Techlines Today

Quick Review on iTunes Movie Store Download Experience

By Adam Myers ⋅ September 12, 2006 ⋅ Tags: Apple, Multimedia

I thought a few people may be interested in a bullet point review of the new iTunes movie store experience announced today.

• The movie I purchased is about 1.30 GB, and took around 35 minutes to download.
• It is possible to stream the movie while it downloads; as well as seek and scan.
• The content is protected by “FairPlay Version: 2″.
• The bitrate is 1.5Mbps at 24fps.
• The audio is Protected AAC, stereo, 128kbps, 44.1kHz.
• The video is Protected H.264/AVC0 640×272 – this is a widescreen ratio.
• The video actually does look “near DVD quality.” This is on my Viewsonic 21″ LCD Widescreen, results will vary.
• The actual file can be burned to DVD but not in the sense that it can played in the traditional DVD player.
• You can play the movie on multiple computers, similar to the iTunes music restrictions as best I can tell.
• Most movies I saw were priced at $9.99, though there were a few brand new releases at $14.99.

That’s the gist of it, let me know if there are any questions?