Movie rental up and running in the UK

Too expensive and no TV series yet.

I'll stick to the 'bay. The yarrr me 'arties one and not the one full of Nigerian scammers.

Should I want to own a DVD I'll pay £5.99 inc P&P from jersey.

Come on Apple. None physical media should be cheaper than the physical media!
 
^ it does have TV series for UK users to buy now.

Most of the content is not HD though, from what I can see. If that changes I'll be rather more inclined to make some purchases.
 
I'd pay £5 for HD-to-keep, tops. £10 for unlimited rentals, and I don't want to have to buy a piece of Apple hardware to use it. There's no postage costs, no physical product is produced, it shouldn't cost more than I can buy a DVD for.

Until this happens I'll continue to build up my collection of HD .mkv movies.
 
If you read articles released (from the US launch) the quality of the HD releases isn't that great.

I know, it's not feasile to send 50GB Blu-Ray rips down the 'net, but the stuff they class as HD barely qualifies. The resolution is high, but the bitrate is very very low for HD.

Also, £10.99 for a film that you can only download once takes the McVities. Especially when you can buy them for half that price in the supermarkets these days anyway. I suppose they've tried to avoid the pricing anger by allowing rentals for 48hrs, but it's pathetic considering the download speeds of the UK.

I'll stick with DVD rips (my own, not downloaded) this is a big joke.
 
Apple TV required for HD. HD not actually all that HD. Overpriced.

I'll pass. That, and there's not even anything there I'd want to rent.
 
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If Apple or any company for that matter want to sell digital movies they need to provide something that is better than the pirated versions. Until they do this, why will you want to pay for something when you can get a better version of it for free.
 
hyper_piper45 said:
If Apple or any company for that matter want to sell digital movies they need to provide something that is better than the pirated versions. Until they do this, why will you want to pay for something when you can get a better version of it for free.
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Bingo. This is what people often fail to realise. The people with internet connections decent enough to download this purchased content are probably well aware of newsgroups / bittorrent. The companies need to make the purchased content better than the pirated version, while also offering better value (this can come in the form of exclusive content, the warm feeling of being legal, etc). It's the same way Linux isn't competing against Windows in the developing world, it's competing against pirated Windows.
 
It's 48hrs from when you start playing it, NOT when you start downloading it - this makes connection speed a non-issue (unless you wanted to watch it soon..).

The fact that The Matrix (£6.99 there, £2.99 for the DVD from...somewhere else) is high up on the Top Films (bought) list tells me one thing: people are buying movies they surely must already own to play on their computer/iPod. This is STUPID, because of copy protection (and the fact it's illegal to get round it, not that you or I can't easily do it) most people are having to buy their movies again rather than just pop the DVD in iTunes and it'll rip you a nice copy to play on your computer/iPod. This is why I hate copyright law - it should be legal to move anything you've purchased to a different format for personal use. Period.

Anyway, renting might be worth it but for purchases no way!
 
Just took my apple tv out, never used it and ran too hot.

It's a bit strange as my parents, who live in Portugal, have had movie rentals for ages. They run on the US network over there.

Josh
 
Caged said:
Bingo. This is what people often fail to realise. The people with internet connections decent enough to download this purchased content are probably well aware of newsgroups / bit torrent. The companies need to make the purchased content better than the pirated version, while also offering better value (this can come in the form of exclusive content, the warm feeling of being legal, etc). It's the same way Linux isn't competing against Windows in the developing world, it's competing against pirated Windows.
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Exactly. Give me a cheap, high quality, legal download that I can re-download should my hard disk go up in smoke and also pipe to my portable devices and I'll gladly pay.

Until then my 20Mb connection can download a high quality rip in minutes. It has nothing to do with being a tight git or sticking it to "The Man" but rather I want the media in the format I want so I can view it where and when i want.

Until the MAAFIA get that bit torrent will continue to be the only choice for some. That or Tesco.
 
Good points raised by all. I would like to pose the question;

How can you offer exclusive content, that's better than the pirate versions?

...Surely, that will just give the pirate community a chance to rip the content you're supplying which ultimately means your supplying them with the ammo to shoot you down.

It's a double edge sword, and one of the reasons why companies are trying to riddle everything with DRM. Which sucks :(

Make it £2 a movie or £10 a month for unlimited rentals, with decent quality and it'll go a long way.
 
EVH said:
Good points raised by all. I would like to pose the question;

How can you offer exclusive content, that's better than the pirate versions?

...Surely, that will just give the pirate community a chance to rip the content you're supplying which ultimately means your supplying them with the ammo to shoot you down.

It's a double edge sword, and one of the reasons why companies are trying to riddle everything with DRM. Which sucks :(

Make it £2 a movie or £10 a month for unlimited rentals, with decent quality and it'll go a long way.
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Pirates will always exist. Treating customers like customers rather than treating them like criminals goes a long way. After all Apple don't protect OS X install disks with pesky things like serial numbers.

The problem here is the recording and movie industries have been on the Gravy Train for years and it has come to a stop and they are struggling to keep the monopoly rather than react to the market.

Until this changes our the media we "buy" will be DRM'd, overpriced and they will continue their attempts to sue all thier customers.

What a sad state of affairs... :(
 
The industry as a whole needs to stop being total dicks about it as well - I tried to have an intelligent discussion over email with the Industry Trust people (the guys responsible for the "YOU WOULDN'T MURDER AN OLD WOMAN IN THE STREET ... PIRACY IS THE SAME!" adverts), asking them why they thought putting unskippable propaganda at the front of my DVDs was a good idea. Every email I sent to them got ignored, every phone call promising to answer my questions never appeared. They're scared, and they'd rather concentrate on attempting to make the law protect their failing business model than try and fix themselves.
 
Caged said:
The industry as a whole needs to stop being total dicks about it as well - I tried to have an intelligent discussion over email with the Industry Trust people (the guys responsible for the "YOU WOULDN'T MURDER AN OLD WOMAN IN THE STREET ... PIRACY IS THE SAME!" adverts), asking them why they thought putting unskippable propaganda at the front of my DVDs was a good idea. Every email I sent to them got ignored, every phone call promising to answer my questions never appeared. They're scared, and they'd rather concentrate on attempting to make the law protect their failing business model than try and fix themselves.
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When I pay my hard earned money for a DVD or I go to the Cinema I am forced to watch the afore mentioned "You wouldn't commit Genocide? Would you? Piracy kills little babies..." adverts. So as a paying customer I am treated like a potential criminal.

If I download said movies from you-know-where I am not forced to watch the damn stupid adverts...

Oh the irony.
 
I tried Behind Enemy Lines last night, £2.49 to rent... quality was fantastic.. it did max out my connection though! Oli downloading Hitman was maxing out at 900kbps... mine went to about 800kbps - so they've definitely got the infrastructure to deliver it... its just the price thats wrong... hmmm
 
I tried it out too, quality was great and the download pretty much maxed out my 24Mbps connection (was getting 2MB/s). You can also start playing it while it's downloading which was certainly nice as well.

I won't be doing it again though, things like LoveFilm provide MUCH better value for money and great deal more choice. As said before if they provided a £10-£15 unlimited subscription then I would sign up for that instantly!

As for the copying issue, if you look back in time then piracy/copyright infringement has ALWAYS driven technology. The VCR was hated by the film industry initially because they feared piracy. Guess what? They made massive amounts of money from it in movie sales. The same goes for Napster, that was what pushed "online music distribution" into the mainstream and took 4 years for the music industry to catch up on and make money from it.

People are getting excited about iPlayer/4oD/iTunes TV & Film while BitTorrent has offered (in the case of iPlayer & 4oD) higher quality TV and movies for years.

Copying media in new ways illegally always seems to drive the innovation that gives media companies new revenue streams. Odd that.
 
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Fillado said:
I tried it out too, quality was great and the download pretty much maxed out my 24Mbps connection (was getting 2MB/s). You can also start playing it while it's downloading which was certainly nice as well.

I won't be doing it again though, things like LoveFilm provide MUCH better value for money and great deal more choice. As said before if they provided a £10-£15 unlimited subscription then I would sign up for that instantly!

As for the copying issue, if you look back in time then piracy/copyright infringement has ALWAYS driven technology. The VCR was hated by the film industry initially because they feared piracy. Guess what? They made massive amounts of money from it in movie sales. The same goes for Napster, that was what pushed "online music distribution" into the mainstream and took 4 years for the music industry to catch up on and make money from it.

People are getting excited about iPlayer/4oD/iTunes TV & Film while BitTorrent has offered (in the case of iPlayer & 4oD) higher quality TV and movies for years.

Copying media in new ways illegally always seems to drive the innovation that gives media companies new revenue streams. Odd that.
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You are fortunate enough to get that high-speed internet, though.

The majority of people can't play it instantly, they have to wait until 10% has downloaded.. which is plain annoying.

Something interesting I heard on TWiT.. some people moan about the legalities of ripping DVDs (which we can't discuss here), but don't forget.. when you buy a DVD you're only buying a license to watch that film in that format.. you don't own anything (other than the media it came on) :o

It is annoying to have to watch the propaganda, but I always chuckle when it comes on because I think of the sketch from The IT Crowd :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTbX1aMajow
 
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