MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Not Netflix. The "video shop down the street", they're outta here, but Netflix will stay for a long while.

ID Argyll

Dec 28, 07 - 07:33 pm Comment from: ken1w

Most people are not going to watch FULL-LENGTH rental movies on an iPod. Apple's advantage here is not the installed base of iPods, but the installed base of iTunes software. If Apple does release an iTunes video rental service at MacWorld, Apple TV is sure to become much more prominent in Apple's product line-up and marketing.

Dec 28, 07 - 07:39 pm Comment from: theloniousMac

In addition, Apple has the most elegant and graceful foundation for allowing most of us to access content. These days I seldom go upstairs to the living room to watch television or a movie on the giant flatscreen HDTV.

Instead I watch it on my computer. I'm always downstairs working. So I have work up on one monitor and video up on another.

I believe though that Netflix compliments my lifestyle. A movie comes in the mail, I pop it into the machine, rip it, put it back in the envelope and send it back to Nextflix.

Someday I might even get around to watching it.

In a few years, Apple will be selling the *real* AppleTVs. They'll be HDTV's with hardrives.

@ ken1w.
Good point

Dec 28, 07 - 08:09 pm Comment from: iWill

I agree with G Spank, however, I think that at a certain point, even the HD won't be necessary. The video will be stored on massive Apple servers and simply streamed to the masses of hungry eyes out there.

Dec 28, 07 - 08:10 pm Comment from: The Other Steve

The majority of the "100 million digital media devices" that Apple has in there "installed base" is older iPods that don't play video. (MDN should have caught that)
Still, I do agree with their future predictions.

Dec 28, 07 - 08:23 pm Comment from: The Other Steve

there/their - is/are?

not my day I guess

Dec 28, 07 - 08:35 pm Comment from: pr

ken1w,
While I agree that "most people" won't watch full length movies on an ipod...I think you'd be quite surprised at how many
1. Watch them while travelling or in transit
2. Watch them on a television with some simple cables
3. Watch them through Apple TV
4. Watch them on an iPhone
5. WILL watch them on their computer and/or Apple Tablet

My dentist for example has a PC laptop and an iPhone. He travels all the time (his bills to me are high!)...and watches movies on his iPhone. It's actually not a bad experience (the audio makes a huge difference).

It's really not about "most people" in a fractured media environment. After all most people won't do a lot of things that seem to do incredibly well financially. It's about ENOUGH people.

Dec 28, 07 - 08:36 pm Comment from: qka

Netflix has already killed the corner video store.

The question is, will Apple kill Netflix?

Not until the network to the home gets much faster. And for many of us, the network is provided by the cable TV companies.

The fight shall be interesting.

Not a chance until they have the same selection. Which they won't.

Dec 28, 07 - 08:51 pm Comment from: bobchr

The decline of the video store at the corner happened long ago. It occurred when the small mom and pop shops got put out of business and stores like Block Buster started littering the landscape and pasteurizing the content of the classics and new releases by eradicating scenes they deemed to be not PC or unfit for consumption by the "Moral Majority". For my money...a pox on those guys and their selective use of content. They never gave people a choice. If Apple does do this rental deal , I suspect they will continue with the format of giving the customer a choice of "Explicit " or "Pasteurized". Just once I'd like to rent a video and see it as it was actually released, warts and all.

And a report on the news tonight has said that Walmart is pulling the plug on their rentals

Dec 28, 07 - 09:28 pm Comment from: Ampar

Here's some fun reading:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/ZDM/story?id=3800270

Who else is TiVo in bed with these days?

I just don't get it when people say the network to the home needs to be faster before Netflix has to worry about this. My movie downloads from iTunes average about three hours or less on a cable modem.

How long does it take for Netflix to mail a DVD to your house? Can they do this in three hours? What am I missing here?

Dec 28, 07 - 09:43 pm Comment from: kenh

But what happens when and if Apple movie rentals are as successful as some of us hope?

Who owns and controls the bandwidth that will be necessary?

I would not do a 3 hour download even if the bandwidth was available. I would still just get it at the corner franchise movie store. 5 minutes to pick it up, 30 seconds to drop it off.

Dec 28, 07 - 09:44 pm Comment from: neomonkey

It's really pretty simple, and Einstein said it best: "Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."

WHO WRITE these stupid articles... ?

Mp3 players hit the market long before iPod.

Palm and Blackberry were browsing the web before iPhone.

Piracy of video and music HAPPENED long before; during the NAPSTER days. Besides, hacking is not the business. Digital media business was not truly established.

The old formula / model for business is the problem. Digital media business is just shaping up... Apple is leading the way not killing it because THEY are the only COMPANY that UNDERSTANDS it!!!!!!

Apple should be accredited the successful model, yet crying competition rather then innovate - even review their business practices... just chooses to whine....

Funny, Apple not only makes innovative products but knows how to innovate on business too.

Apple is simply getting us over the hump. They see through the fog... this is why Macrosloth is coping Apples DRM methods and now simulates by placing it's own proprietary spin to the business plan.

iPOD is not to be blamed. Apple has killed NOTHING.
Only offered choice and enhanced the experience.

LONG LIVE STEVE JOBS


iCON... not only is he the best second act...
but Steve did ok with the NEXT, better at PIXAR, then returned to APPLE, and is shaking up Wally World too!!!!

THERE are many people at Apple we should thank as they are the reason for redefining OUR whole digital universe and the way North America shall do business!

NOT KILLING IT.... leave that to WALMART.


thx


Dougless

Why does everyone focus on the Netflix mail order program while completely ignoring their online Watch It Now service? It might be off to a slow start but they sure as hell won't abandon the idea like Walmart did.

I bet we see a major expansion of the Watch It Now catalog around the same time iTunes starts the movie rental service.

Dec 28, 07 - 10:26 pm Comment from: G4Dualie

Excellent post Dougless. You get it.

It's apparent English is a second language for you but even through the haze, your message is coming through loud and clear.

Couldn't have said it better myself and I'm second-generation American!

the install base isn't the ipod install base, its the itunes install base 'cause we all know that regardless of the generation of the ipod itunes will be the delivery method. it's already well known that the latest itunes contains code that mentions rental. come macworld '08 we'll see exactly how this code will work.

mw "moment" as in now is the moment!

Dec 28, 07 - 10:52 pm Comment from: G4Dualie

As for TV and hobbies, let's not forget Pixar was another hobby of Jobs.

Jobs was smart enough to give Ed, Alvy, and especially John all of the creative space they needed, while ensuring business-smart people kept them all afloat, even as they hemorrhaged money.

Everyone, including Lucas, never gave that company much of a chance and by some twist of fate, it was Pixar that gave Disney animation a new lease on life and it was Jobs who insisted Lassiter take the helm.

Is Jobs Midas? Perhaps, love him or hate him, but don't bet against him.

Dec 28, 07 - 11:21 pm Comment from: ken1w

> I would not do a 3 hour download even if the bandwidth was available.

@ kenh

NetFlix and Blockbuster use this thing called a queue. This is a list of movies you want to see next, in order of priority. Apple could do the same thing. In Apple's case, the queue would be used to pre-download the next three (or whatever number makes sense) movies in the background, or during a time you designate (like when you are sleeping or at work). The movie files sit inert on your computer until you decide to watch the movie; the rental charge takes place when the movie file is watched; the files is deleted when watched or if you take the movie off your queue. And iTunes controls it all.

That would solve the download delay issue, without an increase in available bandwidth. I think it will also overcome the issue with offering HD quality movies. Apple could offer both regular DVD quality and HD quality, at two different rates. In one step, Apple may make the HD DVD format war irrelevant for many customers.

100M iPods - 400K AppleTVs

99.6M short on the video players

100M short on HD quality video players

Even at 6 Mbps (Elite DSL or Cable), it just takes too damn long to download an HD quality movie (1080p). I didn't pay $3000 for my new HDTV to watch crap quality downloads.

Maybe when broadband achieves at least 10 Mbps then this business model will work.

>>"I just don't get it when people say the network to the home needs to be faster before Netflix has to worry about this. My movie downloads from iTunes average about three hours or less on a cable modem.

How long does it take for Netflix to mail a DVD to your house? Can they do this in three hours? What am I missing here?"

What you will be missing is a HUGE difference in the quality of the video you will be watching. It will not be HD and even now is described as "near DVD quality" (read NOT DVD quality). Not to say it won't change in the future, but right from the Apple TV specs page:

iTunes Store purchased video, 320x240 or 640x480

>>"I think it will also overcome the issue with offering HD quality movies. Apple could offer both regular DVD quality and HD quality, at two different rates. In one step, Apple may make the HD DVD format war irrelevant for many customers."

You will not be getting FULL HD quality movies anytime soon. Yes - bandwidth matters and a queue is not going to help that. Are MILLIONS of people going to be queued-up to the iTS 24/7? Again, bandwidth matters - big time.

@ken1w

What you said about downloading while your asleep. Thats what I was going to say. Kudos

My verizon fios is 20 mbps right now...

Yes, hard to believe that someone would watch a movie on an iPod or an iPhone. Well, that is until I learned that I was doing it and increasingly so. When you have spare time that little screen become a very nice addition to the day. That includes and not limited to tutorials, movies, video from podcast, and other training stuff from the company.
Sorry, can not agree that the movie rental will not take, I am waiting with open arms for rental movies to go. Ever try hiking in and then watching a movie at the site. It is every so nice. Just carry a solar recharger!

@Lossless: "bandwidth matters"
Not true. Who cares it takes 3 or 6 hours for an overnight download?

It is the download limit that matters, at lease with some (most?) cable companies who keep those limits artificially low (e.g. mine, telenet.be: 12GB/mo up+down). As an internet provider they discourage internet movie rentals, because they too offer video downloads (whose volume isn't counted towards the download limit:) -- as well as digital + analog versions of the usual cableTV channels.

Dec 29, 07 - 05:19 am Comment from: AlanAudio

Overnight downloads are only half of the possibility. One additional feature could be to pre-order blockbusters and they would then be downloaded to you a day or two ahead of time so as to avoid hogging the bandwidth.

Once on your hard drive, the file would remain locked until the time that the movie is officially released, but the very second that it's available, everybody who wants to watch it would be able to do so.

Hmm, I don't think it will kill the rental stores for a while, I mean watching a moving on an iPod has nothing on watch on a TV. The movie rentals on iTunes will bruise existing rental services, but the internet isn't at a stage where it's affordable for HD video downloads, so the resolution is low, so real movie buffs will stick with netflix and blockbuster.

When the internet finally gets to point where internet download speeds and bandwidth is able to handle high quality HD movie downloads, then that's when other stores may take a hit or two.

Rentals will be successful, but they won't hurt any current markets, it will simply create a whole new one. HD Movies + Apple TV will have their time, but it's still a few years away.

basic economics:

if demand increases, supply will increase until supply and demand are in equilibrium. If consumers demand higher speeds (through The cable companies have not maxed out the band width they can deliver, they place artificial caps. If the "average" consumers' usage of bandwith intensive video downloading increases, than the companies will be hard pressed not to increase bandwidth.

This is just the shape of things to come. As Woody Allen said 20 years ago, really, in the future the entire library of all the movies still in existence (over half of the movies ever made no longer exist) will be available by simply calling a number and it will be beamed to your home. Granted, he got the telephone thing wrong, but he was onto something even then.

Dec 29, 07 - 05:15 pm Comment from: gedboy

I bought the nano the minute it came out, not believing how brilliant video was on its tiny screen. Tiny is a relative term, when set against the iPhone I then bought. I record programmes (and films) and dump them onto my iPhone overnight. That means I can watch them in lumps during the day when otherwise I would have wasted time.

Apple know what they doing. Like NCG598, the iPhone has completely changed my viewing habits to such an extent that if someone stole my big old Thomson Ferguson tv from the living room, it would be weeks before I'd noticed it had been whipped.

Gosh, I can't wait to view a movie on my iPod rather than my 46 inch plasma TV. Just can't wait.

>>"@Lossless: "bandwidth matters"
Not true. Who cares it takes 3 or 6 hours for an overnight download?"

Apple.

yea! now I can cancel my stinking cable and just rent from Itunes, I am too lazy to mess with netflix or blockbuster--but if its true and I can rent movies at itunes--I'm there guys! later

Dec 30, 07 - 05:11 pm Comment from: Big Al

Near DVD quality, when upscaled to work on a 1080i HDTV looks good enough. That is what Apple TV does for you.

A 1.4 GB movie served over Apple TV is adequate. It's no Mac OS 10.5 but it's as good as XP SP2 and miles ahead of Vista.

Most iTunes users like XP SP2 and they will like Apple's new music rentals. They know all about 'good enough'.

Dec 30, 07 - 05:12 pm Comment from: Big Al

That was movie rentals.

Dec 31, 07 - 11:03 am Comment from: Marian

iTunes didn't kill the B&M;music store. There were others before who killed it, such as Walmart, Target, RIAA members, PS2...