The wheels are starting to turn faster now – the Financial Times (via CNNMoney) is reporting that Apple is advancing in talks with the major Hollywood studios about launching a movie rental service through iTunes sometime in the next few months. Word is Apple would like to charge $2.99 a pop, but users would be able to keep the movie on their systems for 30 days.

The movies would not be able to be copied, but could be transfered to Apple devices like the iPod or iPhone. The file would presumably cease to work after 30 days.

The report comes just days after someone stumbled across an option within iTunes to contact support about ‘RentalMovies’.

This unorthodox rental scheme (30 days for 3 bucks) seems like a very good idea to me. While pure money-wise it may cost more than a Netflix or Blockbuster Online deal (where if you’re really into movies and want to watch one just about every night, you can get them at about $1 a movie – at least with Blockbuster Online’s return in-store Total Access program), it does offer a couple things neither one of those services offer across the board, instantaneous downloads (Netflix has a pilot program in place) and compatibility with the most popular portable media devices on the planet.

This price also means that 30 days for an iTunes movie rental will be cheaper than just a few days at a Blockbuster brick-and-mortar, and will set a nice $0.99 music download, $1.99 TV download, $2.99 movie download pricing scheme (unless Apple reportedly gets their way and can cut the TV price in half) on iTunes.

$2.99 for a movie seems fair for a rental – $9.99 to $14.99 to own a digital copy of a movie I may never want to watch again didn’t make a whole lot of sense. I HOPE Apple will apply this $2.99 towards the purchase of the film if you decide you do want to buy it. If they do that, Apple may all of a sudden have the best try-before-you-buy system in the world.

Nothing was said about what the quality of films would be for such a service, but one would have to assume that if they really do plan on launching within months, it would be the standard iTunes sub-DVD video quality for rentals as well. This would be somewhat disappointing and I think Apple really needs to move to HD content sooner rather than later.

The Apple TV is suddenly making a lot more sense – as I said it would if such a situation were to arise.