Movie rentals???

So has anyone actually been able to rent a movie from iTunes. I tried to just for the novelty of it, but there's no rent option. I even selected a "top rentals" (so soon?) movie, but there's only a buy button.

Anyone??

I wasn't sure where to post this since it doesn't exactly fit into a subforum. Please move if you feel there's a better place for it.

Starts tomorrow.


I'm curious to see if it actually "works with current generation iPods" - and I might be a little bit disappointed if it doesn't work with 5th gen video's...

Well according to Jobs updates were sent out so it will work with all video-enabled iPods. Did you get an update today?

According to the keynote, he said they would be available starting today. The only movie I found so far with the option to rent is ratatouille though.

audioslave03 said:

According to the keynote, he said they would be available starting today. The only movie I found so far with the option to rent is ratatouille though.

Click to expand...

HAHA, you're right! And the sad thing is, it's not even on the list of "Top Rentals"!! ROFL!!

I guess as long as one movie is up, the service is officially online. I'm not renting that one, though. I want to rent "War Games". Seems fitting, don't you think? Plus it's one of my favorites. What other movies has great conversation like:


And with a computer, no less.

I went through about a 3rd of the list using power search and checking the box for rentals, and found some actually up for rent. (not all the movies that show up from the search actually have the rent option, yet)

Ratatoullie
South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut
The Invisible
Coyote Ugly
King Arthur
Soul Plane
The Greatest Game Ever Played
War Games (woot!!)
Orange County
Ronin (one of my personal favorite movies)
Shopgirl

Looks like they're slowly coming online as War Games was not available a few hours ago.

Enjoy!

I know what you mean. I expected to actually see a list of rentals. Here's a couple more to add:

300
Live Free or Die Hard

Oh and fleurya, I agree that Ronin is an excellent movie.

Ouch! Download is pretty slow right now. I guess there's high demand right now? Good thing I have the 30 day window because it doesn't look like I'll start my movie tonight! (1.3 GB and 4 hours remaining, and yes, I do have a high speed connection)

how do you find the HD ones?

It should have separate buttons for HD and non-HD rental. They probably don't have the HD rentals up yet as it appears they're scrambling just to get up any movies at all.

Actually, I was reading that the HD ones are only available for the AppleTV, not for computers.

^^ that's odd. Computer monitors have better resolution than TVs. Many people have insane displays and surround sound connected to their computers these days. Why wouldn't they let you? Maybe it's a premium service exclusive to Apple TV owners which they'll use to get more people to buy it.

If that's their plan, it's probably going to backfire on them. Lack of HD content is one big reason movie sales have failed so far for them. I don't think people are going to rush out and spend $230 on an Apple TV just to be able to download HD movies. Personally, I would rather put that money towards a blu-ray player. Instead of selling more Apple TVs, they'll rent/sell less movies. HD should be the hook to get people "in the door" to rent/buy from iTunes, not to buy Apple TV.

how can you "rent" a film online?

does the licence expire??
surely its easy to extract the film or something, how are they protecting it so your renting it not keeping it?

mikeyman said:

how can you "rent" a film online?

does the licence expire??
surely its easy to extract the film or something, how are they protecting it so your renting it not keeping it?

Click to expand...

From the keynote presentation, you will only be able to rent movies for a time period.So after you rent it and watch it , you still do not get to keep it.basically an online blockbuster.

mikeyman said:

how can you "rent" a film online?

does the licence expire??
surely its easy to extract the film or something, how are they protecting it so your renting it not keeping it?

Click to expand...

I agree, the license expires, but you're right. It'll happen, it'll be stripped and then they'll have an update, more than likely.
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I think the renting service is a cool idea, It would be nice if we had the HD content for the computers, it might come at a later date. I think they are testing the waters, it takes allot to get this stuff out to us, so it might be coming.

The only thing I don't like about the movie rentals is the watch time, I think you should have more than 24 hours to watch a movie, sometimes things happen and you can't finish a movie. The hard copies of movies you get at the rental store (of your choice) is the only place you can keep the dvd for multiple days usually around 3, 5, or 7, days.

I don't see why we can't have a video for more than 24 hours after we have started watching it, it's the same way for the box 360 rental service..

I just don't get why we, as consumers, can't keep a video for more than 24 hours after we start it. I think they would OWN the market if they bumped the limit up to 2 days or 4 days, something like that, because no one is doing it for longer than 24 hours.

I also don't know why some of the movies don't have buy buttons, they are rental only....

I also think there should be some kind of a "discount" or something, if you rent a movie, I think the 2.99 or 3.99, etc should be taken off of the buy it price, or something along those lines. I don't know, maybe not, it's not like that in the "real world" with physical discs. Since this all digital, I don't see why we couldn't purchase it with a discount since there is no handling fees or anything like that.

I think the ability to purchase HD content would really help apple tv sales if thats what they're trying to accomplish... personally if I really like a movie, i would rather buy it HD then to rent it HD.