January 13, 2007 Just for fun, we decided to check out the movies in the iTunes Store. We purchased Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn to compare it to DVD.

Even with a decent broadband connection, the movie took over two hours to download. While that is not the fault of Apple or the iTunes Store, it makes the experience far from being one of immediate gratification. Once the movie was downloaded, we watched it in entirety before drawing the following conclusions.

• It cost $9.99 for the download, compared to $14.99 at a local store for the DVD. The DRM restrictions on the download just don't live up to our needs. In order to watch the movie on anything but an iPod or a computer, an Apple TV is required. The DVD is only $5 more and offers many more options for viewing and use.
  
  
• The downloaded movie was of acceptable quality, but there were noticeable differences between the download and DVD. The DVD is much higher quality, and the download was disappointing by comparison. Other users have already posted quality comparisons, and we agree with their conclusions.
  
  
• The Apple Remote does not scan, advance, or rewind for network shared video (movies, TV shows, music videos, and Podcasts) in either Front Row or iTunes. iTunes can scan, but with bizarre problems because the progress bar does not actually load video at the place marked. Currently, networked Front Row and iTunes video scanning is substandard to even internet video, which at least allows the user to jump forward to a specific time marker. These issues greatly diminish the enjoyment of viewing video content, especially when compared to DVD options.

For now, it doesn't make much sense for us to buy iTunes movies when compared to DVD. It is just too easy to get affordable DVDs that are of higher quality than the iTunes movie downloads, and the DVDs are much easier to use across hardware and platforms. In time we expect Apple will address these issues, but for now DVDs are our choice for movies.