In January, Apple had promised there would be 1,000 movies available for rent in iTunes by the end of February. February came and went, and 1,000 rentals there were not.
But surely, seven weeks after the deadline, they must have hit that goal by now…right?
Right?!?!
No. Once again, Chris “Geezer” Breen at the Mothership crushed my optimism, having done his best to count the available rental titles on iTunes and finding the number to still be short of the promised thousand. He found 437 rentals by counting the total available in each Genre on the Apple TV, and 604 by using the “Search Movies That Are Available For Rent” option in iTunes.
Bummer. Apple TV rentals are great — faster than Netflix, less hassle than Blockbuster, and less time-consuming than torrenting a movie (not that I’ve ever done that). But what cripples this convenience is the weak selection, a fixable problem that continues to haunt me in my sleep.
In my last post on this matter, I was hoping Apple employees would take advantage of the wonders of HandBrake to rip their DVD collections into iTunes to make them available for rent. The plan must’ve backfired when they realized 80% of their collections were made up of pornos and crappy sequels.
Okay, let’s start a pool: When do you think iTunes will hit that magic 1,000?
I'm sure they will have 1000 by Feb of 2009
It is sad. I complained just today, again, about the lack of progress on completing partial albums at iTunes.
The album "Get Ready" by New Order has been partial, lacking the single Crystal, for somewhere in the neighborhood of five years. Several other New Order albums are also now partial. I can't imagine a real record store having so spotty a collection of a popular band, for so many years.
To make matters worse they have mixed up songs on a couple albums. The album "Synthetik" by Komputer has had its first two tracks swapped out for the EP "Inhuman" by Motor. I alerted Apple about this in October and they haven't even gone so far as to make the Komputer album partial while they figure out the problem.
It's pathetic.
maybe by Fen 09 the Handbrake people will have fixed the bugs that prevent it from working on about half the titles I try. or more exactly, the app just crashes 50% of the time when scanning the VIDEO_TS folder. yeah, I know, it's free. I'd pay, though, if it meant getting timely bugfixes.
At least with Netflix and Blockbuster, you get a real DVD with all the special features and trappings that come with them. Many of the movies aren't even 5.1 audio. There are several mom and pop rental places in my neighborhood that charge only 99 cents for all but the latest releases. Yet, iTunes rentals costs the same or more. That's "great?"
I rented one movie on iTunes and haven't touched them since. Convenient, yes, but not worth the price of admission.
I too find it disappointing that iTunes selection is limited. Still, it's incredibly convenient.
Exnihilo mentioned a few things that many others have stated in many other forums, but I disagree.
One, the extra features on the DVD. Occasionally, the special features are cool. Most of the time, the studios throw in fluff. A typical action movie contains the following "special features." A shoddy "making of" followed by a "how the special effects were done," which uses much of the same content contained in the "making of" feature. Oh yes, then there's the lovely director's commentary. Does anyone sit through that? I guess each person has their own preferences but I'd be comfortable stating that 80% of the special features aren't so special.
Two, sure you can rent DVDs for less, but it takes 2 trips to the store to do so. With gas prices today, how much are you really saving? Also, my experience with the mom & pop rental stores is that they might only have a couple of copies, so you often have to choose something else or come back another time, which means more gas money.
Three, few movies on iTunes have 5.1 surround. True. It's also true that most people have cheap 5.1 systems with cheap, satellite speakers that don't reproduce full-range audio. Further, most people don't calibrate their 5.1 systems properly and instead just buy into the hype. This doesn't refute your position really. It's just that most people were content with the audio quality of the cassette tape.
For me, as soon as Apple is able to get the deals worked out with the studio folks, I'm going to love this system. I would like to see it come down in price a bit though.
Re: one
Among the extras that I mention are subtitles. I'm not even talking about foreign languages. I always watch DVD's with English subtitles because is certain situations, it's difficult to tell what they are saying. Subtitles help, but you are SOL with iTunes.
Re: two
You assume that it requires gasoline to get to those stores. Bicycles are wonderful things; get exercise AND save money / the environment.
Re: three
Even a cheap 5.1 system provides genuine surround sound, which gives the movie a more theater like experience.