iTunes Movies Outsell HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Disc

I'm curious how many of the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD disks were sold as rentals, and how many were sold to end users.

ALL of the iTunes sales were to end users.

To me, that makes the difference even more interesting.

I believe that Apple will win.

Not really. If more companies follow Fox's lead by providing TV ready files on the disk, this all becomes a mute point. Unlike music, rentals will be where Apple's video success lies so I see a Blockbuster Vs. Apple in the future. People who want to buy movies will still want to have the physical copy to take to a friend's place or have the video extras... regardless, I don't see them stepping on each other's toes to much... Bandwidth is what would prevent Apple from taking on BluRay. I don't see bandwidth increasing before significant price drops on BluRay machines become common place. In five years I can see both machines in many houses... people just wont need to go farther that their TV to do any renting.

Arik,

I don't think it is too much of a stretch.

Is it any more of a stretch for Sony to run ads for their Viao laptops in MacLife magazine?

People fail to see just how established iTunes music store is.

I feel Apple's initial launch of Apple TV was just a taste of what was to come.

Now you can rent movies without your computer?

Apple got the movie Companies in on the guise of rental for computers, right? The movie companies saw Apple TV as a failure, right?

Now you don't need your computer and you can rent HD movies? Big move.

Very big strategically.

Is this a stretch?

Uh, maybe?

Peace.

According to Engadget, iTunes HD movies are rentals only.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/16/itunes-and-apple-tv-rentals-and-purchases-what-you-can-and-can/

Nice blog!

You gotta be freakin' kidding me. Are you actually comparing high definition movie sales with "near DVD" quality trash on iTunes?!?!?!

This is BusinessWeek for goodness sake, how can you possibly help spread this nonsense?

According to a recent ZNET article, Apple's (and other download movie services) HD downloadable movies are not true HD and don't compare to the real HD quality of Blu-Ray.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=959

don't understand why AAPL stock is being punished.

Apple is on the Blu Ray board, along with Sony. Blu Ray drives will find their way into Macs very soon. Apple will take any money anybody will hand them. You work for Business Week, surely you know this?

Also, (though this may not matter to the public) "HD" means several different things. And the chance to rent a lofi compressed film that adheres to the 720 HD size, is not the same as watching a Blu Ray disc or even HD content on cable. Until streaming 50gb of info becomes possible, hard media will survive at least in a large niche market.

I was hopimg hd dvd would suceed against bluray. But i always wanted hd dowloads to win. what movie studios should do is put movies on usb removable hardrives.

You raise an interesting point because remember the ubiquitous bright yellow Sony Walkman back in the day? Well the iPod is that device today. It's as if Apple studied Sony's playbook on the Walkman and ignited that same marketing fire for its iPods and iPhones. Scary!

If you consider the number of video-capable iPods sold, the ratio of players-to-iTunes-movies sold is less than impressive.

By the way, I think Apple took a swipe at Sony when they presented its Mac Air laptop not because Apple has a vendetta with Sony, but because Sony has often touted that it has the "slimmest" laptop [available to the mass market]. It makes perfect sense to me - I mean why would you proclaim to have the slimmest laptop currently available only to compare it to normal "thick" laptops when you could say, "this used to be the slimmest laptop, but not anymore; introducing the Mac Air".

I would have to consider iTunes only selling 7 million movies to date a failure considering the number of households that have the ability download and view the content. I can not believe you would even take the time to compare iTunes to HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.

Blu-ray is not seeing any upward traction from Warner's announcement, so it is doubtful that it would be much of a fight. Nobody is buying much of either Hi-Def disc format and probably won't as long as the frontrunner in that "war" has players that cost over $200. The hi-def format "war" is a war that nobody came to.

No.

iTunes sold 7 million Standard Definition movies not HD movies.

The iTunes HD downloads [of the future] are at a lesser resolution [720p] than Blu-Ray [1080p] or HD DVD [1080i or 1080p depends on the player] so anyone that buys an HDTV and wants a high-end 1080p product to watch will NOT be downloading HD movies from iTunes or any other internet based service. And the end user would need to buy the Apple TV set top box as well so this is not NEARLY as realistic as you make it seem. The 7 million Standard Definition movies downloaded were viewed on iPods & iPhones not HDTVs again you are stretching reality. To stream the download to a HDTV is not that simple either..the average person will not learn all that is required for this to EVER me mainstream.

And how long do you THINK it would take to download a 50GB HD movie using a cable modem or DSL? Hours? Days?....

And Apple TV has sold less then 200,000 units since introduction and is currently a financial failure, so again keep it based in reality if you are reporting the news and not generating you own fiction.

I just bought a 1080p plasma tv. Apple TV is a great idea, but it only outputs 720p, so I will buy a blu-ray player (as soon as Universal caves next month)....

I don't think this post makes sense since electronic downloads render the format war useless. In other words it does not matter which format you download Toshiba or Sony do not make money. Sony might through its studio business but thats not relevant here.

For the authors information Apple supports Blue-ray since Disney does and Steve Jobs sits on Disney's Board.

And in other news...Ferrari sells many less cars than Toyota...Oh wait...we don't care that a substandard product, like iTunes movies, outsells another product like Blu-Ray...there's not real correlation. Let's see...a $5 download, that is the equivalent of a poorly shot home movie, in quality...or a $30 disc, that you can take to you friends house and play if you want, that produces a visual and audio scene that can't be matched by some movie houses...seems like real news to me.

The next war will be between Itunes and the Playstation 3 online download store. Niether video or audio downloads are offered yet but they are coming in the next two months.

Sad this is that your average ITunes using consumer can take advantage of the HD goodness unless they pony up for an AppleTV. If it didn't require AppleTV to do it, perhaps it'd that much more successful.

I wish you hadn't pointed that out. Why does everything be turned into war when it comes to Apple? One could also take the reference to the Sony sub-notebook as a complement to Sony. Do you seriously expect people to buy Air and run vista on it?

This doesnt make sense, its false advertising. Sure, iTunes sold 7 million movies, but they were Non-HD movies. If you are going to compare iTunes store sales, compare them with its real competitor, the regular DVD. What are the numbers on that???

iTunes HD movie downloads are just compressed 720P downloads with legacy dolby digital audio (not even on all downloads).

Blu-ray offers fully uncompressed 1900x1080 video with amazing audio Dolby TrueHD and various others.

I can say for certain that on my new 1080P tv I wont be wasting my time with compressed sub par movie downloads.

This service is just a joke. Way to take a step backwards Apple.

Apple's iTunes rentals and downloads are only 720p, Blu-Ray is 1080p.
I did not but a $1200 lcd tv to watch 720p.
I love Apple, but i'll choose 1080p any day!!!!!

Apples rentals and downloads are only 720p, Blu-Ray is 1080p.
I will take 1080p any day, for my $1200 lcd tv.

I think you've hit the nail of the head Arik and whatever happens now I'm sure that blu-ray will be the last of the movie physical-media formats.

Should you compare iTune sales to regular DVD's instead?

And the next battle is between net media and disc-based media. Who cares about iTune!

The problem with this comparison is that you are effectively comparing Renting with Owning movies.

Sony's laptop division seem to me to be a logical direct competitor to Apple's laptops -- particularly when it comes to very small form factors, and "fashion" laptops. Though there are a lot of successful manufactures around; Sony and Apple seem to have been focused on the aesthetic side for the longest. Furthermore, Sony have particularly good laptop miniaturization tech (see the UX series), better that it may appear if you just listen to Jobs, whereas many of the American manufacturers haven't quite got there yet.
So, I would suggest that that Apple picked Sony to pick on because the Air will sell on it's aesthetic "look and feel" qualities, and they regard Sony as the closest competitor.

You can receive movies on a dvr also. I would much rather have the physical media (at this time blu-ray). Is this Itunes movie download system delivering 1080p? Is my media locked to one place. Physical media I can take where
ever I go. Plus they look sweet in my media storage unit.

OK If you want to do "Apple to apples" then compare this 7KK Movies to the Nationwide SD DVD Sales and Rentals, that will put the apple movie downloads at maybe 1% (just to say a number) maybe even less.
And this why you can't compare it with BR and HDDVD with this 2 points:
1. What % of these 7KK movies were HD?
2. Who are you kidding? are the Apple HD Movies really HD (1080P, True HD, DTS Master Audio, PiP or just HD light?
just slightly better than a SD DVD.
lol!
3.

Don't fool yourself that HD downloads are the same quality as what you can get on physical optical media disc.

These HD download have been over compressed and highly filter (ie. removing the data and detail which made it HD in the first place).

For rentals most won't care. Think the dumbing down of high quality video just like high quality audio has become a thin of the past due to the iPod generation.

But for collector and people who truly want the best quality HD downloads won't approach the quality that a physical medium is capable of for quite some time.

Do you really think the backbone of the Internet can handle millions of people downloading HD on a Friday night. That's one reason they are trying to make the files smaller already. The networks can't support this on a mass scale.

It will be many years if ever that HD downloads will offer high bitrate video and lossless audio that Blu-ray offers today.

Remember there are still many people that don't have broadband connections today.

I don't see why downloads and physical media can't coexist with digital downloads. I really think the products cater to two different market segments: those that care about quality and those who are easily duped and don't care about quality.

By the way HD movies are not as big as 50GB. 50GB includes special features. I have both HD DVD and Blu-ray. I don't care if iTv is a failure. I am still getting a 160GB when I have money. I still prefer the hard copy of movies if its in HD. I will primarily use the itv for tv shows like south park and family guy. I use to have the xbox 360 for that but it kept breaking on me. I hate flipping through DVDs for TV episodes. i will only buy movies from itunes if they have the HD version that is not on and new HD discs. I may use it to buy old SD movies. I will also use the itv for music. I have a 32" 720p TV so I dont really care about 1080p. I dont have enough room for a big screen TV so I am not planning on buying a 1080p. I honestly think the itv is a waste of money but it seems very convenient.

How many Ipods are out there? Well over 100 million. How many HD DVD and BD players are out there? 1/10 of the Ipods. Misleading article. In fact HDM sold way more proportionately.