iTunes 9, the death of the DVD?
iTunes 9 was released today and with it I smell the death of the DVD for my household. One of the biggest selling points for DVDs were the extra features like behind the scenes video, commentary, ect. All of these features look to be added to video downloads on iTunes, for a little extra, of course. Could this be the end of the DVD for generation Y?
It’s all going digital these days. I was the first to bring my family into the digital age with the AppleTV, DVR, and digital music. The transition wasn’t easy and they fought me tooth and nail. Learning how to switch the television to a different input, find the TV show they wanted to watch, and hit the right combination on the tiny Apple remote was too much of a burden. This drove me up the wall because it was exactly the same thing with the DVD player minus, ya know, actual DVDs.
All the content, none of the plastic
One of the biggest arguments against digital copies for video is not being able to travel with it and the features that are left out over conventional means. DVDs are notorious for packing in so much bonus content you’d be crazy to purchase the same movie on iTunes. Take the movie Terminator 2 for example. There are over 3 versions of this DVD all containing various amounts of extras some of which require more than one DVD. Why on earth would I buy the digital copy and only get the movie.
Content to go
Addressing the first issue about not being able to simply take a digital copy of a movie to go is pretty simple. When you purchase a movie through iTunes it gets wrapped in sticky DRM. I hate DRM. Luckily Apple will let you take it with you on your iPhone, iPod touch, or most iPods that support video. Sure it can be incredibly inconvenient to carry an iPod, its respective cable, and then try to plug that into someone else’s television compared to a DVD, but it works. Good luck getting my parents to do that but someone like myself loves the idea of carrying my video collection on my iPod.
The Future
Lets face it, Americans are a “want it now” type of people. I would rather wait four minutes for a download than four days for a DVD to ship. Add this feature to an AppleTV in your living room or your Mac and suddenly purchasing or renting movies becomes more than archiving, it’s a compulsive buy. Nothing says this more than the current economic storm in the AppStore. If Apple could tweak iTunes much the way it does with the AppStore it could easily become the biggest supplier of entertainment. The DVD format might just buckle under the pressure faster than people predict.
1 iTunes logo is property of Apple Inc.
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