Apple now offers HD movies via iTunes
Apple on Thursday started offering high-definition movies for rent or purchase on the iTunes store and said future movies would be available in HD format 30 days after their release. Apple launched an HD page on iTunes, featuring about a dozen films available immediately, such as Transporter 3, The Spirit, and The Punisher: War Zone. Apple also started taking preorders for a couple of last year’s more popular films, the latest James Bond film Quantum Of Solace and the teenage vampire film Twilight. Some of the films listed could only be purchased. Apple is selling HD films for $19.99 and renting them for $4.99 for new releases and $3.99 for older titles. Apple is renting HD movies at $1 more than regular titles. Apple’s current offerings are limited, but the company said it would be adding more HD movies soon.
Apple has been offering prime-time television shows on iTunes in HD format from all four major networks since the fall of 2008. Movies and TV shows downloaded from iTunes can be played on an Apple Mac, iPhone, and some iPod models, as well as a Windows PC. The films also can be played on a digital TV through the Apple TV set-top box. Apple isn’t alone in trying to entice people with HD content. Netflix and Blockbuster also offer HD movies online.
Source: InfoWeek
Comments(18)
cool , so why arnt we seeing a rip of The Spirit yet then ? if dvd is already online there
I hope this is a hit for Apple. I will continue to download everything for free.
r they gona try encode them in mp4's?
will be a shame if they do
19,99. kind of expensive don't you think? what's the retail price for a blu-ray in us? in sweden it's about 25-28, then 19,99 isn't really reasonable, and it's probably not even 1080.
Hmmm. 19.99, or free, in better quality. I think ill stick with free.
those first 3 titles are the worst movies ive ever seen. i didnt even watch all of punisher (inb4 "then how can you say its the worst movie you've seen?"
anyone got the tech spec's on these files? resolution? bitrate? codec used?
I know we're used to downloading BIG files but for a lot of regular users I can imagine that 5-10GB is gonna really put them off this….
Why are there only 3 titles available? THere are way more HD content films available via AppleTV, so why only three?
I am also wondering how long it's going to take for someone to download their HD version of "The Spirit" and remove the DRM that is no doubt infecting it …
At that price, it makes more sense to just buy the blu-ray version
they need to get the prices more in line with free.
there is no possible way this would be viable to anyone who has a download quota, have they started implementing those in the US yet?
why bother when it can be gotten free, and even I wanted to buy stuff i'll prefer to buy a disc with extra features i'm assuming here the downloadable content wouldn't any.
I stick with renting stuff from a store near by. I can rip and encode it the way I want it and it's considerably cheaper.
I'm not opposed to actually paying for good quality content but $19.99 for 720p, heavily DRM'd proprietary content that is not portable! Where's the value in that? They are also touting the fact that the purchase will include a iPod/iPhone version of the content…HD on a 3 inch screen…woohoo! I hope to God that this doesn't catch on as pretty much any thing Apple doe's is regarded as market standard. Netflix has a much better business model.
Apple's encoder is TERRIBLE so look forward to 'blockovision' (Apple trademark) when any action is onscreen, or 'vaseline-o-vision' (resolution drops during action scenes to avoid visible blocks).
However, since Apple fans are the least discriminating consumers in the history of capitalism, crappy video for exorbitant prices will suit Apple fans just fine. The DRM is, for them, the icing on the cake.
As bad of a deal they are offering people will actually pay for that Garbage and make Apple rich. People need to wake up… Well at least we know whats up.
Thanks Man DUDE
@15: Agreed. Their encoder (and decoder) is just HORRIBLE. Their decoder is terribly inefficient to begin with and then they add DRM on top of it and it becomes even more CPU-intensive. It's just plain bad programming.
Commenter #15 already noted the awful quality of their encoder. It's sad when a free encoder like x264 offers better quality then what Apple offers and now with the free DivX 7 H.264 decoder who needs to BUY what these a-holes are selling.
$20 for a terribly-encoded movie that needs a beast of a computer just so it wont drop frames all over the place. I think I dont need to mention how crappy iTunes/Quicktime runs on Windows either.