iTunes HD movie rental only for Apple TV?

Now that post-keynote reality is starting to sink in, it's occurring to me that Apple's HD movie rental announcement has a big string attached named Apple TV. In order to rent HD-quality iTunes movies, it seems that you'll have to buy an Apple TV. People who just want to rent HD iTunes movies to watch on their PCs (or send to their TVs using non-Apple hardware) are left out, and will instead need to buy an Apple TV and then transfer the content to their laptop or iPod. While it makes sense that most users will only want to play HD movies on their big flat-screen TVs, users content to watch movies on their computer's high-resolution screens appear to be left out of the equation. I mean, the standard 640x480 iTunes video quality is fine and all, but having the option to rent in HD would be nice.

Is Apple TV the only way to get Apple's HD video rentals?

(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET Networks)

What do you think? Did I miss something? Is this how Apple plans to sell more Apple TVs, by making the HD rental feature exclusive to the product?

update: The folks at Daring Fireball have pointed out some language in the new iTunes Store terms of service that pretty much confirm my suspicions.

(aa) Movies are viewable only on your Mac or Windows computer (using iTunes 7.6 or later), iPhone, video-enabled iPod (iPod touch, iPod nano (3rd generation), or iPod classic), or on TVs using your Apple TV. Movies in high definition resolution (HD) are viewable only on TVs using your Apple TV and must be downloaded directly to your Apple TV. Movies are viewable only on one device at a time.

[burtonjunky]

Wrong for me

You're reading it the same way I am, and that's too bad. I would love to be able to download HD movies via iTunes, but I won't buy an Apple TV unit. Apple has a chance to make some serious money with movie downloads, but has effectively blown it by limiting the hardware that may be used to view them. While their music store, iTunes, may be the most successful on the internet, just think how much more successful it would be if the file format was MP3, instead of AAC. By limiting the machines that can play the file, they're limiting their sales. I'll just keep waiting for more goodies from Sling, and will keep my eye on Netflix's digital download service.

[cyde01]

LAAAAME!!!!

Apple if you are thinking this alone will be able to make Apple TV a hot commodity you're wrong. All this will do is hinder the growth of iTunes movie downloads. Nice Jobbs, this has been one of the weakest Macworlds so far.

[epitone]

Speculation...

Seems like Apple doesn't want to rock the boat too much with HD-on-demand. I mean, they're offering it, but it costs more and it's rental-only and you need the AppleTV to do it.

Which makes me wonder... is an AppleTV with a built-in Blu-Ray drive somewhere on the horizon?

[ayschucks]

Leveling the Playing Field

This is great news for me. I am an avid rental advocate. I consume movies usually one time and rarely re-watch movies. I know a lot of consumers like myself who have stopped purchasing DVD's all together.

That's why I signed up for Netflix over 2 years ago and was very upset when Netflix opened up a download option but limited to PC. So now I can get a system, just for my Mac to download HD films and send them to my TV through AppleTv. Seems like a pretty fair trade off to me in a market place that hasn't valued me as a Mac based consumer.

[gconnery]

Read that one more time...

Even if you have an Apple TV and download an HD movie rental to it, you CAN'T transfer it to a PC or iPod for later viewing. If you want to watch the SD version on your laptop on the plane, you'll have to rent it again...

[Scott Gardener]

No high def on a 2 inch iPod; boo hoo indeed

So, you can't view a 1920x1080 high definition movie on a two and a half inch iPod screen. Yeah, people. Real boo hoo. I can kind of understand not being able to view it on a computer screen, but since they're offering standard def downloads cheaper, without those constraints, it's hardly a big drawback. Yeah, it sucks a little, but I'd hardly call it a disappointment.

As for limits to portability, it's rental, not ownership. If it's rental and the file is already doomed to die within a day of viewing, then I don't need to archive it on a computer. Most of the time, if I rent a movie, I intend to watch it from beginning to end once, pausing it periodically for bathroom breaks and rewinding the last part if I doze off towards the end. And, if I'm really wanting to watch the movie, enough to pay the extra buck for the HD copy and wait for the download of a maybe 10 Gig file, then I'm going to watch it upstairs on my 65" TV.

Theoretically, the constraints are significant. In practice, Apple's new announcement is exactly in line with my lifestyle and represents perhaps one of their biggest announcements in my own life. I don't even have a Mac, and I'm very interested.

[abadcaffeinetrip]

Apple hardware = no hdcp?

I am guessing it is because their current hardware does not support HDCP. For those of us who bought a computer or display from them recently, this is a big problem. Apple won't sat for sure whether or not they support it - but I hope it can be added via a firmware upgrade.

See the iTunes TOS:
(xv) HDMI. An HDCP connection is required in order to view movies (purchased or rented) and TV shows transmitted over HDMI.

[helimeef]

No, it definately support HDCP. If you download a program called "secrets" for OS X and enable "Front Row HD Movie Trailers", the HD movies look excellent and run fine (aside from the terribly slow response time of Apple displays)....
I sent the iTunes team an enhancement request and linked them here. Maybe Apple will actually listen and implement it, but I doubt it. It'd be a godsend.

[shanx24]

The limitation of an expensive product such as Apple TV are absolutely hideous and painful coming from Apple.

(1) Doesn't play the much more prevalent .avi and .mkv formats.
(2) Adding video to iTunes is like invading Iran.
(3) Only selectively plays subtitle (.srt) files.
(4) Syncing takes hours even on an 108mbps fast wireless.

And so on. Crap product for now.

[martygood]

The real disappointment is for those of us with TWO Apple TVs (one upstairs one downstairs). You can't transfer movies from one Apple TV to the other unless you order the movie thru Itunes. I like to order all movies thru Itunes because I'm never really sure where I'm going to watch them. Because they take so long to download, I order a few movies in advance. But....when you order thru Itunes, you can't get HD so if you wan to transfer movies from Itunes to one of your Apple TVs, you can do it, but not HD :- (!