This week Apple held their special event where they release the new products that will be out for the Christmas season. There were the usual new iPods and other shiny Apple stuff, but the thing that stands out are the changes made to the iTunes service.

Now, in the US at least, you will be able to download feature-length movies to watch either on your computer, on your iPod on the go, or with an upcoming iTV box that you hook up to your television. The idea being that the day the DVD is released, you’ll be able to watch that movie without going to the video store or buying the disc. Distribution becomes the cost of bandwidth.

Now other companies have been offering this for some time (as Amazon recently has), but there is a certain elegance to the iTunes setup that makes it pretty easy for someone without a lot of technical knowledge to use the technology. It’s no wonder that iTunes is by far the largest seller of online music, it’s just too easy to pay the 99 cents and have the song show up in your iPod. This has forever changed the music business, and video content is next.