South Africans can now buy and rent movies in Apple’s iTunes Store, less than a week after the US company began offering music purchases in the local version of the online store.

Recent movie titles are available to rent for R39,99 each. Early investigations show they can be bought for between R129,99 and R149,99. Older titles tend to cost less than R100 to buy or R19,99 to rent. Some titles are available in both the 720p high-definition (HD) format and in standard definition.

The catalogue includes a selection of South African movies, including recent releases like Semi-Soet and Leon Schuster’s Schuks Tshabalala’s Survival Guide to South Africa, but has a poor selection of older titles.

Pixar and Disney’s recent animated movie Brave is available to buy in HD for R149,99, or to rent for R39,99. The Iron Lady is available for R129,99 to buy or to rent for R39,99.

Science-fiction classic Alien is available to buy for R89,99 or to rent for R19,99 in both 720p HD and in SD.

The films section includes areas dedicated to “new & noteworthy”, “recent arrivals”, “top rentals” and a selection of free shorts, featurettes and promotional materials under the heading “free on iTunes”.

Users can also browse the catalogue by genre, and in some instances by film studio.

The launch of movie rentals and downloads comes just six days after Apple launched music purchases in South Africa. The company launched music downloads in 56 markets last week, offering about 20m songs for purchase.

Songs cost R6,99/track, while album prices vary. All music on the iTunes Store comes in iTunes Plus, Apple’s digital right management-free format with high-quality 256kbit/s AAC encoding.

The company is also offering iTunes in the Cloud, which lets users download their previously purchased iTunes music to their iOS devices at no extra cost., and new music purchases can be downloaded automatically to all of a user’s devices. — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media