When Apple Computer Inc. begins selling Hollywood films online this week via its iTunes Store, Disney Studios’ films (classics for $9.99, new releases for $14.99 – in comparison to Amazon’s Unbox, which offers films at costs ranging from $8 to $20) will be the only films offered initially according to a report in Daily Variety, UPI reports.
“Daily Variety said Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs’ unwillingness to price the downloadable videos as high as movie studios would have liked ultimately resulted in Disney being the only studio signed on to offer its wares on iTunes beginning Tuesday,” UPI reports.
Daily Variety reported that if the Apple-Disney feature film partnership proves profitable other major studios likely will follow in Disney’s footsteps.
Full article here.
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Fsck you Hollywood! Unbox is shit!
Lion’s Gate is on board too…
Let’s help the cause and buy “Little Mermaid,” “Bambi,” “Cinderella,” and “Beauty and the Beast” a couples times each.
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WTF? Unbox prices are $14.99 and $9.99 and all the studios are on board. What’s the deal?
Good.
Apple- sticks to it’s guns.
And why not? When you’re the quality leader, and the innovation specialists, you can do WHATEVER THE FSCK YOU WANT TO.
In light of this (initial) scarcity of content partners, Apple’s solution will have to be MUCH better. And it probably will be…
Better, maybe. At first, though, it just needs to be more popular. This could be a case where they leverage the iPod. But, since Apple is used to doing things better, they will have an ace up their sleeve. What they have gotten good at is deciding WHEN to play their cards.
10 minutes ’til Tuesday.
I’m guessing that the movie store will focus around the ipod. They want to sell more ipods and make more money. You downlod the movies to the ipod. You can watch them on our ipod or dock it and watch them on the tv. Maybe the ipod will have frontrow built and come with a remote. The ipod will be the living room device.
Disney backed the historically revisionist ‘Path to 9/11’ on ABC television. Don’t buy their junk, from Apple’s iTunes Music Store or anywhere else.
Goliath: Unbox is DRM’d up the wazoo and the studios like that. They still fantasize that a system like that can work.
This is following the pattern of the TV store. Didn’t it just start with one network? When show sales exploded, everyone else jumped on board.
The other studios will see that Job’s plan is the only one that works and will eventualy come on board.
ABC and NBC are also not with Amazon so I expect a better deal with them also.
@ Tergenev
This is an APPLE site.
Take it somewhere else.
>Disney backed the historically revisionist ‘Path to 9/11’ on ABC television. Don’t buy their junk, from Apple’s iTunes Music Store or anywhere else.>
You seem to forget Tergenev, that ABC, CBS, NBC, are all stooges of the left. Even they had to show SOME of the crap that went on during the Clintonistas reign. The left wing loonies tried to censor (and did) a lot of the dem debacles. What about the 1st amendment now?
Bush is best during this third world war.. That’ll stir ’em up.
@ Ron.
ditto. MAC DAILY NEWS.
The new thought police=political correctness= SOME of the new Left.
And Tergenev, if you’re trying to be ironic, check your speellink. Djor bvowels are not so keerekt.
Night.
Tergenev
Miramax distributed Fahrenheit 911. Do you boycott them, too?
i am buying a couple copies of Pirates of the Caribbean
The key to this maybe how extensive the Disney catalog is. Disney has been a movie producer for a long time. If they are able to offer everything, even some of the old Wonderful World of Disney stuff, then this might very popular due to the fact that you cannot get that material in other places.
Tergenev,
I agree with you that the documentary is a travesty, but you must not forget that His Steveness is now allied with Disney, and that the documentary therefore is now within the Holy Reality Distortion Field. Accordingly we must not criticize but instead must all have faith that His Steveness has, in his wisdom, approved and sanctified the documentary for deep and mysterious reasons which are beyond our lowly comprehension. Do not forget that He moves in mysterious ways and that we cannot all hope to grasp the workings of His holy grace.
Of course, we have the right to lie, because we hated Clinton, so anything we want to say about him is fair game. And we can never let anyone show a flawed Ronald Reagan docu-drama. That would be disrespectful.
And never, never refer to “The Pet Goat” incident. It did not happen. Never did.
Wow, libs DO beleive in a Higher Being and not just being higher.
You all digress.
Too bad. We got away from this sh*t, for a little while, anyway.
So, what other Disney items might show up.
Are there, for instance, any short subjects/
And, what with various mergers and acquisitions, perhaps some other productions may show up as initial offerings.
Anyone have any inside info?
If they’re opening up the vault for some of the classics, that’s awesome — I would love to download “Fantasia” to watch on my iBook when I’m hanging out in the airport for a couple of hours.
And the big difference between “Unbox” and iTunes Movies (call it the iTunes Media Store) is that we get to KEEP the iTMS wares — we don’t have to worry about them vanishing in 24 hours (if you’re able to download them at all).
And for Mac users (this IS MacDailyNews, after all), we can’t even use “Unbox” or 99% of the other services…and writers dare to complain about Apple’s “closed systems”…
I think wick hit the nail on the head.
Apple has been fervishly working on the touchscreen iPod but is not ready. They can’t let the holiday buying season go by without a new iPod from Apple…the answer: The iPod that Apple will release tomorrow. Yes it will have Front Row and a remote.Yes it will be the living room device most definitely. The capacity will be increased to 80GB. Now how long do you think Apple has been holding on to this little addition to the iPod? Now that’s planning. And using Cars and Pirates against the studios is genious. The studios won’t sit back for long and watch Disney rake in the dough…they will jump on the band wagon quickly. Jobs and Apple always have extra cards up their sleeves and they always know exactly when to play them.
Does “Disney Studios” include all the other “studios” that Disney (the corporation) owns?
Buena Vista
Touchstone Pictures
Hollywood Pictures
Miramax Films
and of course
Pixar
If so, that’s a sizable chunk of “Hollywood.”
MIRIMAX- huge, because= same dempographic users that propelled ipod (i.e., my kids)
Hurray! VHS-quality Disney films on my HDTV-quality Macbook Pro! And only $14.99! Can’t wait!
Yup. Same dempographics.
At&T to launch movie service.
Hm… ganging up a lilbit?
The movies will be high-definition. And no, the files will not be too large to reasonably download. They will be using an amazing new compression algorithm. You’ll see – you naysayers.
(I’m sorry. I can’t seem to stop myself. I know I swore this off, and, honestly people, I HAVE TRIED, but…)
That’s funny. I’m watching GW on MSNBC.
He used the word “despotism”.
1. The irony is irresistable!!!!
2. Did he know that word, (or, part 2) how many times did he have to practice saying that word?
PLEASE GOD, HELP ME. HELP! I AM NOT A TROLL. THE OTHER TROLLS SUCK ME IN WITH THIER STUPIDITY! (God, just read the posts here. See what I mean? In fact, a few days ago, some of them said I was a FREAK! Now, You, Lord, know me well. But isn’t it funny? Later several will post like this… “this guy is a nut” “see, liberal freaks” “bla” “president bush is keeping us safe” “bla bla” “Gw is a regular guy, I know, I drink PBR”, ad infinitum”
god- what’s in thier minds? “lib” “commie” “bla bla”
Hey, GOD, speaking as a REGISTERED INDEPENDENT (since both USA pol. parties, as your children, are equal opportunity whores, accepting the same big pac money from big-biz);
I always wonder, are YOU inclined toward MAC or PC?
(I mean it, Lord, seriously, send a telepathic message to all the respondents/contributors on this impartial and unbiased board. Ask them to be candid.)
“[…] which offers films at costs ranging from $8 to $20 […]”
Prices range from $4 to $36.
Come on, “journalists.” It isn’t that difficult to do this research.
Disney AND
“Buena Vista
Touchstone Pictures
Hollywood Pictures
Miramax Films
and of course
Pixar”
wowee , bring it on
fuck amazon !
In an attempt to get things BACK ON TOPIC (you all know who you are)…
I had a thought about what would drive people to purchase movies from Apple in droves and totally fsck the other studios, making them BEG the Steve to let them play in his sandbox:
Disney allows Apple to release movies BEFORE they are released on DVD, similar to what they have done a couple of time with music tracks. Imagine being able to have a copy of the recent Pirates movies a week or two before it can be bought with packaging. If the quality were good enough, people would probably be willing to forgo the packaging itself and pay an “early-adopter” fee of $14.99 just for the bragging rights. The media would be all over this and it would be seen as yet another Apple coup in Hollywood. After all, Walmart and Blockbuster would join Ballmer in throwing chairs because of the money they would start losing when people didn’t buy or rent DVDs from them and they couldn’t do anything about it for a couple of weeks. “Hey Walmart! Wanna play dirty? I’ll show you dirty…”
I’ll bet Steve has some other plan like this or similar in mid so this doesn’t come off looking weak and like he lost against the studios.
MW: account, as in “Apple better buy another huge data center just to keep up with the accounting records from it’s media income”
why should the films be in hi-def ?
they could use standard dvd sd and just rescale via os-x and it’s built in upscalers
less space used and still good quality
don’t beleive me ?
try blowing up a top quality well mastered dvd on a 42″ plasma – not that bad at all , eh ?
Hi-Def films, even with mucho compression, would still be HUGE files and take lots of time to download. What happens when your connection is dropped? Do you start the download over?
Anyway, I’ve been holding out for a Full Resolution 1080p HDTV of reasonable size. Sony, Sharp and Samsung have 40″ LCD HDTVs (good size for a small apartment) have recently released some, with Sharp offering a 37″. If Apple manages to offer full resolution movies it could be a BIG thing! And if a new iPod is capable of displaying them in Full-Res on a TV, it could possibly be a bigger thing than the audio iPod.
Can’t wait to find out the scoop.
I wonder if the presentation will be streamed to the web by any chance?
MDN Magic Word: ATTACK. SOmehow it’s fitting!
Look, you freaks
If Apple’s business model is good enough, then people should only be buying the films they want to buy… because they want to buy them on I-Tunes.
Buying 5 copies of The Little Mermaid, just because you want Apple to beat Amazon just confirms the fact that Apple is only propped up by a minority of die-hard fanatics.
Hell, this kind of behaviour makes their 3%-4% market share on PCs look more like 1.5%-2%…With every mac owner owning 2 macs, just because they want Apple to exceed.
Am I wrong?
yup
now piss off back to the pc forum you came from , troll
Walden Media also works in with Disney…
All those kiddies can watch the chronicles of Narnia while waiting for the big studios to tow the line, which won’t be long, who’s going to pay 20 bucks for a flick when itunes store will charge way less than that.
Hey Billy,
yes you are, because if you inspire that kind of enthusiasm in people, even if you only reach a small crowd, that also makes you a valid player in the market.
Anyways, everybody votes with their money. If I choose to download a movie on iTunes every day, even if I don’t need it, just because I like it so much, that’s my private waste of money! And I am entitled to it!
And it might help, if the press reports that Apple beat Amazon 3:1 in the christmas season, the other studios are gonna come in.
flappo
I’m not a troll, by any means.
I’m sitting here checking the web every 5-10 minutes waiting for some new rumours on todays announcement. Praying for a 50 inch plasma, with built in Mac OS… So I can guy and spend a few thousand pounds at the Apple store.
I’m just a typical consumer that wants to buy a gadget that is both cool, and practical and groundbreaking.
Now sanctioning mutliple purchases of videos from Itunes…just to help the store succeed does not seem objective from my perspective. Indeed I would go so far as to call it freakish behaiour (as I did in my earlier post)
But calling me a troll is innacurate, and convenient.
It seems possible that Apple would also release one or more new cinema displays to coincide with the home theater theme. Consider the recent price drop in current cinema displays and the introduction of a 24-inch display for the new iMac.
Apple may replace the 17-inch display with a 20-inch display, introduce a stand-alone 24-inch display to replace the former 23-inch display, and maybe increase the size of the largest cinema display to, gulp, 40 inches.
The day that Steve starts pushing his own political views over his products, is the day I’ll switch to Linux.
And that will never happen. He’s too wise to mix his personal politics with his business.
Any comments?
This just means that we ALL have to band together and buy these movies, even if we feel simply “Ehh” about them. The more successful they are, the quicker the rest of the studios will get on board. Just like it was with TV Shows.
I personally will be buying several of them. I don’t think I’ll watch them myself, but I’m sure my g/f’s son, my niece, and any of my friends kids will be happy to watch them whenever the situation presents itself.
iScott:
Please purchase a couple of films for me, too, please. I’ll post a list of the films I want. Since you don’t plan to watch them, let me benefit from your superfluity, profligacy, and generosity. Thank you.
Firstly, the ‘on-topic’ stuff…
If Hollywood waits to see how Disney (inc. Touchstone, Pixar, Hollywood Films, Miramax, Dimension) fairs, I’m guessing that it’s no different to the fact that Disney/ABC was the initial founding content partner for the video element of iTMS.
Fast forward 12 months, and now – in the US at least – it’s difficult to see any network/channel that doesn’t have some sort of content available on iTMS.
You have to remember that some Hollywood types are relatively clueless and there is the old story (possibly apocryphal) about a Hollywood exec asking his assistant to go and film some Internet so that he could see what all the fuss was about.
Now, the mildly ‘off-topic’ stuff…
According to a news report I’ve just watched, Napster are going to start giving MP3/WMA players away based on the logic that subscription services would work if the whole commercial model was more like the cellphone market where the handsets are heavily subsidised and all the income is made from call plans and calls themselves.
Now, the completely ‘off-topic’ stuff…
I don’t think anybody came out of “The Path To 9/11” looking like rocket scientists. The Clinton administration appear to have been actively committed to the rule of international law (which is noble, but questionable when you’re talking about the assassination of a rabid dog like bin Laden who’s taken refuge in a failed state with no rule of law), but were portrayed as being quite passive about forming or developing a concerted international alliance to fight the threat of Al Qua’ida. The Bush administration were portrayed as being initially concerned with rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. There also appeared to be a portrayal of ‘turf wars’ between the various government agencies under both administrations and a complacent ‘group think’ mentality at various management levels.
What’s actually missing from the programme is a verbatim reconstruction of the 9/11 Commission with the testimony from the key witnesses being framed in the context of what actually happened.
iTunes music store is being updated!
check it out! WOO HOO!
I would love for Disney to open the vault. I grew up on the Disney sunday night movies, and would love to have the chance to watch them again. And it makes business sense to release the not-so-popular movies digitally – save production costs.
Hey, do you think the iTMS will have special features? Ooh, maybe they would be ready to burn, Video_TS anyone? (and a lower quality one for the iPod), Ok, I know there isn’t a snowball’s chance of the studios allowing Video_TS downloads
Good morning America,
Does anybody know when Europe is going to enjoy these movie downloads?
Am I wrong when I say that this is never mentionned or did I miss something??
The event today will also be broadcasted to the UK so they might be part of this but I live in Holland….
Any knowledge about this overthere?
Disney classics for kids are always fresh — for kids. Thus Disney’s vast horde of children’s classics is a gold mine. iTunes is the right way to market these. There is only a one time cost to process them for iTunes and they are then always available.
When Disney cleans up and the competition sees how consumers reject the other customer hostile “services” — as in “bend over, you are being serviced” — they will stampede over to iTunes or just miss out on a lot of business.
The studios suffer from an arrogant sense of entitlement. Their inflicted preference for an overly aggressive DRM laden business model is biting them in the butt. Steve Jobs is just too smart to create a service that will not serve customers and make money at the same time. The music business is still grousing about iTunes dominance, but that is because they are in denial of the realities of the free market. Tough nuggies. They will just have to learn the hard way – again.
John Gee: “The day that Steve starts pushing his own political views over his products, is the day I’ll switch to Linux.
And that will never happen. He’s too wise to mix his personal politics with his business.
Any comments?”
Two words: Al Gore
LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son,
We hope…. The studios CAN continue to boycott Apple and force consumers to purchase DVD’s. Without a successful digital model that their content is a part of, the studios are still in control. Apple’s success in the living room is contigent upon content.
What family does not already own every Disney and Pixar movie???
This downloading movies is a bust; minor business…..until the price comes down and the interenet speeds up and quality of downloaded movie goes up.
Why pay the same price for a crapped DRMed movie when one can buy a DVD – with better quality, better everything.
Oh yeah, and with all those movies on your computer, you better have a very good back-up system. Your computer somehow does a dump and you lose everything on your hard drive….well, time to buy and download again…
Yes Billy, you’re wrong. Besides, the “PC” percentages includes computers like POS terminals, etc. That scews the Windows numbers the other way.
As for this movie stuff… I really need to see exactly what they’re offering in terms of the service to decide if its good or not. Right now it’s all just speculation.
The movie studios tried to send Apple a message by going with Amazon… and now it’s backfiring on them, big time.
Alot, if not most, old disney movies aren’t available on DVD, or even on VHS, and aren’t shown on TV either. (or at least not available in the US, I just ordered an old favorite that was released in Region 2, but not Region 1) As I said, I grew up on the Wonderful world of Disney, so I would love to be able to share them to my neices and nephews – to show them what kids 20 years ago watched.
HERE’S THE LIST OF RUMORED MOVIES:
http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/itunes-movie-store-movie-list-revealed-the-house-that-mickey-built-198526.php
Zondroat…
Maybe I’m confused, but in what way has the appointment of Al Gore to a non-exec, independent board role ‘politicised’ Apple Computer?
Has he ever stood up at a function where he’s representing Apple in an official capacity (unlikely as he’s a non-exec) and said: “Hi, my name’s Al Gore and – whilst I’m here telling you how I invented the Internet – let me fill you with fear, uncertainty and doubt regarding the world’s climate”?
Personally, I’m guessing not so it would be no different to Dick Cheney going to work for Microsoft after he leaves office or would that be OK because Dick is a stand-up guy who knows all there is know about technology?
Seriously, what is it about ‘Anybody But Gore’ anti-Democrats that they can’t leave their baggage at the door? The guy was the VEEP, he’s not anymore, he’s not seeking election to any office, he’s just a private citizen with an interest in the environment and Democratic politics and yet ABG-types behave as if he were the anti-Christ or a child molester who isn’t entitled to earn a living. If you think he’s a hypocrite, don’t listen to him – he’s not taking your tax dollars anymore other than for his Secret Service protection, so give it a fucking rest already. After all, Democrats aren’t still bleating about Dan Quayle (we’d forgotten about him around 10 minutes after he left the building) and he couldn’t even spell “potato”.