Link-a-roo
Pricing
Let's start with pricing since everybody is probably wondering if it's cheaper or worth bothering. Here's how Apple is breaking down the costs of renting movies from iTunes:
All in all the pricing isn't too bad at all; it seems about on par with cable TV's "on demand" products. However, there are a couple of things I don't like. The definition of "Library Title" seems too broad to me and I think there should be a "Classic" sub-category for movies that are older than 30 years—and the price should be around $0.99. That would encourage a lot more rentals since it's a bit ridiculous to expect people to pay three bucks for an ancient movie from the 1950s or whatever.
- Library Title - $2.99
New Release - $3.99
HD Rentals - $4.99 (apparently only for Apple TV initially later this month, not sure if this will be available for computers as well later)
Actually renting the movie is as simple as clicking the Rent Movie button, confirming your choice and then waiting for your download to begin (assuming you are already signed into the iTunes store, if not you will have to sign in). I was able to start watching the movie shortly after the download began and had no problems. My download continued while I was viewing the movie.
--AlanRestrictions
One thing that I did not like was that you have 24 hours to finish watching the movie after you play the movie. You have up to 30 days to begin viewing, but once you start watching it, your 24 hour timer begins counting down. That stupid restriction had to come from the idiot movie studios whose heads are still firmly up their collective rear ends when it comes to customer satisfaction.
For me, 24 hours is not that big of a deal. But for people with kids and other distractions, it can sometimes be impossible to finish a movie in 24 hours. Also, since one of the virtues of iTunes movie rentals is that you can easily move your movies to your iPhone or iPod, it would seem to be a potential issue for travelers who might want to watch the movie in small bites over the course of a few days.
I'm not really sure what the heck the movie studios were thinking here. Did they think that if people rented movies and kept them for 72 hours or longer that this would cost the movie studios money? How? By people calling their friends to come over and watch it? Talk about paranoid! It seems the movie studios have been hanging around the morons from the RIAA or something.
