A feature that seems to be overlooked - If you start watching a rented movie late after work, then get interrupted and head off to bed before finishing the movie, no sweat. Pause the movie and go to bed. Get up and go to work the next day, come home late and head out for drinks instead of continuing the movie. Go to work the following day and when you come home two days later, turn on Apple TV, unpause the movie and complete the viewing. It won?t disappear on you.
Your rental will not auto-delete unless you:
A) Finish it all the way, and 24 hours pass.
You jump out of the movie after 24 hours have passed and do something "else" on your Apple TV, as if you're done with the rental. This should quell the critics that scoff at the 24 hour viewing limit. If something interrupts your viewing, hit pause, and you?re covered.
Those that want to test this theory only need to pause a rental somewhere in the movie and check back 24+ hours later. It will still be frozen in time and ready for rewinding to the beginning for another viewing. If you try to get out of the expired movie, Apple gives you a warning that ?This (expired) movie will be deleted immediately if you stop watching it.?
Haven't had a chance to rent a movie yet, but if the HD rentals are as good as the HD trailers, I'll be satisfied. The quality is far superior to an upscaled DVD, better than most broadcast HD from comcast, but obviously not as good as an HD DVD/Blu-Ray. One thing on the HD trailers though, the load bar is pretty pointless; even after it's entirely loaded, the trailer still stops and stutters 2-3 times.
Haven't had a chance to rent a movie yet, but if the HD rentals are as good as the HD trailers, I'll be satisfied. The quality is far superior to an upscaled DVD, better than most broadcast HD from comcast, but obviously not as good as an HD DVD/Blu-Ray. One thing on the HD trailers though, the load bar is pretty pointless; even after it's entirely loaded, the trailer still stops and stutters 2-3 times.
I agree wholeheartedly with your quality comparisons. I know BrightHouse (Used to be Time Warner) still uses MPEG-2 at 15Mbps for their HD streams.
I haven't noticed any pausing or stuttering with any HD trailers.
Strange. Hopefully the problem rectifies itself, or goes away when I replace our old Linksys router with a Time Capsule sometime this month.
I'm using a D-Link DIR-655, an 802.11n router on b/g/n mix mode. I've watched a good 15-20 HD trailers looking for artifacts, glitches or whatnot with the output. They are only non-scientific, superficial tests for myself but I feel they give me a good idea of what to expect. I'm more than satisfied with the results.
I only wish I could test the up-conversion to 1080p. I don't recall this option with Take 1 and wonder how it looks in comparison to 720p. I'm guessing it's not much.
PS: One unusual result of Take 2's find-as-you-type YouTube search is that I'm now using to watch many more YouTube videos than I do on a computer.
A feature that seems to be overlooked - If you start watching a rented movie late after work, then get interrupted and head off to bed before finishing the movie, no sweat. Pause the movie and go to bed. Get up and go to work the next day, come home late and head out for drinks instead of continuing the movie. Go to work the following day and when you come home two days later, turn on Apple TV, unpause the movie and complete the viewing. It won?t disappear on you.
Your rental will not auto-delete unless you:
A) Finish it all the way, and 24 hours pass.
You jump out of the movie after 24 hours have passed and do something "else" on your Apple TV, as if you're done with the rental. This should quell the critics that scoff at the 24 hour viewing limit. If something interrupts your viewing, hit pause, and you?re covered.
Those that want to test this theory only need to pause a rental somewhere in the movie and check back 24+ hours later. It will still be frozen in time and ready for rewinding to the beginning for another viewing. If you try to get out of the expired movie, Apple gives you a warning that ?This (expired) movie will be deleted immediately if you stop watching it.?
I the meantime you can't use iTunes, your AppleTV or your iPod for anything else. You can not listen to music, your kids can not watch that Disney movie you bought and you can not listen to those podcasts you download daily for your commute. Other than that, no problem.
(For all I know updating your podcasts in iTunes may even cause you to lose the movie on the AppleTV due to the automatic syncing that happens.)
No, the option to pause a movie for more than the specified 24 hours in case you can't finish it is not a license to rent a move, start watching it, then do whatever you want for two weeks until you decide to finish watching it. The world doesn't revolve around you. The feature is a plus, not a minus.
No, the option to pause a movie for more than the specified 24 hours in case you can't finish it is not a license to rent a move, start watching it, then do whatever you want for two weeks until you decide to finish watching it. The world doesn't revolve around you. The feature is a plus, not a minus.
Whose loss would it really be if it were to be that way? If a person watches a movie once within 24 hours or once over the course of two weeks, the net gain for the person is exactly the same. It's not like disc rentals where the same disc can't be rented out because it's at someone's house for two weeks.
What you are describing is a video purchase, where you watch as many times as you want for as long as you want VS. a "rental" where there are limits to your viewing time. You can see how Apple (and Hollywood) would want the two to be different experiences, right?
What you are describing is a video purchase, where you watch as many times as you want for as long as you want VS. a "rental" where there are limits to your viewing time.
No I'm not. Don't distort what I'm saying. In case you can't read very well: for both examples I gave, it's still just one play total.
Quote:
You can see how Apple (and Hollywood) would want the two to be different experiences, right?
This statement is based on a gross distortion of what I said, and as such, is irrelevant.
What you mean you updated your aTV to use US account from UK? Sorry for my bad...
I have been reading about these US iTunes gift certificates on Ebay where they set you up a US account from UK. Sounds too good to be true, but tempting. Anybody from UK done this?
You are all making the assumption that the only way people watch a movie is in one full session. I watch movies in much the same way I read a book, multiple sessions. I watch a portion, go off and do other things and then return and watch some more. I would rather have a public library model of the movie being viewable over a week or two than the movie theater model of being a part of a one evening date.
You are all making the assumption that the only way people watch a movie is in one full session. I watch movies in much the same way I read a book, multiple sessions. I watch a portion, go off and do other things and then return and watch some more. I would rather have a public library model of the movie being viewable over a week or two than the movie theater model of being a part of a one evening date.
But until then - what is the HD option? Do you think we'll be able to hack these rentals to last longer?SSShhhhh!
I can read perfectly well, JeffDM. Let?s analyze what you are saying, shall we?
What you are trying to do is rip off the system without actually saying it, or perhaps you just don?t realize your system is flawed. In your view you want Apple to allow folks to watch a rental movie until they have ?finished it,? which means until you watch the credits? (We?ll assume you would want it to be all the way to the END of the credits before deletion, since you want everything your way.)
So days (weeks) later, when you finally leisurely finish the movie all the way through the credits, it?s OK then for Apple to delete it from your Apple TV drive. But in reality, you would rewind the movie (you wouldn?t dare take the rewind function from the rest of us, would you JeffDM?) and you?d back away from the credits as soon as they came up so that you could ?fool? Apple into thinking you weren?t really done with it. Then you could still listen to music, and do whatever you wanted to do with Apple TV until you decided to watch your rental again, and again, forever. Whatever the trigger is for ?completion,? you?d be sure to back away from it just in time, even if it meant missing the last minute of the last scene.
In this way you (and hundreds of others) could ?own? your favorite movies on your hard drive for the rental price of $3.99 ($4.99 HD) by fooling Apple into thinking you were not really done with them yet.
This is fooling no one. Apple sees through your loophole, so the current system is set up exactly as it should be to thwart abuse of the rental system.
Before you put your ?you can?t read? flamethrower on in response, ask yourself, do you really think Hollywood and Apple didn?t spend countless hours hammering out the tiniest details of how the Apple TV rental delivery would work? Hollywood?s #1 battle is getting people to pay for content instead of stealing it.
I can read perfectly well, JeffDM. Let’s analyze what you are saying, shall we?
What you are trying to do is rip off the system without actually saying it, or perhaps you just don’t realize your system is flawed. In your view you want Apple to allow folks to watch a rental movie until they have “finished it,” which means until you watch the credits? (We’ll assume you would want it to be all the way to the END of the credits before deletion, since you want everything your way.)
So days (weeks) later, when you finally leisurely finish the movie all the way through the credits, it’s OK then for Apple to delete it from your Apple TV drive. But in reality, you would rewind the movie (you wouldn’t dare take the rewind function from the rest of us, would you JeffDM?) and you’d back away from the credits as soon as they came up so that you could “fool” Apple into thinking you weren’t really done with it. Then you could still listen to music, and do whatever you wanted to do with Apple TV until you decided to watch your rental again, and again, forever. Whatever the trigger is for “completion,” you’d be sure to back away from it just in time, even if it meant missing the last minute of the last scene.
You really are brazen aren't you? How dare you make accusations like that of someone you don't know without a shred of evidence?
You do raise a scenario that the DRM mechanism would have to deal with, but it shouldn't be that hard to work out that someone was repeatedly rewinding the movie and effectively watching it over and over.
It beggars belief that you are so against the suggestion that a mechanism be introduced allowing people to watch the movie through once, regardless of how long that might take them.
Can you at least say that if a perfect, intelligent DRM system were employed that expires the movie after either 24 hours or after the first time it has been watched once, whichever comes last, that that would be a good thing for everyone?
You are all making the assumption that the only way people watch a movie is in one full session. I watch movies in much the same way I read a book, multiple sessions. I watch a portion, go off and do other things and then return and watch some more. I would rather have a public library model of the movie being viewable over a week or two than the movie theater model of being a part of a one evening date.
I will make the rational assumption that most people watch a movie in one sitting, that they don't ever seek to watch it again. A movie is usually 1.5—2.5 hours and usually falling around the 2hr mark. A box takes considerably more time and I'm not a slow reader. I don't need to nor want to space out my movie watching. Hell, I don't evn want my TV shows interrupted by commercials so I usually get the DVDs from Netflix months later.I say hacks will come, but
Quote:
Originally Posted by teckstud
But until then - what is the HD option? Do you think we'll be able to hack these rentals to last longer?SSShhhhh!
I say hacks will come for the sake of hacking it, but since these rentals will be released 30 days after they are released on optical media and therefore DVD screeners and high-quality cams of the films will have already run rampant on file sharing sites there won't be an issue with thievery here.
Can you at least say that if a perfect, intelligent DRM system were employed that expires the movie after either 24 hours or after the first time it has been watched once, whichever comes first, that that would be a good thing for everyone?
It doesn't even need to be that smart. Just disallow rewinding after the first 24 hours and totally expire it after 30 days (even 7 days is plenty) whether or not it's been watched.
I'm not in front of my Apple TV right now, but hopefully you caught that earlier response that you can indeed pair your remote to either the Apple TV or your Mac remote to your Mac. I've done it. Under Settings on Apple TV you'll see the ?Pairing Your Remote? option. It works.
And after pairing, you can even use a learning remote to learn and control your Apple TV and not affect your Mac as you do so. Give Apple credit. It would have taken 150,000 e-mail complaints to Microsoft before they would have even admitted to a remote conflict situation, much less had a simple solution to it before people even started complaining.
I give the AppleInsider and especially solipsism more credit. It's nice to find a place where Apple enthusiasts can actually help each other out. Apple's customer service has been slipping since they changed to Apple Corp from Apple Computer. Even my AppleCare has been outsourced to non-American countries (no offense) and has not been nearly as helpful as 2 years ago.
Comments
Your rental will not auto-delete unless you:
A) Finish it all the way, and 24 hours pass.
Those that want to test this theory only need to pause a rental somewhere in the movie and check back 24+ hours later. It will still be frozen in time and ready for rewinding to the beginning for another viewing. If you try to get out of the expired movie, Apple gives you a warning that ?This (expired) movie will be deleted immediately if you stop watching it.?
Haven't had a chance to rent a movie yet, but if the HD rentals are as good as the HD trailers, I'll be satisfied. The quality is far superior to an upscaled DVD, better than most broadcast HD from comcast, but obviously not as good as an HD DVD/Blu-Ray. One thing on the HD trailers though, the load bar is pretty pointless; even after it's entirely loaded, the trailer still stops and stutters 2-3 times.
I agree wholeheartedly with your quality comparisons. I know BrightHouse (Used to be Time Warner) still uses MPEG-2 at 15Mbps for their HD streams.
I haven't noticed any pausing or stuttering with any HD trailers.
I haven't noticed any pausing or stuttering with any HD trailers.
Strange. Hopefully the problem rectifies itself, or goes away when I replace our old Linksys router with a Time Capsule sometime this month.
Strange. Hopefully the problem rectifies itself, or goes away when I replace our old Linksys router with a Time Capsule sometime this month.
I'm using a D-Link DIR-655, an 802.11n router on b/g/n mix mode. I've watched a good 15-20 HD trailers looking for artifacts, glitches or whatnot with the output. They are only non-scientific, superficial tests for myself but I feel they give me a good idea of what to expect. I'm more than satisfied with the results.
I only wish I could test the up-conversion to 1080p. I don't recall this option with Take 1 and wonder how it looks in comparison to 720p. I'm guessing it's not much.
PS: One unusual result of Take 2's find-as-you-type YouTube search is that I'm now using to watch many more YouTube videos than I do on a computer.
A feature that seems to be overlooked - If you start watching a rented movie late after work, then get interrupted and head off to bed before finishing the movie, no sweat. Pause the movie and go to bed. Get up and go to work the next day, come home late and head out for drinks instead of continuing the movie. Go to work the following day and when you come home two days later, turn on Apple TV, unpause the movie and complete the viewing. It won?t disappear on you.
Your rental will not auto-delete unless you:
A) Finish it all the way, and 24 hours pass.
Those that want to test this theory only need to pause a rental somewhere in the movie and check back 24+ hours later. It will still be frozen in time and ready for rewinding to the beginning for another viewing. If you try to get out of the expired movie, Apple gives you a warning that ?This (expired) movie will be deleted immediately if you stop watching it.?
I the meantime you can't use iTunes, your AppleTV or your iPod for anything else. You can not listen to music, your kids can not watch that Disney movie you bought and you can not listen to those podcasts you download daily for your commute. Other than that, no problem.
(For all I know updating your podcasts in iTunes may even cause you to lose the movie on the AppleTV due to the automatic syncing that happens.)
Sigh, the Apple TV is such an unholy mess.
So that explains the three 6's stamped underneath for my serial number.
So that explains the three 6's stamped underneath for my serial number.
No, the option to pause a movie for more than the specified 24 hours in case you can't finish it is not a license to rent a move, start watching it, then do whatever you want for two weeks until you decide to finish watching it. The world doesn't revolve around you. The feature is a plus, not a minus.
Whose loss would it really be if it were to be that way? If a person watches a movie once within 24 hours or once over the course of two weeks, the net gain for the person is exactly the same. It's not like disc rentals where the same disc can't be rented out because it's at someone's house for two weeks.
What you are describing is a video purchase, where you watch as many times as you want for as long as you want VS. a "rental" where there are limits to your viewing time.
No I'm not. Don't distort what I'm saying. In case you can't read very well: for both examples I gave, it's still just one play total.
You can see how Apple (and Hollywood) would want the two to be different experiences, right?
This statement is based on a gross distortion of what I said, and as such, is irrelevant.
I live the UK and updated mine last night
What you mean you updated your aTV to use US account from UK? Sorry for my bad...
I have been reading about these US iTunes gift certificates on Ebay where they set you up a US account from UK. Sounds too good to be true, but tempting. Anybody from UK done this?
You are all making the assumption that the only way people watch a movie is in one full session. I watch movies in much the same way I read a book, multiple sessions. I watch a portion, go off and do other things and then return and watch some more. I would rather have a public library model of the movie being viewable over a week or two than the movie theater model of being a part of a one evening date.
But until then - what is the HD option? Do you think we'll be able to hack these rentals to last longer?SSShhhhh!
What you are trying to do is rip off the system without actually saying it, or perhaps you just don?t realize your system is flawed. In your view you want Apple to allow folks to watch a rental movie until they have ?finished it,? which means until you watch the credits? (We?ll assume you would want it to be all the way to the END of the credits before deletion, since you want everything your way.)
So days (weeks) later, when you finally leisurely finish the movie all the way through the credits, it?s OK then for Apple to delete it from your Apple TV drive. But in reality, you would rewind the movie (you wouldn?t dare take the rewind function from the rest of us, would you JeffDM?) and you?d back away from the credits as soon as they came up so that you could ?fool? Apple into thinking you weren?t really done with it. Then you could still listen to music, and do whatever you wanted to do with Apple TV until you decided to watch your rental again, and again, forever. Whatever the trigger is for ?completion,? you?d be sure to back away from it just in time, even if it meant missing the last minute of the last scene.
In this way you (and hundreds of others) could ?own? your favorite movies on your hard drive for the rental price of $3.99 ($4.99 HD) by fooling Apple into thinking you were not really done with them yet.
This is fooling no one. Apple sees through your loophole, so the current system is set up exactly as it should be to thwart abuse of the rental system.
Before you put your ?you can?t read? flamethrower on in response, ask yourself, do you really think Hollywood and Apple didn?t spend countless hours hammering out the tiniest details of how the Apple TV rental delivery would work? Hollywood?s #1 battle is getting people to pay for content instead of stealing it.
I can read perfectly well, JeffDM. Let’s analyze what you are saying, shall we?
What you are trying to do is rip off the system without actually saying it, or perhaps you just don’t realize your system is flawed. In your view you want Apple to allow folks to watch a rental movie until they have “finished it,” which means until you watch the credits? (We’ll assume you would want it to be all the way to the END of the credits before deletion, since you want everything your way.)
So days (weeks) later, when you finally leisurely finish the movie all the way through the credits, it’s OK then for Apple to delete it from your Apple TV drive. But in reality, you would rewind the movie (you wouldn’t dare take the rewind function from the rest of us, would you JeffDM?) and you’d back away from the credits as soon as they came up so that you could “fool” Apple into thinking you weren’t really done with it. Then you could still listen to music, and do whatever you wanted to do with Apple TV until you decided to watch your rental again, and again, forever. Whatever the trigger is for “completion,” you’d be sure to back away from it just in time, even if it meant missing the last minute of the last scene.
You really are brazen aren't you? How dare you make accusations like that of someone you don't know without a shred of evidence?
You do raise a scenario that the DRM mechanism would have to deal with, but it shouldn't be that hard to work out that someone was repeatedly rewinding the movie and effectively watching it over and over.
It beggars belief that you are so against the suggestion that a mechanism be introduced allowing people to watch the movie through once, regardless of how long that might take them.
Can you at least say that if a perfect, intelligent DRM system were employed that expires the movie after either 24 hours or after the first time it has been watched once, whichever comes last, that that would be a good thing for everyone?
You are all making the assumption that the only way people watch a movie is in one full session. I watch movies in much the same way I read a book, multiple sessions. I watch a portion, go off and do other things and then return and watch some more. I would rather have a public library model of the movie being viewable over a week or two than the movie theater model of being a part of a one evening date.
I will make the rational assumption that most people watch a movie in one sitting, that they don't ever seek to watch it again. A movie is usually 1.5—2.5 hours and usually falling around the 2hr mark. A box takes considerably more time and I'm not a slow reader. I don't need to nor want to space out my movie watching. Hell, I don't evn want my TV shows interrupted by commercials so I usually get the DVDs from Netflix months later.I say hacks will come, but
But until then - what is the HD option? Do you think we'll be able to hack these rentals to last longer?SSShhhhh!
I say hacks will come for the sake of hacking it, but since these rentals will be released 30 days after they are released on optical media and therefore DVD screeners and high-quality cams of the films will have already run rampant on file sharing sites there won't be an issue with thievery here.
Can you at least say that if a perfect, intelligent DRM system were employed that expires the movie after either 24 hours or after the first time it has been watched once, whichever comes first, that that would be a good thing for everyone?
It doesn't even need to be that smart. Just disallow rewinding after the first 24 hours and totally expire it after 30 days (even 7 days is plenty) whether or not it's been watched.
Teckstud,
I'm not in front of my Apple TV right now, but hopefully you caught that earlier response that you can indeed pair your remote to either the Apple TV or your Mac remote to your Mac. I've done it. Under Settings on Apple TV you'll see the ?Pairing Your Remote? option. It works.
And after pairing, you can even use a learning remote to learn and control your Apple TV and not affect your Mac as you do so. Give Apple credit. It would have taken 150,000 e-mail complaints to Microsoft before they would have even admitted to a remote conflict situation, much less had a simple solution to it before people even started complaining.
I give the AppleInsider and especially solipsism more credit. It's nice to find a place where Apple enthusiasts can actually help each other out. Apple's customer service has been slipping since they changed to Apple Corp from Apple Computer. Even my AppleCare has been outsourced to non-American countries (no offense) and has not been nearly as helpful as 2 years ago.