Gizmodo
Macworld did some follow-up on a promise made by Apple in a press release from January's keynote. In it, the company claimed:
iTunes Movie Rentals launches today and will offer over 1,000 titles by the end of February, including over 100 titles in stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound which users can rent directly from their widescreen TV using Apple TV.Now that February is over, a "Power Search" on iTunes reveals that only 399 rentals are available.
All in all, that's 601 movies short of their 1,000 title promise. As for "100 titles in stunning HD," Apple fell short here as well, but they at least came close offering 91 films that meet the standard (however, many of those films are not actually in 5.1 surround).
And when counting all the movies you can watch from iTunes—including both rentals and purchases—Macworld found that Apple is still short of any 1,000 movie goal, offering only 770 films total.
Hopefully, Apple will meet their 1,000 rental goal in March. Because while AppleTV's recent makeover was impressive, we'd like to be able to, you know, watch some movies on it or something. [macworld]
Comments
what's 601 movies b/t friends. :-)
b..b..but you PROMISED!
About 60% of the promised catalogue?
:( Guess not even Apple can deliver on all promises.
399 regular movies, 91 HD movies, add those together since that can technically be considered 2 movies if one is HD and one is SD for Apple so 490.
But still, it's less. Hope Apple will deliver soon or some fanboys will start ranting. It's all gravy.
@striggity: enough to fill up ones apartment with discs
@ph15h: Hmm, to me the word "titles" doesn't differentiate SD and HD. But I wouldn't put it past marketing speak.
@Mark Wilson: That's what I meant by "for Apple". Just trying to lighten the disappointment. :( I don't rent HD stuff and regular stuff with such slow internet so it doesn't really affect me as much as it does my cousins, I still buy DVDs :(
Can someone tell me of a HD movie rental on iTunes? I haven't seen one yet.
that's like being promised a BLT but only getting the bread and mayo. fucking weaksauce
sorry for the food analogy. I'm still peeking and re-peeking in my cabinets for anything to eat before I call papa john's.
yes you inconsiderate asshats, I do eat food other than eggrolls =\
@johnnyabnormal: HD rentals are only available on Apple TV, at the moment.
Wow, I bet if this was some other company, this would be taken as a moire "pissed off" type of story, but it seems that even the Apple fanboys at Gizmodo give Apple some credit for "coming close" to their promised HD movie catalog, and acting almost like it's not that bad that 60% of the content they promised isn't available even though they said it would be. If this was the same story but about Xbox live's video marketplace or Vudu's video download service, then people would be pissed about it and posting all kinds of comments about it, but all Apple gets is a slap on the wrist (which equates to nothing)..... I hate how Apple gets soo much appreciation for nothing sometimes.
typical..
imagine if this had been M$'s announcement..
I can't believe that the shortfall has anything to do with lazyness on Apple's part. It's in their interest to have as large a catalog online as possible. If i were looking to throw blame around I'd probably start with the studios considering their amazing track record with digital distribution.
Does anyone really care? Renting every single one of those movies would cost $1500, while I can watch every single instant view movie (over 7000 of them) from Netflix for $8.99.
It's overpriced and imho just a gimmick. The days of paying $4 or even $3 for a movie are over.
@akmarksman: There would have been 5 pages of comments bashing M$. Somehow, most of these would be VISTA IS TEH SUX!
jk, it's not that bad, giz has an unusually low amount of asshats. but editors and commentors alike are a little easy on Apple
i think Apple just chose the number 1,000 because it sounds like a nice even number that would interest people. obviously, they didn't anticipate that 1,000 titles is A LOT of movies.... i bet it's not fun compressing all those movies down so that they're streamable.
Apple's movie offerings are dismal. Aside from the latest Hollywood crap most of us have available via OnDemand, they offer little else of interest. They claim to have agreements with most major studios, yet where are their catalogues??? Apple TV will fail unless a customer is able to chose from 1000s and 1000s of titles.
@scoobydoo: Yup. Well I think that 7,000 number Netflix gives may be a little misleading (maybe they're counting each episode of a TV series as a "title," like Knight Rider would have 20-some titles in a season). I love my Netflix streams though.
The advantage of this AppleTV stuff is the high-def with 5.1 stuff which isn't all there yet. I never liked AppleTV (unlike Gizmodo) and it still fails to show me how relevant it is. And like you said scoobydoo, the pricing is off when compared to Netflix. Netflix is a much better deal with a MUCH wider selection.
And for non-legal viewings, its much easier to torrent and burn or use a media extender (like an xbox360, which I don't own).
Also, a 40GB hard drive as the base drive is ridiculous.
@scoobydoo:
Apparently blockbuster didn't get the memo yet
i have a feeling there are more than 399. last night i spotted aliens while looking for something to rent, also saw AVP and alien4, but i wanted to watch alien. so i checked the different categories: sci-fi, horror, thriller, action adventure, etc... no alien :( so then i searched for "alien" and it only brought up aliens and AVP.
*sigh* why is online distribution so hard for movie studios to cope with? its easier to pirate a DVD than strip the movies of the DRM
you know this is a result of delayed negotiations
and how many movies do they have available to Canadians? Zero! By my calculations, that's 1000 movies short...
What's that? And they still have the nerve to sell Apple TVs in Canada?
It takes over 24 hours to digitize a single title.
The process requires that the studios deliver video files and metadata in a timely fashion.
The supply chain is in a constant state of flux/improvement. Not quite fully optimized yet.
It won't be long before we have entire studio catalogs available for iTunes download.
The fact that all these studios have chosen to participate is nothing short of a miracle, though not surprising considering how the Music Industry has shot itself in the foot.
They don't want the 'Napster' effect to happen to the Movie Industry. (They are, after all, the same companies.)
The studios and Apple are still ahead of the curve: banking on the laziness of the iTunes-addicted masses.
Bread and Circuses, baby... entertain us like the mindless cymbal-crashing bongo monkeys that we are.
@akmarksman:
Yep but MS never managed to get a content delivery service off the ground did they?
@scoobydoo: To be fair to 90% of the movies available for streaming on Netflix are made of suck. Last time I tried to find something to watch on there I ended up watching Star Trek VI (which is maybe 45% suck). It's a great service, especially for free (yes I would have a Netflix account if the streaming didn't exist), but the catalog is pretty weak.
@itchytooth: Is that the catch? That seems a little lame. I have a 30 inch Apple monitor, so I am all about HD...but I shouldn't have to buy unnecessary hardware to watch content. They should offer the option to download HD Quicktime movies to everyone.
Actually, they meant next February... silly us.
Can we somehow blame this on piracy?
And who cares about this product anyway? First you have to drop $229/$329 on the device and then it's $5 a movie and then you only have 24 hours to finish watching it once you start. And the HD files aren't even really HD, right?
I don't know about y'all, but my free time availability doesn't exceed my Netflix throughput on actual disks. That's even counting the location/time-shifting of movies that I put onto my Archos to watch during my commute.
What problem does this product solve that doesn't already have a better/cheaper solution?
Oh, wait... it's from Apple. I take it back. I'm going to order one right now.
i guess if you don't have a home teather neflix is the way to go, but if you do, apple tv is a really nice option. No subscriptions to worry about, no going out for movies or waiting for them. Also youtube videos look real good on it too. I just hope that they keep adding titles
@RobotVampire: It's all a matter of taste. I like Brit comedy and the watch now library of that is excellent.
Ah shucks ... netflix is superior. Great selection, one business day delivery, cheap, cheap cheap & unlimited streaming of 7,000 titles. I like that. Unlimited sounds pretty good too. Apple will have it's day ... sometime in the future. And it'll be a premium priced future, of course. Nothing wrong with that. But please don't defend it's offerings now as if they were serious competition ... or a serious alternative ... cuz they gotta get out of the minor leagues first. It'll happen. Just not yet, so chill, my applets.
@MINI Driver: What are you talking about? XBOX uses its movie rental system as an extreme third use for the 360. Its a gaming system first, a media center extender a distant second, and a movie rental system an extremely distant third. It has no reason to offer a massive catalog of movies for rent because thats not its main driving force.
In saying that, i dont really give Apple hell for not meeting their set amount. Its hard to get these movie studios to provide you with digital versions, or more so, licenses to carry a movie. Its something MS has been dealing with, and most of the digital providers. While 40% is terrible (in terms of them being able to forcast), it was only a month and that can be understood.
Im sure, in time, they will get a decent catalog, like all the other providers have gotten. To me, it doesnt matter, because i still dont want heavily compressed garbage HD at 720P, from either an AppleTV or a 360. Its optical media or nothing.
Studios will never let apple lower those prices, not as long as theres direct tv, cable tv & fios tv that will be offering the same movies at the same price. It's all about the living room or the downstairs Home teather. sure netflix has better prices but am sure if they also had a tv box studios will force them to do the same
Forty percent of promised? Not bad. Only slightly below par for any promise made within the reality distortion field.
Which ones are missing?
Oh!come on;rather than capturing their mouths,first try watching those 490 movies in the least time possible.By the time you will get other titles also!But Apple cannot get things out of hands of Netflix!Incumbents(that too good ones) tend to have an advantage at times!
@johnnyabnormal:
Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that itchytooth is correct. No HD without AppleTV for the time being.
Any one know how many Blu-ray movies are available yet?
Last I heard there were ~400.
One might expect a site called "Gizmodo" to conspicuously remind people that Apple's "stunning high definition video" is 720p at 6Mbits/sec. Blu-ray is 1080 at 25-35Mbits/sec. The only thing "stunning" about iTunes HD is that Giz reprints Apple's BS without calling them on it.
@richardmnixon: You must be new here.
@AmishJohn: New to the internet, new to planet Earth? Help me out here. A site like Gizmodo would be more fun if they turned up the skepticism and took the geewhiz down a notch. And I don't mean pointing out that Apple has fewer movies for rent than they promised. They needs some kids who actually have some technical depth.
@richardmnixon: It doesn't matter. If Apple announced they were releasing a turd with the Apple logo silkscreened on it, Gizmodo would have a posting about the rumor, a post about the ship date, a post about the expected size, hue, and consistency, a post about the delayed ship date, a post about the Steve Jobs announcement, a post with a picture of the box it came in, a post with pictures and description of unboxing it, a post on how it felt in one's hand, a post on the price, a post on how it doesn't have as much girth as expected, but it's still great, and a post on when the next turd would be released and how the original turd early adopters are pissed because iTurd 1.1 with more corn was being realeased 3 months later at a 20% discount.
@john-nyc: And they would refer to it as the Jesus Turd.
@richardmnixon: Corporations and politicians aren't much different in how they operate. At first they gain your trust then they take advantage of it, either with a vote or a purchase. That's not to say you wouldn't give them a vote or a purchase anyway, but it's just the falsehood they preach.
Gizmodo is the media/news for those corporations. For the most part they're neutral, but if you listen long enough you can find out who someone sides with. Also, they get paid for advertisements, like politicians receive funding from corporations. However, they'll report what they find out, whether they made that vote/purchase or received advertisement/campaign funds or not.
Why? Because we have the right to know.
@john_nyc:
"Apple announced they were releasing a turd with the Apple logo silkscreened on it, Gizmodo would have a posting about the rumor"
A crapple? I got a $100 rebate on my first gen 4 gb iTurd a while back. I used the money to buy my wife a 8 gb iTurd.
@ThriftyTechie: How did you find out "the hard way"? I rented a movie a while back & once it was downloaded I knew right away that it wasn't HD. It used the h.264 codec, but was a tiny aspect ratio and about 1 GB in size...tiny for a full length movie. I am not dissing h.264 though. I love that codec. I was updating my company's reel the other day and one of my clients sent me a Adidas :90 spot that was about 100 MB with a 1920 x 1080 aspect ratio and it looked amazing. Lossless, this would have been 4 GB. The only thing that bugs me about h.264 is the reds: They look blocky to me.
VUDU is still way better than Apple TV...more rentals, more HD, more purchasable movies...and it looks better (1080i).
ughh, follow through--quit appulling my leg!!!! don't force us to download and watch john travolta in his true divinity--give us something good to watch apple bitches!
@chanmoss: They don't have any cred with me till they have "Repo Man" in HD.