The iTunes UK Movie Download User Experience
I am unlikely to be a regular purchaser or renter of movies from the iTunes music store. The reason for that is I am a bit of a snob when it comes to the video presentation of movies etc.
I did however want to evaluate the user experience.
I chose a film I wanted to see but didn’t have in any other format.
I am a big Chris Rock fan so I chose his movie Down to Earth.
The 1.02gb download came down in 50 Minutes on my ADSL Max connection. I have an 8mb connection but acts more like a 4mb one.
As you can see from the screen dump the audio is just plain stereo with a video resolution of 853×480. The video carries a 1663kbps bitrate.
Quality
The video quality is only really good enough for playing in a Window (853×480) or on an iPod/iPhone. As soon as you go full screen on any large screen display it starts to get ugly.
So I would say this would be better suited to people who are happy to watch the content on a portable device. Think teenagers or commuters.
Cost
Next up is the cost (£6.99 from iTunes). I could have picked up the DVD of this movie for £4.97. The bare bones DVD would have been better video quality and have a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.
The US store sells the same movie for $9.99 or £5.11. So the UK consumer is once again paying more.
In my eyes the sweet spot on pricing would be £3.99 to own or £1.99 to rent. Once again if I can get better quality at a lower price point then I will.
Convenience
Obviously iTunes wins hands down.
Summary
So I like having the choice of being able to quickly access an online store and in some rare occurrences this might come in handy. Example a rainy day or if I were stuck in a hotel while travelling. However as I said at the start of the post this isn’t really for me.
Tip: As with all content you purchase from iTunes you are responsible for backing it up.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Oddly, I find the Itunes movie rentals very watchable on both my laptop and in our bedroom on a 32inch LCD. Addmittedly, its nothing close to the HD experience I enjoy when watching TV on the same screen, but my wife and I routinely rent a movie from Itunes and put it up on the 32″LCD and find it terrific.
Part of the hook for me is the convenience. And because I very, very rarely find that I want to watch a movie more than once – even if I love it – clicking “rent” and watching it once and then deleting is much more preferable to renting from a Movie Store. Now, when they start releasing HD as rentals, I’ll really be excited!
June 5th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Hi Terry
Do you have an Apple TV or are you watching them from iTunes full screen?
I have never had a good experience with full screen iTunes video content, particularly on high resolution displays.
All of them suffer for image tearing in the top one third of the screen during scenes with fast motion.
In Fit to Window or Windowed mode = no tearing.
I have tried various computers on various displays.
1280 x 768
1366 x 768
1600 x 1200
1920 x 1080
All my video kit is ATI based you’ve got me thinking.
Ill hook up an Nvidia based machine for comparison.
My throw distance is about 8ft.
Maybe I am being too critical. It’s watchable for sure. I think going HD has spoiled it for me.
I would be interested what other people think
Here is a great post comparing the different formats.
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/apple-tv-20-vs-blu-ray-dvd-hd-cable-the-comparison/
Colin
June 6th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Colin- I’m watching from Itunes. I have a 32inch Westinghouse LCD, nvidia 6150 integrated, connected via VGA only, displaying at 1366×768. We are watching from around 8-10 feet as well. Which is a little far probably for only 32 inch, but a one time we had a slightly larger 37 inch hooked up (same way) and found that experience equally as enjoyable.
We are BIG fans of HD and find ourselves spoiled by it as well. But as i mentioned earlier, we also find the Itunes and other providers to have a pretty decent, and very watchable, rental video offering. In fact, I find it to be very close to watching plain old DVD. maybe i’m wrong, but i’m usually pretty critical myself.
June 6th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Hi Terry
I did hook up an XPS M1210 which has an Nvidia Geforce go 7400 video card.
The quality was a little better but still fell down on particularly dark scenes. Having said that my display is calibrated for HD and comparing 480 to 1080p is always going to be a disappointment.
Colin