Apple introduced their new iTunes Movie Rental with much fanfare at Macworld in San Francisco last Tuesday. The selection is somewhat limited as yet but Apple promises 1000 titles for rent by February and an international roll-out by the end of the year “hopefully”. The system lets you keep the movie for up to 30 days, but once you start watching it, it will only remain in your system for another 24 hours. I rented Ratatouille to test out the system (This was the film Steve Jobs kept pushing in his Keynote).
The experience has been entirely positive. I would like to see the 24 hour “watch it” period extended to something closer to what you realistically get from Blockbuster (48 hours would be ideal) but that’s down to my viewing habits. There really isn’t much else wrong with the system. The download process is akin to buying songs, so most users will already know how to use it. The quality is fantastic. I rented the Standard Definition version and even on my 32 inch TV, the resolution was fantastic, the sound was great and the file played without any problems.
Suffice to say that I have since rented another film (Superbad - recommended for abundance of belly-laughs alone) and will be renting more. The service is sure to become a mainstay of my movie-watching habits.
Points of note:
- Apple claims that iTunes will let you know as soon as enough of the movie has downloaded for you to watch. I received no such warning.
- The download was incredibly fast for me, it took 1/2 hour to download 1.26GB. Keep in mind that I’m in the UK - that’s pretty impressive. My broadband isn’t known for its speed.
- To watch the file on your iPod/iPhone, you actually move the file, its not a copy. You will only ever have it in one place at a time.
- To move the file, iTunes needs an internet connection, I assume it registers it as “moved” with the store. Not sure why.
- The file stays the same, there is no compression. It just gets moved.
- When I moved Ratatouille to my iPhone, it gave me another 24 hours to watch it. Not so with Superbad. Wonder if there is some sort of hack that could be enabled.
- When the rental expires, the iPhone displays a message to that effect.
- We have a setup using Apple Equipment to watch these on the TV, and at 32″, the resolution is still fantastic.
1 response so far ↓
1 Clair Hobbs // Jan 21, 2008 at 3:36 am
Hey, that sounds really good, but I think I’d prefer the 48 hours too.
Might be a little trip down to the old Apple Store for me then, get the little cables, and then bye bye Blockbuster, hello iTunes Movie Rentals!
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