Apple's video rental service coming this fall

I always said it was a mistake for Apple to go with the purchase video model. Renting is better for movies. However, considering the cost of unlimited rental deals through Blockbuster and Netflix, $2.99 a movie is pricey.

I pay fifteen bucks a month through Blockbuster Online, and I have more movies then I know what to do with.

$2.99 is a buck less than TW charges for a PPV.

Subscription models don't make sense for most consumers.

Really? You watch more than 5 movies a month? Damn, I wish I had your kind of free time.

I think it all depends on the customers. Families will probably sign up for the subscription service because it is cheaper than buying a movie. The latest releases will eventually show up on iTunes as this model becomes popular and saving money on gas is a plus. Apple can always revert back to the purchase model if it doesn't work. I think the addition of You Tube will move up sales of Apple TV's. I am waiting for Apple to release the update for Front Row but if there are no signs I'll get an Apple TV. Now if they offer a subscription service for some television shows I would be happy.

but I wonder how long it would take someone to crack that month restriction barrier. If nothing else they could send the video and audio signal to a capture device that pretends to be a display and speakers. Of course, the Vista method could be applied to stop such acts, but I doubt Apple would go to be so restrictive, especially since presentation qualities tops their charts like it should.

Also, do you think they'll let you buy the movie if you like it? It would kind of fit in with their buy-a-single, buy-rest-of-album-at-album-price-discount model. I could see that being a big money-maker (not the kind James Brown would think of) for iTMS and the studios.

Thoughts? Feelings?

With DVDs already cracked, I see no reason why people would go after the Apple version when the DVD version is already everywhere. I suppose if crackers wanted to have e-p*$(@ wars, they'll have a go at it, but it's not going to be a contributer to more widespread piracy.

I would be interested in it because I don't want to BUY movies, I just want to WATCH them. Now, if Apple gets movies in HD sometime in the next year or two, say goodbye to the HD-DVD/Blu-ray wars. AppleTV will rule the WORLD!!

$2.99 is a v.good price, there aren't that many good movies to break my bank. But I hope they'll have those small-time documentary movies such as who-killed-the-electric-car, US vs John Lenon, and other small productions.

dagamer has got it. With Hi-Def disks and players being so enormously expensive, apple TV and large storage capacity drives along with blazing fast wireless are the cheaper, sleeker alternative. Of course, how would you back up your data? On yet another drive? The one thing that disks have going for them is you could store them away and little worry of some chance incident totally destroying or corrupting them.

I wonder if there's a cost-comparison out there for something like this...

renting movies is a snack when it comes to the conuming of media, as Weitz puts it. I'd rather own my movies, that way i can always have a feast of movies I enjoy any time I please.

There is a fundamental difference between renting and owning, and between music and movies. I think Jobs realised this when he offered no rental on music and is now planning to offer rental on movies.

I want to OWN my music. I listen to my music EVERY day. I listen to it everywhere. I listen to some favourite songs many, many times.

I don't want to OWN my movies. It is waste of money and shelf space because:

1. I don't watch my favourite movies every day (that would be freaky) 2. I don't watch my movies everywhere; 3. Even the most favourite of my favourite movies, I can only see about 10 times in my life before it becomes old, boring and uninteresting (with perhaps one or two exceptions, at most).

There are, of course, people who love building collections of things. Some of these people build collections of movies. Not because they need to watch them every day; just because they love to have a collection of things (much like a thimble collection, or a teaspoon collection, or a collection of baseball cards - not much useful, but a collection, nonetheless). That is different. Most of us who don't build collections of movies (or anything else, for that matter). We only buy things that we will be using frequently. Movies just ain't those things. If you have small children, you probably will end up buying some Disney, since that stuff will be used frequently; eventually, it will go into a box and in the attic (or basement).

$3 for a movie rental is cheaper than Blockbuster. Keeping it for a month is plenty of time to see the movie. This is an excellent price for an excellent period. If bandwidth allows, HD downloads would sell like hotcakes and AppleTV would be in a position to become the new iPod for Apple (read: cash cow).