Apple rivals DVD with new iTunes Extras for movies and albums - Page 2

Maybe I'm remembering it incorrectly, since I do not have a slow internet connection. Does the Apple TV have instant playback upon rental/purchase? The xBox's rental system required waiting until the movie had downloaded to a certain point; I tried both of them out briefly before signing up with Netflix.

Convenience is absolutely a factor, I don't disagree. But with the way the distribution rights work for movies, digital rental or purchase is not a one stop shop the way it is for music. The inability to rely on iTunes or your cable provider for all of your movie needs (you don't know what they'll have or if they'll still have it the next time you check) makes it an inconvenience compared to Netflix or Blockbuster, who will undoubtedly have the movie I want and in the highest quality available to date.

I rent from Netflix; it's cost effective and there's not a movie they don't have. Sure I can't have a movie instantly, but if I can't stay on top of managing my queue and mailing movies back I'm probably too busy to watch a movie anyway. I only buy the movies I want the most, and pick them up at the store on the way home the day of their release. Can't get a whole lot more convenient than that.

Now, if I knew I could rely on Apple to have the movie I wanted streamed to my television in Blu-Ray quality for a low monthly subscription fee, of course I would be all over that. But with the current pricing, quality and selection it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Hulu is free. There is no monetary charge thus it is free. Nobody is forced to watch ads, we can visit another website via another tab while the ads play. Yes you don't own it, but you don't own cable TV and that is definitely not free.

I don't know if Hulu is apropos to a discussion of paid media.

I think online music is gangbusters because of convenience and price, not just convenience. You can buy just one track for a dirt cheap price, before, you had to buy the whole album even if you only wanted that one track, more convenient and much cheaper.

Paid movie & TV downloads have convenience, but not price, so it's not surprising that Apple hasn't announced their video sales numbers in a long time, I don't think anyone else has either.



That's surprising, it's not that hard to treat an optical disc properly. I think I have one CD that has issues, and I have one DVD that has issues. I don't know if people that can't treat media very well can treat hardware very well either, how long do their computers last? My guess is that they probably don't have any backups either, so if their drive dies, then poof, everything they've bought is gone unless they can cajole the seller to allow them to re download it again.

you must not have children

and who cares how long the hardware lasts, digital content doesn't have to stay on one machine. It can move as many times as you need it to.

i don't, but even if i did, all my cd's are safely put into nice boxes on a shelf. And i know everyone who has kids say they'd get into my cd's anyway...but, i would teach my kids the value of not puking on my cds and dvds.

I never played with my parent's records or 8-tracks, while they were looking, but when i did i made darn sure i was careful. because i was taught to respect other people's things.

Holy crap dude. Hulu does not cost the viewer money. Ergo, it's free. If I watch The Daily Show in iTunes it costs me $2 an episode. If I want to watch The Daily Show on television I have to have a minimum $50/mo cable plan to get a package that includes Comedy Central and also sit through commercials. if I watch The Daily Show on Hulu it costs me nothing. See?

I have no desire to own something I'm only ever going to watch once.

Do you think kids are born with an adult mentality? Are 5 year olds not going to watch movies if they are your kids? I share my music and movies with my kids. Music and movies aren't priceless treasures, they are entertainment. Quite a few I buy specifically for my kids (like all of the pixar movies). They watch them so much they sometimes get scratched and won't play. That wouldn't happen with digital copies, just like it hasn't happened on the digital copies of my music, some of which is out of print.

Buying Apple TVs and digital downloads would have made a lot more sense than buying DVDs and DVD players.

What happens when Apple discontinues the Apple TV because of poor sales, and the one you already own stops working or ceases to be compatible with some future digital media format? Buy a $600 Mac Mini stuck in Front Row mode as opposed to a replacement $30 DVD player? How about buying DVDs and ripping them to an Apple TV so you have a physical backup that's compatible with a billion devices?

Since when are DVD movies encoded at 720p!?

Digital media??? CD's, DVD's, and Blu-Rays are all digital media.

I can always plug my iPod, iPhone or laptop into my TV and run front row. I don't know if they will always make an AppleTV, but I know they'll always have a way to play videos on TV.

One holdback on going that route is the lack of the extras, which was corrected today. Another one that has been corrected previously was the inability to have the HD content in iTunes.

The main remaining issue is you can't easily rip movies you own into iTunes

Again though, why not buy a copy on DVD, rip it to an iPod-compatible format, and then store the DVD safely away from the destructive children?


Um, it was corrected for fourteen movies. Fourteen.

Apple's "HD" content is about 1/10th the size of the same content on Blu-Ray; that's how much more they're compressing movies. The issue has not been corrected. The double copies you have to download for HD content (one SD for iPods/iPhones, one HD for your computer and Apple TV) is also a mess.


Maybe that's the main remaining issue for you, but Apple's movie distribution has a ton of BIG remaining issues. Digital distribution is a mess right now, largely due to distribution windows. Apple's offerings are relatively slim, and ever-changing. Movies come and go depending on who currently has exclusive rights. Some are available for rent, some for purchase, and some in HD; you can't count on ever knowing which they'll offer, if the film you're looking for is offered at all. And they're often available one month and not the next. It's an unreliable, inconsistent mess. Even if all of that were corrected, the prices are too high and the quality too low.

What if there was a format that was 10x that of Blu-ray, would you drop Blu-ray for it immediately because Blu-rays high-profile H.264 would now be old news? Would Blu-ray now look like shit to you? I doubt it would, but that is how a lot of use feel about lesser HD quality or even up-coverted DVDs or even SD. I find iTS more than sufficient for my needs when i want to rent to a movie. I havent been to a video store in years now (well before the iTS rented movies) and I cant stand renting my Netflix video days in advance and then have to postpose a viewing from an occasional scratch. Blu-ray is great, but its not the only format and say that its the ONLY method ones hosuld use is silly. There are many people using many formats for many reasons. There is no reason why they cant co-exist. I personally dont like owning movies or TV shows so Blu-ray ownership at any price is just a waist to me and i dont have large enough HDTV that Im sitting so close to that iTS HD content doesnt look considerably better than SD to me.

No. Unless you're looking at a 100 inch screen (which will never become the norm in homes), 1920x1080 Blu-Ray is seemingly lossless to the human eye. Until they start shooting films and television shows on some crazy 3D cameras (at which point content would be limited), the home theatre experience isn't going to get much better than what today's high end HDTVs coupled with a Blu-Ray player gets you.

Except for all the inconveniences that have been mentioned already. The only area that will improve for Blu-ray is that players wont take as long to load in the future, or seek. Its far from the ideal entertainment utopia you make it out to be. Its the best A/V quality we can get in the home these days, but there is more than A/V quality when it comes to the total experience.

What inconveniences are those?

It won't be getting better because it really has no areas it needs to or could improve. Apple's distribution model and format on the other hand is still trying to play catch up to to DVD, let alone Blu-Ray.

The ones previously mentioned about time, energy, and expense of going out and getting a BRD and lack of convenience for an instance purchase from your home.


Yes, there are. As previously stated, BRD players cant change chapters as fast my iTunes Store rental or DVD can. There is just too much data for these players to handle that kind of instant switch at this point.

Sadly, RIPping DVDs is ilegal in many countries (DMCA or equivelant), even if you own the DVD so I highly doubt Apple, which sells movies, would break the law and piss off the studios on one go.

It depends on your commute, but for me I can walk into a store and purchase a movie literally on my way home without any added expense or energy. What do you do when a movie isn't available from iTunes, which is often the case? There are only 63 movies available for purchase in HD from iTunes at this time. Where's the convenience in that?


How much chapter changing do you honestly do while watching a film? Apparently a lot if the few extra seconds it takes is a major factor in your buying habits.

I've tried watching an HD trailer on my AppleTV and I gotta say that convenience was painful experience. Black screen for a long time so I had to stop it because nobody in our house could use the internet. The 1.5 Mbps DSL we have isn't slow. I will stick with Amazon and Netflix.

That is quite slow for HD. That would choke SD, too as the Mbps for Apples SD is over your maximum ASDL speed. There HD isnt great compared to Blu-ray but there content is at nearly 5Mbps. You just cant stream it right away on a slow ASDL connection like that. Going to the video store may be a better option for you the way it is for Cory. Heck, my iPhone on 3G gets often gets higher connection speeds than your ADSL, though its obvious not constant and there is additional latency that make a cellular connection less than ideal for stream HD, too, but my cable is 20Mbps/2Mbps so I can watch them immediately and it dont negatively affect the rest of my network. I can even watch high-profile H.264 1080p HD trailers with very little pause. Im not sure if the trailer you watched matches the bitrate of Apples HD content or if its the much higher quality stuff that Apples trailer site offers. Regardless, your connection will require a buffering of any HD content.

Well said

Other than selection, I think Apple has caught up to DVD. Typical network bandwidth isn't fast enough for them to match blu ray. That will change over time. For now, the question is if it's "good enough". It depends on what you're watching. Some movies you want every bit, for others it really doesn't matter all that much.

it's interesting, though, that some complain that Apple's quality isn't as high as Blu Ray while others complain their HD content doesn't stream as fast as the junk quality you get from netflix streaming. For me, Apple's SD content starts about as fast as Netflix, but Apple doesn't degrade the video the way netflix does. My connection is fast enough, netflix streaming rarely gives me their best quality, pretty much never looks as good as Apple, and at times degrades into pixel hell.

Again, the biggest issue is the inability to easily rip DVDs into iTunes. This may never get fixed, they have a partial solution - a key to a free digital copy bundled with some DVDs and Blu Rays. It would be nice if at some point the free copy with a blu ray was the HD version.

Its fine not updating the DVD authoring tools if your customers only want to download movies through Itunes but how are we Mac users going to record our personal Movies and files? last I heard we were computer users and so we need BD or other high capacity media

Another gripe is that there is no price differentiation between the physical and digital version of the movie how greedy can these movie companies be?

Given that the iTunes Extra file is HTML/CSS/AAC/H264, can it be transferred or viewed on the iPhone/iPod Touch? Both devices are capable of displaying such material, so it would be a shame if this feature weren't present at launch.

Such functionality would certainly add to the appeal of iTunes Extra's!

Also, I'm guessing that iTunes 9 now contains WebKit???

You'll have to pry my CDs out of my cold dead hands. With that being said, the "iTunes LP" format does look nice.

Could these video professionals not create a HD video podcast? There seems to be a large number of them (all free from my experience though) that are produced by semi-professionals. That would seem to be a reasonable way to distribute your content. Now, can they do these "extras" for a video podcast?!

First off, no, my friends do NOT have the worst etiquette on the planet. That honor goes to my old neighbors. They had horrible "etiquette" when it came to CD and DVD care. Almost to the point of using CDs as drink coasters (almost). terrible, I know.

No, most of my friends take really good care of their CDs and DVDs. Most. But what I am saying is that even under the most extreme care and maintenance, ALL current hardware, data storage, etc. is NOT immune from defects, humidity, temperature shifts, etc. But, by also making a "Golden" rule, like you have, that "If a CD is out lasted by a piece of computer hardware, then you've got problems." is utter ridiculous. So, does that mean that my Commodore 64 hardware somehow "defies" logic and truth because it has still survived and has outlived 6 of my CDs? - Which, by the way, were carefully maintained and cared for, but were damaged because of CD Rot ("Initial music CDs were known to suffer from "CD rot", or "laser rot", in which the internal reflective layer degrades. When this occurs the CD may become unplayable.").

So - don't make "Golden" Rules, don't believe the hype, and don't scoff at anyone who thinks that these rules are NOT set in stone and anything else is someone "having problems." Nothing lasts forever and nothing is immune to aging. All I am saying is that everyone should backup, backup, backup, as well as care for their items (hardware, storage, etc.), transfer data every few years to a new storage system and not rely on any set of rules when it comes to a lifespan of anything, especially when it comes to the industry saying anything about their product lasting 100 years. If you believe that, there's this Nigerian Prince who wants to have a chat with you . . .

If they wanted, they could open this to podcasts etc too, which would be interesting.

There's no real reason the same concept (perhaps different content) couldn't work on the iPhone. AppleTV should be possible too...

Listen to that, I got an Apple TV and I got a Blu-Ray player.

I rent the last batman on a Blu-Ray disc and I rent the same thing in HD on the Apple TV.

Then I play both film on my 58 inch plasma 1080p TV and switch from the Blu-Ray to the Apple TV several time to compare the quality of the image.

Conclusion.....

I did'nt see any difference in the quality of the image on both way.
It takes 1 minute to the Blu-Ray to start begining when I put the disc in the disc reader.
It takes also 1 minute for the Apple TV to start to listen the film

BLU-RAY
It takes me 45 minutes of travelling to rent my Blu-Ray, because I went to the video club 4 times for the film. (go get it and return it and come back to home)
I forgot to return the film in time and it cost me another day of renting

APPLE TV
it takes me 0 minute for travelling and if I forgot the film I have no extra charge because the film erase by itself when it's the time

In a survey last winter related to the Apple TV I suggest Apple to make an iDVD to make digital menu available for the Apple TV.

Having our own film done by our camera and create menu like a DVD but exportable to the Apple TV or iTunes, the same way that iTunes extra work.

I think this is the way iDVD will evolved and this will be unique in the market.

They're not- who said they are?
Youre' talking HD downloads. The article never mentions that. The vast majority of content in iTunes is measley SD- "near DVD quality".
SD iTunes movies have always sucked big time compared to DVDs in resolution.

Has this guy ever used a blu-ray player? You can actually see what's in the other chapters while the movie is in progress which is a major advantage- period. The is no need to back out of the movie itself! And is there is a diff is the actual skip - what is it a nana-second? Come on!

Podcasts are a means of distribution, but I'm not convinced there is enough money in it, relying on donations, branded items and sponsored ads, vs. being in the store where the watcher pays money


There is a point there, but then, all my BDs show up in my mail box. Unless you have a ripping fast connection, you'll still need to plan ahead a bit either way.



Chapter skips do seem plenty quick to me. iTunes videos seem clunkier to me on a Mac Pro than a BD is on a PS3.

Its a step in the right direction, but there's still a lot of steps along the way. Unless you get a way to import your optical library (with extras) and you get TV options other than a single set top box, you're not going the adoption rates rise much.

Just saying it doesn't make it so.

If they were the same thing there wouldn't be two terms. You can't just say "dogs are cats" and expect it to fly.

A-men!

Well, that's a rather misleading point of view considering they only offer fourteen movies with extras and their SD quality doesn't match DVD. If they'd launched this new extras thing with thousands of movies and upped the quality of the encode in the process then I would agree. It's a nice solution in theory.


Some shots look just fine with Apple's low bitrates, because some shots simply don't contain as much information; the same is true for the overly compressed HD content cable companies spit out. When it's a stationary bright shot of just heads talking, it usually looks great; dark scenes or fast moving content however is another story altogether. In my experience those who can't see the difference either don't have their gear connected properly, are sitting too far from their television, or don't have their glasses on.

But they need to built a big campus with a lot of server to contain all those movie and extra, pay for the enormous bandwith.

Your kind of deluding yourself here a bit. Hulu is not free in the exact same way as the alternative you are presenting in your argument.

To watch Hulu you have to pay (in my case), about $50 a month for the Internet connection and you have to sit though the ads. It's almost the exact same situation as broadcast TV or cable TV. You say that you can switch away from the ads when they come on and "not watch them," but the same argument was made in 1960 for broadcast Television. It still remains *possible* in both cases to leave the room and not watch the ads, but the reality is that you watch the ads. If you personally don't then fine, you are a demanding OCD type after my own heart, but most people will watch the ads.

In fact, the only real, significant difference between a Hulu situation and broadcast TV is the "breadth" as it were, of the distribution. Broadcast TV (now all but gone), "leaked" and was available to people who didn't pay for it by virtue of having rabbit ears on top of their set. There is a progression from broadcast TV, through cable and satellite, and then specialty channels subscription cable and private satellites, and finally to Hulu, where the media company is trying to close down access. To narrow that pipe and to make the user on the end of it pay more.

To get Hulu for instance, you have to first move to the United States. That may be a side issue to you, but it's relevant in terms of that narrow distribution pipe model. Most of the world can't get Hulu, and if and when they do get such services, they will be different, but similar narrow distribution pipes to other markets if the media companies get their way. The end user also loses out in that with broadcast TV and with cable and satellite, the user can save a copy of what they are watching. With Internet distribution you can't save it, and if you could, you won't be able to remove the ads either.

Things like Hulu are a win-win for the media companies, not the end user. Freedom is restricted, distribution is restricted and ownership is restricted. It's touted as "free" when in fact it is not and also comes with all these restrictions.

I know you probably think I'm making a big deal of it, but it's important. The proverbial wool is being pulled over your eyes and it's important to speak up about what they are doing. You don't really think that NBC or any of the big media companies is going to be doing stuff like this because they love the end user and just want to make them happy with free TV do you?

These companies operate out of self interest and self interest alone and their "customer" is not you, it's the advertiser. Apple at least is a consumer company that has the end user's interests at heart.