Deciphering iTunes Movie options

Now that iTunes rentals have launched, it has become kind of tricky deciphering what movies are available to rent, what movies are available to purchase, and what movies are available and what movies can be rented or purchased.

While Apple promises that more than 1000 movies will be available to rent by the end of February (including over 100 in HD with Dolby 5.1 sound), the current rental total (as of today) is about 375. And although Apple doesn't have a clear "rental" section at this point in time, finding out what films are available to rent is pretty easy. Just do a blank power search for movies and check the box that says, "Search movies that are available for rental." That will then give you a list of 150 titles at a time of all the films available to rent. Click, more results to get the next page of results.

What is trickier, however, is trying to decipher exactly which movies are available for what type of purchase. Looking at the list of available titles, I could not find any clear pattern that explained why certain films are available only to buy or only to rent. I'm sure that this was all decided by the studios, based on their own internal sales trends and valuations. For instance, the majority of the "new releases," that is, the $3.99 rentals, are only available to rent. Meaning you can't buy a download of "The Simpsons Movie" or "300." This makes sense, as I'm sure the studios (Fox and Warner Bros., respectively) would prefer customers buy those films on DVD rather than an iTunes download. This is not universal, however, as some of Disney's new releases, like "Ratatouille" and "Pirates of the Carribean 3" are available for both download and rental. It should be noted these films were available for purchase before Tuesday's announcement.

Speaking of new releases, it is important to keep in mind the caveat that was mentioned during the keynote - right now studios will wait 30 days after a film comes out on DVD before making it available on iTunes rentals.

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Now that iTunes rentals have launched, it has become kind of tricky deciphering what movies are available to rent, what movies are...

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danw13335

I can't find any movies that are available for rent in HD on the computer. I probably just haven't searched hard enough, or Apple hasn't released them yet, but I hope they're not just providing them for the Apple TV. I have a Cinema HD display, and I'd like to use it for movies once in a while.

January 18 2008 at 5:20 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to danw13335's comment

required

I believe that the HD versions are only available on the Apple TV in hopes of getting people to buy the thing

January 18 2008 at 6:01 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

skytalon

Well, I'm deaf.

I know they added the closed caption capability, but how do i know which movies are CC? I mean I don't want to go by wild goose chase searching. It looks like there's no criteria to search by CC.

I know Team America and Italian Job(2003) are CC. I wanted to try but i'm afraid. 24 hours to view it is not enough since i can't sit still watching ipod :)

January 18 2008 at 10:59 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to skytalon's comment

Charles Martin

Unfortunately, you can't just search for CC movies, but if you do a power search, you can see the CC icon next to those who do have closed captioning.

January 18 2008 at 8:12 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

kris

There should be a discount for people who rented, and then in turn want to purchase - especially if you can't purchase right away anymore. Why must the people who want things now always get punished?!

January 18 2008 at 10:52 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Carroll Wills

I imagine the fact that new Disney movies are available for purchase has to do with the fact that they are still covered under the previous agreement between Apple and Disney for release of Disney titles.

Just a guess on my part.

January 18 2008 at 10:21 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Carroll Wills's comment

Christina Warren

That would be my guess too.

January 18 2008 at 10:25 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Yakov Chodosh

With what?

January 18 2008 at 1:31 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Charles Martin

And still (I will harp on this until they do something about it), there is no way to know which movies have the subtitles. The Closed Captioning doesn't not mean the same (and it does show up when you do a search as the CC icon).

January 17 2008 at 11:31 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Charles Martin's comment

required

I dare you to tell Steve that you read

January 18 2008 at 5:58 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

The Chad

That is why the Simpson's movie is not available to buy: it was released on Dec 18th. It has another day before you can buy it.

January 17 2008 at 10:49 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

bobbar

tricky also is determining which are Widescreen & which are Fullscreen format. The fact that they would even offer Fullscreen versions seems clueless and self-serving.

January 17 2008 at 10:45 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to bobbar's comment

bobber,

I believe that the full- or widescreen info is always given on the page for the movie itself (where you would click the rent or buyt option).
For example, Spiderman 3's page says that the movie is 2:19:04 hours long, 1.59 GB, and Widescreen. Just below this information is the rent button.

January 18 2008 at 8:42 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Christina Warren

I'm with you on offering fullscreen being self-serving (unless we're strictly talking about children's titles - and even then every Mac is widescreen now and more and more people have widescreen TVs).

January 18 2008 at 10:27 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply