Apple's new iTunes video rentals could be huge

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Apple is finally going to offer digital movie rentals from its iTunes store, the FT reports. The company has hooked up with News Corp's Twentieth Century Fox to allow short-term rental downloads of Fox DVDs. Apple hasn't officially confirmed the news or said anything about potential pricing, which is rumored to be about $3 per rental.

Apple sells movies for download, but to this point hasn't made anything available to rent. So far, the downloadable rental business has been pretty abysmal, with rivals like Movielink and CinemaNow unable to turn big numbers. But the opportunities are there, and Amazon and others have been working hard to come up with a groundbreaking rental service.

Enter Apple and it's not-so-secret weapon: the iPod (and now the iPhone). I'm assuming Apple will make it easy to shoot movies from your computer to your iPod. If that's the case -- and if Apple shines its marketing megaspotlight on the feature -- iTunes rentals could be huge. The next step might be enabling the downloading directly to an iPod over WiFi, but that could take hours.

And here's an interesting feature: New Fox DVDs will come with a special digital file allowing the films to be ripped to a computer or iPod. It hasn't been easy to do this before.

This is a big win for Apple and Fox, and I suspect other movie studios are close to signing deals or are watching closely to see how this all plays out.

http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/topstock...ld-be-huge.aspx