Comparing strings from the last version of iTunes with the recently-released iTunes 7.5, Evan DiBiase, blogging for The Evan Series, reports that he found some interesting new additions, including, among others:
source-rental-info
dest-rental-info
getvodaccountselectionlist
supportsRentals
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Investor” for the heads up.]
As we’ve been saying for years now, for TV shows and movies, a rental and/or subscription service makes perfect sense because it better fits human nature, matching the way people over the age of four consume those types of content than does outright purchasing. Not to mention, where do you store all of that content that you own, but are only going to watch once or twice? Most people can count the number of movies they’ve watched three or more times on their fingers.
We want to buy our music and rent our movies (or even possibly subscribe to a TV shows and movies plan) via Apple’s iTunes Store. We also want to be able to buy /rent directly from our Apple TV.
We asked our same source who correctly told us that Apple would debut “wireless-capable iPods” along with “wireless iTunes Store sales” one week before Apple did exactly that, and the source said, “I can’t talk about it, but let’s just say that Apple TV is about to get a whole lot more interesting.” That’s it. No release date or any other info. For now, we file it under: RUMOR.
I heard a rumor…
Apple is buying Netflix.
magic word : “small”
Excellent . . .
One thing I would need to switch from netflix is a chip in the Apple TV to upscale the resolution to high def. Regular DVD’s with a cheap uprez player looks fantastic, and without it the image isn’t very good at all.
Apple should so buy Netflix. It’s only a couple of billion
Apple wouldn’t by Netflix. Jobs was down on DVDs on the last keynote, and they don’t need NetFlix to send movies over the internet.
I found out we were paying $75 a month for basic cable here. While I always thought that iTunes video was too expensive, given the number of reruns I think it might actually be cheaper then cable. Maybe some kind of PtP AppleTV addition might be in the cards.
Or digital broadcast TV might broadcast movies to a tuner in new AppleTVs that you can unlock and buy. Given how much more efficient H264 is then the MPEG 2 of HDTV, a single TV station could broadcast 8 channels at once, or broadcast movies at 8x speed onto hard drives.
Apple TV needs three things to really take off..
Movie rentals
HD content (at least 720p)
Multi-channel audio
Without these things, it will remain a flop.
I was just at the Apple store in Fashion Island (Newport Beach, CA.) and they are down to one single Apple TV display towards the back of the store…. Kind of in the same spot the iPod hi-fi was before it became extinct.. I thought to myself that they really need to do something to this product.. This rumor is definitely it.
I bought my Apple TV when it first came out, it has great menus and it looks terrific, but I very rarely actually use it.
Sweet Jesus! Please bring movie rentals to Apple TV. I am sick of hauling my tired ass over to Blockbuster at 7:00 in the evening to rent a movie.
I agree with you MacZeus. It’s unfortunate really, that AppleTV seems to have been let to ride along on its own; it’s lost so much market momentum.
In our house of four adults, with the TV on every evening and most of each weekend, our AppleTV gets used perhaps once every two months.
Another problem is the dearth of good movies to select from at the iTunes Store which would be worth $9.99 or more sometimes. It’s just too much to pay for a movie that will be watched once by four people, say.
That being said, however, the TV shows and fun things like NASCAR and National Geographic and Discovery shows on the iTunes Store are great value for money. I buy them quite often, but watch them on my iPod or iPhone or even right in QuickTime Player on my MacBook Pro sometimes.
Movie rentals would be a really good thing, especially if movies could be rented from right within AppleTV’s interface in the same way that iTunes songs can be purchased within iPhone’s interface.
First, the abilities we know AppleTV must deliver:
1. Rental Service
2. Rent Direct from AppleTV (eliminate computer step in-between)
3. HD (720p to start is good enough for now, with current bandwidth’s in the market)
What no one seems to be talking about is not per show, but per network.
For Apple to truly screw over Dish and Cable companies, Apple could offer per network subscriptions:
ESPN: $3.99 per month
FoxNews/CNN: $3.99 per month
NFL Network: $3.99 per month
Al-a-carte, no bundling. tens of millions would purchase 10 or fewer networks, and it would still pencil at being way less than Cable or Dish.
As for the networks that would hate this (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX) who are trying to garner money per show, all one needs to do it get a HD antenna, and you get uncompressed HD from all the major networks to your home – for free.
The money Apple could shell out vs. what Cable and Dish companies deliver them per month would be like crack. $3 per subscriber A&E;. Sold.
A big question is how does Apple make any money and pay for backbone streaming costs? It can’t do that for $.99 a month per channel per customer – not even close.
That answer lies in Apple’s fun they are having with AT&T;. If AT&T;wants to keep the iPhone exclusive with ever expanding models, dropping prices and more massive sales numbers and subscribers, AT&T;will cut Apple a deal and deliver the backbone fiber costs Apple needs to make this all work.
AT&T;’s backbone need only go to Apple’s soon-to-be acquired 700MHz towers, and from there, Apple can flood the channels down to the consumer with ease.
Or
Apple can say bu-bye to AT&T;and finish off cheap backbone costs by working a 700MHz acquisition deal with Google, and it is in February 2009 that Google will turn on large chunks of their black fiber.
Al-a-Carte network purchasing is coming, and it’ll come from Apple.
All I can say it’s about time!
Video rentals are the way to go on iTunes.
The downside is that all the dvd/video rental high street shops are going to go out of business – but heh, that’s progress! If they can be bothered to innovate and move with the tims then thats what happens!
Go for it Apple – im certainly going to be using this!
@agr
You are so right, cable is actually a ripoff. I’m a late night person, and after a certain hour you only get the worst movies if even that, on hundreds of channels, If you don’t get bad movies, you get paid advertisements! Essentially late at night, you pay for cable to show advertisements which also pay cable! Apple TV, a-la-carte television with no commercials is groundbreaking for consumers, and guess what, not even a monthly subscription fee to do it. If Apple added hard drive recording that would be great, but the implications suggest that not only is TiVO greatly profiting from subscription fees, but more than likely cable companies somehow receive payment for ‘allowing’ this to happen, otherwise, it’s only in ‘Cables’ best interest to have their own branded ‘TiVO’ and ‘Vonage’ hardware since they’re both sideline industries. Wait until Apple TV gets popular enough, everyone cries unfair and tries to slam Apple when they profit from their vision.
The AppleTV is dead.
You see right now there is a format war between HD-DVD and BlueRAY-DVD.
The two interests controlling these formats have different approaches when it comes to playing this High Def content on computers.
The copy protection scheme designed to protect HD content has been soundly broken.
Hollywood and the general public are in the process of switching to HD capable devices.
Apple is skating to where the buck is going to be, and that’s HD, not SD, which looks awlful on a HDTV.
Steve Jobs track record on DRM hasn’t been all that good. He actually is encouraging LESS DRM, which is good for us. But Hollywood sees DRM as a means to prevent casual copying and gets more people paying for their content and supporting more buisness.
Like a lock on a door, easily broken by someone with determination, DRM is designed to keep a honest person honest.
Steve Jobs is advocating no DRM what-so-ever. Which is not what Hollywood wants to hear. So by caving in to the EU, shifting the iPod/itunes lockin blame to the music labels and getting EMI to go DRM free to save his iPod ass in Europe. Steve Jobs sacraficed any future HD iTunes download service and the AppleTV’s future.
So HD is out on iTunes. SD downloads is a waste of time if the quality sucks on a HDTV.
People rather rent the DVD from Netflix and take advantage of the DVD player upscaling, larger selection and no slow downloads, hogging hard drive space etc.
Remember cable companies also have a easy way for people to rent videos wth less cost and hassle. Just not a whole lot of a selection like Netflix has.
Hollywood doesn’t want HD content on a computer screen. They know all about software like SnapProZ which can record the screen as content is playing. So people get to keep a pernament copy of rental for a fraction of what it costs to buy it.
With BlueRay movies going for $40 a piece, people only willing to pay $3-5 to rent and then making a pernament copy on a computer. You see why HD isn’t coming to iTunes anytime soon.
So rentals are out. SD sucks. The AppleTV is dead.
I use my AppleTV every day and LOVE it!!
150+ movies… 900+ tv episodes… 5000 songs… and 3500 pictures on your living room TV.
How could you not love this thing?
Rentals have to be the next step and as previously stated the option has to be there for HD movies/tv.
I agree that a subscription model for TV and Movies would work really well, whether or not his Steveness thinks so we’ll soon find out.
Content is definitely what’s holding Apple TV backl. Renting the current content is great, but it is nowhere near enough to convince me to buy an Apple TV. How many people will think ‘Cool I can rent from couch for $2.99, WTF where’s …….. f*** it!
Steve can hardball all he wants but the studios know they have control and unlike the music business know exactly what will happen if they give in – lots of sales and a distribution method that millions are already familiar with, not good enough it seems.
Unfortunately the greed f**** will wait and wait (eternally it seems), DVD rentals/sales are doing just fine so they know Apple doesn’t hold a position of power….yet. So where do we go from here, rentals – cool, more studios – nope. Shit.
Apple TV could be a dust gatherer without some concessions. The studios don’t give a shit about us, which is why I think they are more than happy to ‘watch’ (hope) Apple TV fade into the background. It is hopelessly tied to its content in a way the iPod isn’t.
I’d be surprised if Macworld dosen’t include a spotlight for Apple TV, I’d almost forgotten it existed.
PS – Let the thing play some decent vid formats (without hacking) and i’ll buy one straight away.
You don’t need an HD antenna. A regular antenna will do just fine. I haven’t had any form of Pay TV for years. Just recently bought a 1080p HDTV, hooked up the old roof antenna to it, BAM, free network HD.
Tell me something I haven’t heard for years now…
It gets more interesting. Under source-rental-info, I found
The Loin King, Saving Ryan’s Privates, Romancing The Bone, On Golden Blonde, Forrest Hump and Jurassic Pork. Hopefully, I can return these for a refund if this rumor comes true soon.
Jobs is advocating no DRM on music. He’s stated that DRM has it’s place in video, since unlike audio, where the majority of music available is already DRM free (CDs), DVDs have ALWAYS had some source of encryption.
so um, you’re wrong.
Wow, there’s a novel idea, being able to rent movies right from your living room sofa. I love living in these exciting times.
HD is a loosing proposition. Most people are never going to pay more then $400 for a TV set, and on such small screens, HD isn’t such a big deal. While I like to look at short HD downloads from Apple’s site, the time it takes these to download is a deal breaker. It would be 4-6 hours for a full length movie.
Content is king. That’s why YouTube’s 240p is changing the world, while we need laws to make people buy 1080i tuners.
“Most people are never going to pay more then $400 for a TV set, and on such small screens, HD isn’t such a big deal.”
———————————————
You’re right about HD not being a big deal on small screens.
However, Apple tv isn’t designed for small screens.
As the marketing for the device clearly states “Bring iTunes to your BIG SCREEN.”
The future is HD and Big Screen televisions and we’re not far away from HD being the norm.
Apple TV does upscale. Test drive one.
I must disagree with MDN to some degree over renting.
It’s all about economics.
Take the cost of a movie ticket. Too expensive, and typically some people wait until it comes out on DVD.
When one then considers the price of the rental there are times when the purchase justifies buying the original.
And that has no reflection as to how many times you will watch it.
Consumers are more educated buyers then retailers think.
For the right price, people rather own the rent.
“Jobs is advocating no DRM on music. He’s stated that DRM has it’s place in video, since unlike audio, where the majority of music available is already DRM free (CDs), DVDs have ALWAYS had some source of encryption.
so um, you’re wrong.”
Um, YOU’RE wrong. The movie companies sold their movies without DRM for YEARS. It’s called Beta, VHS, and Laserdisc.
It was only with the advent of DVD that copy protection became the norm (with the exception of several VHS tapes released right around the DVD’s advent, which had copy protection as well).
Now, the movie companies have forced us to either transfer our old VHSes of their “catalog” titles with NO DRM, buy a “catalog” title on iTunes with DRM attached, or buy a “catalog” DVD with copy protection.
Personally, if widescreen wasn’t such a big goddamn issue, then I’d be QUITE happy with most “catalog” titles transferred over from VHS.
BJ