Lost in all the excitement of the new iPods, iPod nanos, and iPod Shuffles we overlooked something: movies in the iTunes Store. That's right, the rumormongers were correct and you can now purchase movies from Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar, Touchstone Pictures and Miramax Films (all Disney studios) from the comfort of iTunes. This movies (and all tv shows now) are available at a resolution of 640x48 which Apple calls 'near DVD quality.'
In an effort to make movie viewing more pleasurable you can watch the movies as you download them, and iTunes 7 features new on screen controls (seen at the left) which make it easier to control your movie. And of course you can review the movies that are available on iTunes (there are about 75) so if you're really into the Princess Diaries (iTunes link) let the world know!New feature film releases will cost $14.99 which back catalog movies will go for $9.99.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
9-12-2006 @ 4:57PM
Wheels said...
Dude, what about iPod Games?
Merry Christmas everybody!
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9-12-2006 @ 5:03PM
Dan S said...
Can we burn these to DVD (and play them in a regular DVD player)?
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9-12-2006 @ 5:09PM
Brent said...
From what I read you can not burn movies to a DVD which is a big let down.
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9-12-2006 @ 5:12PM
Paul-Michael Bauer said...
@#2
No, you can't burn to DVD.
That is why you must also buy...*drumroll*...iTV at the low LOW price of $299.
Seriously, streaming is more convenient than burning to DVD anyway.
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9-12-2006 @ 5:13PM
abm said...
So, do the 5g ipods now play 640x480 h.264 content? I thought they were capped at 320x240, or 512x 384 in mpeg2. I may have to re-encode some of my old stuff.
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9-12-2006 @ 5:20PM
Stephen said...
I was getting really excited about these movies until I realised it's not in the UK store. It won't be here until early next year.
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9-12-2006 @ 5:37PM
Sir Not Appearing in this Blog said...
To the folks bemoaning the inability to burn these to a DVD:
Buy a DVD. Why?
1. Higher resolution
2. Portable - you can use it in any device with a DVD drive
3. Flexible - you can copy it, you can encode it to other formats
4. Less expensive overall - even if you buy the movie for full price on the day it's released, it's still a better deal. It's got extras, other languages and (most importantly for semi-deef folks like me) SUBTITLES. Not to mention a snazzy box with cover art.
5. You can loan it to as many people as you like.
6. You can sell it if you want to.
Movies from the iTMS are a convenience luxury. You buy them because you don't want to bother compressing your own DVDs into iPod-compatible files. It's not intended to replace DVDs, but to supplement them.
I look forward to the day when I can buy a DVD and it will have on the disc an iPod-compatible file (or files, if it's a TV show). But as long as the RIAA can soak consumers for their movies twice (or more-if you've already seen the film in theatre, that's yet another payment), it'll never happen.
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9-12-2006 @ 6:33PM
Ghostdoguk said...
Hello Apple.
The united kingdom here !
Remember us ????
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9-12-2006 @ 6:38PM
Rob Roark said...
Does anyone know of a way to re-download TV shows I got earlier? I've got all of Battlestar Galactica Season 2 from the iTS, and now that my iPod can do 640x480, I'd like to get them all in that size. Checked my Account page in the iTS, and nowhere can I see that old option to re-download purchased tracks.
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9-12-2006 @ 6:39PM
illobo said...
640x48 ? dvd quality ? ;-)
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9-12-2006 @ 6:42PM
M Sprague said...
"Almost DVD quality." Nice, but please try again. Amazon's got to have something else up its sleeve by Christmas and they've already got better quality. I'm thinking this is going to get really interesting....
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9-12-2006 @ 6:56PM
David said...
Stephen (No. 6), you must also be prepared to pay 50% more when movies come to iTunes next year. Currently singles on iTunes US are 99 cents while singles on iTunes UK are 79 pence (1.50 cents, 50% more). I personally don't go near iTunes to avoid being ripped off. Its best to do as 'Sir Not Appearing..' suggests and buy a DVD. You'll get more options and avoid the Apple store ripoff.
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9-12-2006 @ 7:13PM
Brian said...
No Chapter Markers? Not good. Why do they always forget about chapter marks. Great, how do I get to the favorite part of a movie? Oh, honey, fast forward to 1 hour, 37 minutes and 53 seconds....or is it 54 seconds?
I hope they fix this NOW and not before they have 2000 movies available!
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9-12-2006 @ 7:27PM
djb said...
Downloading O Brother @ 2.5 mbps and it is taking 3 hours.....
His Steveness said 30 minutes @ 5 mbps
Something off with his math I think
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9-12-2006 @ 7:37PM
Paul said...
They're off by 80 pixels on the top to get to dvd quality. dvd's are typically 720x480, so it's not THAT bad. personally, for those old movies, I'd rather just drop one of the local public libraries to rent it for free (and yes, the collections at each are THAT big). Or, buy on ebay or one of it's sublets, half.com
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9-12-2006 @ 7:52PM
Jason Wade said...
Anyone else notice that if you click into a Category in the Movie section, such as Drama, the path actually shows up as Home>Music>Drama instead of Home>Movies>Drama.
Looks it's still not quite ready for primetime.
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9-12-2006 @ 8:11PM
Kenji Waha said...
I was wondering same thing as post #10: what about all those videos I bought that are 320x240? Will there be a way to get a free upgrade to the higher resolution or will we just have to pay for them all over again? Grrrr....
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9-12-2006 @ 8:17PM
disapointed said...
To be honest I was hoping they would ring in at a bit lower of a price. It's not really a sagnificant enough savings over a DVD for me to want to sacrafice the extras I would get on a movie I really like, and it's not cheep enough for me to suddenly want to pay for a movie I might download... somewhere else.
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9-12-2006 @ 10:18PM
Bryan Goertz said...
Yep... congrats America. Canada still can't do anything with tv or movies in iTunes --- does any other store but the american one offer movies?
bullocks
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9-12-2006 @ 11:26PM
GirSaysDoom13 said...
I was hoping the canada iTS would get at least the TV shows (we're like a year and a half behind) but alas, no. I guess i'll have to download it like every other criminal. sigh. ;)
on the lighter note, I just ordered the new black 30 GB ipod, to replace the ipod shuffle I lost a couple days ago. big upgrade :D
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