irreligious at best.

So it has come to my attention that I am by far in the minority on the issues of digital distribution versus traditional distribution of media. When it comes to movies there is a slow process in the transition from the silver screen to consumers, let alone from television broadcast to consumers.

I have bought several movies through the iTunes shop and have bought far more on DVD and all I can say is that even though I'm a fairly early adopter on this, I think that in some cases picking up something on DVD is still superior to the iTunes store. This is a tough sell for me being an unabashed proclaimer of the virtues of Apple, but it is simply the case that in many ways I'd still prefer to have the DVD.

The first concern seems to consistently be resolution. I finally gritted my teeth and shelled out some cash for a high definition LCD tv and I must say, my DVDs look awesome. In comparison, the standard definition fair from iTunes just sucks, especially with a distinct lack of extra features. There are only a few films that I legitimately want the extra features on, and one of them was the Dark Knight.

Also being an unabashed fan of Batman at a nearly unhealthy level (you will understand in a moment), I knew that my folks would be purchasing the DVD for Christmas this past year. Well, the movie was released in the interim and having seen it three times in theaters I had no choice other than to obtain some copy in some way or another, so I decided to scope out the pickings "on the iTunes" as my folks are prone to saying. To my great happiness it was there, so I bought it and watched it. I have no troubles with the quality of the sound or the visuals, both are great, but once I bought the DVD, I noticed a difference. It wasn't huge, but you could tell that the iTunes version had to fall into certain limitations for the format.

Next is often the extras, which is a simple matter as there are absolutely none on the iTunes version. In this particular example it's no big deal, but in the case of say, Lord of the Rings extended editions, the extras are well worth the time and would be sorely missed. Which is why I don't own a digital copy, I bought the platinum series so that I'd have all twelve glorious discs. So in the case of extras, I'd say if you want them, don't even bother with the iTunes version.

TV's a completely different story altogether. Unless you have a decent sized hard drive, the size of seasons alone will be prohibitive. Extras are a give or take, if you're a hardcore Lostie, you will want them but by and large I don't think many people are into TV DVD extras unless they're particularly compelling to the fan base. The same concerns with resolution apply, although I haven't purchased a TV series from iTunes, I much rather have them on DVD for issues of hard drive space as my DVD shelf is nearly vacant so there's more space there than I'll have on my hard drive for some time.

I have up until now only considered standard definition films, and I will say that if all you want is considerable convenience, portability, and don't give a crap about extras, the iTunes store is more than worth it. When Punisher: War Zone came out I wasn't interested in all the trimmings of the DVD world. To be honest, I am a comic book fan and when it comes to the Punisher and movies like it the key is the movie for me, I don't give two craps about how it was made. So the HD version from iTunes was worth it in that case as it transfers easily to my iPods and looks great when I connect my computer up to my TV for movie viewing.

All in all, the iTunes video section may need some beefing up in the areas of content, resolution, and extras, but I think by and large I don't mind the various setbacks in certain areas. The HD downloads will eventually catch up to DVD and maybe even surpass Blue Ray eventually, but for now there's only certain movies that I will get from the iTunes distribution method.