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Over the past few weeks, I’ve been using the iTunes store more and more.  I’ve downloaded hundreds of songs by now, a few movies and tv shows, and more than my fill of [free] PodCasts.  Up until last week, I’ve always shied away from the rentals section for some reason.  I guess NetFlix online was satisfying my movie urge at the time.   Unlimited online viewing of any movie, included with my NetFlix membership didn’t sound like too bad of a deal.  However…  I use a Mac.  NetFlix online requires Windows.  At first this didn’t seem that bad because I have VMWare Fusion and in an extreme case could always use BootCamp to boot Windows Vista.   But it just seemed tedious to have to load Windows just to watch a few movies in my [lack of] free time.  In comes iTunes…I finally came up with the guts (and cash) to use the rental feature.  The first movie I chose was Superbad.  Went through the flawless and quick rental process, and within 10 minutes (and $2.99) I was watching the opening scenes of Superbad on my MacBook Pro.  Too easy…  Way too easy…

Here’s some background info on the iTunes Rental feature:

• The rental service began on iTunes in January 2008 immediately after it’s announcement at MacWorld Expo in San Fransico, CA, USA
• Each “new release” rental cost $3.99.  Regular rentals are $2.99  HD rentals (only on the Apple TV) are $4.99
• New movies are considered “new release” for 6 months.
• Once you download a rental, you have 3o days to watch it.  Once you click play, you have 24 hours to watch it as many times as you want.
  • One quirk: the 30 day countdown starts when the download starts, not completes…
• Takes about 5-10 minutes to download enough to start watching the movie.  (This time also depends on your Internet connection speed)
• Requires iTunes 7.6 and Apple Quicktime 7.4 or higher.
• Rentals work on the iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, as well as Macs and PCs.

Since I’ve started downloading rentals on iTunes, I have seriously been debating if I should cancel my NetFlix membership.  I’ve since downloaded Superbad, Resident Evil: Extinction, Transformers, 300, The Simpsons Movie, and The Usual Suspects.

If you have an iPod or iPhone, you can easily watch these rentals on the go.  All you have to do is transfer the movies over, a quick and easy process in iTunes.

I really do believe that the iTunes movie rental store is a competitor to NetFlix and BlockBuster.  If I were on the corporate board at BlockBuster, I would be scared out of my wits…  There are many statistics out there that show that the majority of people see movies only one time.  In this new digital world we live in, it’s sometimes not practical to buy and store gigs of downloaded movies.  But with digital rentals, not only is it cheap, but you really don’t need a gargantuan hard drive to enjoy movies.

iTunes Movie Rentals are a go, in my opinion.  Easier and more convenient than DVDs.  The whole process could not be any simpler.  At $2.99 it’s cheap enough to take a risk on 1 movie… Hell, that’s cheaper than getting in your car and driving to your local BlockBuster and renting a DVD…

-Antwan L. (antwan@antwanpayne.com)