Aaron, it’s definitly not VHS quality. VHS is 320×240 MPEG1. This is more like 640×480 MPEG4. This is not only 4 times the resolution of VHS, but also much better codec driving the whole thing.

Also, deduced from the 2 hour movie downloaded in 30 min thing, and that it’s giving you near DVD res (720×480 vs 640×480) and using MPEG4 instead of MPEG2 of DVDs, each 2 hour movie would clock in around approximately 1.5GB in size (vs 4~5GB for your typical 2 hour DVD movies). We are talking about a respectable 2mb/s average bitrate for the video and audio running in some form of MPEG4, which compares very well to the average of 5mb/s bitrate for DVDs using much less efficinet MPEG2.

So if you want to have alot of these movies in your UMPC, you better make sure you have a big HDD installed. 10 movies are gonna easily go over 10GBs!

That’s ridiculous! JK and I would never share a tombstone; we’d each want our OWN stone tablet. I’m actually giving the new iTunes a walkthough now, complete with “near DVD quality” movie download. Technically, I’d consider that statement accurate as DVD resolution is 720 x 480. VGA res is 640 x 480 or 4x the res of the QVGA video that Apple previously provided. I believe the sound is Dolby Surround, but I’ll have to verify that. As a subject matter expert on HDTV, you have to realize that the mainstream consumer is JUST getting ready for high-definition; this is a market this is on the cusp of breaking out. There’s no point for Apple to leap all the way to HDTV quality movies; the bandwidth infrastructure isn’t there yet and the display infrastructure is just taking off.

LOL! Good one Nikoooo. We can all imagine JK and KCT’s tombstone….Favorite saying – “Someday, there WILL be an Apple Tablet!”

Also, did anyone catch if this download will be 5.1 surround? After all, you can get a DVD with 5.1 Dolby Digital or DTS. If this is 2-channel stereo, this will suck for the home user. I may have 2 ears, but I can hear about 16 channel audio!

I’m much more content to just use pocket DVD to make portable versions of the DVDs i already own.

And really, right now I can get DVDs for < $14 in any store. Why would I want to pay that price for this lower res copy that I can't do as much with?

No tablet… no tablet… NO TABLET!!!

You mean that I will have to pay extra for SDTV quality? I don’t know where apple is going but video is going to High Definition from now on. With HD-DVD and Blu-ray at 1080p, I can watch shows on my widescreen HDTV in its REAL quality…not some 640×480 crap.

This “It’s Showtime” has been a real let-down…