http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/08/14/fox.takes.on.itunes/
Fox to offer TV shows, movies
updated 01:35 pm EDT, Mon August 14, 2006
Fox takes on iTunes
Fox is planning to offer TV programs like 24 and Prison Break, as well as feature-length films such as X-Men 3 through the Direct2Drive service run by its IGN affiliate. The move would compete with Apple's likely push for full-length movie downloads through iTunes, as the music store's dominance could limit video sales of other services, according to Electronista. Official details of the launch, however, suggest that Fox copy-protection may be much more restrictive than Apple's service. Pricing for movies may also prove prohibitive at $20, which is similar to a physical DVD. There is also no word yet on whether Fox will copy Apple's season discounts.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Mar 2004
$5
$5 max for a movie online. A DVD quality movie in MPEG-4 will run at about 1GB. Maybe a little more. With AAC 5.1 sound you're looking at more like 1.5GB for a 100 minute feature film. Since most people's broadband connections have bandwidth limits, this size makes DVD quality impractical and expensive. So you have to reduce the size significantly. And therefore why would someone want to pay DVD price for a quarter of the pixels?
If you want DVD's on your computer then there are many great ways to get them there like using MacTheRipper or Handbrake. You can even keep the 5.1 surround sound if you're willing to do a little work and demux the ac-3 soundtrack into 6 aiff files, build your own quicktime soundtrack with all 6 in it and export it as AAC 5.1. It's about 5 minutes of work and worth it if you're got a digital audio out on your mac.
Pay $20 for a fraction of the quality just to save an hour or two of computer processing and about 5-10 minutes of actual work? I don't think so.