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Apple TV will soon give you HD choices
While we’re on the subject of online video rentals today, here’s a new wrinkle Apple is tossing out at Macworld: HD rentals you can enjoy from your Apple TV.
Word from Macworld is that a $229 Apple TV will begin shipping in a couple of weeks, with more than 100 HD titles ready to be rented. Cost will be $4.99 for new releases and $3.99 for library titles.
Once you choose a movie, you’ll have 30 days to watch it, but once you press play, Apple notes, you need to finish watching within 24 hours.
High-def films will be available in 720p, and may include 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound. We say may, because as one observant commenter noted, there’s a little footnote that clarifies that it’s not available with all HD rentals. DTS 5.1 then??
If you already own Apple TV, you’ll be able to download a firmware update to have the HD capabilities.
Via: Engadget HD
It only sounds marginally more convenient than PPV over sat/cable, but what about download times? If they’re OK, then the content is probably horribly compressed.
I can be back from the rental shop in about 15min and if I can’t watch a movie, I can always hand on and pay the late fee.
HD seems kind of pointless unless it’s the ‘ultimate’ experience anyway—that’s what we’re looking for.
As always, I’m following Ender on this one. You’re spending the same amount of money as renting a physical disk, getting a lower resolution, and I wonder about special/bonus features?
I’ll give you the convenience factor if you’re a very spontaneous person, but for me and mine, the Netflix queue and 1 day shipping time works out really well. And I end up paying a lot less than $5/movie.
Crap. *maybe* DD 5.1 sound at 720p (not 1080p) and have to watch within 24 hours of pressing play, for the same price as a Blu-Ray or HDDVD rental? Crap. Only thing worse is XBox Live’s requirement of watching within 14 days of “rental,” instead of ATV’s 30.
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What a rip-off!!! The device may be just moderately overpriced for the masses but the rental fees are asinine. If I wanted to pay that, I would actually rent from the more convenient but still overpriced Comcast on demand.
For a service like this to be be worthwhile to the masses, new releases should be $2.49 or less and older movies should be 1.99 or less. And HD movies should be shown in all of their glory with TrueHD sound etc! And if you rent very frequently on a monthly basis, those prices should be discounted up to 50%!!!!. Otherwise, why not go with the more convenient and *much cheaper* Blockbuster online or Netflix.
Frankly, I think the price should be even less then I suggested if the quality isn’t as high as Blu-ray or HD DVD.
I’m sure Apple is partly to blame for the ridiculous rental prices but I have a feeling the movie studios really do NOT want movies on demand to take off too much so they are making sure they get premium pricing. The movie studios are afraid that folks will stop buying DVD’s. They care less about rentals.