Ah the wonders of the Internet. There I was today lying in my bed with my laptop on my chest watching a live stream of the Macworld Convention where Steve Jobs and his crew premiered the latest iTunes update which now carries the ability to rent movies to your hard drive.

The service which will carry movies from all the major studio’s is available right now in the U.S. (”later this year for the U.K.”) and for the cost of just $2.99 (perfect pricing) or $3.99 for new releases (only $1 more for HD versions!) you will have access to stream the movies you want as many times as you like for 24 hours from when you first began watching.

You will be able to watch them on your computer, iPhone and iPod… with only 30 seconds waiting time before your purchase plays on an average broadband connection.

Apple say that over 1,000 titles will be available to download by February and that the newest releases the service will offer is titles that have been out for 30 days already on DVD.

It’s not quite the perfect scenario yet (monthly subscription options, the ability to rent them for longer than a day so commuters who want to watch in small chunks won’t miss out, same day as DVD release, etc.) but it’s a big step towards what will inevitably be the future of film distribution.

Thoughts? Will you use the service? I know I frikkin’ will in a heartbeat.

FULL ARTICLE & PHOTOS ON EVERYTHING THAT WENT DOWN AT MACWORLD HERE.