CNET has a new post entitled ‘Why Apple can’t do to video what it did to music‘. While this may ultimately turn out to be right, they are seemingly downplaying one very important variable: the future. Yes, if everything stays the exact same as it is right now, the iTunes video store will die – but who in their right mind thinks everything is going to stay the same as it is right now?

The article goes on and on about the stuff we already know, NBC pulling out, the inability to (legally) rip DVDs, the impotence of the AppleTV, the lack of movie studio support, etc… and comes to the following conclusion:

“All of this adds up to one conclusion: don’t let the Mac geeks posting angry blogs against NBC fool you. Any supposed backlash against NBC will not materialize since NBC has made its content available, for free, on NBC.com and has plans to do so on six other major portal sites through Hulu.com, as well as via NBC Direct download and over cable VOD. Without NBC’s content, iTunes is only 60 percent of a store.”

…which I would assume includes me as an ‘angry Mac geek’.

But let me say that I’ve been very critical of Apple with regards to their video strategy for iTunes – they’re blowing it. Period. BUT that doesn’t mean that they’re going to keep blowing it. The door is still very much open as just about everyone has dropped the ball with regards to feature film and television content on the internet thus far. Some either work on only PCs, some have very limited libraries, some simply don’t work at all.

When the iTunes music store came along it blew everyone else out of the water because it just worked – it made legally purchasing music viable. While Apple has dropped the ball so far with regards to movies, there are plenty of indications they intend to pick it up – soon.

The article mentions the rumored “pay-per-view” model coming – which should probably be called what it is: rental model, as word is the movies rented will be available for 30 days at the set price ($2.99 is the rumor) – that is hardly “pay-per-view”.

The article then gives the solution that the movie store needs more exclusive professional video content – which again, is already coming, see Wes Anderson’s iTunes-first Hotel Chevalier.

Also overlooked is the fact that Apple is said to be in late-stage negotiations with other studios such as 20th Century Fox – and is willing to raise the price of the downloads to attract others. Then there is the rumor that studios want to include iTunes-ready digital copies of films on DVDs – if that happens, do you really still think the iTunes movie store will be dead in the water? Not to mention the fact there is always talk of Hollywood lifting the ridiculous ban on legally making a digital copy of a movie you own – which some studios are already testing out.

We haven’t even started talking about some of the other out-there rumored options. What if Apple makes it possible to rent movies on the iPhone itself? What if a next-gen AppleTV is launched with very attractive upgrades? What about any of the other 500 things we’re not thinking about that are going to happen in the future with regards to video over the Internet?

I could go on and on about why I think this article is simply looking at the current state of things and deducing from that that Apple will not succeed in video content. Let me just lay out a not so far-fetched scenario:

Apple launches the iTunes movie rental store and it immediately makes the next-gen AppleTV a major player. With Apple now successfully in the living room, both professional and user-generated content starts coming to iTunes at an even faster pace. Studios start selling DVDs with iTunes-ready digital copies already on them. High-def content comes to iTunes in a major way. NBC, still trying to decide which of its 20 options to use for its digital content (and confusing the hell out of customers), comes back to iTunes.

I think we’ll see all of the above in 2008.