I noticed iTunes had added Films here in the UK by accident while looking for something else on iTunes this morning (you can tell how early I was, the Top Rentals column only had one thing in it). The range isn’t overwhelming and prices seem to be £3.49 for a rental and £6.99 to buy for new-ish releases, while older ones are lower (Bad Boys II, for example, is £2.49 to rent, but no option to buy, while Risky Business is £2.49 to rent but still £6.99 to buy). Some films state “This movie is available in HD on Apple TV.”
According to the BBC article:
New releases cost £10.99 to buy and £3.49 to rent. Movies from the iTunes library cost £6.99 to buy and £2.49 to rent. HD versions cost £1 more.
Those renting films have up to 30 days to watch what they have downloaded and once they have started watching it have 48 hours to finish viewing.
I didn’t see anything higher that £3.49/£6.99 (update: National Treasure 2 was £10.99, no option to rent though) although that could be because there aren’t any new releases on there yet.
It may have convenience in it’s favour but the service certainly doesn’t win on price, with the rental price being near a Blockbuster rental you can keep for a week and watch as many times as you want (I get the impression you can only watch the iTunes ones once, and once you start you only have 48 hours to finish) and DVD copies cheaper to buy (for example, you can get Bad Boys II for £4.98 and Risky Business for £3.97 on Amazon right now).
It’s a step in the right direction at least, just need more companies to offer a similar service to help get the prices down and a larger catalogue. I know some of the movie rental places offer downloads (such as iLoveFilm) but I have been compelled to try these yet. iTunes is a big, well established brand in the downloads market, I, like many others, buy music from them, I have an iPod, so this could be a good thing if they can the range and price right.
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