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Thanks to our friends at Engadget, who are live blogging Apple's latest media event, we can tell you that the iTunes store is adding movies, and that Apple has made some significant improvements to the iPod with video.

First off, it doesn't look like Apple's releasing the "true" video iPod with a wide screen that many had been hoping for. But the iPod with video is being upgraded to have a 60% brighter screen and 75% more battery life when playing video. That means up to 6.5 hours of battery life when watching video.

Probably the biggest announcement is that movies are being added to the iTunes store. Right now, Apple's adding about 70 films from four Disney-owned companies. Disney also owned the rights to the first TV shows made available via iTunes last year, although Apple has been able to expand the number of TV shows for sale significantly since then.

More after the jump.The movies will be available the same day they're released on DVD. Movies will be priced at $12.99 if you pre-order or purchase during the first week. Presumably the prices will go up for a while after that, before they get taken off the new release page. Other films will be be $9.99.

Apple's also bumping up the resolution for movies and TV shows purchased through the iTunes store from 320 x 240 pixels to 640 x 480. It looks like this is for viewing on a computer or television screen, because it doesn't look like Steve Jobs is ready to announce a new iPod with a larger screen today. iTunes 7 includes a new "download manager" that lets you watch movies while you're downloading them. So it takes about a half hour to download a feature length film using a 5Mbps connection, but you can start watching almost right away.

update 2:05PM: And finally, Jobs announced that Apple is working on a project to be released next year, tentatively called the iTV, although that name will probably be changed. It's a box that resembles a smaller iMac mini, which is meant to sit next to your television set. It includes WiFi, USB 2.0 and Ethernet jacks, as well as HDMI, component, analog audio and optical outputs for connecting to a standard or HDTV. The iTV is meant to let you stream video files from your Mac computer to your living room for viewing on your TV. This explains the higher resolution video on the iTunes store.



The iTV interface looks similar to Front Row, and lets you scroll through movies, tv shows, music, and photos . It's slated for release early next year for $299.