iTunes and Me
Often I’ve justified my rather dubious TV downloading practices with the excuse: if I had a way to get it legally the week it arrived, then of course I’d use it.
Now, the iTunes store in Australia is selling Battlestar Galactica episodes as they’re shown in the USA, and I find myself having to put my money where my mouth is. Unfortunately, whereas iTunes music has recently and wonderfully become DRM-free, video content is still bound up by various restrictions. The most annoying of these is that I can’t watch it on my television without buying an Apple TV. As I’m already the owner of an Xbox 360 and a Playstation 3, I’m reluctant to purchase yet another device.
Meanwhile, the iTunes solution is highly tempting as it’s in iiNet’s Freezone. And it comes down hassle free, and knows its episode name, and I don’t have to worry about seeding to people. But on the downside, there’s something vaguely irritating about paying for content which I know I’ll be buying on DVD or Blu-Ray later. If only buying a season of TV gave you a reduced price on buying such things later. At $3 dollars an episode, a 22-episode season becomes $66, which is often more than you’d pay for a nice, unrestricted, playable-anywhere set of DVDs.
Even once you get past the DRM and cost, there’s a few annoyances to iTunes television. For a start, there’s no way I can see to get notified when a new episode turns up. Apple have an RSS generator, but for some reason you can’t make a “Just Added TV” feed. The best I can find is the page in the iTunes store which shows you the most recent TV shows. But since you can’t bookmark the iTunes store, this isn’t super helpful either. And the update schedule seems poor. ‘The Oath’ arrived in the store on 30 January, and eight days later, the following episode has yet to arrive. This may sound like whinging, but one thing that your regular TV does usually manage to do is get a new episode for you every week.
Ultimately I’m not sold on iTunes TV. It’s super-easy, but restrictive and kind of expensive. Hopefully, at some point we’ll get some competition in the Australian marketplace, and things will take a turn for the better.
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Sam
February 8th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Maybe if the Apple TV had a tuner it might be a bit more worthwhile
Tom Charman
February 8th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
There are rumours that that’ll happen, but rumours about the Apple TV have a pretty good track record of being completely wrong.
Tom Charman
February 9th, 2009 at 6:11 am
An update: the next episode turned up on iTunes sometime after 11pm Sunday 8 February. Cunningly, it’s labelled as being released on the sixth, so perhaps they’re releasing them regularly but lying about when they do it.
Jackson
February 9th, 2009 at 6:28 am
You have ruined my fun. I was going to come and beat you down in the comments when you were claiming a release date iTunes before the U.S had even freaking seen it but you seem to have realised :) Obviously they are referring to when it aired.
It especially sounds like whinging when it becomes clear it was something it you haven’t experienced first hand :) But otherwise, I agree with your post!
Jackson
February 9th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
The lack of updates is inexplicable, really. Like you say, they have the RSS feed for podcasts. They even have the ‘My Alerts’ for Music and Music Videos – which is less good but still okay – but nothing for Television, which would make the most sense. Season packs come close, but I’ve only seen it offered for perhaps two shows.
Tom Charman
February 9th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
If they mean air date then I respectfully suggest they should use words like “air date”, and not “release date” when they list new episodes. It’s a trap for poor schmucks like me who only noticed the episode was available halfway through the week and had little else to go on. If people are going to lie to me then it’s hard to avoid sounding like a whinger.
Tom Charman
February 9th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
I wrote my comment before you wrote your second. Luckily I agree with everything you say in it and thus am not fussed.
Andy
February 11th, 2009 at 10:21 am
You shouldn’t have to pay for things twice, so if you are going to buy the DVD, then I wouldn’t worry about buying it the first time.
If the iTunes store was better, would you skip buying the DVDs altogether?
meelio
February 12th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Personally, I wouldn’t be admitting to actually watching Battlestar Galactica, but then, that’s just me…
Tom Charman
February 12th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
@meelio: Of all the nerdy things I watch, Battlestar is one of the things I’m actually kind of proud of. It’s good stuff, or at least it really was in its first two years.
@andy: Ah, but you see, not only is iTunes pro-Karma, it’s actually way more convenient than bittorrent, in that it takes up none of my bandwidth and so I can download it at any time, on demand. Even aside from whether I should buy things twice, it’s tempting.
I wouldn’t skip buying solid objects though. I like them and I like how they’re mine and I can always have them. Even if the iTunes store didn’t have DRM I reckon I’d want nice shiny boxes.