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Jan 17, 08 - 05:43 pm Comment from: John

Yep, Blu-ray might have won the new media war, but physical disks aren't where the future is. Tough nut for Sony and Toshiba (et al) to swallow, I'm sure!

Let them make the rentals cheaper and people won't hesitate renting severall times a "beloved" movie whenever pleased and renounce having it on a disk at home!

Umm. How many DVDs sold during the same timeframe?

People buy Blu-Ray and HD-DVD for the HD content which Apple doesn't offer so the comparison has no value.

Now if DVDs didn't exist and Apple still outsold both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD then we would have some news.

Jan 17, 08 - 05:49 pm Comment from: Macdoc

Ok AAPL move UP!!!

Jan 17, 08 - 05:53 pm Comment from: HMCIV

Perhaps TGABTG is right that this is an Apples & oranges comparison. Nonetheless, If you're any video download store other than Apple, this is bad.

I'm tellin' ya, this iTunes movie store/AppleTV may not be that revolutionary/innovative/exciting/sexy but it is gonna make billions for Apple.

That does not mean anything. You are just talking about the High Def titles playing on new technology vs the ipod/itunes store that more people have access to. You will see HD players sales increase with the format war near its end prices will decrease. I am buying blu-rays now for about an average 19 bucks online now. When I first starting buying them i was paying sometimes 40. Compared to a much cheaper itunes movie and a larger user base. i would hope itunes sold more movies, too bad it does not include DVD figures into it. I am sure that would be higher than itunes store but I am more interested in by how far. If it is pretty close, then maybe digital is the future. I for one dont want to buy a 50 gig movie to play on my computer. I would rather have a physical disk to play on my HDTV.

No full HD ! I guess they dont want you to download a 50 gig full HD movie. I will stick to my blu-rays. Thanks

If you look at this as a "what will replace regular DVDs?" comparison, then comparing the sales of HD-DVD discs, Blu-Ray discs, and Apple downloads to each other is valid.

That said, by Jan 15, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will have also sold more discs. In the case of Blu-Ray, since the exact date for it topping 6 million is not given, it is then possible that Blu-Ray Christmas sales could've led to more than Apple's 7 million.

TGABTG makes a wonderful point ... about the wrong thing. Apple's target is the DVD market. If you thinks Jobs can get excited about 10 million units at $25 retail dollars each over a year and a half, you may need to check your notes from Tuesday morning (see the part where he smiles as he repeats selling 20 million songs in a day).

Jan 17, 08 - 06:04 pm Comment from: The Dude

@TGABTG
I started laying out the comparison... but as you nice and quickly stated... these numbers really mean nothing. You cannot really compare these numbers and get anything meaningful out of it.

Apple is trying to limit any comparisons really. They do not SELL HD movies online... so you until they sell HD movies, you cannot compare Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sales to them. You can compare BB and Netflix RENTALS in 3 months... 6 months... or a year to Apple... but at this time... there is no news here... move along people.

The Dude abides.

Jan 17, 08 - 06:04 pm Comment from: jjjj

bad article. 640x480 is nowhere near-HD quality. That's Standard Definition, the same as any standard DVD... Blu-Ray and HD-DVD offer 1080p resolution, much better quality than anything else out there to date. They require special players and 1080p TVs to enjoy, and thus are mostly in the hands of early adopters and techies who don't want to wait out the format war.

That iTunes users are buying movies online is good news, however, and hopefully the studios will realize that distribution methods and rules need to change, and change quick, or the same fate that befell the music industry will ensnare them. Perhaps it already has...

Ultimately we like purchasing bits, not atoms.

If you have an HDTV, the only way to see true 1080p resolution movies is on Blu-ray or HD DVD.

HD on air? Nope. 720i.
HD on cable? Nope. That's 1080i.
HD on iTunes? Nope. It's 720p at best.
HD on Sattellite? Nope. Again, 1080i.

And now that HD DVD has lost, Blu-ray is the only game in town. Apple TV is nice, but its no use to me until it gets a Blu-ray drive.

Just rented & watched 300 - I don't know how Apple is doing it, but the picture quality is awesome, and the wait time to watch is almost nothing. Great experience to get vastly better when my AppleTV gets updated!!!

This is HUGE

Jan 17, 08 - 06:27 pm Comment from: Essence

I think you guys are all missing the point. People poo-poo the iTunes store for poor video sales, and yet they are outselling both Blu-ray and HD DVD - formats that have had billions of dollars invested in order to make them the next "big thing". Maybe, just maybe, the iTunes video store is going to be the next "big thing".

Oh, and stop whinning about HD. The money is made at the consumer level, not the videophile level. Regular DVD is fine for 90% of the market and will be until Blu-ray is as cheap.

Apple TV is ready for prime. Are you? For that you just need to BUY BUY BUY AAPL.

Jan 17, 08 - 06:40 pm Comment from: Jubei

And the morons out there keep saying Apple selling movies is a failure. Laughable.

Jan 17, 08 - 06:41 pm Comment from: Jubei

@G Spank

Hmmm maybe the use Handbrake!

Actually I would love how Apple does their encoding. Even the TV shows looks amazing. The Terminator series free premier movie looks awesome.

Jan 17, 08 - 06:42 pm Comment from: Jubei

I meant to type " I would love to know how...."

Jan 17, 08 - 06:44 pm Comment from: DresdenSparrow

Wait half a year a so and all of a sudden the 30 day delay will vanish and the price will drop a dollar....and it will take off!

Saying this article is like comparing Apples to Oranges and hence pointless is missing the point! DVD sales of course are going to be still going strong for a few more years. What they're comparing here is the NEXT GEN formats. I think this is a significant report because it shows that many are waiting on a next gen format. I think Apple brought HD rentals out at the right time (actually a few months earlier would have been ideal but still nonetheless great timing). HDTV's have been selling for years and you can't buy a new TV that's SD anymore. So going forward DVDs will decline naturally and a new format will take it's place. The biggest reason HD has not taken off, is who wants to pay $500+ for a player that may become the next BetaMax! Many have an HDTV, want HD, but want just one player, not 2, and also not have one being obsolete in a year from now. With hard drives so cheap, media centers, laptops, and set top boxes like Apple TV available, and high speed internet in almost every home why not just wait for a download service! If iTunes is outselling the next gen movie formats that shows that it'll soon be outselling HD downloads. Why? Because once you've established the loyal customer base, there's only one way to go, and that's up! Now what I'd be interested to see is how iTunes matches against NetFlix in online downloads. Personally, I think the time is coming when downloads will overtake physical media and obviously the stats are proving that true. Few more years and only Grandma and Grandpa will be buying Blu-Ray!

The Playstation 3 is the reason BRay took off. Blue Ray player with a free Playstation 3 thrown in.

Look one use for Blue Ray is this. Reduce the amount of plastic in the environment. Instead of releasing a box set on 6 discs, they could be released on one disc. And shorten the box back down to music CD box size. The quality would have to be the same as standard DVDs are now to fit but hey, that's good enough isn't it.

But movies, I think 700meg avi's are good enough (considering most movies are crap or you'll only watch it once anyway) Think of the gaming possibilities. 300 levels of Halo or whatever on the one disc.

3 Things

Time Capsule
Airport
AppleTV

They all look the same and Should be the same!!!!!!!! Offer it in one device. Wireless internet, Computerless or Computer Entertainment and all backed including your computers.

1 Item Not 3.

I'm saving my $100.00 iphone refund for that item.

G Spank,
May I ask what was the size of the movie you downloaded. Dimensions ???x??? and the meg/gig size.

It's waay to early to start with these HD Downloads. Who is going to wait about 15 hours to download one movie?? I sure wouldnt. Besides, if the new non-physical media would easily takeover then that means that Cd's, DVD's and other recordable media would have vanished by now. HD Downloads will succed maybe in 20 years from now.

I think that it would behoove Apple to start throwing out a few ATV commercials to get the general public notified. Most people just dont know what it is. I think that marketing this thing is key to its success.

Jan 17, 08 - 07:29 pm Comment from: TheConfuzed1

@Tony

Yup. Blu-Ray is the reason I chose a PS3 over a Wii.

Jan 17, 08 - 07:31 pm Comment from: John

@johnny:
I agree that this is pushing the envelope right at the moment, but 20 years is far too long for your vision to come true. Consider this for a moment: in 1998, there were lots and lots of physical CD stores all over the place. Where are they now? Only big-box stores like Walmart and such can manage to remain open selling them since they don't need to make any money off CDs.

College students, with access to high speed internet, download tons of movies already (I know because I ask my students this question from time to time). It'll take a few more years (and bigger bandwidth pipes for the average household), but physical media for movies will go the way of the current CD in time.

Jan 17, 08 - 07:38 pm Comment from: Vanillacide

@johnny

Wow, broadband must suck where ever you are.

I'm in UK and have a cable modem that is 20Mb/s, was 10Mb/s last year, is promised to be 50Mb/s next year and 100Mb/s in the next couple of years. These are perfectly adequate speeds to deliver HD downloads.

So let's me get this straight --

You are comparing RENTALS at a price-point of $5 against physical media at a price-point of $30 and comparing UNIT sales?

And you are comparing one tiny SLICE of the physical media pie rather than the entire sector including DVD and COMBINING HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs?

And you are comparing a standard-definition product against a high-definition product, that by its very nature can only reach a smaller market (people with HDTV displays)?

Why not come back in a year and compare the dollar revenue from Apples HD movie rentals against Blu-ray sales and then you may have an article with some merit.

Seems like a really weak argument, that just because people downloaded movies, doesn't mean that they don't want the physical media in the end. Especially with all of the DRM issues that people have today. Imagine that you want to take your movie to your friends house to watch it...are you supposed to take your entire computing experience to their house just to watch the movie? Also, there are really good arguments for having physical media that you can convert later. How do you convert formats for soft copies today? For instance, if you had to go back and open a word doc from 12 years ago (which in computer time is a long time, but in movie time that's nothing) where would you ever find a converter to convert from Word 95 to Word 2007. Now, try that same analogy with physical media. Do you have the player that plays that media? um, done...no conversion needed. What if you want to convert to the latest and greatest...output the video stream and record it to the new physical media. No problem. Try copying the same DRM'ed file a year later...good luck with that.

I don't know why people think that digital is the only answer here. Sure, it's great for some things, but in five years, we'll see if they can even play those same files....and don't even get me started on file backups and the laws that we have now...ugh!

Jan 17, 08 - 08:08 pm Comment from: Woochifer

AS others have pointed out, this is a lame comparison considering that DVD sales have been left out, and the Apple TV downloads aren't even in HD resolution. Anyone trying to make an argument for 640x480 resolution as "next gen" needs to get their eyes checked (or at least get a HDTV).

As it stands, Apple TV is merely competing with PPV, VOD, and video rentals. That slice of the market is small compared to the revenues that disc sales generate, and if Apple establishes a beachhead in with their download rental service, they might stand to benefit if that market grows substantially. But, any comparison with HD-DVD and Blu-ray is just blowing smoke if that comparison excludes the DVD.

Apple iTunes movies = (mostly) standard definition, (mostly) two-channel audio, geared towards rentals

Blu-ray/HD-DVD = 1080p resolution, up to 7.1 audio, (Blu-ray) uncompressed multichannel audio, geared towards purchases

"Just rented & watched 300 - I don't know how Apple is doing it, but the picture quality is awesome, and the wait time to watch is almost nothing. Great experience to get vastly better when my AppleTV gets updated!!!"

Because you're an Apple fanboy anything Apple gets automatically upgraded by your subconscious before you get a chance to rationally analyse it. That's how they do it.

Bang on MDN - an atomic bomb is about to explode in the movie industry... and it has an apple on it.

@Robert Huebner: Whose comparing rentals or revenue???? Can you read???

The article was comparing Apple movie download unit sales against HD-DVD disc unit sales and Blu-Ray disc unit sales. It's basically comparing all the up-and-coming alternatives to standard DVD disc sales.

This is the same as asking what is the successor to CD disc sales for music. Is it music downloads (MP3, AAC, WMA) or SACD discs? Clearly, the market has chosen current quality discs (regular CDs) and downloads over any higher-quality discs.

So how many people want to pay extra to own HD discs? Or would they rather just get lower-quality downloads instead?

It's not a comparison of quality. It's a comparison of what people are willing to pay for. For now, there are almost as many sales of Apple standard-quality downloads as there are of high-def quality discs. If HD-DVD goes away, maybe Blu-Ray takes off. Or maybe not until the price of Blu-Ray discs come down. Or maybe never at all because people will see that HD downloads are coming, and are willing to live with 720p rentals until such time that HD download sales are available.

7 million movie sales and only 400,000 AppleTV sales?

I didn't think people still watched movies on their computers anymore.

Jan 17, 08 - 08:35 pm Comment from: TowerTone

montex
I have never heard of 720i.

Jan 17, 08 - 08:45 pm Comment from: TowerTone

Also, let's make a distinction. I have a Pioneer plasma with 720p high definition. I could have gotten a 1080i from someone else. It is only a 42" set. How much more clarity would I gain? Let's say I wanted 1080p. How dense can those lines be and still be noticeable?

For my understanding, it depends on the size of the screen. Do you really notice the any difference in a 6 megapixel and a 12 megapixel picture if it is only a 4x6? I doubt it. Blow it up to a poster, and you will.

You may notice on a 50" screen the difference between 720p and 1080i.

And you may see a difference on a 60" screen between 1080i and 1080p.

Now think about how much quicker I can be watching high def on a 42" screen at 720p vs a 60" screen at 1080p.

If you need it, get it. I am very happy with 720p

MDN,

Please stop the OBAMA Ads! I can't stand that Muslim!

Jan 17, 08 - 09:43 pm Comment from: iDon't

Obama is a Christian you idiot. I am a Muslim.

Hmmm....

How many of you folks have actually updated to the latest (required) versions of Quicktime and ITunes to access these movie rentals? Have you tried logging into the iTunes Store recently? How's that working for you???

The Apple servers are SLAMMED and they've got serious problems. I and numerous other folks have swamped the Apple Support forums for the last 3 days, and can't access our accounts any more after installing the updates, and the "new and improved" iTunes Store is not ready for prime time...

Jan 17, 08 - 10:09 pm Comment from: -hh

FWIW, my note to MDN mentioned our wonderful Death-Knell pundit from yesterday, "Swanni".

While there are valid **technical** points to be made about flavors of image quality and so forth, the real underlying story here is that there's three technologies that have been competing to replace the standard DVD:

1) Blu-Ray
2) HD-DVD
3) Streaming Media (where Apple is)

To date, despite "tiny" screens on iPods ... and "expensive" ATV boxes ... and no "rental" model ... and no "true HD" ... etc ... Apple's business model has already outsold its competitors.

YMMV if "Swanni" slowly twist in the wind...or merely quietly slink away. I'll bet on the former, as he's merely another website hits whore.


-hh

Jan 17, 08 - 10:21 pm Comment from: Woody

@ Tom Ledbetter: Your items 1 and 2 are already one thing. Did you miss the part of the Stevenote where he showed the back of Time Capsule and all the ethernet ports? And, um, I hope you actually already have your iPhone rebate coupon. Cuz if not, your chance to get one ended November 30, 2007.

@bitsmasher: I don't think it's the update that's the problem, it's that everybody's renting movies and the servers are, as you said, getting slammed. Not really the same thing. I've had problems intermittent problems tonight myself -- right now it's just running very slow when adding items to and viewing my shopping cart, and I had one download on my iPhone that never started and then disappeared. Try signing out of your account and signing back in -- that seems to give it a kick in the pants and things start working sorta.

Jan 17, 08 - 10:25 pm Comment from: TowerTone

I just downloaded the "free" song and TV episode and had no problems. Might rent something this weekend to try that.

Jan 17, 08 - 10:49 pm Comment from: January 24, 1984

I've got a MacMini hooked to a DLP 50". 720p. I wonder how I'll rent movies...seems Apple TV is the only 720p rental alternative now.

Is the fear we'll grab the bytes before they stream down the HDMI?

My LCD tv and rear-projector are both 720p, so iTunes' offerings are fine for me. I don't need 1080i or 1080p. I'm thinking of getting an AppleTV, but I may wait for a refurb, which will probably be around $150, eventually.

Jan 17, 08 - 11:11 pm Comment from: Dialtone

>Regular DVD is fine for 90% of the market and will be until Blu-ray is as cheap.

So were rabbit ears, VHS, etc. Blu-Ray has already entered into the mainstream. And once that 90% of the market sees 1080p, they'll soon want it. When it comes to eye candy, people throw aside all logic and economy.

rented pirates of the carribean from its-looked good.

Apples HD movies are only in 720p that is only half as good as a blu ray disc. Until they can get me a 1080p image with full 5.1 digital surround sound and get me it with no download times then it still pales in comparison to a blu ray.