Valleywag points us to the Financial Times who is outing Apple (try shutting them down!!) and 20th Century Fox's love affair on the home movie front. They are the first outted studio to offer movie rentals - most likely to be announced at Macworld. Sony, Paramount, Warner Bros. and, of course, Disney are expected to be announced at the event but others including internationals should follow.
"Apple has signed News Corp’s 20th Century Fox studio to a new online video-on-demand service in a deal that could change the way people pay for online film content," Matthew Garrahan and Kevin Allison report for The Financial Times.
"The agreement will allow consumers to rent the latest Fox DVD releases by downloading a digital copy from Apple’s iTunes platform for a limited time, according to a person familiar with the situation," Garrahan and Allison report.
"The Apple-Fox deal, likely to be announced at the Macworld show on January 14, has the potential to transform film distribution. Apart from letting people rent online, Apple will also for the first time extend its FairPlay digital rights management system beyond its own products," Garrahan and Allison report. "A digital file protected by FairPlay will be included in new Fox DVD releases, enabling film content to be transferred or 'ripped' from the disc to a computer and video iPod."
"Apple, whose shares hit $200 for the first time yesterday in intra-day trade, is understood to have been in talks with Sony Pictures Entertainment, Paramount and Warner Bros about making their new releases available on iTunes to buy and rent," Garrahan and Allison report."
These movies will be available for view on iTunes and through the network on the AppleTV. This will hopefully be the killer App of the AppleTV which has been lackluster in performance as well as sales up until this point. Most likely it was the studos who have been dragging their feet up until this point.
Also, according to Paidcontent.org:
One interesting twist that will help, though: Besides the online rental deal, a digital file protected by Apple’s DRM scheme FairPlay will be included in new Fox DVD releases, enabling film content to ripped to a PC and video iPod. DVD content can already be moved to an iPod but this requires a bit of an effort.
To review: Apple WILL announce movie rentals at Macworld. Prices will start at about two bucks each. Expect movies to be viewable for 24-72 hours but perhaps up to a week. The data will still take a considerable time to download - up to a few hours o the slower broadbands. But it is what it is.
It is about time.
Comments
YAY!!!!! ITS ABOUT TIME! AND
YAY!!!!! ITS ABOUT TIME! AND A BUCK OR TWO ONLY?!?! THATS UNBELIEVABLE! THANKS 9TO5!!!!!!
shut up. you are acting like
shut up. you are acting like an idiot...
"THANKS 9TO5!!"
You fucking circus freak.
What is your source for
What is your source for saying "a buck or two," or "24-72 hours?" It doesn't say that in either of the links you provide.
sweet, more overpriced
sweet, more overpriced movies available to the public
.........and at sup-DVD
.........and at sup-DVD resolutions I'm sure.
What great news!
What great news!
Big deal. NOT Who wants
Big deal.
NOT
Who wants standard-def DVDs or, worse, low-def 480i crappy digital downloads? This is a Full-HD world, baby! It's 1080P, BluRay or the highway.
And why should I want rareplay, where the "right" to access the content I bought may be revoked without warning or notice, when I can have complete access to my data at any time, forever?
The Apple fanboys cheering this ploy are even more deluded than usual.
And the AppleTV is not a patch on the PS3.
I'll stick to the open-format road and leave all you suckers forever paying rent to Steve-o.
You make it sound like
You make it sound like everyone has already moved to Hi-Def. When from sales of players both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray show Hi-Def still has a long way to go.
It most definitely is not a "Full-HD world" yet.
I think you will find that most people want to watch most movies once. So why buy them? As most people do, we rent them from a DVD store, wether an on-line store or our local DVD store.
I agree that those who have moved to Hi-Def would choose to buy their favorite movies on Hi-Def disc which can be used in your PS3.
The Apple TV is not a replacement for a Hi-Def player, although it can play 720 Hi-Def just not Full Hi-Def (when Apple get round to selling it). The Apple TV and iTunes movies are aimed at convenience and casual movie watching. So Movie rentals from iTunes looks like a good thing for, yes I'll use the term again 'most' people.
I can only guess at what you mean by "open-format" the Apple TV plays open format mpeg movies and you can convert other formats to play with Quicktime. With all content you have to pay someone for it, no matter what format. The only content you can legally play for free is your home movies and the Apple TV can play those just as good as your PS3.
I live in Japan and have a 1080p TV and get 1080p broadcasts from NHK's HiVision service. Watching your average TV show in Hi-Def isn't much to shout about. All you see more clearly is the presenter's skin problems, sweat and smudged mack-up. Don't get me wrong I love Hi-Def. Documentaries and movies do look great but I am a very visual person. Many people I know don't really care about going from good to great.
Maybe you should take a look at this article about how we watch TV and movies and you can decide if Hi-Def is the 'only' way to go.
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/12/04/why-low-def-is-the-new-hd/
Your right to access the
Your right to access the content you BOUGHT? What part of RENT do you not understand? Or do you really think you're going to BUY a movie for $2?
I have a problem with restrictive DRM on audio/video I BUY, but I don't have a problem on it being used for rentals.
MGZ
This can and will be a
This can and will be a killer app IF it is actually cheaper than renting a DVD. People expect digital distribution to be cheaper AND more convienent. This is the fundemental problem with current online music sales, they are niether cheaper (same cost) not more convient (DRM attached). Frankly I think only music should sell for $0.25-0.50 per song and an album should be less than $5.
Anonymous Coward you should be ok with "rareplay" because you're not buying the movie, you're renting it... or buying the right to watch it for the next few days. If some day they shut the fiarplay on video rentals down I'm sure they would stop renting videos a few days before the cut off. I do agree that it ought to be at least 480p quality with an option for 720p. I think 1080p would be serious overkill and a waste of resources at the momment, maybe in a few years there will actually be enough of a market with a) 1080p display equipment and b) bandwidth to download 1080p.
still waiting for the
still waiting for the eu-video-store here in old germany...
Good first step BUT It needs
Good first step BUT
It needs to offer HD in order to be worthwhile
It also should have an "all you can eat" for the price structure to go against Blockbuster and Netflix.
Anything less is a nice to have vs. a need to have.
Give me the all you can rent for a price point option and I drop Netflix..without it ..I may "rent" some from iTunes from time to time.
Are you people serious about
Are you people serious about wanting HD movies to download? Perhaps when the "last mile" is constructed with fiber that'll happen. We need a solution now. Good for all you people with FiOS or something like that, but a 5 meg connection is crap if you want to transfer HD.
Apple made a big mistake.
Apple made a big mistake. someone will just make a hack so you can keep it forever. Will you rent it on your apple tv or on iTunes and then put it on your iPod? If you can only look at it on a computer screen then renting sucks. When will you be able to buy movies on the iPhone and iPod touch ? Now that's creative
...adding to the craptastic
...adding to the craptastic comments here.
J, please explain why rental DRM is any different that the millions of managed FairPlay downloads of music, ipod games, and videos sold through iTunes? Since it seems that you haven't used iTunes I recommend that you TRY IT FIRST.
An iTunes media file can be placed on five devices. So my iPod has "Apocalypto" for instance and it is synced onto my AppleTV. The same goes for the other devices we have in the house.
Frankly, I worked on a major school project (MBA) regarding the AppleTV. And the one conclusion we had was that rentals are the only way to support the product. We knew there were many different offerings (Netflix/Amazon/Walmart etc) but appeal of buying/storing movies on a device as opposed to purchasing or renting a DVD was always a stretch,
The next question is if the Studios have a more standardized approach for rental (a la Blockbusted/Netflix) for licensing fees. Netflix is a nice service and I enjoy their selection so I believe they will have a big advantage if Apple can't match their library.
We'll see.
After watching the Keynote,
After watching the Keynote, this is either going to fail, or the Fanboi's are going to help it limp along.
$4.99 for an "HD" (720p) movie? These movies are NOT 1080p or 1080i (look on the Apple site for AppleTV, 1280x720 for HD)... and ONLY be able to watch it for 24 hours? (Who cares how long you get to keep it without viewing it).
Screw that. For the same price I can visit my local video store, keep the 1080i/p HD movie for 5 days, and enjoy the special features that are in the movie as well.
This download way, it might be slightly more convenient, but it's too expensive for what it is. No special features, and if you want to watch them on your TV, you have to buy a rig or AppleTV, otherwise it's on your computer or iPod. Which is fine... but not at $3-5 bucks.
At most, rentals should be $2, with FULL HD (1080i/p) being $3, and be viewable for a full week, if not more.
It's a novelty, and that's about it.
The company said the
The company said the additional store closings were made "due to continued weakness in the company's industry, to conserve cash and reduce the company's overall cost structure.
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