I do in fact understand that there’s a difference between me and mass market. However, I am also an average, 18-30 year old male consumer with disposible income. In my view, the iTunes store model is broken, because it delivers poor quality video. Apple’s going to have a hard time pushing the aTV as a viable living room alternative when an Xbox 360 is only $100 more, and offers HD content (as well as many other things).

I am neither an Apple nor a Microsoft fanboy, although I own two Macs and a 360. I’m simply speaking as someone who would love to use a service for digital media delivery, and I can’t find a reason to use Apple’s. Macalope’s assertion that Microsoft’s rental system is a downside versus Apple’s buying misses a big part of the equation, which is HD, which is why Microsoft is currently winning the ‘living room’ space, and why I do not think that aTV will change it.

I do, in fact, have small children who behave exactly as you describe. These movies fall into the “purchase” category, along with some classics that my wife or I will watch more than once. I will gladly buy these through the ITMS.

And, I agree completely re wear & tear. In fact, my beef is not with iTV. It’s with ITMS pricing for movies I will never watch twice.

Because I am a sucker for Apple technology, I’ll buy an iTV. But I’m keeping Netflix. For now.

In fact, that would make the Apple TV even preferable to a cheaper DVD. Hand the kid the remote, and let him pick and choose. No fear of scratching the disk, nor sticky fingers gumming things up, or even futzing up the settings. (At least there’s no longer the sandwich in the VCR. Would it now be a waffle in the drive?)

There’s a balance tween rentals and ownership. Apple’s going for the same ‘you keep it’ strategy that worked so well for the music side, vs Napster et al. You could also say one new movie per month via netflicks is twice Apple’s cost.

Most movies do not rate a second viewing.

I would be oh so happy if Apple adopted a Netflix-style rental model where the customer keeps three rentals at a time indefinitely, with an option to buy.

Oh, and 720p w/ surround, please.

You do realize I hope, that for everyone who proclaims that they’ll never buy a song/video/movie from the iTMS until Apple abandons DRM/adopts Ogg Vorbis/sells uncompressed files/steps up to HD/includes a free sexbot with every iPod, there are thousands of people will go ahead and buy from the iTMS without your approval?

The iTMS is a *mass market* service. It’s not for snobs, because frankly, there aren’t enough snobs to matter.

-jcr

HD.

If you buy a movie from iTunes, it’s fuzzy and almost unwatchable unless you’re across the room. If you rent a movie from the XBL Marketplace, it’s in full 720p glory.

I’ll grant you that the time limit is annoying, but I’ve deleted all the movies I downloaded (after only watching once) from iTunes. If I really want to own a movie, I’ll buy the plastic disc that doesn’t take up space on my hard drive (only on my shelf).

Until Apple offers 720p (or better yet 1080p) movie and TV downloads, I’m not ever going to buy a video from iTunes. The only current downside to Microsoft’s solution is the limited media available, which is less their fault than Apple’s. I doubt ABC is ever going to put Lost on Microsoft’s box, but if they did, and at 720p, I’d buy it in a heartbeat. 480crap that I get from iTunes isn’t worth it when a torrent download is a couple clicks away.

Hmm. I guess Apple could make you delete the last movie you downloaded. Then again, maybe they’re worried about people cracking the DRM and burning copies, having only paid a little bit of money for rental.

Well sure, but the Microsoft video rental service is clearly based off the the traditional video rental store model, not the Netflix model.

I think this was done intentionally; the “keep it as long as you want, but you can only have one at a time” is close enough conceptually to “ownership” that the restrictions seem unreasonably chafing. This may be why most people I know of who use Netflix use it simply as a source of DVDs to rip to their hard drives.