Apple appears to have begun - albeit in a very small way - full-length movie downloads. The Mac maker yesterday posted a Disney TV movie, High School Musical, on the iTunes Music Store, offering the 1h 40m, 487.1MB film for the best part of $10. The download appears to be a trial run for a Disney Channel video service.

When we searched the US ITMS this morning, only six $1.99 High School Musical videos appeared. Reports of the full film's presence first surfaced (http://www.macrumors.com/) on MacRumors.com yesterday. However, the website's link (http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewMovie?id=129860770) to the ITMS content proved true and there's the movie.

Curiously, the file's located in a section called "Disney Channel", though clicking on the tab in iTunes yields a blank, black page. That suggests the movie's been posted early, possibly in preparation for the much-rumoured full-length movie download service Apple is expected to announced soon, perhaps on 1 April, the company's 30th birthday.

According to folk who've downloaded the movie, its resolution is 320 x 240 and it runs at 29.97fps. ®

(http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/15/itunes_film_1.png)
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