Impact of Apple's HD movie rentals on Bluray and HD DVD

[UNCjigga]

So His Jobsness just announced streaming HD movie rentals to the new Apple TV. HD movies will cost $3.99 to rent for older library, and $4.99 for new releases. Seems legit. Of course, you need to buy a new Apple TV, which costs more than the cheaper HD/Bluray players.

I still think this will have an impact on Bluray and HD DVD, but I wouldn't call it a format killer just yet. But could this signal a turning point for network delivery of content becoming more popular than physical medium? Discuss.

 

[UNCjigga]

Wait...Jobs just said the new features will all work on existing Apple TV boxes via free software update. And the box will only cost $229--putting it right up against HD DVD and Bluray players. Uh oh...

 

[Queasy]

The Apple TV has very limited market penetration at this point and the price of the Apple TV and the limited functionality won't help. The 360 and PS3 are better conduits for bringing HD movies into the home because they are already plentiful. Sony announced a partnership with DiVX to do just that and the 360 already is working on a sizeable library.

 

[effowe]

I really hope that this format war would end as soon as possible. Maybe something like this is what can be the death blow to these formats. As consumers we want choice, but if one of those choices is going to be gone a year after we spent our money then it is a waste. I would love to have streaming HD content available whenever I want, but I know with my DSL (300KBps capped) I would have to buffer the movie for a while before being able to play it through. As FIOS increases it's availability, services like this will grow largely.

 

[amdhunter]

Is the Apple TV capable of streaming anything other than it's own formats yet? Without hacking the damned thing?

 

[R Nilla]

Also, many people prefer to own their favorites movies rather than rent them.

I am interested to see where this goes (digital distribution, not Apple TV). It would be nice to rent HD movies without dealing with snail mail or having to leave my house. $5-$6 a movie adds up fast, though. Netflix might be on the right track, if only they offered DVD and HD quality streams/downloads.

 

[UNCjigga]

Yeah, I see the rent vs. own argument, I guess for someone like me this works perfectly. I prefer to rent movies vs. own them, but I prefer to buy and own TV season sets rather than rent them. Also, I'd love to rent in HD, but I don't have an HD player yet.

Furthermore, I don't rent often enough to justify a monthly fee for unlimited rentals (not a Netflix member). In this scenario, an Apple TV is perfect. But I think a lot more people would prefer a monthly fee/unlimited option vs. pay-per-view. That's the one thing holding this back.

As far as the other devices go (Xbox 360 Live, Sony PS3) none of them compare with iTunes library of content, and content is king. Penetration right now is moot point until content can catch up. Also, price of entry for Apple TV is lower. And does Xbox 360 support streaming rentals? Not sure about that.

 

[mugs]

I'd pay for a monthly service that lets me watch unlimited content for a certain price, but I'm not going to pay $5 to rent a movie very often.

 

[Slick5150]

Price is too high. Even renting a movie at overpriced blockbuster is cheaper than that, and they have to figure in a bunch of overhead costs for employees, rent payment on the space, purchasing the physical media, etc.. Apple's costs are very low other than the bandwidth.

At $2.50ish this would work. At $5? Nope.

 

[Aharami]

is this really a possibility yet with the slow broadband here? 2+hr long HD video plus 5.1 audio would take up many gigs. Would take forever to DL/stream all that

 

[zinfamous]

I would rather pay more to watch uncompressed 1080p HD on Blu Ray/HD DVD than whatever filth Jobs will stream through Apple TV.

...and it costs less to Netflix HDM than this will cost.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

I agree with a monthly plan for unlimited "rentals" of a HD stream. Just like Netflix's online viewing, just in HD. I would switch from Netflix to that in a minute. The only other way I can get behind digital downloads and such would be if its offered DRM free in HD (I would pay the same as a DVD $15/movie), or have you pay one time to "own" the movie so to speak but you do not have the physical file and can only watch it through your account with internet access (or along those lines where its say $5-10 fee up front but then you can watch it anytime you want from your purchases library).

Paying $4/movie is over priced. It's part of the reason Blockbuster is having issues recently. They are overpriced and there are much easier ways to rent/watch movies. $4 a pop is too high for a rental.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: Slick5150
Price is too high. Even renting a movie at overpriced blockbuster is cheaper than that, and they have to figure in a bunch of overhead costs for employees, rent payment on the space, purchasing the physical media, etc.. Apple's costs are very low other than the bandwidth.

At $2.50ish this would work. At $5? Nope.

There are more costs that go into the distribution of movies/music over the internet than just bandwidth. Apple is probably spending more on licensing than they are bandwidth. Then there is also storage, maintenance, marketing, etc.

 

[Deeko]

$5 is just too high for new movies. You can get blu-ray from Netflix for way less than that - in fact, if you're on the cheapest plan ($9/month), just two movies/month is already cheaper, not even including the unlimited streaming you get with it.

Also, considering you can get HD On Demand movies for $4 (including new movies), without buying the Apple TV...price is just too high.

 

[blurredvision]

Hopefully this will force Microsoft to lower the price of their HD rentals on the 360. They currently sit at $6, which is way too high for a digital rental. Although convenient, I'll just do without for $6. $5 I could handle, $4 would be ideal IMO.

For me, digital media for rentals is a perfect solution (at the right price, anyway), but anything I buy to own I want on disc. I will never buy digital anything unless it's an open format that will play on any hardware....I'm not getting locked into one particular service.

 

[Quasmo]

I believe you guys are forgetting about a little device called the xbox360.

 

[sygyzy]

Absolutely no impact on either.

 

[AmpedSilence]

I think the netflix box coming out later this year will have more of an impact than the Apple TV. Now that Netflix has removed the "hours" limit, this box becomes ideal for renting at least SD quality shows with a monthly sub. Now as FIOS (verizon) and D3.0 (comcast) up the bandwidth ante, HD rentals through said netflix box become a reality.

It would also be interesting to see if netflix would release there name/software to HD player makers (either HD or BluRay) to be incorporated into thier respective boxes providing further penetration.

 

[Slick5150]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: Slick5150
Price is too high. Even renting a movie at overpriced blockbuster is cheaper than that, and they have to figure in a bunch of overhead costs for employees, rent payment on the space, purchasing the physical media, etc.. Apple's costs are very low other than the bandwidth.

At $2.50ish this would work. At $5? Nope.

There are more costs that go into the distribution of movies/music over the internet than just bandwidth. Apple is probably spending more on licensing than they are bandwidth. Then there is also storage, maintenance, marketing, etc.

Well obviously, but in comparison to the costs of Blockbuster (or any other physical store) having to buy copies of the DVDs themselves, the costs must be lower. Plus, like I said, apple doesn't have to rent storefront space, pay store employees, pay electricity bills, heat, and all the other costs of having a store. So what justifies the cost of the download price? I guess the same reason people are willing to pay them $15 to download an album at a lower quality than you could buy at the store for cheaper. In other words, people are stupid and Apple is more than willing to profit off of that.

 

[DaveSimmons]

If the AppleTV had a blu-ray drive in it, this could have been a great product. People would play the discs they own and rent, then rent extra movies and TV shows from iTunes.

As it is, paying apple $229 so you can pay them $5/movie only from iTunes seems silly.

Edit: also standard-def movies are just in stereo, only the HD movies get 5.1

Edit: also ArsTechnica mentioned iTunes won't get rentals until a month after the blu-ray and DVD come out. With Netflix I usually get a blu-ray disc the day it's released.

 

[ZeroEffect]

Will the image quality be equal to Bluray?

How can they call it HD if it doesn't look as good as a DVD?

 

[nakedfrog]

I don't think they've got the market penetration to matter.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: ZeroEffect
Will the image quality be equal to Bluray?

How can they call it HD if it doesn't look as good as a DVD?

HD = screen resolution of 720p, 1080i or 1080pnot image quality.

No, you won't get 30GB - 50GB downloads at blu-ray quality. It will be some 5-10 GB much more compressed video, at 720p not 1080p, and lower-bitrate more lossy audio.

 

[Auric]

5 Mbps is ridiculous. Yeah, the resolution technically makes it "HD" but that's worse than the worst broadcast and no improvement over SD.

 

[UNCjigga]

Originally posted by: Deeko
$5 is just too high for new movies. You can get blu-ray from Netflix for way less than that - in fact, if you're on the cheapest plan ($9/month), just two movies/month is already cheaper, not even including the unlimited streaming you get with it.

Also, considering you can get HD On Demand movies for $4 (including new movies), without buying the Apple TV...price is just too high.

Comcast needs to offer a better set-top UI with access to a larger library of On Demand content though. Probably won't happen until they deploy IPTV over cable.