iTunes Movie Service
You know, I was just wishing for iTunes movies a couple weeks ago, on the way back from my most recent UK trip. The article talks about potential competition from Amazon Unbox, but it only runs on Windows XP, and doesn't seem to offer any options for carrying movies over to a portable device. Not very interesting.
I rip my own DVDs for traveling entertainment. At least, I do when I plan in advance enough to buy new ones, and am patient enough to sit through the hours of maxing out my laptop while it crunches through the video. Okay, I'm often not patient enough and just read a book because it's less hassle. So there's a significant convenience factor to iTunes movies.
Of course, iTunes doesn't have any movies I actually want to buy, either because I've seen them, or because they're the kind of movie I might want to rent, but don't want to own. (Though, I give them geek-cred for having "Death Race 2000".) Their offerings will probably get better over time, as their TV shows have.
Oh, and their "30 minute movie download" estimate is way off. It's more like 6 hours on my DSL line. Maybe it's an estimate for a cable modem or fiber-optic connection.
tags:
| comments: 14
| Sphere It
submit: 
0 TrackBacks
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://blogs.oreilly.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/4919
Comments: 14
You don't mention if you have earlier access, but I can imagine downloading anything today would not be a realistic test of the download speed, considering the traffic they must be experiencing.
Douglas
Well, don't forget that it's the first day. I wouldn't be suprised if their pipes were bursting with movie traffic today. I'd be curious whether it goes as slow in a week.
It is the first day, but then they've been offering audio downloads for years now, and video downloads for almost a year. They could've anticipated a traffic spike. I imagine it will speed up in the next few weeks, either from decreasing traffic or because they throw hardware at the problem until it goes away.
They just keep getting better and better and they estimate download time in 3 years in advance
A more interesting question is, what if the problem is client-side bandwith limitations? They haven't hit the theoretical maximum for my DSL line, but they're respectably close. Maybe what they really need is varying video compression options, so you can choose a faster download with lower quality. I don't particularly need high-quality video when I'm only playing it on my iPod.
Without rentals (Blockbuster and/or Netflix style), I think this is a non-starter. Most people watch most movies once. Online delivery offers immediacy which primarily benefits renting. DVDs continue to have higher quality video, extras and more playability and reliability, for not much more $. Apple screwed this one up in Jobs' infatuation with users "owning" thier digital content.
It took me about 23 minutes to d/l The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy yesterday.
Took me three hours to d/l "A Civil Action" via DSL connection yesterday.
I have about two dozen DVD movies, but if the quality of the iTunes movies is good enough, I might find myself buying movies the iTunes way. That's certainly what happened with my music buying habits when iTunes first came along. I hadn't bought a CD in quite some time, but over the last three or four years I've purchased about as much music each month as I did when I was a teenager.
Personally I like owning content, though I'd obviously prefer to have a larger selection than what's on the store now.
I'm all for renting physical media, but I'm not interested in renting digital media. Once it's on my computer, I don't like the idea of letting go of it. Perhaps that's just me, though.
Apple screwed this one up in Jobs' infatuation with users "owning" thier digital content.
They got that right: ownership is a fundamental human desire. The sales figures for iTunes are a solid fact to back them up. My reservation is that Apple isn't really offering full ownership. When I own a book or DVD I have the freedom munge it into various forms for my own personal use, type in a quote as my email signature, or to loan it to a friend. Apple has blocked the social and creative aspects of ownership.
But Apple's content delivery fills a valuable niche. They're locked down just enough to make the media moguls comfortable, while allowing the average consumer the freedom they care about the most: the ability to have their music, TV shows, and movies on their computers, in their pocket, on their TVs, on their stereos, in their cars, etc. TiVo and Amazon Unbox have made similar compromises, but they're locked down too tightly to be useful to me.
I've been downloading 24 Season 1 for days now.
Half way through each episode I get an error code. Each episode takes over an hour to download. This is using a direct cable connection at 3MB. I've given up. Downloaded 1/2 the episodes at $40. They really messed this one up. Buyer beware. Wait for the bugs to work out before waisting your money. You can't even call them to complain!
you people should quit complaining i have to wait 210hrs to download A SINGULAR, 1, movie.......
You wanna know what's great? Our internet says we're at 1000 mbps, complete LIE. That's obviously way off...It took ONE hour to download a 23 minute episode of Family Guy. At that rate, it's over SEVEN hours for a Pirates of the Caribbean download. Right now, it says 12 hours remaining. What the hell?
hey, my friend is a musision and he has a comp. tht dose a 13 hr download (movie|itunes) on my comp . (so its 13 hrs on mi comp.) and on his it takes 5-8 min!!!!
he said 10 was too long and quit the download@!
lol i said lol!
Post A Comment:
STAY CONNECTED
RECENT COMMENTS
- Matt on iTunes Movie Service: hey, my friend is a mus...
- Sarah on iTunes Movie Service: You wanna know what's g...
- Sean on iTunes Movie Service: you people should quit ...
- Bob on iTunes Movie Service: I've been downloading 2...
- Allison Randal on iTunes Movie Service: Apple screwed this one ...
- Erik on iTunes Movie Service: Took me three hours to ...
- Justin on iTunes Movie Service: It took me about 23 min...
- pwb on iTunes Movie Service: Without rentals (Blockb...
- Allison Randal on iTunes Movie Service: A more interesting ques...
- Kris on iTunes Movie Service: They just keep getting ...
RADAR TOPICS
Andy Markham [09.12.06 08:12 PM]
The 30 minute movie download turned out to be about 2 hours for "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou", fyi...
- Andy