For all of the people saying that they want their HD movies from iTunes now and to hurry up with the upgrades of mac and all that other impatient stuff need to just sit back and relax. I personally haven't been disappointed with Apple because they get the stuff out there and they get it done right. If we had our HD videos right now, we would have people on here saying that the video downloads take too long, instead of being able to buy a song, wait (for me not even 30 seconds) for the video to download, and enjoy a great movie. Apple will get it done and will get it done right, a la the Merom Macbooks and Pros, iTV (TelePort or whatever), "True Video ipod" and the next chapter of Intel chips.
We all just need to sit back. Relax. It will come, and it will be good.
This rate of downloads will NOT sustain into the future. NOBODY -- and I mean NOBODY -- wants to download movies that are the exact same price as DVD's but offer NO compelling advantages at all. The only reason 125,000 downloads took place in the first week was because all of the reporters & bloggers were testing out the new service to see if it works. Normal people will NOT pay these premium prices to download inferior products. It just won't happen. The rate of downloads for this week has probably already plummeted.
I'm actually glad Apple started small. They can build the brand slowly, work out the kinks, and adjust the service as it grows.
I was initially skeptical (well, I still am). And I remember posting about Apple getting hammered in the press for long download times, low quality (res/bandwidth), lack of features, etc. Well, here we go:
I won't be downloading any movies anytime soon, given the quality and lack of features (I am actually someone who will watch a movie, then watch it again the next night with commentary, and since I have a little girl who likes to get out of bed, my wife and I have now defaulted to turning the volume low and turning subtitles on).
But if Apple is willing to change the res on TV shows, this makes me hopeful that they'll increase the res to 480p once the iTV and the "true" video iPod have the stamp of approval (MWSF07?). Hopefully, the bw will increase as well, since blockiness is actually more annoying than the slightly lower resolution.
Burning to disk is also a must since watching movies in our LAFRTs (long-ass family road trips) is now a necessity.
Here's hoping the iTS matures quickly.
I would suspect bandwidth throtling fro his ISP. I only have 1MB DSL and none of the movies I have downloaded have taken longer than 3 hours.
This rate of downloads will NOT sustain into the future. NOBODY -- and I mean NOBODY -- wants to download movies that are the exact same price as DVD's but offer NO compelling advantages at all. The only reason 125,000 downloads took place in the first week was because all of the reporters & bloggers were testing out the new service to see if it works. Normal people will NOT pay these premium prices to download inferior products. It just won't happen. The rate of downloads for this week has probably already plummeted.
Proof?
I think your whole argument is biased to your point of view.
edit: Apple nor Disney would publish numbers like this if the sales were trending down like you propose. It would kill them later on.
This rate of downloads will NOT sustain into the future. NOBODY -- and I mean NOBODY -- wants to download movies that are the exact same price as DVD's but offer NO compelling advantages at all. The only reason 125,000 downloads took place in the first week was because all of the reporters & bloggers were testing out the new service to see if it works. Normal people will NOT pay these premium prices to download inferior products. It just won't happen. The rate of downloads for this week has probably already plummeted.
What do you base your conclusions on? Convienence has always been a motivating factor in buying patterns. Also, quaility drops all the time and people seem to get used to it (not something I like, but it happens) -- take the iTunes tunes -- are they as high a quaility as something on your gold-standard and above CD? Don't think so. Yet, people still buy those iTunes because they're convienent. Will it slow? Predictions say "yes" but up until the next big DVD/iTunes releases. Then it will be telling: are people going to iTunes to get the latest movies?
TV's have a smaller audience because people watch TV on TV. They buy movies.
What you need to compare is the DVD sales of movies and the DVD sales of TV shows. There are more DVD's sold of movies than TV shows!
You can't compare the DVD sales of movies and TV shows. TV shows are made to be watched on TV, not on DVD. People who really enjoy the TV show on TV will buy the DVD to watch their favorite shows all the time. You can only watch movies on either the big screen or DVD. And both have to be paid for up front.
And also. People who keep saying that the prices are not worth it, I want to know where you all are getting your DVDs from for 10 bucks. I bought Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy for 9.99 widescreen, where if I went to Walmart, it would be 20 bucks for the fullscreen version.
TV's have a smaller audience because people watch TV on TV. They buy movies.
What you need to compare is the DVD sales of movies and the DVD sales of TV shows. There are more DVD's sold of movies than TV shows!
Source?
And actually, that's a really flawed comparison. Very few people buy a whole set of episodes on DVD, but they'll buy an episode online they missed. It's the same as the buy-by-the-track on the iTMS, and we've all seen what a horrible idea *that* turned out to be...
This rate of downloads will NOT sustain into the future. NOBODY -- and I mean NOBODY -- wants to download movies that are the exact same price as DVD's but offer NO compelling advantages at all. The only reason 125,000 downloads took place in the first week was because all of the reporters & bloggers were testing out the new service to see if it works. Normal people will NOT pay these premium prices to download inferior products. It just won't happen. The rate of downloads for this week has probably already plummeted.
If nobody will pay for lower quality products, why is it that convienience products, such as Netflix and Gamefly and GameLender, have basically rendered Blockbuster's memberships useless? Why drive when you can get the same product for free. You don't get a case with it and you don't get a fancy little description on the back to read, but its still the movie.
Most people who buy movies, aren't buying them because they are superhigh quality DVDs that will play on their BluRay drives with surround sound 5.1 dolby blah blah blah. They are buying them because they are a great movie, and it is easily accessible.
Edit add on: This service is targeted towards Joe Blow. You know the one, with his 15' CRT tv and his Gateway 333MHz desktop with 12 inch monitor. For the time being, we High Def people are going to have to wait for our turn. The masses don't have 52 inch 1080p LCD HDTVs with Xbox 360s and BluRay players.
Lower than DVD quality. A 16:9 DVD movie is 720x480. An iTunes movie is 640x360. Really. Not bad, not noticeable.
Quality is based on more variables than just pixels.
Quote:
Using the iPod as a transport medium is I think exactly what Apple is trying to get you to do. Rather than go over to a friend's place with a stack of cds and dvds, you can take one pocket-sized device.
I agree the cost is about convenience.
Quote:
-even though iTunes uses H.264, which is slightly better then MPEG-2 (maybe 30-40% better), there's just not enough bandwidth being used to offer 'DVD Quality'
- so you'll get blocky artifacts on fast moving scenes.
Bandwidth is important. But it is not the sole reason for artifacts. If it were then you would never see artifacts in DVD's. Artifacts are more prominent in older DVD's and less prominent in newer ones because the art of compression was not as good as it is now. Artifacts can be over come with good compression and encoding technique.
Professional compression companies discriminately apply compression differently to different parts of a movie. More compression is applied to parts of the movie that have long stagnant shots or shots that are bright. Less compression is applied to scenes that are fast moving or extremely dark.
Quote:
I know that the movies cost more, but they also have a bigger audience.
No television has a much bigger audience than movies.
A network television show with decent to good ratings has an audience of around 8-12 million people watching it at the same time. Anything under that is mediocre. A network television show with great ratings has 18-20 million people watching it at the same time.
A movie is a smash hit if 2 million people watch it in the theater on the first weekend.
This rate of downloads will NOT sustain into the future. NOBODY -- and I mean NOBODY -- wants to download movies that are the exact same price as DVD's but offer NO compelling advantages at all.
I think you underestimate the people who spend $2.50 for a ring tone.
I think you underestimate the people who spend $2.50 for a ring tone.
HAHA YES!
And once more, where are you all buying your movies for 10 dollars? The best price I could find was at Amazon for 13.99 for Hitchhickers widescreen DVD.... and iTunes sells it for 9.99. I don't see where people are paying extra for convienience, to me it seems like its cheaper for a similar product. 14.99 for a brand new movie? I can't even find one in stock at walmart for 20 bucks!
And once more, where are you all buying your movies for 10 dollars? The best price I could find was at Amazon for 13.99 for Hitchhickers widescreen DVD.... and iTunes sells it for 9.99. I don't see where people are paying extra for convienience, to me it seems like its cheaper for a similar product. 14.99 for a brand new movie? I can't even find one in stock at walmart for 20 bucks!
Yup, there's the "good buy" factor. And for those with kids, it's worse. My son wants to see the latest Disney flick. At $2.99 on pay-per-view, he can watch it over and over and over again... for 24 hours. A week later, he wants to see it again. We're now up to $6. Not to mention I don't want to get up and go to the movie rental store. And even if I did, whose to say it isn't all rented out (hey, hey, I should call first... but that's more hassle). So, for me, this is great.
HD? Sure, I want it. But how much are brand new Blueray discs going to cost me? Once our bands are broader and we can download HD from iTunes, there will be an even greater profit margin, and better deal for us.
Comparing selling movies vs. TV by comparing audiences is now officially useless. More people watch TV, but more people rent movies .... these trends don't really matter anymore. The huge gaps between TV and movies and YouTube is going to get smaller and smaller so that kids today won't think of them as we do.
iPods and iTunesStore have changed the paradigm, the debate, the framework for the discussion.
Old opinions and models no longer work.
We don't know how many movies per week is great or not yet. We don't know if it can be sustained. We don't know yet what people will do with them yet.
And once more, where are you all buying your movies for 10 dollars? The best price I could find was at Amazon for 13.99 for Hitchhickers widescreen DVD.... and iTunes sells it for 9.99. I don't see where people are paying extra for convienience, to me it seems like its cheaper for a similar product. 14.99 for a brand new movie? I can't even find one in stock at walmart for 20 bucks!
half.ebay.com sells it used for under $10. Also, prices are cheaper for me when I share titles among family members and friends. And it is pretty convienient to be able to take the DVD to babysitter or cousin's house. The downside is sometimes I don't remember who has the DVD so I don't even know who to ask to get it back.
Comments
i bet amazon sold more.
If that is the case, Apple will surpass them in a week or two.
It seems to be universally accepted that Unbox (Amazon's attempt at movie distribution) is an embarrassing cluster-fkcu.
We all just need to sit back. Relax. It will come, and it will be good.
... Just as long as the iPod outputs 640x480 to TV, and not 320x240. Anyone know that answer? Maybe we won't know until the 5.5Gs are in our hands.
Yes all the Gen 5 and Gen 5.5 iPods do video out at 640x480 (Im the proud owner of the 80gig
Movies have a bigger audience than *TV* shows?
Really? I kind of doubt that, to be honest.
TV's have a smaller audience because people watch TV on TV. They buy movies.
What you need to compare is the DVD sales of movies and the DVD sales of TV shows. There are more DVD's sold of movies than TV shows!
I'm actually glad Apple started small. They can build the brand slowly, work out the kinks, and adjust the service as it grows.
I was initially skeptical (well, I still am). And I remember posting about Apple getting hammered in the press for long download times, low quality (res/bandwidth), lack of features, etc. Well, here we go:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09...ovie_download/
I won't be downloading any movies anytime soon, given the quality and lack of features (I am actually someone who will watch a movie, then watch it again the next night with commentary, and since I have a little girl who likes to get out of bed, my wife and I have now defaulted to turning the volume low and turning subtitles on).
But if Apple is willing to change the res on TV shows, this makes me hopeful that they'll increase the res to 480p once the iTV and the "true" video iPod have the stamp of approval (MWSF07?). Hopefully, the bw will increase as well, since blockiness is actually more annoying than the slightly lower resolution.
Burning to disk is also a must since watching movies in our LAFRTs (long-ass family road trips) is now a necessity.
Here's hoping the iTS matures quickly.
I would suspect bandwidth throtling fro his ISP. I only have 1MB DSL and none of the movies I have downloaded have taken longer than 3 hours.
This rate of downloads will NOT sustain into the future. NOBODY -- and I mean NOBODY -- wants to download movies that are the exact same price as DVD's but offer NO compelling advantages at all. The only reason 125,000 downloads took place in the first week was because all of the reporters & bloggers were testing out the new service to see if it works. Normal people will NOT pay these premium prices to download inferior products. It just won't happen. The rate of downloads for this week has probably already plummeted.
Proof?
I think your whole argument is biased to your point of view.
edit: Apple nor Disney would publish numbers like this if the sales were trending down like you propose. It would kill them later on.
This rate of downloads will NOT sustain into the future. NOBODY -- and I mean NOBODY -- wants to download movies that are the exact same price as DVD's but offer NO compelling advantages at all. The only reason 125,000 downloads took place in the first week was because all of the reporters & bloggers were testing out the new service to see if it works. Normal people will NOT pay these premium prices to download inferior products. It just won't happen. The rate of downloads for this week has probably already plummeted.
What do you base your conclusions on? Convienence has always been a motivating factor in buying patterns. Also, quaility drops all the time and people seem to get used to it (not something I like, but it happens) -- take the iTunes tunes -- are they as high a quaility as something on your gold-standard and above CD? Don't think so. Yet, people still buy those iTunes because they're convienent. Will it slow? Predictions say "yes" but up until the next big DVD/iTunes releases. Then it will be telling: are people going to iTunes to get the latest movies?
TV's have a smaller audience because people watch TV on TV. They buy movies.
What you need to compare is the DVD sales of movies and the DVD sales of TV shows. There are more DVD's sold of movies than TV shows!
You can't compare the DVD sales of movies and TV shows. TV shows are made to be watched on TV, not on DVD. People who really enjoy the TV show on TV will buy the DVD to watch their favorite shows all the time. You can only watch movies on either the big screen or DVD. And both have to be paid for up front.
And also. People who keep saying that the prices are not worth it, I want to know where you all are getting your DVDs from for 10 bucks. I bought Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy for 9.99 widescreen, where if I went to Walmart, it would be 20 bucks for the fullscreen version.
TV's have a smaller audience because people watch TV on TV. They buy movies.
What you need to compare is the DVD sales of movies and the DVD sales of TV shows. There are more DVD's sold of movies than TV shows!
Source?
And actually, that's a really flawed comparison. Very few people buy a whole set of episodes on DVD, but they'll buy an episode online they missed. It's the same as the buy-by-the-track on the iTMS, and we've all seen what a horrible idea *that* turned out to be...
This rate of downloads will NOT sustain into the future. NOBODY -- and I mean NOBODY -- wants to download movies that are the exact same price as DVD's but offer NO compelling advantages at all. The only reason 125,000 downloads took place in the first week was because all of the reporters & bloggers were testing out the new service to see if it works. Normal people will NOT pay these premium prices to download inferior products. It just won't happen. The rate of downloads for this week has probably already plummeted.
If nobody will pay for lower quality products, why is it that convienience products, such as Netflix and Gamefly and GameLender, have basically rendered Blockbuster's memberships useless? Why drive when you can get the same product for free. You don't get a case with it and you don't get a fancy little description on the back to read, but its still the movie.
Most people who buy movies, aren't buying them because they are superhigh quality DVDs that will play on their BluRay drives with surround sound 5.1 dolby blah blah blah. They are buying them because they are a great movie, and it is easily accessible.
Edit add on: This service is targeted towards Joe Blow. You know the one, with his 15' CRT tv and his Gateway 333MHz desktop with 12 inch monitor. For the time being, we High Def people are going to have to wait for our turn. The masses don't have 52 inch 1080p LCD HDTVs with Xbox 360s and BluRay players.
Lower than DVD quality. A 16:9 DVD movie is 720x480. An iTunes movie is 640x360. Really. Not bad, not noticeable.
Quality is based on more variables than just pixels.
Using the iPod as a transport medium is I think exactly what Apple is trying to get you to do. Rather than go over to a friend's place with a stack of cds and dvds, you can take one pocket-sized device.
I agree the cost is about convenience.
-even though iTunes uses H.264, which is slightly better then MPEG-2 (maybe 30-40% better), there's just not enough bandwidth being used to offer 'DVD Quality'
- so you'll get blocky artifacts on fast moving scenes.
Bandwidth is important. But it is not the sole reason for artifacts. If it were then you would never see artifacts in DVD's. Artifacts are more prominent in older DVD's and less prominent in newer ones because the art of compression was not as good as it is now. Artifacts can be over come with good compression and encoding technique.
Professional compression companies discriminately apply compression differently to different parts of a movie. More compression is applied to parts of the movie that have long stagnant shots or shots that are bright. Less compression is applied to scenes that are fast moving or extremely dark.
I know that the movies cost more, but they also have a bigger audience.
No television has a much bigger audience than movies.
A network television show with decent to good ratings has an audience of around 8-12 million people watching it at the same time. Anything under that is mediocre. A network television show with great ratings has 18-20 million people watching it at the same time.
A movie is a smash hit if 2 million people watch it in the theater on the first weekend.
This rate of downloads will NOT sustain into the future. NOBODY -- and I mean NOBODY -- wants to download movies that are the exact same price as DVD's but offer NO compelling advantages at all.
I think you underestimate the people who spend $2.50 for a ring tone.
I think you underestimate the people who spend $2.50 for a ring tone.
HAHA YES!
And once more, where are you all buying your movies for 10 dollars? The best price I could find was at Amazon for 13.99 for Hitchhickers widescreen DVD.... and iTunes sells it for 9.99. I don't see where people are paying extra for convienience, to me it seems like its cheaper for a similar product. 14.99 for a brand new movie? I can't even find one in stock at walmart for 20 bucks!
HAHA YES!
And once more, where are you all buying your movies for 10 dollars? The best price I could find was at Amazon for 13.99 for Hitchhickers widescreen DVD.... and iTunes sells it for 9.99. I don't see where people are paying extra for convienience, to me it seems like its cheaper for a similar product. 14.99 for a brand new movie? I can't even find one in stock at walmart for 20 bucks!
Yup, there's the "good buy" factor. And for those with kids, it's worse. My son wants to see the latest Disney flick. At $2.99 on pay-per-view, he can watch it over and over and over again... for 24 hours. A week later, he wants to see it again. We're now up to $6. Not to mention I don't want to get up and go to the movie rental store. And even if I did, whose to say it isn't all rented out (hey, hey, I should call first... but that's more hassle). So, for me, this is great.
HD? Sure, I want it. But how much are brand new Blueray discs going to cost me? Once our bands are broader and we can download HD from iTunes, there will be an even greater profit margin, and better deal for us.
The bad horror show not the good one.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/18/tech...tune/index.htm
I think you underestimate the people who spend $2.50 for a ring tone.
Ringtones are used hundreds or thousands of time, depending on number of calls you get. Tough to watch a movie that many time.
iPods and iTunesStore have changed the paradigm, the debate, the framework for the discussion.
Old opinions and models no longer work.
We don't know how many movies per week is great or not yet. We don't know if it can be sustained. We don't know yet what people will do with them yet.
And once more, where are you all buying your movies for 10 dollars? The best price I could find was at Amazon for 13.99 for Hitchhickers widescreen DVD.... and iTunes sells it for 9.99. I don't see where people are paying extra for convienience, to me it seems like its cheaper for a similar product. 14.99 for a brand new movie? I can't even find one in stock at walmart for 20 bucks!
half.ebay.com sells it used for under $10. Also, prices are cheaper for me when I share titles among family members and friends. And it is pretty convienient to be able to take the DVD to babysitter or cousin's house. The downside is sometimes I don't remember who has the DVD so I don't even know who to ask to get it back.