“The release of Apple Computer’s new iTunes store for videos Wednesday has provided a first mainstream look at a business model likely to unsettle the movie, television, advertising and retail markets for years to come,” John Borland reports for CNET News.
“It’s not much for now–episodes of five popular television shows from ABC and Disney’s cable network, a handful of animated short films and music videos, all for sale at $1.99 apiece,” Borland reports. “But the prospect of expanding the success of the iTunes music store into video has possibilities that are already resonating through the media business. ‘This is a first giant step,’ said Disney Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger, who appeared on stage with Jobs to tout the new offering. ‘It is the future, as far as we are concerned.'”
Borland reports, “…It’s clear that Apple has set its sights on becoming a major player in the home video business, just as it has become one in the digital music sector. ‘I think this is the start of something really big,’ Jobs said at Wednesday’s unveiling. ‘Sometimes that first step is the hardest one, and we’ve just taken it.'”
Full article here.
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Well I’ve already purchased three music videos and 2 tv shows. This is gonna be addicting..
I think it will be great when resolution increases and much more content is added. I’d like to be able to choose a particular episode of Seinfeld or Cheers, for example. That would be great.
TV DVD collections seem to be flooding the DVD aisles lately. There must be a market.
Michael
First again.
I guess the Disney/Pixar alliance is back on too!
MWN Word: Future
I’m looking forward to being able to get episodes of SciFi’s Battlestar Galactica….
The ability to download video from ITMS is the one element today that I was hoping for the most … I imagine other networks will be tripping over themselves to get their content on iTunes.
The CEO of Disney is exactly right in his comments.
Its the wave of the future
and its a Tsunami
Very nice. This fixes the limitations of Tivo, which can’t go back in time and get previous season episode. I’m donwloading now and ready to buy…. about to order the video ipod right now!
I think I’ll buy a pet hamster to go along with my new video iPod and
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let the little rascal have it’s own TV. Now that sounds like some real fun!
Add some small speakers and you’ve got one 21st century rodent!
CT =====]———- A whole new video market explodes!
After watching the event stream, I thought Steve said that the video content is Fairplay, except you cannot burn a CD or DVD of it? Did anyone catch that? Or am I just imag’n it.
Do commercials come with the TV episodes?
This could be a Tivo buster
west wing… come on, Warner will play nice won’t they?
MDN word is “left”… as in I feel left out.
No commercials!
Tivo is kind of on the way out anyway. DirecTV will soon be using another manufacturer for their DVR, Dish uses a generic DVR, Cables Companies offer a free non-tivo DVR, and tv makers like LG and Mitsubishi are including DVRs in their HD Plasma and DLP models. Now we know why apple didn’t hook up with Tivo.
iDon’t
They are commercial free
Quevar
I agree let’s get BSG up there, but then again, untill they get it available in canada that won’t do me any good either,
Were about to see iTMS be repeated for videos (literally) though the # of titles will be an order lower. First it’s U.S> exclusive and then again they’ll have to renogotiate rights for the varioud countries ouside…
Disney, put BOSTON LEGAL online damn it. It’s a freaking great show, and you guys have totally screwed with it. Put the first and second season on there. Plus the last season of the Practice. Then we all can understand why James Spader and William Shatner keep winning awards for their efforts.
You put that panzy show Grey’s Anatomy in Boston Legal’s slot. Stupid. And Boston legal won more awards than Grey’s. Get a clue ABC!
Rant over. Great idea. If Apple could get SciFi onboard, life would be good.
People buy Winboxes because they want a computer, the rest of us go to Apple to buy the hub of their digital lifestyle. It’s a completely different approach, a completely different philosophy. True, it’s a computer, but it is also so much more than that. Until you understand that you will be up M$ creek without a paddle
I think Apple should have bit torrent added to the iTunes store for the purpose of video transfer. Then every Apple store should have an iTunes xServe configuration. This way, they could send high speed transfers of video relative to the location of the purchaser. videos at a resolution of 320 x 240 is fine if one’s main goal is to watch them on a low res television or iPod. If they are planning on watching them on their iMac, then the resolution should be significantly higher. Now that QuickTime supports making a 320 x 240 res file for the iPod, why not have the video at a decent resolution for the computers. If the xServe based iTunes servers were delegated as bit-torrent servers, it would speed the transfer of the video to the iTunes client.
Hahaha, applereseller,the hub of the digital lifestyle has been around for around 7 or 8 years now. It was a windows machine with a {insert your least-favorite multimedia chip maker here} suite.
I thot the mighty, second mouse click ‘innovation’ was funny… Well, this one tops it. LOLLLLL
Quevar,
Battlestar Galactica was my first thought as well.
Lets hope they get the SiFi Channel on board soon!
Whatever TIVO is, consider it busted. Yes we don’t have the ‘Store’ in Australia yet (and other parts of the world I guess) but when we and the rest do, then Apples cornered the world. TIVOs an American only thing isn’t it?
MW = faith. You gotta have it.
And competitors will have a hard time to catch up (http://2manage.de/managementchannel/?p=23) but maybe it would be even smarter to add a subscription option?
Right now I think you can connect to a Tivo, but they haven’t made Mac compatible software to get the shows off of it and on a Mac. You can with a PC.
I think if Tivo made Mac compatible software, or could choose to record in a format that iTunes and the iPod can play this would be a big benefit to them. If they couldn’t do that then just make it easy to move tv shows it records to my Mac and/or iPod for portable viewing. Apple and Tivo are both excellent on creating intuitive easy solutions to new technology. I think this is the missing link.
The iPod wasn’t initially successful because of the Music Store, it was because of the dark secret that a lot of people had a lot of content they got for ‘free’. Either from a P2P service or from CDs not always owned by them. Tivo could be a great source like this for ‘free’ video content, that could halp propel this…. as the pay per episode model takes off for older shows, etc.
Hey Been there done that, it is not always about who did it first but instead it is a matter of who does it right. The iPod is a perfect example. I know zero people who use a PC as a digital media center although the majority of my friends/acquaintences use PC’s. They have never considered it and probably never would. If you’re going to troll, at least put forth a decent comparison.
My favorite part of Steve’s keynote?
When Steve Jobs compared the iMac’s small iPod-shuffle-like remote (6 buttons) with two other PCs using XP Media Center and their monster-sized remotes (over 40 confusing buttons each), I agree with him that “It says it all.”
Apple does it again.
Thank you, Steve!