In preparing for this week’s article, I dug deep into the hallowed MacMaineiac archives (which, of course, on my Mac, required but a simple entry into the Spotlight search field) to find the first article in which I referenced the iTunes Music Store.

In nanoseconds I found it. It was the last week of April, 2003. For music industry executives that week began, like many other weeks, with concern and much hand-wringing over the widespread illegal downloading of music via the internet. The industry had succeeded in shutting down Napster, and was seeking legal action against any and all peer-to-peer music “distributors”.

Into this environment Apple birthed the iTunes Music Store. Its purpose was two-fold: to provide a legal way for people to buy music online, and, to sell iPods. It’s been wildly successful at both. But last week, Apple abruptly closed the iTunes Music Store. It was only closed for about an hour, and promptly reopened under a new name – “The iTunes Store”.

Why? ‘Cause it’s not just about music anymore.

Actually, Apple’s online store has offered more than music for quite some time. It started with music videos, which were offered in part just to validate iTunes’ video delivery capabilities. Soon iTunes offered TV shows, either a la carte or in full-season packages. Over 45 million TV shows have been purchased and downloaded in the year (it’s been a whole year?) since iTunes started selling video.

So, after taking many measured steps to put almost all the pieces in place (I say almost because there’s one more piece – see the column next door), Apple announced the addition of feature-length movie downloads to the iTunes ecosystem.

Here’s the executive summary. Over 75 movie titles available initially, all from Disney (which should not be too much of a surprise as Apple CEO Steve Jobs sold Pixar to Disney, in part for a seat on Disney’s Board of Directors). Now, before you say “Disney? That’s lame”, remember that Disney includes Touchstone, Pixar, and Miramax, so there’s more to the catalog than just “Toy Story” and “A Bug’s Life”.

All movies are encoded in Apple’s h.264 codec (the same codec used on both coming high-definition DVD formats) and are 640 by 480 pixels in screen size. This is the “native” size for standard resolution TV. Previous video offerings from iTunes were 320 by 240 pixels, and those have been upgraded to the larger size as well. And, no, Virginia, you can’t get free larger versions of TV shows you’ve already purchased and downloaded.

A two-hour movie is about one gigabyte in size, and takes half an hour to download over a three-megabit-per-second DSL line. Obviously, the slower the connection, the longer the download. Folks in Georgetown will still be downloading Rocky I when Rocky VIII hits the theaters. But, I digress.

Movies will be available on the iTunes Store the same day they’re released on DVD. Pricing is three-tiered. New releases will be offered for pre-order and for the first week of sale at $12.99. After the first week, the price goes up to $14.99. Most older films are offered for $9.99.

As you would expect, iTunes Store movies have Digital Rights Management attached, sharing the same rules of use as iTunes music. You can view them on up to five authorized computers and put them on as many iPods as you wish. You can even move purchased movies (as well as music) from one authorized computer to another via your iPod.

You can burn the movie file to a DVD for backup, but you can’t burn the movie onto a DVD to watch on a DVD player.

© 2006 Peter F. Zimowski