1080p on iTunes and Apple TV
Friday, March 9, 2012 at 7:33AM 
Despite my initial disappointment with the new (somewhat superficial) changes to the UI on the Apple TV, I am looking forward to the introduction of 1080p. In advance of the new Apple TV being made available, the latest release of iTunes now supports the downloading of 1080p content, directly to your Mac. Just switch it on as a setting in iTunes preferences.
I had a play last night with some free TV episodes and I have to say, I was impressed. Mind you, I only downloaded some small samples and I have a very fast Internet connection, but even so, the experience was pretty seamless and the quality of the output excellent.
With 1080p and Movies in the Cloud, Apple have the foundation for what could be a very successful service, but I fear it's doomed to never really take off.
The main problem is the price of the content, especially when competing with free.
Matt Gemmell wrote an article a week or two ago which sums up a lot of my feelings about how the movie industry handles pricing - The Piracy Threshold (contains some pretty strong language BTW).
Apple TV and Movies in the Cloud resolves virtually all the issues Matt raises except for one, the pricing.
Before anyone berates me for being part of the "entitlement" brigade or for advocating piracy, I'm not and I don't. It's the right of the movie studios to charge what they want for their movies.
Absolutely!
But now they have the opportunity to reinvent or reboot the movie business, handed to them on a virtual plate by Apple. Apple can provide them with the delivery mechanism, the user experience and the back end ecommerce systems. Hand Apple your movie, and get a big fat cheque at the end of each quarter.
Apple can now push bits down a wire to deliver high quality movies, seamlessly into people's homes, and have them pay for it with a single click. Movies in the Cloud handles the storage and gives people the convenience to access the content they've bought, from any device.
Simple and convenient.
Apple have already demonstrated with the music industry, that a frictionless system with reasonable pricing works. Remove the friction, charge a reasonable, affordable price and people will buy. It's worked for music and I'm sure it would work for movies.
So will I be using Movies in the cloud?
No, I won't.
I can afford to buy 1080p movies from iTunes at the current pricing, but I won't.
My perception of the pricing, my gut feeling, is one of being ripped off.
I may be wrong, and £14.99 may be a fair price to buy a 90 minute movie, but it just feels wrong.
It's not that I feel any sense of entitlement, or that it should be down to me to me to set the pricing of someone else's product, it's not.
It just feels to me that the price is too high, based on my own personal value system.
But as I say, it's the movie industry's choice. Keep the price high and sell fewer units, rather than than drop the price and sells many, many times more. Someone surely must have run the numbers somewhere?
So, rather than buy or rent from iTunes, I'll be taking advantage of the new 1080p streaming service from Netflix, unlimited streaming movies and TV shows straight to my Apple TV in glorious 1080p.
Pity as I'd love to build a movie collection and use Movies in the Cloud.
But not at those prices.
Reader Comments (2)
Don
I was wondering about movies in the cloud, I think its a great idea, but when is it coming to the UK, we could be in for quite a long wait before we have to think about this.
My issue with your comments would be that films will come down in price, they may start high on first release, but general they come down after a few months, so it's not all high pricing.
Secondly I'm not sure netflix is a valid alternative, the quality of stream might be there, but the choice is very poor, it appears to me to be a mishmash of older films and new B movies that aren't very good. I'm very disappointed with the netflix catalogue, so much so that I didn't renew my monthly subscription.
Sam
I agree Sam , not even sure if the UK networks could handle the extra data tbh. The trouble with streaming is, in my opinion, is that companies know that if you seach for a film - you obviously want to watch it. Why offer it to you at a lower price? You are in less of a position to 'shop around'.