Thoughts on the UK iTunes TV show Release
Yesterday Apple finally added TV Shows to the UK iTunes Store, but unfortunately no Movies which I was hoping for more than TV shows. I was personally surprised with how long it took for them to come to the UK and even more surprised that i was just the UK who were given the shows and no other countries were included.
The TV Shows are priced at a hefty £1.89 which is pretty expensive when you compare it to the fact that the US only have to pay about £1. But, it still isn’t that bad. As there was when the US Store was launched there are a limited amount of content, and when they start to show some of the real British hits such as Doctor Who they’ll be on to the winner in the UK.
But how does the video look? Obviously I can’t say how it looks on a TV at the moment, but I did download an episode of LOST, and played it at full screen on my 15” MacBook Pro and I have been very impressed. As Steve Jobs mentioned when they increased the resolution of the TV Shows in the US, they are near DVD quality. And I believe that they are encoded in H.264.
The LOST episode was forty minutes long and amounted to about 400MB. Some might say that it’s a pain waiting for it to download, but in actual fact, after about two minuted you can start watching it while to continues to download - pretty cool.
Will I be buying some more TV shows? I could definitely see myself doing that more often. However I really think I’ll start downloading more video from the iTunes Store when they release Movies.
Are you excited about TV Shows being brought to the UK? Have you downloaded some already? Tell us what you think by leaving a comment or using the contact form!
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I’m excited for a reason that you haven’t mentioned, and that is to do with the ‘The Beat Goes On’ music event that Apple is hosting on Sept. 5th.
I think that this is a vague suggestion to do with that event, and that the two are linked in to the fact that new iPods with iPhone-like interfaces are just around the corner
Well, I think the conference alone is enough to suggest this, however, the fact that they’ve done this too means that us UK Apple users are also ready to download some TV for our new iPods 
August 30th, 2007 at 11:46 amAnyway, that’s what I’m hoping for. I’m still using my beloved 3rd gen iPod
Charlie -
It’s great to finally see tv shows on the uk itunes site - it finally makes good on the promise of the ipod video. The reason perhaps that these shows are uk only, not EU wide is because of licensing issues (which is probably why it took so long for them to come to the uk).
The onlt thing I would say is that series are maybe a tad too expensive. Lost Season 1 on itunes is only £2 cheaper than the DVD boxed set. Considering the boxset has a) a boatload of special features, b) there are several programs available now that can rip dvd’s or convert divx’s to ipod format and c) The dvd will be better quality - especially if you stick it in an unscaling dvd player why would you buy it from itunes???
Sure it takes a bit of time to convert your dvd into the correct ipod format but then it’s also going to take time to download 400mb episodes - also bear in mind that if you’re suddenly downloading an entire series of 24 episodes @ 400mb each then your broadband provider may hit you with extra charges or point to the fair use policy when they realise you’re trying to download 9.6 gb a season.
September 1st, 2007 at 1:02 pm