Our friends in the land Down Under (where, reputedly, women glow and men plunder) recently joined the small but growing list of countries where you can watch TV courtesy of the iTunes Store. Now they and neighboring New Zealand have teamed up to become only the third and fourth countries to offer iTunes movie downloads and rentals.
At launch, Aussies and Kiwis have access to over 700 films for rent or purchase with 100 in HD and, as in the US, they’ll be able to snag new releases on the same day as they hit DVD. And in a continuing discrepancy with the U.S. store, antipodean users have a 48 hour window in which they can watch their rentals as much as is humanly possible (the U.K. and Canadian movie store offer the same time-limit, but the U.S. store still stands at 24 hours).
Let’s talk prices: purchases will go for $9.99 (in local currency) for catalog titles in both Australia and New Zealand, $17.99 for recent releases, and $24.99 for new releases. Rentals are $3.99 for catalog titles and $5.99 for new releases in Australia; they for $4.99 and $6.99 in New Zealand. In all cases, HD rentals cost a dollar more. So congrats, you can go out and buy that Apple TV you’ve been waiting for all these longs months.
Time to start up the pool on which country is next to get iTunes movies: my vote? San Marino. Everybody overlooks the little guys.
Actually, the words are, "where women glow and men chunder" (do a google search). The word "chunder" is Aussie slang for the inadvertent expulsion of your stomach contents out of your mouth, usually in liquified form, triggered by drinking excessive amounts of beer.
@Peetz: I checked it out, they're actually two separate lines. The first one is "where women glow and men plunder" and the second is "Where beer does flow and men chunder". But thanks for that imagery. ;)