While iTunes movie rentals was the big iTunes video headliner today, there was another, slightly less praised, iTunes movie feature announced at the Stevenote — iTunes Digital Copies.
Jim Gianopulos, chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment, introduced the product while Steve was taking a little break during the keynote, which may be why it’s not as well covered as some of the other announcements. Basically, iTunes Digital Copy is a special feature of select 20th Century Fox DVDs which automatically copies (after a unique code is entered) the DVD’s content to iTunes (in an iPod-friendly format) when inserted into a computer’s disc drive. Sound familiar? Well, this announcement was also part of the huge Macworld rumor mill, alongside the Macbook Air and iPhone 1.1.3 software update.
The first DVD to get this feature will be the special edition version of the Family Guy “Star Wars” parody, “Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest” (which was released today), though many more are soon to come.
Despite its seemingly lack of importance compared to iTunes movie rentals, iTunes Digital Copies in Fox DVDs is a big step forward in Apple’s prominence in the movie purchasing market.
I bought the Blue Harvest DVD and I love the iTunes compatibility. I'll buy more DVDs from Fox with this feature.
The most amazing this, though, was opening the DVD and seeing the instructions for copying the file *to your Mac* with instructions for Windows relegated to the back side of the insert! I don't remember ever seeing the Mac given precedence over Windows like this on such a mainstream product. The times they are a changing!