After previously only having an option to rent HD movies, back in March, Apple added the option to be able to buy HD as well. The problem? A complete and utter lack of options. Even now, some 8 months later, there were only a few dozen HD movies you could buy, and the majority were movies like The Midnight Meat Train — movies you probably had no desire to buy, let alone for the amped-up $19.99 HD price. Today, that changed.
Apple has just added a range of HD movies available for purchase on iTunes. Here’s the kicker: There are actually some good movies, finally. Sure, previously you could grab a few gems like Casino Royale. But now, for example, a total of 9 James Bond films are in HD (though sadly, only two of the Connery ones are, and Goldfinger is not one of them).
So what else is available in HD now? Blockbusters like The Rock, Top Gun, The Sixth Sense, and Cloverfield. Award-winning movies like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, There Will Be Blood, The Queen, and No Country For Old Men. Pixar’s latest masterpiece Up is also available in HD. And you can also pre-order movies like Star Trek, which comes out next week, in HD.
It’s hard to tell exactly how much HD content Apple added today since you basically have to click on each film to see if it’s a) available in HD and b) available to buy in HD. But it’s a lot, and more importantly, as I said, there’s finally a fair amount of content worth purchasing.
Interestingly enough, Apple is touting its new HD movies as “HD Movies on your Mac or PC.” You notice something missing? Apple TV. Yes, Apple’s red-headed step child continues to get no marketing love despite the fact that HD movies not only play on the device, but I would argue that is still the best reason to get HD content from iTunes. Though movies are not Blu-ray HD quality, they’re pretty darn good and noticeably better than standard quality content from iTunes, especially on big HD TVs.
It’s good to see that after months of a slow trickle of mainly junk, Apple has opened the HD pipeline quite a bit more. Now if they could only get iTunes Extras along with HD for most films, the movie area of the store might actually be able to start living up to its music portion older brother. Having all movies available to rent the day they come out on DVD wouldn’t hurt either. But we all know Hollywood hates our freedom in that regard.
Of course, on the flip side, all this HD content to buy also means the more storage you’ll need for these files. HD movies on iTunes tend to range from 3 to 5 GB each. Apple still needs a solution for that eventual problem, like iTunes in the cloud.
Apple TV has to be on its way out. It seems crazy to me to not even ‘try’ to market Apple TV with such a large addition of HD content.
they did not correctly name that device (iTV, Apple TV) and were they to market it now, they would confuse the general public as to what their real plans are in the “Apple TV” domain.
Yawn.
Wasting time downloading gigs of data for overly compressed sub-720p videos with crap audio
vs
1080p lossless audio BluRay movies showing up in my mailbox from Netflix to watch on my PS3.
Exactly.
Your tune might be different on that in a few months http://www.tech...-et-tu-netflix/
pwned :@
http://newteeve...elease-windows/
I second that.
Yes, on the same day that Netflix started delivering the DVD for online streaming via PS3!
I keep waiting for iTunes to work in a cloud – I use multiple computers between work and home and it is a continual problem…
Yet at the same time, when my internet is down I still want to have full access to videos and files I own. Especially since Internet down often means cable is also out, and those are the times I rely most heavily on content I already have ‘in hand’ (or hard drive…)
I have had the ATV disconnected from my reciever for quite some time and in its place I just plugged in a WDTV (http://www.wdc....asp?driveid=572). I have been too lazy to change my Harmony remote label, so every time I pop in a 1080p mkv usb drive and click on ‘AppleTV’ on the remote, I snicker a little inside.
Wish there was a “Bury” button in techcrunch, or at least something that says:
“Sponsored Post”
ditto for trolls.
+1 and Siegler said pretty much the same thing below.
adding one just after we add the bury comment button.
But, ofcourse – still not available in Europe (at least not Norway). At least Microsoft (Zune Video) and Sony (PSN Movies) are now learning and are launching their movie-for-rent services in Europe.
When will Apple follow suit? I realize this is the movie studios’ doing, but since both Sony and Microsoft now obviously have gotten this off the ground – why isn’t Apple following?
Instead of continuously adding content and new forms of media to the american iTunes Store they could actually bring videos and LPs to other iTunes Stores.
Here in Belgium (the center of Europe) we have to get around with music (about 1/10th of what’s in the american store), podcasts and apps, and that’s it. And there are still a whole bunch of other countries which have been waiting for other content for ages now.
Ok, exporting content isn’t easy but if they can get it to France, why not to Belgium or the Netherlands?
i assume there are also rights issues for different countries that could be a factor.
Indeed, the European Commission isn’t doing any good as well. But as far as I see Apple isn’t even trying to negotiate.
I believe that with some effort they would get video etc. to many european iTunes Stores as well. And if they manage to get an agreement with Europe the road is open to bring this content to 27 new countries.
I’m still waiting for a trade treaty between the US and Europe as well, this would certainly be beneficial. But of course those are political issues.
I read Apple and mediafolks had come together some weeks ago to pitch for a unified iTunes.
These recent days they’ve had a conference Visby Agenda to set forth a unified IT policy for the “eUnion” and one of the bigger points was having a single rights treaty.
http://www.se20..._an_eunion_2015
that’d be great.
Sound nice indeed, I’m rooting for a unified iTunes and full iTunes content for everyone!
But still I’m doubting if it will happen anytime soon…
Star Trek, Pixar yay, but ah crap, Beverly Hills Chihuahua is in that screen shot. I must not let my wife know about this.
agreed – are you paid upfront for that or getting a cut?
That cigarette dangling from your lip in your picture makes you look like a douche.
I thought that was Vin Diesel???
I am confused as to why I would want to spend $19.99 on an HD digital copy of a movie that is lower quality than a Blu-ray of the same price. It seems to me since they have absolutely $0 production cost and very minimal distribution costs these movies should be selling for nearly half the price. I understand the convenience of it, my entire movie collection is in digital format, but why are people paying these prices when you could just rip your disc based movies, torrent them, or if you have too much of a conscience and not enough technical know-how, buy the disc based and then download them. I realize none of these options are quite as convenient but I still think digital format media should have a lower price point than its physical counter part.
Its the studios… desperately grasping at the last piece of control they have left.
Buying a digital copy (especially a crappy one) still makes no sense to me.
Why they don’t offer me a package deal to rent the movie as a stream and buy the Bluray at a discounted price I’ll never understand.
Maybe because you don’t need a blue ray drive for these HD movies?
Many computers support high definition but don’t have a blue ray drive, so in this way people can enjoy HD content without having to buy a +1000$ computer with a blue ray drive.
At least for me, in Canada, it still says “Also available in HD on Apple TV”. So this may be a US only thing for now?
Mike
Ditto for this Canadian.
Screenshot of iTunes:
http://i34.tiny...com/2ch9oxl.jpg
And Apple TV still promoted in Apple Store:
http://i35.tiny....com/xn8zzc.jpg
Storage is really cheap. A terabyte drive is now well under $100.
On the other hand hundreds of households trying to stream HD at the same time within a single fiber node will bring the fiber node to its knees.
It’s just a function of how many channels of spectrum are dedicated to downstream capacity and what video codec and bit-rate are utilized.
I’d rent but almost never buy. I’m looking forward to the rumoured $30 a month TV solution from Apple. I’m sick and tired of spending so much money on cable when I only watch 15 channels. I don’t need 800+ channels!
One way or the other you’ll pay for transport, whether it is $80 for 800+ channels or $50 for Internet access and $30 for programming… oh ad don’t forget the extra $30 for that “other” programming package when your SO wants to watch O or We. The only guys who are going to save any money are the ones who own the content
Glad to see this– my friends and I rent a movie almost every weekend, the HD quality is pretty damn good too…
I do get a lot of use out of my AppleTV between movie rentals, video podcasts, and listening to my music collection.
It’s nice to have a youtube player of sorts too that people can gather around and check out the latest clips.
@MG
Your losing it man. What no Twitter post:)
For what it’s worth, Apple introduced HD movie rentals in January 2008, not just earlier this year. In March 2008, a handful of films were allowed to be purchased with the dual HD/SD download format. The catalog grew (very, very) slowly, but steadily since then. I think this is the first major, worthwhile burst of HD film purchases since HD came to iTunes Store movies.
Sorry, don’t consider paying for ‘DRM-wrapped’ content to be ‘buying it’. Its just an expensive rental. I would LOVE to watch more HD movies on my Apple TV, but as recently as this last weekend, there still isn’t much out there that’s at all recent.
As allways ‘not in Europe’. We’re still left with BitTorrent and Usenet as the only usable alternatives… Come on. Do Euros really smell that bad?