline and the iTunes Music Store states "It's ShowTime". Looks like something big is in the works!


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## fryke (Sep 12, 2006)

Yep. It starts in 8 minutes, IIRC?  I'm in the chat -> http://macosx.com/forums/misc.php?do=flashchat


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## fryke (Sep 12, 2006)

ah, no. another 55 minutes...


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## Satcomer (Sep 12, 2006)

Apple 2006 September event QuickTime feed

MacRumors live coverage of September 12th event


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## Mikuro (Sep 12, 2006)

MnM said:


> I play the video on the ipod and then using the apple av cable to play it to the tv. The video quality is extreemmely poor when stretched to 36 inch. Even on my 20 inch apple display the quality is bad when stretched.


Well, the iTMS now uses full SD (640x480) resolution. Not bad. Not the future, but not bad. Of course, people with old iPods are out of luck, as they do not have the hardware capabilities to play SD videos.

This is what Apple should have done from the start. Beginning with crappy 320x240 movies was a mistake, IMO. There are going to be a lot of angry "new" iPod owners now.



The movie service is basically what I expected, but I think it's not nearly good enough to make it a hit. The pricing is no better than DVDs, and there are so many disadvantages (DRM, probably worse quality, poor hardware/software support, etc.). I'm the kind of person who rips DVDs to my computer and actually _likes_ watching movies on my computer, but there's still no way I'll use this service. It just doesn't add any value besides a little convenience. I'm sure that'll be good enough for a few people here and there, but I doubt it'll be a hit, and I doubt anyone will choose this as their only/primary means of buying movies.

With songs, iTunes really added value by allowing you to buy only one song at a time for a reasonable price. That's something you just can't get with conventional stores. And there are plenty of people who will never buy another CD after using iTunes. Same for TV shows. But for movies....nope. It just doesn't apply. That's why, IMHO, they really needed to win on price with movies, and unfortunately, they haven't done that.

I don't think it'll fail miserably, but I don't think it'll be a hit. I don't think it'll even make waves.


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## mindbend (Sep 12, 2006)

This definitely isn't the be-all end-all of movie downloads, but it's a good first step. I'm sure Apple's hands were tied on many levels with Hollywood. And other issues may just be more technical. 

But where this neds to be in a few years is 1080P downloads for $9.99 (new or old) with a complete library. You get there and you can basically say goodbye to Blockbuster and Netflix. It's going to be a while though, but it's the future for sure.


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## MnM (Sep 12, 2006)

I personally will buy one just to try it. I doubt i will be contented with the quality. I think they should have at least start it off with 720 HD support and then upgrade to full HD. The thing with full HD is that it takes up tons of space on ur ipod...which will suck. To address this issue they could have offer full HD and build a video resizer into itunes to resize videos specifcally for ur ipod. That would give high quality for your tv...and won't kill the space on your ipod.


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## fryke (Sep 12, 2006)

I've been transcoding my DVD library to MPEG-4 and H.264 for a long time, and I've found 640*x to be adequate. 720*x increases the file size, but the end result, watching the files on a video beamer, is not _that_ much of a difference. 512*x is too low, but 640*x is "good enough".

If you're looking around, it doesn't look like HD-DVD or BluRay are going to take off like rockets anytime soon. So "DVD quality" is not so bad for now. I'm sure we'll have HD movies on iTMS before 2008 as well.

The only thing I _really_ don't like is that iTunes doesn't like my .avi's, so I have to actually open the files in QuickTime and save them as .mov's without the data (i.e. links) to trick iTunes into thinking it can read the files. Works, but I end up with a link for every movie. So... I'll either have to re-encode or simply use FrontRow to watch them instead of using them in iTunes. I guess I still hope there'll be a day when iTunes can read the files Quicktime can.


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## pishnaris (Sep 13, 2006)

Looking downstream a couple of years might show us that software/hardware will have progressed to the point that HD movies will be downloaded, playable only on the machine/owner that was made the purchase, will be DVD recordable for playback on that machine only, and will significantly reduce the price of purchasing the product.

The entertainment industry will have to come to grips with the ability of people to rip current DVDs, or trade them cheaply, as LaLa is now doing with CDs (totally beats the RIAA, and is completely legal).  

The industry is going to be compelled to rely on digital downloading to sell their product.  That will spawn nearly unbreakable protection schemes, making the distribution medium profitable.  

It's gotta happen for movies, and music, too.  High-speed downloads; high-power encryption; no more middle-man.  Might even make it affordable.  But how can you beat rentals for now?


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## MnM (Sep 15, 2006)

I was curious to see what the new resolution apple is offering would look like. Naturally I would have easily made a 640x480 of a movie I own and  see what it looks. As it turns out, I don't have the time to do so right now.

Luckily for me I found this: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewTVSeason?i=186840718&id=189262489&s=143441

I'm downloading it right now. Its a free episode of a new disney show name "the replacements". Its animated but at least some of us who are curious about quality gets a chance to see what it looks like. The quality of cartoon animations and real video may differ, but its still better than nothing and its free.


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## MnM (Sep 15, 2006)

Just saw the quality. Its not that bad considering I had it full screen on an apple 20 inch display. As for the actual TV show I didn't look at it. Its childish and I can see why its free.


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## ADDABAD (Mar 31, 2008)

I HAVE AN IBOOK G4 WITH OS X 10.5.  BUT CAN NO LONGER PLAY NOVIES A MUSIC VIDROS FULL SCTRRN.  SLL THAT PLAYS ISA LITTLE BOX.  CAN YOU HELP ME?
ADDABAD@AOL.COM


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## Natobasso (Mar 31, 2008)

Is the res as good as Netflix's view on demand service?


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