Ooh look. The UK iTunes store has just got round to releasing movies that you can either buy or rent then play on your computer, iPod, iPhone or Apple TV. Pricing is £3.49 to rent a new release, £2.49 for an old release; to buy a new release costs £10.99, while an old release costs £6.99. All prices include VAT.
File size for a 2h20 movie is about 1.6GB so best not to try this if you have capped broadband. Not sure if you can watch something while it's still being downloaded in iTunes, but if you have an Apple TV – which is starting to become even more attractive by the minute, particularly since at least some of the movies (eg Into The Wild) will be in high def on it if you pay £1 extra – you should be able to start watching within a couple of minutes of purchase.
As far as I can work out, you've 48 hours to watch a rented movie once you've started playing it – and 30 days to start playing it in – and you can watch it as many times as you like in that 48 hours. But if you don't make it through to the end of the movie in that time, you'll still have the option of carrying on to the end of the movie – or deleting it.
That concludes the commercial break.
Not sure how keen I am on the pricing - cheaper to buy the DVD almost. And there's not a lot of great stuff in there yet, unless you count the older movies like Batman Begins and The Matrix. But indie stuff like The Darjeeling Limited is due any moment now, and as we learnt from the Music Store, what's in there when it opens is always a lot, lot less than a few months down the line.
Updates and related entries
August 26, 2008:
Some advice on movies bought from the iTunes store, including Full Metal Jacket
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