Glenn Reynolds will be happy to know Apple is countering the Amazon and Netflix. Meaning that the forces lining up to ignore satellite and disable their cable have a potential strong weapon in their quiver:
The iTunes Replay service could also improve the experience of the company’s Apple TV set top box, allowing users to stream purchased media directly from Apple’s servers without ever syncing or copying files between Apple TV and a computer running iTunes, and without filling up the devices’ limited hard drive space, which currently tops out at 160 GB.
The ability to stream purchased content directly would also benefit users of mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPod touch, which have an even greater limit on local storage capacity but already have the ability to stream QuickTime content directly over the air.
Amazon’s Video on Demand (formerly known as UnBox) and the Instant Watch service from Netflix already provide video streaming, but both involve DRM hurdles erected by the studios that complicate the experience, as they are typically viewed through a web browser (although Amazon has an appliance partner deal with Tivo, and Netflix has partnered with Roku and the Xbox 360).
Apple’s mobile devices, iTunes and Apple TV already accommodate the DRM protection the studios demand for playback of their content, meaning that no new layers of complication are necessary. Additionally, Apple has a wider selection of video content to choose from in iTunes.
The disadvantage to streaming video content rather than playing it from a downloaded file is that users will need to maintain high quality Internet bandwidth throughout playback, or face interruption as the stream is buffered. Streaming playback of HD content also typically requires better than DSL (1.5 Mbps) service.
If Apple continues to offer both downloads as well as streaming video on demand, it will remain differentiated from streaming-only services like Netflix Watch Instantly in that users on a slower Internet connection will be able to download HD titles in advance and watch them via local playback, or even unplug their Apple TV and bring it and their downloaded content to a location without Internet service for viewing.
It’s getting much, much harder to justify continuing to subscribe to cable.
Via Eric Johnson from WBRU-FM.
