ITunes rentals difficult to navigate, slow to download

By Samantha Clark -- Video Business, 1/25/2008

JAN. 25 | TECH REVIEW: DVD retailers have nothing to fear from iTunes offering movie rentals just yet.

Although iTunes is a monster in download sales, it doesn’t yet offer the kind of usability you can get from more seasoned online rental companies, such as CinemaNow and Movielink. And at six hours to download a movie with a decent Internet connection, it’s not that much more convenient than running to your local video store or kiosk.

The main problem iTunes faces right now is that it’s not easy for users to browse the offerings.

ITunes is promoting its new service front and center on the home page of the Web store. However, when you click over to the rentals section, you can only browse through the newest releases, and only 25 are on the list.

Users can search for titles by genre and sort them by name, featured or release date. But here the rental offerings are mixed in with the for-sale-only titles, and there are more for sale than for rent.

Some movies have simply “View Movie” next to them, instead of a button saying “Rent Movie” or “Buy Movie.” First-time users might think the “View Movie” ones are free samples of the service, but that’s not so. A click through to a title shows these are available for both rental and sale. ITunes would do better to make that clearer up front.

Like other services, you can start watching the movie soon after you have begun the download. But with the download taking six hours, our movie stopped at the eight-minute mark when we played it some 15 minutes after download began.

The sound quality is good, but video isn’t as good as DVD.

CinemaNow, Movielink and Netflix’s Instant Watch service are better services as of now, even if they are less traveled.