I am as enthusiastic as the next Mac Fanboy, but nothing in this Expo did much for me. The movie rentals are OK, but I think that they limited the terms too much. $5 for a movie rental? That's a bit of a premium for not having to hassle with the rental store, or Netflix queues. And the 24-hour thing can be a downer, too; my fiancé often falls asleep during movies, and we just watch the remaining portion the next night. 24 hours wouldn't do it--the time limit would expire before we sat down to watch, or else we'd have to force ourselves to watch it early. or pay another five bucks, by which time it might make more sense to just buy the DVD. Just wouldn't work for us--not enough value for the price. I got a video store nearby which allows $2 rentals for a week every Wednesday, and one-day rentals at the same price for new releases--but with them, I can rent early one day and return the DVD late night the next day. More flexible, cheaper, and I don't need to buy a $230 box for it.
Trust me, I *want* Apple TV to be a success, but I think that Jobs gave in too much to the studios' greedy, stupid, charge-what-we-dream-of and limit-to-the-hilt restrictions.
I agree that they should move to something like a 48 hour period or at least 28 hours so you can start it one night and continue it the next, but I think this is nothing short of a revolution that *finally* came. I can rent whatever without going somewhere to get / return it and dealing with the US postal system? Thats a paradigm shift! And lets not forget that this will be the ONLY place to rent HD content online for the foreseeable future. The only question I have is "What took the industry this long to get here?!" It's not like the box was technically a challenge. TiVo should have done this years ago in my opinion.
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