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My starving artist friend in NYC developed a short video on his mac and was faced with exactly this dilemma. So he sent out an e-mail with a link to the site where he was hosting a portal page. He simply said in the page that you could go watch the embedded YouTube video he had there if you didn't care about quality (and to be honest, his video really didn't require it) but then said that if you were a quality snob or if you couldn't make out the YouTube video, you could click the links.

At the bottom, he had a list of various Quicktime sizes. One was pretty much HD and he said that if you didn't have a large high quality display that you should just go for the medium version. He also pointed out you could download them by right clicking if (and his provider is horrendous) you got choppy video.

Nobody brought his site to his knees, 90% of the people probably just watched the YouTube video and everyone could watch it.

You could do a similar thing, hell you could even point out that you don't need to install QuickTime or a DIVX codec if you just watch from the portal page or visit YouTube.

Remember, you may be a quality snob but your audience isn't always so I would leave the choice to them. Is there something about your video that makes it look unbearable on YouTube? Is the animation and its features really that detailed and fine?

If it is, I have another idea. I don't know how this works but I buy my Cinematic Titanic dvds from EZ-Takes (also known as DVD Wagon) and it looks like they'll sell anything on there for a low price. You could contact a company that sells streaming video or DVD ISOs for low prices like $1 and then just not get anything for profit and use them as a cheap host for your audience. You might not see profits but you'll retain the rights to your video/audio and have a way someone can spend a dollar and get the highest quality possible from you. There's probably a more reliable company to do this through, I just know of EZ Takes.

The EZTakes Movie Downloads Store has been live for over a year and has over 2,000 downloadable/burnable DVDs online. They don't use DRM and all of their movies are licensed from the content owners.

EZTakes is already doing the same thing in the US. A brief intro before the film shows who purchased it. I've tried ripping the disc just using selected titles (as the "watermark" intro is just a title on the DVD) to remove my name, but they've anticipated that also. I haven't got a good rip yet without the watermarked intro.

Not that I wanted to rip them off or anything. I just took it as more of a technical challenge as to whether I could remove the watermark on the otherwise non-DRM'ed DVD.

Pretty cool service, although you won't find any blockbusters in their selections quite yet. But for my taste in '70s cult films, I've found a few that I've downloaded for the fair price of $2.99. Not bad, not bad at all.

EZTakes already provides movie downloads that you can burn to standard DVDs. Prices start at $1.99 and average about $6.

EZTakes already offers a legal movie downloads that give people the ability to burn standard recordable DVDs that will play on standard DVD players that people already own.

The only sane way to download movies is a service called EZTakes (www.eztakes.com). They provide the only legal movie download service that gives you the ability to burn the downloads you buy to DVDs that will play on standard DVD players.

The service makes no sense. I've got to download a DRMed version of the movie, so that I can't copy it (or burn it to a DVD). Then they send me a DVD version, which anyone can decrypt and pirate. Why don't they just let me download the movie and burn my own DVD? Why don't they just use a service like EZTakes Movie Downloads? EZTakes lets you buy downloads that you can burn directly to DVDs that will play in standard DVD players.

Then you should try EZTakes Movie Downloads. They sell movie downloads that you can burn to DVD. They even let you print your own label and cover art. Their prices are as low as 50% of retail. It is legal too; they sign contracts with all rights holders. You do need a US billing address on your credit card. But they will be selling in Canada soon. In the meantime, try their free stuff.

Electronics companies are pushing new technologies because they need to keep selling us stuff. Entertainment companies (e.g. MPAA), in their delusional desperation, believe that new "DRM" schemes will protect existing revenue streams. The problems is that entertainment and electronic companies need new DRM schemes and HD; consumers do not. Consumers are already starting to download DVD movies legally (see http://www.eztakes.com/)

In order to survive, movie studios will have to compete with free. Almost nobody disagrees with that statement. Commercial movie download services must be better than free. DRM, however, makes commercial services worse than free. Much worse. If they continue to use futile DRM, which does nothing to stop piracy, then consumers will resort to piracy. There is one service, called EZTakes, that offers movie downloads that consumers can burn directly to DVD. And you can burn as many DVDs (for personal use only) as you want because EZTakes has rejected the notion of DRM. They provide a service that is better than free because you get the content in a form that you can use (i.e. play on your big screen TV). EZTakes' catalog is small now, but growing. Consumers and the movie industry should support services like that!

I know that it might be rude to talk about commercial interests. But some of the posts on movie downloads and DRM made me jump out of my skin. My company, EZTakes, developed a DVD movie download and burn service that is running live now. We are different in that we provide users with the ability to burn movies to DVDs that can play in their living rooms. We have a number of free DVD downloads on the site and a number of others available at a reasonable price. You can check it out for free. In order to discourage piracy, we mark each DVD with the user's identity. We don't use DRM. You can burn backup copies of the DVDs you buy, store a copy on your PC and play it back in your default DVD player software.

While a greatly respect and like Apple, their DRM is a smokescreen that was created to protect Apple, not rights holders. I wrote a white paper on the subject.

Jim Flynn
CEO, EZTakes

I know that it might be rude to talk about commercial interests. But some of the posts on movie downloads and DRM made me jump out of my skin. My company, EZTakes, developed a DVD movie download and burn service that is running live now. We are different in that we provide users with the ability to burn movies to DVDs that can play in their living rooms. We have a number of free DVD downloads on the site and a number of others available at a reasonable price. You can check it out for free. In order to discourage piracy, we mark each DVD with the user's identity. We don't use DRM. You can burn backup copies of the DVDs you buy, store a copy on your PC and play it back in your default DVD player software.

While a greatly respect and like Apple, their DRM is a smokescreen that was created to protect Apple, not rights holders. I wrote a white paper on the subject.

Jim Flynn
CEO, EZTakes

http://www.eztakes.com/Movie download services tend to all suffer from the same fatal flaw: They do not deliver movies to people in a consumable form. At least one company, www.eztakes.com, is already offering legal movie downloads that non-technical consumers can burn directly to DVD and then watch on almost any standard DVD player in their living room.