Home Entertainment, apple tv, comcast, gadgets, ip video, portable media, vod, warner, warner bros

Warner Bros. to Release Movies for Apple TV and On Demand Same Day as DVD

The format war over, and Blu-ray safely enthroned as the victor, Warner can now turn its sights beyond—to downloads and the infinite format war. Time Warner's chief executive announced today that Warner Bros. will release movies for on-demand systems like Comcast's and Apple TV on the same day they are released on DVD from now on.

Warner's been toying around with it for a little while and been increasingly open to internet distribution, so it doesn't come as a major surprise. Interestingly, according to their numbers, offering same-day releases on the internet only eats into DVD rentals by 3-5 percent, and actually increases sales. Plus, online rentals/sales double bring them more than double the profit margin of physical discs, so everybody wins, except for Blockbuster. (So Hollywood really does have nothing to fear from online distribution.)

The best news though? Head of Warner's home video said that they're trying to make online rentals "at least as lenient" as grabbing a DVD from Blockbuster, breaking open that 24-hour window. Now that would be a deathblow for Blockbuster. [Bits]

5:26 PM on Wed Apr 30 2008
By matt buchanan
2,873 views
24 comments

Comments

MacSeven.com at 05:36 PM on 04/30/08
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:D
drummerjoe at 05:39 PM on 04/30/08
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Good news for online distribution.
MagnoliaBoy at 05:44 PM on 04/30/08
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See! SEEE!!!!
Blinklink11 at 05:45 PM on 04/30/08
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"Safari can't connect to the server."

Oh yes, this is the infinite format war.
mdawg4624 at 05:50 PM on 04/30/08
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Thank God!! If more studios start doing this, then I'll finally have a reason to buy an tv!! Love my 360 and it does everything apple tv does, but same day rentals. Hop on the wagon studios!!
daftrok at 05:54 PM on 04/30/08
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The sooner that 24 hour window is shot down the better.
g1sm0 at 06:00 PM on 04/30/08
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I've rented one movie from the Apple TV and was not able to watch the whole thing in 24 hours. some people can't understand why you may need more than 24 hours to watch a rented movie. One word... kids.

I will stick with downloading movies with utorrent, converting them to mp4, and loading them onto the Apple TV until the 24-hour window is abolished. I think a 72-hour window would be reasonable.
Cordfucious at 06:20 PM on 04/30/08
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Man this kinda seals it for Blockbuster.... hope those Visiosonic DVD players pan out for them...
Margatron at 06:35 PM on 04/30/08
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I hope direct delivery doesn't make DVDs go extinct. A lot of jobs will be lost in the DVD industry if that happened.
Cordfucious at 06:52 PM on 04/30/08
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@Margatron: Doubt that would happen. I think physical media is here for a while... but B&M rentals are pretty much done. This is the 1st sign of the Blockbuster Apocalypse....now Bring on the 4 horseman
snitch29 at 06:59 PM on 04/30/08
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They have been doing that already since the beginning of the Update, i just wish others start doing the same so i won't have to drive 5 miles to blockbusters anymore
Zoidbert at 07:19 PM on 04/30/08
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@daftrok: Oh, agreed in a major way. That's the one thing, honestly, keeping me from buying an TV.
Dickey at 08:12 PM on 04/30/08
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be nice to see more digital content, but I'm sure someone will figure out a way to have us all pay for the same movie at-least ten more times.

actually got rid of direct tv all together myself, and been using the apple tv since it came out and have been much happier. tv on my terms.
Kaiser-Machead at 08:14 PM on 04/30/08
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@g1sm0: If you didn't finish watching the movie and your 24 hour period has ended, you are given the option to continue watching one last time or delete it.
Kaiser-Machead at 08:14 PM on 04/30/08
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I would, however, like more time myself
EQC at 08:43 PM on 04/30/08
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an online rental for a similar price as the "real" rental is fine...but if they're selling me an electronic copy with no case, no disk, and no easy way to transport between multiple devices/rooms/etc, it better be significantly cheaper!
xistez at 09:35 PM on 04/30/08
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The real problem with downloadable video content is drm. We've seen what can happen when Windows Play for Sure stops playing for sure. At least you can burn your DRM protected songs to CD and import them back in. What happens when your movie collection of a couple hundred movies goes up in smoke one day because you bet on the wrong technology. At least with HD-DVD nobody comes to your house to take your movies now that Blu-Ray has won. I want DRM free movies. Or a type of universal DRM so that I can be sure that consumers don't get left out in the cold before I consider buying an Apple TV or any other device.
Kaiser-Machead at 10:47 PM on 04/30/08
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@xistez: If it's only a rental, what do you care about DRM? DRM is required for this model.

Now purchases, that's a different story.
Sergeant JoKer at 01:10 AM on 05/01/08
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@xistez: If you purchased something, off of iTunes for example, and you lose it can't you just log into your account and redownload it? I have never bought anything off of iTunes, so don't know for sure, but would make sense to me.
EQC at 01:15 AM on 05/01/08
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@Sergeant JoKer: sure...but what do you do if Apple goes out of business? Or decides to stop iTunes so they can sell music some other way? (that's a lot like "what if Microsoft stops supporting their baby Plays for Sure"...so it *is* plausible, though unlikely)
Sergeant JoKer at 03:07 AM on 05/01/08
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@EQC: Yeah, that makes sense. I guess I never actually considered something like iTunes being shut down.
N@tedog at 09:34 AM on 05/01/08
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Are they the same quality as Blu-Ray or will they be compressed to crap?
MarvinDog at 11:09 AM on 05/01/08
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@N@tedog:
Everything I've read about Apple TV HD compression says it can't compare to Blu-Ray (or HD DVD), but looks better than OTA, Cable and VOD.

The only rental streaming service I've seen that plans to exceed Blu-Ray bitrate/specs is XStreamHD, but I've heard that they've pushed their beta back to Q4 2008 from Q2, so their future is still up in the air.

I'm guessing that WB is going to do the same for Vudu and other upcoming rental STBs as well.
g1sm0 at 04:51 PM on 05/02/08
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@Kaiser-Machead: I had heard that was the case, but when I turned on my ATV on Sunday night, the video I rented on Friday was no longer there to finish watching.