“Hollywood studios will cross a significant technological and psychological frontier today when they offer the first downloadable movies that can be legally burned onto a DVD,” Dawn C. Chmielewski reports for The Los Angeles Times.
Chmielewski reports, “Today’s [CinemaNow] launch… previews a likely agreement between the major studios and Apple Computer Inc., which is expected to expand the offerings on its popular iTunes online store to include big-studio movies. Several studio executives Tuesday confirmed that they were holding talks with Apple but did not want to be named because of the sensitive nature of the discussions. Apple declined to comment.”
“Four major studios struck a deal with online movie service CinemaNow Inc. to offer more than 100 mainstream titles that can be copied to a disc and played on almost any DVD player or television set. Prices will start at about $9 a movie,” Chmielewski reports.
“Coupled with the CinemaNow agreement, an Apple deal would cement the Internet as a viable film distribution vehicle. Although studios have offered online movies since 2002, fears over piracy have kept the films locked to computer hard drives or to discs that play only on a PC. That restriction has kept the market for legal movie downloads relatively limited. ‘Burning is important to consumers,’ Universal Pictures Vice Chairman Rick Finkelstein said,” Chmielewski reports.
“CinemaNow’s service uses relatively new anti-piracy technology that prevents a burned DVD itself from being copied. Because that technology is still being tested, the initial batch of titles being offered was described by Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff as what’s left ‘at the video store when you arrive too late and the shelves are picked clean.’ CinemaNow is offering DVD burning before its main rival, Movielink, whose owners include the studios licensing their movies to CinemaNow. Movielink said Monday that it had struck a deal giving it the technology to offer DVD burning, but the company has yet to announce any content deals,” ,” Chmielewski reports.
“As with DVDs purchased at a store, the movies downloaded through CinemaNow can be played on virtually any DVD player with full remote control navigation and access to special features available on regular DVDs. Movie buffs can also print a DVD label and cover art. While a film downloads, a viewer can start watching it on a PC using Windows Media Player software,” Chmielewski reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “apaerso” for the heads up.]
If CinemaNow can get a deal in place, certainly Apple can, right? Along with the existing iTunes user base and coupled with a “true” video iPod and maybe some other as-yet-unknown hardware and/or services, Apple will instantly become the one to beat in the movie download market, too. It also sounds like Apple, just like in legal music downloads, will be the only major service to support both Mac and Windows users as they do not rely on Microsoft’s proprietary Windows Media format and DRM.
Related articles:
RUMOR: Apple to surprise WWDC with iTunes movie rentals – July 18, 2006
Apple trying to negotiate movie-download price with studios – July 14, 2006
RUMOR: Apple to unveil ‘Mac Pro’ with new enclosure design, Intel Core 2 Duo at WWDC next month – July 03, 2006
Does Apple face delivery issue if they want to sell movies via iTunes Store? – June 28, 2006
Warner Bros. to distribute movies on Guba.com – June 27, 2006
CEO Steve Jobs to preview Mac OS X ‘Leopard’ with team of Apple execs at WWDC 2006 keynote – June 26, 2006
BusinessWeek: Apple agreement with movie studios for iTunes Store unlikely any time soon – June 21, 2006
Apple prepares debut of full-length feature films via iTunes Store in time for 2006 holiday season – June 20, 2006
Report: Movie studios flatly reject Apples’ proposed $9.99 pricing for feature films via iTunes – June 19, 2006
Report: Apple in negotiations with movie studios; $9.99 feature films coming to iTunes soon? – June 19, 2006
Disney to sell movies over Internet via CinemaNow in Windows Media Video format – June 05, 2006
Warner Bros. to sell movies and TV shows via BitTorrent – May 09, 2006
Universal launches film download/DVD service in UK – March 23, 2006
If Front Row can stream movie trailers from Apple, why not whole movies? – January 06, 2006
BusinessWeek: Movie studios need to smarten up and let Apple sell their movies – or be left behind – October 18, 2005
Universal to put its movies online – October 06, 2005
Just tell me when i can burn High Fidelity to my iPod AND a DVD….
then I’ll be happy.
Kinda throws Think Secret’s rumor to the wind doesn’t it?
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0607itunesmovies.html
Think Secret is so out of touch these days it’s laughable.
And what about TV shows from iTMS? Will we be able to burn those to DVD soon? Including the ones we’ve already purchased?
great! I finally have a reason to use my DVD burner, more than once a year, now!
CinemaNow’s home page shows a comely woman with what could only be an Apple iBook.
Scrolling through, I notice they have quite a few free movies. What happens when I select “watch” ?
You must use Internet Explorer Version 6 or higher on a PC running Windows 2000 or later in order to use the CinemaNow service.
Click here to download Internet Explorer
gotta’ be in HD to really count….
they had better be in HD, or at least current resolution or this thing is dead on arrival
Does anyone know how long an hour of DVD quality video will take to download at DSL speeds?
Can’t understand why people are still burning movies to DVD that much anymore. I bought a LaCie Silverscreen 40GB last year. It’s a hard disk that allows you to copy films in any format to it (except .mov – which isn’t that common as a film file) and then play them back via a connection to any TV using a supplied remote. It saves hours not having to burn files and only takes a couple of minutes to copy an average film file onto its hard disk via USB 2. It even handles Hi Def formats. Brilliant gadget and highly recommended.
HD quality is completely out of the question! I want it too… but it is just not possible.
Go to the quicktime website and download some of the HD videos there… you will see just how long it takes to download just a 3 minute video!
Sorry – you will not be able to burn existing downloads to DVD. And considering the quality, why would you want to?
“Just tell me when i can burn High Fidelity to my iPod AND a DVD….
then I’ll be happy”
======================
CALEB,
I am with you on the quality issue, strange how no-one can/or is able to manufacture
a ‘high-end’ iPod. I would pay a premium to have true fidelity; I don’t need a kazillion
tracks, just the ones I want in the quality that i prefer.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, someone make a better sounding iPod.
mw= well, as in ‘well, where is my hi-fi iPod sir?’
mikal in NYC,
and CALEB,
I’m with you all the way.
I think Apple are missing out on a profitable niche market here.
mikal in NYC,
It’s not the iPod. iPods have always been able to play back uncompressed audio. A higher bit-rate option is want you want from iTMS.
This makes a lot more sense then the story’s about renting movies for $3.00 and only being able to watch them for a limited time. To me this sounds like more of an Apple iTunes approach then that renting story. This would be a much better approach and people would use this as I certainly would.
The burnable option is the ONLY way I would buy movies online.
However, it seems iTunes’ problem lies in pricing wars.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, someone make a better sounding iPod.
Genelec make some of the most highly regarded monitoring loudspeakers for professional use. They have been seen to run demonstrations using an iPod plugged straight into a pair of their speakers.
The audio was either AIFF or Apple Lossless, but the fact remains that a standard iPod was considered good enough to demo professional loudspeakers costing a great deal more than the iPod. They could have used any sort of top-end CD player or esoteric high quality source, but chose an ordinary iPod.
Just how much better do you want an iPod to sound ?
I agree that the quality of tracks from iTMS could be improved, for those who appreciate such improvements, but that’s a different issue to how the iPod itself sounds. The iPod will make a pretty good job of replaying whatever you load into it. Put in great sounding music and you’ll get great sounding music out.
For those who say HD content impossible-look at cinemanow’s page, they offer HD.
Granted, it’s 5 or so titles no one cares about.
Downloading a DVD quality movie from cinemanow or movielink on a DSL link takes roughly an hour.
As for these services-I will not pay retail DVD prices for a download regardless if I can burn it to a dvd or not.
I just do not see how they can justify the price-downloads do not cost anywhere near what a commercial dvd costs.