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Vote Yes to iTunes Rentals

No way.

I won't pay to rent something that I also have to pay to download (bandwidth fees). Even further, I will not pay to rent or buy something that is provided at such a low resolution. And, I definitely will not watch something like that on a 2-inch screen (and I will not suffer through watching video at that low resolution blown-up with an Apple TV to my television or on my computer screen).

I'll gladly pay to get actual DVD quality movies and even tolerate the bandwidth use / fees. But, there is a catch, it must be at least half the price of the comparable DVD at the local store. If I have to lose some of my bandwidth allowance or pay fees for overages, then I am definitely not paying anywhere near store price.

After-all, I can go to the store, and buy DVD's at full quality for regular price (or a nice discount at many stores) and not have to burn them to disk myself, copy them to a given device, or any other messing around. And, I don't have to use up my download allowance or pay extra fees. I get full quality, great T.V. resolution, and no hassle.

Now, if someone just really didn't want to leave the house, there's always Netflix that will rent them to you (many, many per month) at a flat fee and deliver them to your door. That's even cheaper. You can rent a lot of movies per month that way and it's cheaper than paying for just small number of rentals.

And, again, with Netflix, I get higher quality, larger screen, no hassles, no download fees, and I don't have to leave home.
 
I will rent streaming high definition video for a buck or two. Anything lower res or more expensive is a deal killer.
 
RaceTripper said:
I will rent streaming high definition video for a buck or two. Anything lower res or more expensive is a deal killer.
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I'd do maybe 50 cents or so for what you propose. A dollar or two is too much considering that I still have to download it and pay download fees.
 
flyinmac said:
I'd do maybe 50 cents or so for what you propose. A dollar or two is too much considering that I still have to download it and pay download fees.
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I'm trying to be realistic about it. You'll never see 50 cent HD rentals. I pay the same for my broadband access whether I download anything or not, so that's not an issue for me.
 
billabong said:
With the internet buzzing about the upcoming iTunes rental, where do you guys stand? Are you going to rent? Yes or No?
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I think rentals would be very nice.

The key will be the price and time allowed.

flyinmac said:
A dollar or two is too much considering that I still have to download it and pay download fees.
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Download fees? How are you connecting to the Internet? Dialup?
 
sushi said:
I think rentals would be very nice.

The key will be the price and time allowed.


Download fees? How are you connecting to the Internet? Dialup?
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I'm using DSL. But, I only get a small download allowance (unless I want to spend $90 a month or more (or I could get an even smaller allowance for double the price with Cable).

So, once I exceed the allowance, I have to pay by the megabyte.

Just browsing the Internet and e-mailing usually uses half my bandwidth allowance for the month. On the rare occasion that I've watched anything streaming or downloaded anything of size, I've used my allowance.

The only unlimited allowance I can get is through dial-up (which I do have available), but I'm not even going to wait for a video to come through dial-up.
 
flyinmac said:
I'm using DSL. But, I only get a small download allowance (unless I want to spend $90 a month or more (or I could get an even smaller allowance for double the price with Cable).

So, once I exceed the allowance, I have to pay by the megabyte.
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I think you are in the minority. I don't know anyone who has a limited data plan with broadband. Are you in the US?

Anyway, I'm all for a movie rental service, but I need to be able to put it on my iPhone, use on Apple-TV, etc. It also will have to be for at least a week (for traveling, etc) for it to get much use by me.
 
flyinmac said:
I'm using DSL. But, I only get a small download allowance (unless I want to spend $90 a month or more (or I could get an even smaller allowance for double the price with Cable).

So, once I exceed the allowance, I have to pay by the megabyte.
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Roger. Sux.

Seems like you are in the minority when it comes to DL limits.
 
alywa said:
I think you are in the minority. I don't know anyone who has a limited data plan with broadband. Are you in the US?

Anyway, I'm all for a movie rental service, but I need to be able to put it on my iPhone, use on Apple-TV, etc. It also will have to be for at least a week (for traveling, etc) for it to get much use by me.
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Minority!? My whole country uses limited data plans seeing as Unlimited plans cost over the equivalent of $220 without line rental costs! But then again that just Us third world South Africans...

You guys really take your internet for granted!
 
Jasonbot said:
Minority!? My whole country uses limited data plans seeing as Unlimited plans cost over the equivalent of $220 without line rental costs! But then again that just Us third world South Africans...

You guys really take your internet for granted!
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Well, the rental thing is likely going to be US only, so the data plans of South Africans don't really have much impact on anyone thinking about renting from iTunes.
 
Jasonbot said:
Minority!? My whole country uses limited data plans seeing as Unlimited plans cost over the equivalent of $220 without line rental costs! But then again that just Us third world South Africans...

You guys really take your internet for granted!
Click to expand...

You're not alone.

To answer those above: Yes, I am in the United States. The absolute only unlimited download plan I can get is either Dial-up or the plans that are $150 to $300 a month for cable or DSL.

All the plans under $150 are limited. But, in my state we only have one statewide provider (cable) and one local area provider (DSL). The statewide provider (cable) purchased every single competitor in every single city around the state. The DSL is provided by my phone company. Both are expensive. We already pay $40 or so a month for what we have. It would cost me another $100 to step up to a plan without limits (everything between that range just increases speed).
 
RaceTripper said:
What state are you in, 'cause I'm not moving there.
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Alaska (where we could really use good Internet)

But, even relatives I have in other states (such as Washington) have limited plans on their broadband as well. Even worse, they have pushed advertisements from their ISP (ComCast) that are constantly pushed to their desktop as long as they have a browser window open.

The advertisements come up as pop-under windows. When you're done with your browsing, you have to close around 20 or 40 extra windows. We looked at it the last time we visited, and it's an ISP thing.

So, I guess I don't have it as bad as them.

Unlike my ISP which just charges me extra, ComCast will actually turn off your service and boot you from their customer list if you actually use their service too much.
 
I would download rentals to the AppleTV for my mother in law. i wouldnt put them on the iPod or iPhone but my mother in law is home all day and likes to watch movies. If she could rent for say a buck a DVD quality movie for 24-48 hours (from time of first watching) that would be good for me. She doesnt really notice much different between HD and SD so that isnt that big of a deal but 480P DVD quality would be good enough.

Also if she had the option to purchase said rented movie directly from the AppleTV for a discount (at least the price of the rental but a few extra bucks would be nice) and than sync back to her mac that would be a very nice feature. She has found the AppleTV to be a great addition to her entertainment set-up and it is very easy for her to navigate.

At a dollar a rental that would be less than the cost of going to the rental place and more flexibility than netflix. She also found netflix to be a bit hard to use but she is not very computer savvy so this would be the solution.
 
flyinmac said:
But, even relatives I have in other states (such as Washington) have limited plans on their broadband as well. Even worse, they have pushed advertisements from their ISP (ComCast) that are constantly pushed to their desktop as long as they have a browser window open.

The advertisements come up as pop-under windows. When you're done with your browsing, you have to close around 20 or 40 extra windows. We looked at it the last time we visited, and it's an ISP thing.

So, I guess I don't have it as bad as them.

Unlike my ISP which just charges me extra, ComCast will actually turn off your service and boot you from their customer list if you actually use their service too much.
Click to expand...

I am in Washington and have used Comcast since it's been available (and AT&T before Comcast bought them). I have unlimited data throughput for $45 a month and believe me, I shovel gigs across it every month and Comcast has never shut me down.

I also do not get any advertisements, but then I run Firefox with AdBlock Plus. I expect all those pop-unders are from the sites they surf and not Comcast since I used to run IE with no ad or popup blockers on Comcast for some time and never saw a plethora of such things unless they were generated by the sites I was visiting.

So whatever Comcast service they have, it's something different then what I (and a not insignificant number of family and friends) are using.
 
CWallace said:
I am in Washington and have used Comcast since it's been available (and AT&T before Comcast bought them). I have unlimited data throughput for $45 a month and believe me, I shovel gigs across it every month and Comcast has never shut me down.

I also do not get any advertisements, but then I run Firefox with AdBlock Plus. I expect all those pop-unders are from the sites they surf and not Comcast since I used to run IE with no ad or popup blockers on Comcast for some time and never saw a plethora of such things unless they were generated by the sites I was visiting.

So whatever Comcast service they have, it's something different then what I (and a not insignificant number of family and friends) are using.
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That's strange.

They are a couple in their 80's. So, I know it's not that they go to any weird sites. He just uses it for news sites like CNN.

But, they use Internet Explorer.

We did try using an add-blocker, but then the service wouldn't allow them access. It was like the ads were a required part of the service. Maybe they are on a different plan or something (they do have ComCast Cable T.V., so maybe it's a bonus plan or something).
 
I love the rental model. I NEVER buy DVDs and have also never purchased a movie online for download. I am however a voracious renter, currently using Blockbuster Online for my rentals. If iTunes rentals were at least DVD quality I would completely move my rental business over to iTunes. I addition I am hoping for a new AppleTV to facilitate renting and playing back the movies on my home theater projector. At the very least a software update will be available for all Apple TV's to accommodate the rentals.

Lastly I am hoping that the rentals have a provision for syncing them on to my iPhone. If iPod/iPhone syncing is left out that would be a major blunder and I am 100% sure that it will be part of the rental picture. After all the iPod is Apple's golden ticket in the music business and it should do the same for video rentals. I actually think the iPod is the reason for the success of the ITMS while other contenders have come and gone. The same will be true of video purchase and rentals with one casualty this week already; Walmart.
 
So now this thread has turned into how much internet access sucks in Alaska. I don't think that will be a big factor in what Apple decides to roll out.

I'd love to see a rental plan, assuming the bang for the buck is good.

I'm actually OK with lower quality files if they're cheap enough. I wouldn't mind a tiered system, dirt cheap rental for 480 quality and more for HD.

My first choice would be a subscription model that could compete with netflix, although it would probably take years for them to build up a comparable catalog. All you can eat (including TV) for a monthly fee would be killer, I'd probably stop watching 95% of broadcast TV.
 
I'm in favour of the idea of rentals, but again as has been said, it depends on the specifics. ~5$ for an HD rental for 3-5 days seems perfectly reasonable to me. Even at 1-2 days it still makes sense. All they really have to do is make it enough of a better deal to prevent me from going to a Blockbuster. I don't even have an HD dvd player so by even offering HD movies they're providing an advantage. 2-5$ for standard (or even very close) DVD specs for a week also works fine for me.
Then again, seeing as how Canada just got TV episodes and doesn't even have movie purchases, I doubt it will even affect me.
 
docprego said:
I love the rental model. I NEVER buy DVDs and have also never purchased a movie online for download. I am however a voracious renter, currently using Blockbuster Online for my rentals.
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I wish I had something nice to say about Blockbuster rental policies. And I mean policies. Since I signed up, they have changed their pricing structure twice, both times to my disadvantage, and have limited the number of brick-and-mortar stores in the area which will accept in-store exchanges.

Nonetheless, as a rent-only ITMS, hooked into the AppleTV, I would consider renting if the cost was not higher than what I currently pay. When Blockbuster delivers a DVD to my door, there is no time limit or play limit to my viewing, so Apple's going to have to go some to match the competition.
 
MikieMikie said:
I wish I had something nice to say about Blockbuster rental policies. And I mean policies. Since I signed up, they have changed their pricing structure twice, both times to my disadvantage, and have limited the number of brick-and-mortar stores in the area which will accept in-store exchanges.

Nonetheless, as a rent-only ITMS, hooked into the AppleTV, I would consider renting if the cost was not higher than what I currently pay. When Blockbuster delivers a DVD to my door, there is no time limit or play limit to my viewing, so Apple's going to have to go some to match the competition.
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I agree completely with your discontent for Blockbuster's policies. They changed my plan pricing 3 times in 3 years. Once after saying that I would not be subject to such changes, well they did it anyway.

If Apple's ITMS is at least DVD quality I would completely abandon Blockbuster and buy an AppleTV. "Wouldn't it be great" (Steve always says this) if I could rent and watch a movie on my Mac, watch it instantly on my projector using AppleTV, and perhaps even sync it to my iPhone? All for $2-$5! Yes it would be great.
 
docprego said:
I agree completely with your discontent for Blockbuster's policies. They changed my plan pricing 3 times in 3 years. Once after saying that I would not be subject to such changes, well they did it anyway.
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BB has historically been overly arrogant. That's why they are nearly bankrupt. I stopped doing business with them over 15 years ago.
 
I switched to Blockbuster after years of Netflix, where quite a few movies in my queue stayed in wait list for two or three months. At least with Blockbuster, I can walk into the store and get that popular movie. However, it pains me to use Blockbuster's website, which is an eyesore. They increased my monthly price as well and they notified me about it by burying it into the third paragraph of an email that starts out by advertising a few recent releases. I don't know how long I can stand it before going back to Netflix.
 
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