Won't you think about the ISPs

Poor ISPs... If they think Iplayer streaming last nights Eastenders is bad, just they wait until the latest film from "Insert lastest heart-throb here" is released.

Then again, given the state of the UKs broadband network, it would be quicker to walk down to Blockbuster... Or of course grab it via another route so you can watch it when it comes out in the US instead of having to wait for it to appear in the UK... What exactly are they doing with it for that time? Translating it?!

Blu-Ray more at risk

Products like iTunes and other movie on demand download services pose a greater risk to newer formats like Blu-Ray. For many, it's not a bad thing as Blu-Ray still is not as accepted as DVD is. And is even hated by many due to it's DRM and physical issues.

bandwith?

not certain where you live, but in the ol' usa internet speed sucks. comcrap will not be happy bout this.

Meh, only for the fruity fanboi's me thinks...

Meh,

I'd rather have a physical product that I could put on a shelf. Maybe it'll appeal to the followers of Mr Jobs and the fruity brigade but I don't think it'll kill DVD sales. I mean, there's a darn sight more £20 DVD players out there than iPods, iPhones and Apple TV boxes!

Maybe for those folks with high speed hgh usage allowance net connections and more money than sense it might be tempting, but for the majority, I don't think so.

Not until they're good quality and not swarming with DRM at least.

Rob

Alliteration

'future feature film' is now my favorite phrase. Thank you.

Yeah, right

In actuality this might kill the local video store. Apple faces a couple of near insurmountable obstacles to dominance here.

1) Every major cable / satellite company has a VOD (video on demand) service. This goes through the cutesy / hideous digital box they give you. These boxes, compared to AppleTV are extremely simple even for the technologically illiterate to use (setup is done by the cable/sat company installer). Not only that but they're a transparent part of having a digital service that people expect. Why pay 300$ more for something the magic box already installed does? Why bother with the headaches of setting it up, if the cable/sat box already does darn near the same thing.

2) Every major US ISP (TW, Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, et al) has been playing with ways to control bandwidth. The current favorite is caps. Not the old fashioned "you've used 10MB, so we're cutting you off" caps. Nope, a new breed of "friendly" caps. The kind where the first X gigabytes is part of the package then it's either pony up for the next tier or your speed is cut down (i.e. from 8Mb/s to 1Mb/s).

As far as I'm concerned the first is bad enough the second will screw them completely.

Uh, no.

I keep attempting to use "HD" and "high quality" movies online, "on demand movies", etc.

It all looks like absolute crap. Plain old dvd's are clearer. Compression is so noticable, it's repulsive. Unless your are a geek and do not notice things like you have food on your shirt or that your hair smells bad.

Likely

Not.
Just because Apple sells it doesn't mean the old model will suddenly die. I think that this approach is going to have limited success outside of the geek sector. The average joe wants a tangible disc or even tape for their library. And with the likes of Sony having invested large sums of money in blue ray and PS3s/BD players, I don't think they are going to go down without a fight.

Long live DVDs

I will continue to purchase DVDs for a long time to come and stay away from download to 'own' services. Reports like MS no longer supporting the download to 'own' wmv files meaning that everyone who purchased them can no longer listen to them other then the original PC that they were downloaded on and countless problems with the DRM infected movies no longer working due to a small switch in hardware (ie a monitor). No thanks.

Movie quality

If anyone is wondering about the movie quality, Apple says the download size for a 2 hour movie is 1.5GB (I'm guessing around 1600kbps for the video). Not brilliant, not archival, not Blu-ray, not DVD, and definitely not a $15 purchase. What it is is VERY close to your average 2x700MB pirate release.

Yo ho, Steve.

HighDefinition ?

But now that DVD is more or less yesturdays old hat, will they also offer HD quality for movies thats avalible in that format ?

It's just like CDs!

Used to be you could go to your local music store and buy a CD. Then Apple came along and started selling music online, and now CD stores are all dead and the only place to buy music is from iTunes.

MKV FTW

I'm happy with 1080p MKV (x264-aac) rips. If the they c ann sell movies for say 5 bucks then I could consider buy non physical-movies and watch them all the times I want. Until then they're just a rip off.

Let's Pray

Better pray for net neutrality. Either for or against it depending on who you are.

$1 for indefinite use of tunes

and $3(?) for 24hr use of a flick.
I dunno.

Hmm... this is sure sounds like the mp3 vs. CD debate

Just look back to the past to see the future.
Yes downloaded video sucks, and yes people will buy it and it will dominate in 10 years. Just because it sucks now doesn't mean it will suck in the future. Itunes is almoust tolerable now.

Risky?

Im not very clued up on drm, but are you able to backup a copy of this sort of film file, if not when or if your hard drive dies its going to potentially take your whole expensive film collection with it. Granted if your house burns down your blu rays will go to but at least with a physical product it feels more secure. One other fact that worries me is that in my opinion pc audio has always been awful even with some of the uppper range sound cards. I want a blu ray disc with 7.1 hd audio that i can plug from a proper player into my amp and enjoy a film without wondering what might crash next on the pc to spoil it.

Re: Narg's Comment

I love how Narg seems to think Apple's craptastic downloads don't have DRM.

Piracy killed the CD business, not iTunes folks, but it won't kill dvd or Bluray because the experience is beyond what you even get out of a good 9meg mkv download. I *hate* the willingness of you idiots willing to accept digital downloads as "the future". If that's your "future", then it farking sucks.