I think you're right on with this. Given that Apple makes mere pennies on sales from the iTunes Store, I would be very interested to see a "cost per bit" analysis as it pertains to high def. I would think their pricing point has to be higher for HD movies.
The AppleTV will do H.264 video up to 5Mbps with a maximum resolution of 1280x720. (or in other words, 5Mb 720p HD) The average movie is a little over 90 minutes so let's bump that up to 100 minutes and say 6,000 seconds. That's 30,000 megabits or 3,750 megabytes. If they sold for $9.99 (their "standard" movie price) that would be $2.66 per Gig for HD as opposed to $7.56 per Gig. (Roman Holiday is 1.32GB at $9.99) To me the numbers don't work.
Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs go for three or four dollars more than their standard DVD counterparts, so I'm assuming the consumer is ready to pay more. The question is how much more?
HD Downloads would finally give AppleTV a compelling feature, imo.
There's still time for Apple to become a major provider of HD. Blue Ray and HD-DVD are still battling... cable only offers a small selection of HD stations and is expensive... if Apple finds a sweet spot it could be very good for them.
There is inevitable speculation (free marketing) over what will be announced at the Apple event on 5 September. One possibility which I have not seen anywhere is the possible convergence of Apple and Google rumors.
About a week ago (i.e. with two weeks to go to the Apple event) there were some comments about the 'Google phone' (gPhone) and a possible announcement/release in some two weeks time. That is, more or less, simultaneously with the Apple 5 September event. There was also comment about Google stabbing Apple in the back as a result of the Google CEO on Apple's board. This would seem somewhat unlikely as it would seem to be something Apple would have been prepared for before making the appointment.
So, could it be that in fact we are talking about an Apple phone to be funded by Google adverts? An 'iPhone lite' funded by Google video adverts which, coincidentally, have just been announced for YouTube.
Commenting by HaloScan
