In Canada, Apple TV Junkies and Mad Men fans are at a crossroads. No one there is broadcasting Mad Men Season 3, however, it is available as a digital download from iTunes Canada. Could this be a trend towards download-only distribution?

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand it shows that producers are willing to explore digital-only distribution in a particular market and cut out the middle man (i.e. cable TV providers) all together. I’d love to eliminate my cable bill and pay for only the quality programming I want. I like this trend. There are only a few shows I find worth watching anyways. Eliminating cable, I could purchase 16 to 48 episodes per month (depending on cable TV package). Unlike my cable service, I’d have something to show for it!

This brings us to the other hand. What am I left with? Protected video that can only be played via iTunes or Apple devices. Many of you may be an Apple TV Junkie and proclaim “So?” However, digital rights management (DRM) is evil and not cool. The Apple TV is still a hobby and I’m not prepared to lock myself into the technology “du jour”. The Apple TV hardware platform hasn’t seen any improvements (aside from storage) since it debuted over two years ago. As big as iTunes is now, it wont be around forever (see Yahoo! Music and MSN Music) and nor will the Apple TV.

I want to support digital distribution and purchase content, however, the built-in obsolescence costs of DRM are just too high. Alternate download sites are looking more attractive and it has everything to do with freedom of choice to use Apple TV, Boxee or any media player I want to.

Hi, my name is Brian Erdelyi and I’m an Apple TV Junkie based out of Toronto, Canada. There, I said it.

You may remember me from such places as the Boxee community forums, Boxee video tutorials I’ve created on Youtube, Clearware or any number of online projects I get involved with.

I happen to be an information security professional with interests that include digital media and it’s social implications (such as digital rights management, fair use and copyright legislation).

I’ve got a few ideas ripe for sharing and expect to see you all actively posting your comments.

As we put more time toward our ATVJ 2.0 project, we find that we are having less and less time to post about Apple TV and Industry news in general. We know that visitors to ATVJ would like to see more of these posts, and frankly so would we, so we’re putting the call out for a few good volunteers. If you feel as though you have something to say about the current state of the Apple TV, or you have related industry news to share, we would love for you to join the team. If you are interested please email us at feedback at appletvjunkie dot com.

If I had nickel for every time I was asked this question I would quit my wonderful day job and run ATVJ full time. I figured it was time to give my poor mans theory as to why movies have a limited rental run in the iTunes Movie Store and Apple TV.

On a DVD release date movies go out to vendors such as Netflix, Blockbuster and the iTunes Movie Store/Apple TV to be distributed as rentals. The big difference between the iTMS and say Netflix is that the studios treat the iTMS more like a TV Broadcast Channel by allowing only a limited run license for any new rental release. This is much in the same way you might see The Godfather Trilogy run on say the cable channel Spike for a month or so and then go away. Haven’t you ever wondered why titles such as the Godfather Trilogy or even the Star Wars series has never been available in the iTMS? The studios seem to be giving exclusive licensing rights to cable channels such as Spike. I would hope that at some point these licensing deals end which would allow some of these movies to end up as rentals in the iTMS.
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Hi All,

It’s been a little more then a year now since I created ATVJ, and it has been and continues to be a fun labor of love for me, and all who have contributed to the site. But, as anyone who has contributed to the site will tell you, it can be time consuming. What does this mean? It means that I am officially going to be cutting back my contribution time on the site. Ultimately what this means for the site is that for the foreseeable future the site will no longer have either an active HD rental page or an active SD rental page. Even though the SD Rental page has been gone for some time now. What’s behind this decision? Not the reasons you might think.
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It seems as though, as of this morning anyway, that Apple has removed the A to Z listing of all of the HD rentals on the Apple TV. I’m not exactly sure what Apple might be trying to achieve here other then to make it as hard as possible to find HD rentals. My guess is that some sort of maintenance is happening. This list is just one of the ways we here at ATVJ gather the daily list of new movies. If anyone else sees a change to this listing on the Apple TV please pass the word along.