In an earlier post, Dan Pourhardi mentions that Apple failed to keep its promise to offer 1,000 rentable movie titles by the end of February. I would say it’s hardly Apple’s fault, if at all. I’ve blogged about this before, and I’ll blog about it again: it’s those greedy movie studios.
With devices like the Apple TV and Vudu, we’ve got the technology made to revolutionize video consumption — instant movie entertainment in our living room with the click of a button. What obstacles do we face? Annoying time windows and a meager selection compared to video stores or NetFlix. And why do we face these obstacles? Movie studios want to protect their precious DVD sales.
To me, online movie renting doesn’t just spell out affordable, instant entertainment. Think about all the environmental resources we’d save if more people jumped on the TV-set-top-box bandwagon. Or, remember that one time you felt like crying to a crappy movie, but somebody else had already rented the only copy of City of Angels at the video store? That would never happen with digital video! Too bad City of Angels isn’t available for rent in the iTunes Store! (Sob.)
I’m not the only one in the blogosphere frustrated about this. Wired’s Frank Rose expressed similar concerns. He added that Hollywood studios are repeating the same mistakes that the music industry made with digital music — a fantastic point.
How many more blogs must be written before you listen, Hollywood?
Vudu has over 5,000 titles going to 12,000 this year versus only 400 by honest count for Apple. Also Apple has only 720p vs 1080p for Vudu and you can see the difference. Vudu out-engineered Apple because Apple put their best people on the iphone, where there was more money. There are no excuses for Apple! The movie people still belong in a separate hell, but that does not excuse Apple. Apple is still in the game only because a lot of loyal followers bought the Apple name and still don't know that Vudu is a significantly better product. The movie studios had nothing to do with that.
@len nam, the quality issue is a bandwidth issue (I'm not sure I want to download a 1080p movie over my cable model connection, much less a DSL connection). The quantity issue is completely separate.
Hollywood has its collective head so far up it's collective butt, it probably doesn't know what a blog is. The idea that making movies available to rent on iTunes is anything but a boon to studios is ridiculous on its face.
- Many movies are available only for rent.
- Studios get a cut of every rental (as you pointed out, unlimited supply of each title can only mean more money).
- People who want to buy the DVD will. In fact, making movies easily available to rent might encourage DVD sales. I don't buy anything I haven't seen.
I'd like to meet the person who decides that a movie isn't available on iTunes, so he'll go to the store and buy the DVD.Dave-O. Your comments are good ones.I don't know anything about compression but I understand that Vudu just does it much better than Apple, which is why the difference in quality. I wouldn't hesitate to download over cable. You just click and plays instantly with Vudu whether, which I have. You have to pay a little more to the cable company to get 5mbsp which you need for high def films to come instantly as well. With Apple, I understand you sometimes have to wait for even standard films and always with high def, although I don't have one and have to defer to someone else on that. More than the quality though, is the Vudu interface and scrolling, which just shines with good engineering.
Apple sucks. They trail Vudu in the set-top box, their computers run 50% more than pc's and the quality difference there but no where near the price difference and the software is gross less than with pc's. The iphone is very nice but costs twice as much as competitors and uses the ATT GMS which is less good than rivals. The ipod was their shining light. But remember the Apple two, next, and a few other blunders. I did my homework, saw the difference, and bought a Vudu. The Vudu has much better quality. There are no excuses for Apple. Vudu had to deal with the same movie jerks, and came through.