Apple Movie Junkie

The Canadian iTunes store has reduced the prices of 23 recent movies. Many are $9.99 some are $14.99 – typical new movie purchase price is $19.99 in Canada. There are also some great prices on SciFi movies – $4.99 to buy, $3.99 to rent:

• Serenity (a favourite)
• Land of the Dead
• 12 Monkeys (another favourite)
• Battlerstar Galactica: Razor (awesome)
• The Bone Collector

I’ll likely get 12 Monkeys, it’s the only one I don’t have on disc.

We usually don’t cover the movie removals here at ATVJ like we do the new additions. We’ve been burned before where Apple might removal a title one day and then add it back the next. But I thought I would post this list because most of these removals seemed to have happened over the last few days. Really since the new iTunes HD Rentals were added. Most of the titles listed below have been removed all together from iTunes, some of them remain purchase titles, such as Hancock, and a handful were available in HD on the Apple TV.

I like to think that the way the movie studios view the iTunes Movie store is as a sort of hybrid Netflix/cable channel on TV, such as an Spike or TNT. Let’s call it for what the studios see it as, Channel iTunes. From time to time you will see a run of particular movies on those channels, Lord of the Rings, The Godfather trilogy, and so on, and then they are gone for a few months. This seems to happen with the SD and HD titles in the iTunes Store. Like Netflix, iTunes will get a new release right off the bat, will run it for a few months until its time for it to appear on a premium cable channel such as HBO, and it will disappear. iTunes may get it back after the premium channels run of the movie. Then there are the older catalog titles such as National Lampoon’s Vacation, which show up for a limited run of a few weeks or months, and then the title seems to revert back to the cable TV channels.
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Three new titles have become available for pre-order in the iTunes Store. These titles would be The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, The Women and Burn After Reading.

None of these movies have an expected rental date.

Update – As commentor Nate mentioned, it appears as though the Dolby Digital markings are back on the Apple TV for the appropriate titles. Great news other then the fact that we have to go back through a weeks worth of titles to backtrack what titles really did contain DD 5.1 surround sound. Thanks Apple!

If you’re an audiophile, and have noticed recently that Apple has been offering up less and less titles with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, then you are not alone. First and foremost Dolby Surround is not available with all SD rentals, and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound is not available with all HD rentals. Since we track these movies everyday we have a pretty good idea of what titles contain DD 5.1 and what doesn’t and it seems as though Apple has wiped all signs of any titles containing DD 5.1 sound either on the Apple TV listings or iTunes Store. For instance, as in the screen shot above, we know for a fact that Iron Man did contain DD 5.1 when it was released as an HD rental.

Now what does this mean, who knows. If I was a betting man, and knowing Apple’s track record with these kinds of things, I would say it was a glitch in Apple’s system. All though, what if Apple was upgrading the sound quality, or audio tracks in general, of these titles. Time will tell.

Apple has listed three new pre-order titles in the iTunes Store, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Strangers and The Strangers (Unrated). Head on over and pre-order your copies now!

Journey to the Center of the Earth will be available to rent on 10-28 and The Strangers on 11-19.

Below is the list of new HD Rentals that have been added to Apple TV.

We have a pretty good selection to start the week, including one of my favorties, Fight Club.

Cinderella Man
Dracula: Dead and Loving It
Exorcist: The Beginning
Fight Club
Heaven Can Wait
Hope Floats
Just My Luck
Walk The Line (Extended Edition)

Head on over to the HD Rentals page to see this weeks entire list of new titles.