Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

What Apple Means By "Every Major Movie Studio"

B

BoulderBum

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 3, 2008
513
0
So I got the Take 2 upgrade today (woo hoo!) and my wife and I watched our first downloaded iTunes rental and our first HD movie period. It was okay, but I have to say I'm currently unimpressed by the selection (especially in HD).

The reason I bought the Apple TV was for rentals which Jobs said "would come from every major studio" and that "rentals would be available a month after they hit the rental shelves". I also assumed that every rental would be available in HD.

So far, I've noticed that relatively few rentals are available in HD, and though there are probably movies from every major studio on iTunes, most of the movies are old, odd, B movies (with a few worthy titles thrown in).

There are about a billion services out there on the internet (Vongo, CinemaNow, etc.) that have a vast selection of mostly crappy movies with a few gems. I was waiting for the service that could deliver EVERYTHING I can get at the video store, and Steve Jobs made it sound like Apple was the service.

I still would like to believe this is true, but gee whiz, it's sure not the case now. The Apple TV setup is currently little better than any of the other services out there: there's a few good movies, and a lot of crap. :(

Can anyone confirm or deny that Apple will have ALL the rentals from the major studios, and if they'll eventually have everything in HD?
 
I'm with you man. I am just hoping that they wanted the initial launch to go smoothly and will start rolling out all the new releases shortly. If this is not the case then I am very disappointed.
 
BoulderBum said:
Can anyone confirm or deny that Apple will have ALL the rentals from the major studios, and if they'll eventually have everything in HD?
Click to expand...

They never said they would. Its up to each studio what they allow Apple to carry.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/01/15itunes.html

MACWORLD SAN FRANCISCO—January 15, 2008—Apple® today announced iTunes® Movie Rentals featuring movies from all the major movie studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema. Users can rent movies for as low as $2.99 and watch them on their Macs or PCs, all current generation iPods*, iPhone™ and Apple TV®. iTunes Movie Rentals launches today and will offer over 1,000 titles by the end of February, including over 100 titles in stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound which users can rent directly from their widescreen TV using Apple TV. iTunes Movie Rentals are priced at $2.99 for library titles and $3.99 for new releases, and high definition versions are just one dollar more with library titles at $3.99 and new releases at $4.99.
Click to expand...
 
FreeState said:
They never said they would. Its up to each studio what they allow Apple to carry.
Click to expand...

Actually, they did. Check out the MacWorld keynote.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StYkjojwHfg

Steve Jobs says:
"We have every major studio supporting us with iTunes movie rentals and we're going to have all the great first run films."

"We're going to launch with 1000 by the end of February, and we're going to have films from the studio 30 days after their DVD release."

"What people wanted was movies, movies, movies and we weren't delivering that" (if Apple doesn't get every new release, then they still aren't delivering)

"You can rent them in DVD quality and you can rent them in HD"
Click to expand...

If Apple doesn't get EVERY new release from EVERY major studio, I think they should be sued for false advertising and I'll probably seek a refund. I don't care so much that every rental wouldn't be in HD, but I'd hope they would be.

I'm staying hopeful, though. The new release rentals may come after the February launch.
 
BoulderBum said:
The reason I bought the Apple TV was for rentals which Jobs said "would come from every major studio" and that "rentals would be available a month after they hit the rental shelves". I also assumed that every rental would be available in HD.
Click to expand...

Assumption is the mother of cockup. :)

BoulderBum said:
So far, I've noticed that relatively few rentals are available in HD, and though there are probably movies from every major studio on iTunes, most of the movies are old, odd, B movies (with a few worthy titles thrown in).
Click to expand...

But surely what's on there now is back catalogue (which they never said would be available in HD, unless I missed something in the keynote and your quotes) plus some of the 1000 HD launch titles he promised ( it's not the end of Feb yet!). It hasn't been long enough since the rentals launched for movies that have been released since then to appear in the iTunes store (30d after DVD, remember?). That's why there aren't any post-MacWorld releases on there yet. Give it time....
 
720p. And people should stop wanting 1080p, with the compression needed over the internet, there will be very little 1080p-ishness about it left. 720p is the max today, one day quality can go up, today it's not an option
 
BoulderBum said:
Actually, they did. Check out the MacWorld keynote.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StYkjojwHfg

Steve Jobs says:


If Apple doesn't get EVERY new release from EVERY major studio, I think they should be sued for false advertising and I'll probably seek a refund. I don't care so much that every rental wouldn't be in HD, but I'd hope they would be.

I'm staying hopeful, though. The new release rentals may come after the February launch.
Click to expand...

Except that, if you read your quote, Jobs never said they'd get EVERY new release from EVERY major studio. He said they'd get "all the great first run films" which is entirely different and, most importantly, subjective. Their definition of a great film might be different to yours, though in this case I think you could safely translate that as blockbuster movies. The important figure is the 1,000 movies by the end of February with 100 HD titles. That's the target they'll be aiming for.

As for the rest, give it some time. This is a new service for Apple and it's going to take time to build their library. That said if they manage the 1,000 movies by end of February AND get blockbusters 30 days after DVD release AND keep adding at a decent rate that library could look quite impressive by the end of the year. Certainly it'd be on a par with most video rental stores at that point. As an example, Netflix currently has arond 7,000 titles available on-line and they started their service in January 2007 so I think something similar for iTunes by Christmas 2008 would be a good target goal.
 
its just gone live really so new titles will be added weekly, this is a new venture and im sure they dont want to a) crash the servers b) keep up the download speeds with incrimental growth, i would assume, give it a couple of months and there should be a substantial amount of movies and hd
 
I was actually impressed with the amount of HD movie selections for a launch. I thought there may be just a few to choose from to show the potential but there were many that I wanted to watch but had to choose one. Give it a month, the selection will get there!
 
BoulderBum said:
I have to say I'm currently unimpressed by the selection (especially in HD).
Click to expand...

For a launch, I was very impressed at the amount of HD movies available. Remember, if the update had come out on the originally timeline, there would have been less of a selection and more people complaining.

I think Apple have the mix just right for a launch and at the rate new movies are added, things are only going to get better and quickly too.
 
Give it some time. The update just came out yesterday! It would be awesome if Apple unveiled Take 2 with every studio and every movie ever made but thats just not going to happen. Rentals will build over time.
 
Yes I agree it takes time.....

I sent a support email/suggestion to Apple expressing my interest in more library content (old/classic/independent/foreign). I suggested they could make some deal with someone like the Criterion Collection people. Seems like most people in this forum want the latest new releases, but I dunno....lately the bulk of the major studio releases are pretty far from what I wanna spend my time on (let alone my money!)

Tivo announced a deal with Jaman last month, and even though Jaman ON THERE OWN created a plugin for AppleTV, it hasn't been legitimized. I know, I know....DRM DRM DRM. Fine, if Steve-O wants to be king of the hill thats awesome, but then have an alternative!

I bought into AppleTV cause they are now positioned to win, but watching 'Evan Almighty' isn't going to cut it for me, even if it is in HD.

-pj
 
smiddlehurst said:
Except that, if you read your quote, Jobs never said they'd get EVERY new release from EVERY major studio. He said they'd get "all the great first run films" which is entirely different...
Click to expand...

When I gave a second look back at the keynote, I see that he wasn't saying they'd have every move in HD (though he could have chosen better words), but I see no way a reasonable person wouldn't have interpreted Steve Jobs as saying they'd get every new release a month after it hits the rental shelves.

The fact that they got 3:10 to Yuma is encouraging it's by far the best new release in months.

Now I'll be looking for:

Shoot Em Up (released Jan 1)
Resident Evil Extinction (Jan 2)
Saw IV (Jan 22)

Not because I necessarily want to see them, but just for reassurance that iTunes is going to get the all the rentals I expect them to.
 
Sorry but listen to yourself. Ever heard of a ramp up. Did the music store have everything when it first launched. No. It takes time to convert ALLLLLL those movies and get them going. 1000 by the end of February. It's the 13th. New releases 30 days after. Sure that won't be true for every single movie. Especially not during the launch window. I would expect the library to build significantly over the next month. HD is fairly new, so it will take some time before it is the standard. Expect that the SD and HD library titles will grow significantly within the next few months. Expect that Apple will be as active as they can to do this so that the Apple TV can sell and so that rentals sustain. Also expect that if you are going to download an update on release day, that it is not going to be your video store and have everything right away.

And dude, drink less coffee or something.
 
I agree it will take time for Apple to build up the catalog of movies they have available. Just like it did for the music catalog to build up over time. Give it some time and they will have a monster catalog just the the music catalog.
Also I think Apple shouldn't even bother with the standard definition content and they should just release everything in HD. If you only want to watch standard def movies just rent the DVD.
 
I think that SD rentals have their place, though. What if you just wanted to rent a bunch of movies and take them on an iPod during a family vacation or something? Sure there are portable DVD players (just like there are portable CD players), but that's less convenient.

Also, I understand that the library will build up over time, the question is to what scale?

The original iTunes movie and TV show collection had a year to build up, and the selection is still pretty pitiful! My hope is that movie rentals will be A LOT better.
 
SD movies are pointless, since you need a HDTV to connect to their AppleTV, why even rent SD movies? Apple missed again. Maybe the third time is a charm.....

I hope AppleTv comes up with many more Movies in HD or I'm buying a BlueRay player and putting my appleTV on ebay.....
 
bbotte said:
SD movies are pointless, since you need a HDTV to connect to their AppleTV, why even rent SD movies?
Click to expand...
SD movies are perfect for iPod owners.

Why pay more to download a HD movie that's 100's of megs bigger than SD when you're only viewing it on a 2-3 inch screen? :confused:

Point being, movies exist for most things Apple, not just the AppleTV.
 
BoulderBum said:
Well, Resident Evil is on the list now. So is "Rescue Dawn" which is a pretty good film!
Click to expand...

Michael Clayton in HD last night and they have had No Reservations HD for awhile and it is not available on HD DVD until I think March.

I think we will see more big releases on ITMS and Apple TV that come out before the DVD.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back