AppleInsider Staff
"I was trying to report a problem via iTunes, and this pop-up for selecting a reason contains some interesting/revealing strings," David Watanabe wrote in a posting the popular Flickr image sharing website. "[It] looks like 'RentalMovies' will be coming to the iTunes store."
Among the reasons for reporting a problem listed in the Apple-created menus were "DidNotReceiveMovie-RentalMovie," "AccidentalPurchase-RentalMovie," "ContentQuality-RentalMovie," "DuplicatePurchase-RentalMovie," "WrongVErsion-RentalMovie," "BadMetadata-RentalMovie" and "Other-RentalMovie."
Rumors that Apple would eventually be compelled to supplement its a la carte movie download service with a rental option have been making the rounds ever since the company first began offering downloadable flicks nearly two years ago.
The most recent report on the matter came courtesy of the Financial Times, which reported in June that Apple was in advanced talks with Hollywood’s largest movie studios about launching an online film rental service to challenge cable and satellite TV operators.
According to the report, individual films on the iTunes service would fetch $2.99 for a 30-day rental and would be governed by digital rights-management software that would allow users to transfer the movie "from a computer to at least one other device such as the video iPod or iPhone."
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57 Comments
Sweet, if these are at 720p, I will actually begin using my AppleTV!
Oops! Someone has some 'splainin' to do back at Apple HQ.
.
Sweet, if these are at 720p, I will actually begin using my AppleTV!
If that happens, the Apple TV will become relevant. It doesn't take a team of crack analysts and countless surveys to conclude that people don't want to watch VHS-quality films on their HDTVs.
You'll notice that the new iPods output 480p or 480i, as well as the PAL equivalent of 526p and i.
Assuming that "480p" means what it usually does, with the implied 720 horizontal resolution, we're talking line doubled DVD res.
Which I'm guessing is the next stop for iTMS video quality. That way Apple can brag about it's "better than DVD resolution" downloads without incurring the huge bandwidth increases needed for 720p, and, in fact, such material will look pretty good on most people's sets (assuming Apple doesn't throttle the hell out of the bit rate or do lousy compression, which appears to be the current case).
A lot of people are watching stuff on their big screens using progressive output DVD players and it looks great. The fact that the iPods can now do progressive out further suggests that the movie store's offerings will be 480p as well.
Makes sense, right? A bump in res for the roll-out of the rental store, and a brand new generation of iPods that can actually output that res to your TV (assuming you bought the pricey Apple approved component cable), and which looks plenty good to most folks.
I know the HD crowd will accept nothing less, but I strongly suspect that there will be an intermediate step.
You'll notice that the new iPods output 480p or 480i, as well as the PAL equivalent of 526p and i.
Assuming that "480p" means what it usually does, with the implied 720 horizontal resolution, we're talking line doubled DVD res.
Which I'm guessing is the next stop for iTMS video quality. That way Apple can brag about it's "better than DVD resolution" downloads without incurring the huge bandwidth increases needed for 720p, and, in fact, such material will look pretty good on most people's sets (assuming Apple doesn't throttle the hell out of the bit rate or do lousy compression, which appears to be the current case).
A lot of people are watching stuff on their big screens using progressive output DVD players and it looks great. The fact that the iPods can now do progressive out further suggests that the movie store's offerings will be 480p as well.
Makes sense, right? A bump in res for the roll-out of the rental store, and a brand new generation of iPods that can actually output that res to your TV (assuming you bought the pricey Apple approved component cable), and which looks plenty good to most folks.
I know the HD crowd will accept nothing less, but I strongly suspect that there will be an intermediate step.
I'd love to have HD just like everyone else. But honestly, If these rentals look AT LEAST as good as current dvd's that I rent, I'd be satisfied... For now.....