Phil Schiller and iTunes Interview

[MacRumors]

Businessweek published some excerpts from an interview with Phill Schiller regarding the iTunes music store. One interesting question asked about future plans from Apple:


Q: Any plans for video down the road?

A: No, right now we just want to make the world's best music store. But I want to point out that iTunes includes particular music videos in the store. You can view some amazing music videos for free.

Despite this denial, speculation about a future Apple Movie service has already begun.

Article Link: Phil Schiller and iTunes Interview

 

[puffypoopy]

what's the deal here?

Phil just said they are focusing on Music only (and the Music Store) - only saying there are good music videos on there. Why does everyone jump the gun on things like this?

 

[jayb2000]

quicktime + iTunes

Let's see, they are using AAC, which is the same as QT 6.2, they already run a huge dowload site for trailers.

Seems like it would be pretty easy for them to add that.

Then mix with TIVO and BAM - pretty cools setup.

All controlled by the phantom "communications device' of course.

 

[speechgod]

Movies? Yeah right.

 

[bigdog]

Ryan et. al over at MOSR called for Apple to do a movie download system in the next 2 years. I think that pretty much rules it out.

 

[mgescuro]

Look. How many people are going to download video??
Probably not a good amount of people. Why?? The proliferation of broadband internet is not that high!! Can you imagine downloading a movie at 56K?? Forget about it!!

If Apple were to do something like that, they would have to work with the major movie companies. Then they'd have to partner with Earthlink to bring broadband to Mac users. Then they'd have to offer Mac with even larger storage systems, etc, etc, etc.

Unless of course, you'd just want to rent it and a price... but you'd still need broadband. Then the question is... why would you want to watch a movie on your laptop or desktop. Chances are your home theatre system will be MUCH better for movie... unless of course, Apple develops an Rendezvous system and connect to TiVo. But again.. the R&D will take years before that happens.

 

[rdas7]

Look. How many people are going to download video??

How many people are going to download graphics?

How many people are going to download applications

How many people are going to download audio?!

Who is EVER going to need any more than 400k of storage space on a floppy?

With processor speeds increasing and the cost of storage decreasing even faster (Wired Article:
Shifting Into Overdrive) it's not long before we're loading up our iPods with Terabytes of data and our P800s with a "measly" 1GB Memory Stick.

Back in the day, the jump from a 1200 to a 9600 baud modem was an amazing leap. At 28.8k we thought things wouldn't get any faster (notice how ZIPPY those pages are loading?).

True 56k is just about the cap for the current system, but 3G wireless gives a *theoretical* throughput of around 320kbps through the air, and certainly with 802.11a/g we're looking at megabits per second... who's to say these won't eclipse copper wire broadband/cable, etc. in the future?

If history is anything to go by, our kids will laugh at us when we tell them that we had to physically go to Blockbuster to rent movies, and how we felt "holding" our first compact disc. They will look at us and say, "Why didn't you just download it?" from behind their contact-lense monitors and dual-button Apple mice.

 

[tgranbois]

R&D

I work for a company that is involved in streaming data, not compression codecs, and i have seen that there is already the abiity to stream dvd quality video over the net with multiple streams. So the technology is there, it will just take the last bit of capital for it to be real for the big time. We are using our contacts in the entertainment industry to arrange a demonstration with Apple, so maybe it wont be too long until this service is available, with a minimal cost to Apple.

 

[YWN]

Broadband

Well, I would love an movie download area for apple, I have broadband, and so does a very large ammount of the internet users, why? It is cheaper on the long run, and it is faster, if you want to download movies, ur not gonna do that on an 56k. And I guess that most people on 56k also don't download a lot of music. Because that also cost a lot, and is more expensive then broadband. So no need for Apple to offer broadband... Movies, YES!!! I see a lot of movies on my computer, and it has fairly good quality. It is far cheaper then the travel to a cinema, and then get a seat.

GET THE MOVIE DOWNLOAD!!! I WANT IT!!!

 

[ldkaplan]

videos in the store?

<snip>
But I want to point out that iTunes includes particular music videos in the store.
</snip>

What's this about? I didn't see any vidoes. Anyone have any details?

Regardless, if they want to make "the world's best music store", they need to focus on filling in those Partial Albums.

 

[SilentPanda]

Re: videos in the store?

Originally posted by ldkaplan
<snip>
But I want to point out that iTunes includes particular music videos in the store.
</snip>

What's this about? I didn't see any vidoes. Anyone have any details?

Regardless, if they want to make "the world's best music store", they need to focus on filling in those Partial Albums.

On the homepage of the iTunes Music Store if you click on one of the artists on the left hand side (exclusives I believe) a good percentage of them have music videos.... I know Matchbox Twenty, Alicia Keys, Bon Jovi, Counting Crows, and Eminem do.

 

[alset]

Someone asked where the videos are. Check the artists who have exclusive tracks and you will find some. Try Jack Johnson, U2 or Eminim. Make sure you are loading their full page, not just a browser window.

As for movies, I am sure Apple and everyone else will evaluate and see how soon the market will be receptive. Someone will offer this service. It's just a question of who and how soon.

Remember those promises of cable on demand that cable companies used to make? Well, the medium is here. I just hope M$ doesn't beat us to the punch.

As to anyone who doesn't think net users will be willing to download, movie piracy is already gaining ground at a rapid rate. I know a few people with huge collections of TV shows and movies that came off the net.

Dan

edit: Also, Schiller was very well spoken when promoting the platform.

 

[Jimmni]

Movies

As far as I can see, the problem with movie downloads (to buy and have, not rent) isn't the size of the downloads... If Apple can make a success of iTMS with just American Mac users, they could make a success of movie store with just broadband users. What would put me off using it would be if I had to watch the film on my computer. My computer isn't in front of my couch, and that's where I like to watch movies from. I'd buy and download films that I could burn, but I'd never 'rent' them to watch on my computer. This isn't actually that big of a problem though, because with DVD writers becoming more common, and DVD players in a good proportion of homes, Apple wouldn't be that hard pressed to make a program to burn DVDs. If it was limited to 1 burn per movie, that would probably satisfy the industry, and consumers would have nothing to complain about (how many copies do you get when you buy a film at the video shop?). Just a few thoughts.

It does seem to me that Apple would be more likely to sell films than rent them. Though with rentals getting so expensive (I noticed new releases were £3.75 a night in Blockbuster last time I went in...) there could be a market for it. I'd still pay the extra though, and watch from the comfort of my couch.

- Jimmni

 

[SilentPanda]

I don't think Schiller's comments even really hinted at downloading movies in the future but whatever...

I could see allowing people to download music videos for a small fee... maybe around $3 or so... but that's iffy... right now music videos aren't sold often unless the artist has a bunch of them. So the artists might as well attempt to sell their videos. You can buy compilations of videos on DVD for some artists of course. I'd probably be willing to pay $3 or so for a high enough quality music video that I could burn to DVD and not notice... the current size of 480 x (whatever) is fairly decent right now although a little bigger probably wouldn't hurt.

As for downloading movies to burn to DVD? I myself use the DTS audio track any time I can... of course if I let a friend borrow a movie and they don't have a DTS decoder they can use the dolby track no problem. It's not the video downloading that concerns me but more so the audio downloading that is my concern. If the DVD has a DTS audio track I'd definitely buy it from the store instead of download it so that I can use that track and my friends can use the dolby track... I'd probably download a movie if the DVD didn't offer a DTS track and the download had Dolby 5.1... I dunno... my concern would be mostly with the audio tracks and not the video....

 

[iSmell]

It will happen eventually

It will happen eventually, from Apple or elsewhere.
Remember Napster? That got really big, mainly on college campuses where everybody has access to a highspeed network, about three years ago. Now digital music is mainstream and commercial.

But guess what college kids are doing now? Trading movies. It hasn't gotten to the level that Napster reached at its height yet, but it's growing quickly.

By the time Apple (or another company) got the Studios to agree to it and set it all up and everything, the bandwidth and storage space would probably be there. Remember Apple said they'd been working on the iTMS for over a year.

I bet more than one company out there already has plans for this, and I would be surprised if Apple wasn't one of them.














College Monkey

 

[iSmell]

Originally posted by SilentPanda
[snip] my concern would be mostly with the audio tracks and not the video....

I'm pretty sure that MPEG 4 supports multichannel sound and aac is high quality, so I don't think this will be a problem. DivX may not have surround sound, but they won't be selling DivX movies anyway.
They could also make a set top box that would hold movies (tivo style) or just stream them from your computer. Or maybe even a video pod that you could watch movies on or dock it at a TV and watch on the TV with surround sound and everything.
All the technology is out there (Tivo, 802.11, iPod, portable DVD players) it just needs to be pieced together.











FutureMonkey

 

[vniow]

Even though I'm on dial-up, I'm a big fan of music videos and would gladly pay a small fee to get high quality ones that I could download on my computer (i.e. not streaming), the only (legal) ones that I can seem to find either are low quality streams from the artist's web site or you have to buy the entire album to get yet another low quality version.

Bring on the music videos!

 

[lmalave]

Originally posted by mgescuro
... unless of course, Apple develops an Rendezvous system and connect to TiVo. But again.. the R&D will take years before that happens.

Ha! TiVos are already rendezvous enabled. Currently they only play slideshows from iPhoto and music from iTunes. So playing video from your Mac is not so far fetched. Even with current technology, though, a movie would still be a pretty hefty download. Still, even if it took up to an hour or two to downlad a movie at decent quality, I might still prefer that to going to the video store or waiting for NetFlix. Imagine if downloading a movie only cost a few bucks? As with the iTMS, you could burn a movie to DVD, play it on 3 macs, or play it in...an upcoming video playing device???

I think Schiller meant what he said, though - Apple has its hands full just with the the iTMS and the iPods.

 

[theFly]

A movie service would be a bit different then the current music service. On the music service, when you buy and download the music, you own it.

However, the question then comes up, do you run the movie service the same way? Most online movie services (well, I guess MovieLink accounts for most of them), are rental services where you download the file (about 500MB as I recall when I tried it for one movie).

You can keep it on your drive, but once you start playing it, you had 24 hours (I think) to watch it. After that, you couldn't watch it anymore.

I'd love to see how well movies can be compressed using MPEG4 and I think Mac users can benefit from the service. The question is, would users be willing to be limited to "rentals" or would they be willing to pay $15/$20 to be able to burn the movie to DVD (which I know the movie industry would never allow).

theFly
Fly on the Mac
http://www.flyonthemac.com
Rumors You Can Bet On

 

[nickgold]

Originally posted by rdas7
How many people are going to download graphics?

If history is anything to go by, our kids will laugh at us when we tell them that we had to physically go to Blockbuster to rent movies, and how we felt "holding" our first compact disc. They will look at us and say, "Why didn't you just download it?" from behind their contact-lense monitors and dual-button Apple mice.

LOL! Ok, that was funny....

 

[Stella]

No mention of International support

No mention of international support, whether this question was asked in the interview or the editor couldn't be arsed to include the article, is any ones guess.

However, before apple think about movie downloads, they should support the majority of the world first.

 

[Freg3000]

I think it will take a while because of bandwith concerns. I mean, even with a cable connection, how fun is it to download a 500 MB movie? And most people don't even have broadband. Maybe Apple thinks something will pop up with much faster speeds in the next 2 years.....we'll see......

 

[arn]

Sorry of the article wasn't clear.

The point wasn't that phil admitted to anything - in fact he denied it...

I am aware of this.

arn

 

[MacSlut]

Oh, it's gonna happen, but when...

An interesting thing happened that isn't talked about much, but in the lat 90s, audio CDs were a base level format. Both in terms of being a storage media and in terms of quality. Just as technology was taking us into higher resolution with more channel audio, technology was taking us into lower resolution, but less expensive and easier to distribute.

One the one hand people were saying CDs weren't good enough, we need SuperAudio CDs or DVD-A or DTS CDs. On the other hand people were saying 128Kps MP3s were good enough!

It will be interesting to see what happens with iTunes...if it becomes a new standard. I wouldn't be surprised at all if there later became a new and improved quality download that you could upgrade to. This is what the industry does, but this time, we're all going to ask why they weren't encoded that way in the first place since the technology already existed.

So now we have movies doing the same thing. Some are saying DVD is not good enough, we need HD-DVD...and certainly we can all see the difference, but at what point will the acceptable quality level of video stabalize such that the acceptable bandwidth/download time meets it?

In other words if there are enough people with bandwidth accepting a reasonable download time of a DiVX would these people also accept the poor quality?

Bandwidth is increasing...not just broadband acceptance but the speed of broadband. As this increases the variables of quality vs download time also improve as a trade-off of each other.

However, quality requirements are also increasing. I can't imagine paying to for something that wasn't at least DVD quality, and I'd prefer HD quality. At $20 bucks I would go to the store and buy a HD copy versus downloading a sub-DVD quality for a little less.

So while it is about bandwidth, it's also very much about the flux of quality standards.

The rest of the technology of course is already pretty much there. I say this in almost every post, but here it is again...APPLE SHOULD BUY TIVO. It's great that Tivo works with Apple's overall strategy, but it's becoming increasingly clear that Tivo (or whatever brand) will be the entertainment hub, not the PC/Mac.

Tivo's Market Cap is now 3X what it was just last Sept, but at under $400 million, it still very much makes sense.

So my prediction on when movies will happen? I believe quality standards for video will increase. If I'm wrong about that and quality standards decrease, then it could happen within 2 years...but I strongly believe quality standards will increase so we're looking at 5-10 years before it can be offered as a competitive channel to other forms of home movie rentals/sales.

 

[Jaykay]

Re: Re: videos in the store?

Wow, people really are getting ahead of themselves with that, maybe music videos (to download) but movies are a long way off.

Originally posted by SilentPanda
On the homepage of the iTunes Music Store if you click on one of the artists on the left hand side (exclusives I believe) a good percentage of them have music videos.... I know Matchbox Twenty, Alicia Keys, Bon Jovi, Counting Crows, and Eminem do.

U2, Coldplay, Sheryl Crow and the queens of the stone age have videos too.