I think an easier option might be to just check that the inserted disc is a proper commercial disc with the right checksums and titles, likely dual layer etc and then allow a download of a digital version compressed by high quality software. I personally don't want to have to wait about half an hour for every DVD I have to convert and switch discs between.
I'd rather just insert the disc, have it verify that I own it and add it to a queue. Then I could download the 1GB or so movies in the background. You could get more than 5 overnight.
It's a good feature if Apple don't have the movie you own though. I don't see why they would be prevented from doing it if they encoded your machine ID or itunes account with your RIP and used DRM because if you uploaded them anywhere, you'd be caught and they wouldn't play anyway.
I wouldn't be surprised if something big in this area is going to happen with iTunes 9.
It seemed strange to me that iTunes 8/DVD Player/Front Row were all not migrated to 64-bit goodness in Snow Leopard...... I wonder if that's because they are all soon to be replaced with something new, like a 64bit iTunes 9 with DVD playback features(?), making these three 32bit apps redundant. Would make sense that Apple shifted the engineer emphasis to iTunes9 instead of spending time porting the old apps up to 64bit.
Might be wrong of course, but that would then just leave Grapher as the only 32bit app in Snow Leopard
But if NBC and HULU broadcasts their shows (with commercials) on their websites (for free), why can't iTunes?
Because then you get into the whole mess of the content providers have to negotiate with Apple on how much of the ad revenue they will give Apple to cover their expenses for infrastructure and bandwidth. Hulu is probably a break-even business, at best, created by the content owners. Apple is a for-profit business and needs to have its costs + profit covered.
However, if the content providers were truly interested in this type of set-up, there is an easy and readily available solution. Podcasts. The NBC News and Meet the Press are a couple of examples of this. You can subscribe to the video podcasts so iTunes will automatically download the new episodes. Both of these programs include short commercials, but the commercials are short enough and few enough that it's not worth trying to fast forward through them, even though you technically could, so using DRM or streaming to force the viewer to watch the commercials really isn't necessary. Apple only has to provide the pointer in iTunes to the content which is hosted by the content provider on their own server.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Logisticaldron
CDs are a different beast, the iTunes Store was created then and iTunes was only for Macs at the time. It would be great, no one denies that, but the RIAA and the MPAA are completely different animals. The AppleTV isn?t great, but no media extender is. There was just too much flux in the where the technologies could go to make it a great product. Now things are much more set it place. Now it?s time for Apple to strike with a good product which makes me think that AppleTV Take3 with new hardware will hit in September.
I disagree with you about needing a bunch of different AppleTVs without content before including the iTunes Store. That is just a more expensive and convoluted situation with no way to win for Apple or the consumer. The first problem the AppleTV had was the lack of content. Now the content is finally there, and it was a slow hard battle for Apple according to all reports.
You may have misunderstood, or perhaps I wasn't clear. Yes, CDs are different beasts. That was my point. If CDs were like DVDs with DRM or something that prevented you from being able to rip the CDs you already owned, sales of iPods would have started off far, far, far more slowly than they did. The problem with the AppleTV isn't so much the hardware, it's the lack of content. If it played my DVDs, I would have bought one by now.
Also, I wasn't saying we "needed a bunch of different AppleTVs" One is fine thank you. But we need one with content, including the content I already have on DVDs. An AppleTV that played my DVDs (simply including a drive would do the trick) would be the Trojan horse to get it into my living room. Once it's there I can get a taste of downloaded movies, etc, and get addicted. But they have to get into my living room first, and that's a tough sell for a $200 upfront investment that can't even play my existing content.
You may have misunderstood, or perhaps I wasn't clear. Yes, CDs are different beasts. That was my point. If CDs were like DVDs with DRM or something that prevented you from being able to rip the CDs you already owned, sales of iPods would have started off far, far, far more slowly than they did. The problem with the AppleTV isn't so much the hardware, it's the lack of content. If it played my DVDs, I would have bought one by now.
Also, I wasn't saying we "needed a bunch of different AppleTVs" One is fine thank you. But we need one with content, including the content I already have on DVDs. An AppleTV that played my DVDs (simply including a drive would do the trick) would be the Trojan horse to get it into my living room. Once it's there I can get a taste of downloaded movies, etc, and get addicted. But they have to get into my living room first, and that's a tough sell for a $200 upfront investment that can't even play my existing content.
Then I did misunderstand what you were getting at. The AppleTV came out at a dubious time. DVD was king (and is king still) but we had two HD optical formats coming into play. I personally don?t use my DVD player much for my TV or my computers so it doesn?t bother me not to have it, but I can see why some wanted the DVD player, others an HD-DVD player and yet others a Blu-ray player. In many ways that is now it?s simpler, just add a Blu-ray player. But it?s also harder now that digital downloads are getting popular. I don?t think Blu-ray for every Mac makes sense but to help sell the AppleTV as the de facto media appliance I think Blu-ray would be ideal. While Blu-ray does compete with streaming media they are both still very different and offer different things to different people. I?d rather rent a 720p movie from iTunes the moment I want it than have to run to the store or wait for Netflix to send it, but for some movies with a lot of cool special effects waiting for 1080p Blu-ray is worth it. My problem with Blu-ray really is the long wait. Wait to rent it, wait to load it, even sometimes wait for the next chapter to load while watching it. When that happens it can throw you out of the movie experience. Hopefully we?ll see this hobby,placeholder become a proper leg of Apple?s business next month.
Yeah, there is ZERO chance the movie industry will permit DVD ripping by Apple in any form. If they won't let Real do it, even with Real keeping the original CSS encryption, but also adding an extra layer of encryption so you can't view it on other computers, they won't let Apple do it.
I think that the iTunes Facebook thing would have a choice between automatic and manual and would have things like sharing music taste (something like iLike maybe) and the "tell a friend" link in iTunes would be extended to include Facebook.
Comments
I'd rather just insert the disc, have it verify that I own it and add it to a queue. Then I could download the 1GB or so movies in the background. You could get more than 5 overnight.
It's a good feature if Apple don't have the movie you own though. I don't see why they would be prevented from doing it if they encoded your machine ID or itunes account with your RIP and used DRM because if you uploaded them anywhere, you'd be caught and they wouldn't play anyway.
It seemed strange to me that iTunes 8/DVD Player/Front Row were all not migrated to 64-bit goodness in Snow Leopard...... I wonder if that's because they are all soon to be replaced with something new, like a 64bit iTunes 9 with DVD playback features(?), making these three 32bit apps redundant. Would make sense that Apple shifted the engineer emphasis to iTunes9 instead of spending time porting the old apps up to 64bit.
Might be wrong of course, but that would then just leave Grapher as the only 32bit app in Snow Leopard
But if NBC and HULU broadcasts their shows (with commercials) on their websites (for free), why can't iTunes?
Because then you get into the whole mess of the content providers have to negotiate with Apple on how much of the ad revenue they will give Apple to cover their expenses for infrastructure and bandwidth. Hulu is probably a break-even business, at best, created by the content owners. Apple is a for-profit business and needs to have its costs + profit covered.
However, if the content providers were truly interested in this type of set-up, there is an easy and readily available solution. Podcasts. The NBC News and Meet the Press are a couple of examples of this. You can subscribe to the video podcasts so iTunes will automatically download the new episodes. Both of these programs include short commercials, but the commercials are short enough and few enough that it's not worth trying to fast forward through them, even though you technically could, so using DRM or streaming to force the viewer to watch the commercials really isn't necessary. Apple only has to provide the pointer in iTunes to the content which is hosted by the content provider on their own server.
CDs are a different beast, the iTunes Store was created then and iTunes was only for Macs at the time. It would be great, no one denies that, but the RIAA and the MPAA are completely different animals. The AppleTV isn?t great, but no media extender is. There was just too much flux in the where the technologies could go to make it a great product. Now things are much more set it place. Now it?s time for Apple to strike with a good product which makes me think that AppleTV Take3 with new hardware will hit in September.
I disagree with you about needing a bunch of different AppleTVs without content before including the iTunes Store. That is just a more expensive and convoluted situation with no way to win for Apple or the consumer. The first problem the AppleTV had was the lack of content. Now the content is finally there, and it was a slow hard battle for Apple according to all reports.
You may have misunderstood, or perhaps I wasn't clear. Yes, CDs are different beasts. That was my point. If CDs were like DVDs with DRM or something that prevented you from being able to rip the CDs you already owned, sales of iPods would have started off far, far, far more slowly than they did. The problem with the AppleTV isn't so much the hardware, it's the lack of content. If it played my DVDs, I would have bought one by now.
Also, I wasn't saying we "needed a bunch of different AppleTVs" One is fine thank you.
You may have misunderstood, or perhaps I wasn't clear. Yes, CDs are different beasts. That was my point. If CDs were like DVDs with DRM or something that prevented you from being able to rip the CDs you already owned, sales of iPods would have started off far, far, far more slowly than they did. The problem with the AppleTV isn't so much the hardware, it's the lack of content. If it played my DVDs, I would have bought one by now.
Also, I wasn't saying we "needed a bunch of different AppleTVs" One is fine thank you.
Then I did misunderstand what you were getting at. The AppleTV came out at a dubious time. DVD was king (and is king still) but we had two HD optical formats coming into play. I personally don?t use my DVD player much for my TV or my computers so it doesn?t bother me not to have it, but I can see why some wanted the DVD player, others an HD-DVD player and yet others a Blu-ray player. In many ways that is now it?s simpler, just add a Blu-ray player. But it?s also harder now that digital downloads are getting popular. I don?t think Blu-ray for every Mac makes sense but to help sell the AppleTV as the de facto media appliance I think Blu-ray would be ideal. While Blu-ray does compete with streaming media they are both still very different and offer different things to different people. I?d rather rent a 720p movie from iTunes the moment I want it than have to run to the store or wait for Netflix to send it, but for some movies with a lot of cool special effects waiting for 1080p Blu-ray is worth it. My problem with Blu-ray really is the long wait. Wait to rent it, wait to load it, even sometimes wait for the next chapter to load while watching it. When that happens it can throw you out of the movie experience. Hopefully we?ll see this hobby,placeholder become a proper leg of Apple?s business next month.