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Excellent point- I didn't make the distinction. To be honest, I've never used Movielink beyond the free stuff section (though it's pretty slim pickin's today unless your a huge Rocky and Bullwinkle fan).

Yeah, it's called movielink.com and cinemanow.com. When one of these companies or viacom or whatever makes a box that I plug into my TV and internet connection, with an easy remote and under $200 pricetag, I will never rent or buy a movie again. Dude, renting ONE FUCKING VIDEO usually costs me $15-20 because I forget to return them and get the late fees. Plus just going to the video store PISSES me off, because they don't have many videos.

Cinemanow and Movielink do not have very many videos either, but they would if everyone started using them. Look at netflix, they have so much crap I'm like a kid in a candy store. Go to movielink.com and order one of their .99cent videos. They have a special player app, it buffers your video up to like 10% (takes about 4-5 minutes at 200kB/s, so you can go pop the popcorn or pop out for a cigarette or whatever) and then you can start watching and it finishes the download in the background. It's already almost easy enough, but I want that 100-200 dollar box that plugs into my TV and reciever. BTW, the videos are over 640x480 which is more than enough for a regular TV, and the sound is perfect.

I'm sure the current DVR boxes can handle this also, they just need someone to write the software and someone to serve the movies. Oh, but that's right, there's huge megaconglomerates based on trucking plastic disks around and stacking them on store shelves. So until they can make $5 per rental, they aren't going to do it. Maybe some underground film should only release to one of these services, and that would be the driving force that starts the plunge.

Movielink and Sonic Solutions also announced an alliance that would allow downloaded movies to be burned to DVD. Theirs also will use a DRM technology that claims to allow the DVDs to play in "standard DVD players," but will be a "protected format" so you can't copy them.

Given that pressed DVDs can't achieve this, and that CSS isn't possible on burned DVDs, I find this difficult to believe.

Xesdeeni

What? Then please explain the following:
http://television.aol.com/in2tv/
http://www.movielink.com/
http://www.vongo.com/

The Mac gives you the same access to the Internet as Windows.

What? Then please explain the following:

http://television.aol.com/in2tv/
http://www.movielink.com/
http://www.vongo.com/

There are still quite a few things on the Internet you can not do with a Mac. Leopard, if it includes built in virtulization, can't get here fast enough.

http://www.cinemanow.com/ and http://www.movielink.com/ are my favorites.

I download movies legally nearly daily, http://movielink.com/ is extremely convenient and for the movies I rent (the daily special usually or 50% discount) is as cheap or cheaper than blockbuster.

Download size is 1 GB typically, it takes between an hour and two hours to download. You can output to your TV if you so desire, and resolution looks good enough that it probably would look fine on most TVs.

LetterRip

Online video rentals are nothing new. You can already download rentals from http://movielink.com/ It's direct from their servers rather than a bandwidth killing p2p, and the restrictions seem to be less. I've had fairly decent experiences with them so far.

Try Movielink. The only downside is that you'll need Windows and IE. (Well, that and the fact that their good selection is transitory.) :-(

somebody posted this last week about making old 50s shows available for cheap.

It will happen eventually. I don't know if you've seen them yet, but many stores are now carrying the $1.00 DVDs of many old shows. Everything from episodes of Laurel and Hardy to Rocky Jones Space Ranger (you've got to see this show, even just for the comedic effect) are now appearing on the shelves.

However, I have a feeling that it will be a while before they show up on iTunes. Jobs doesn't want to make the same mistake as MovieLink and find himself in the position of *only* selling old shows. Once iTunes is established a way of distributing new content, only then will Jobs allow for virtual reruns.

One day (soon) there will be on-line movie stores and then people will have computers as PVRs in their home theaters - then what?

Already exists!

http://www.movielink.com/

movielink allows you to 'rent' movies for anywhere from .$99 to $5. quality is decent though certainly not DVD. speed is good. selection is sparse.
http://www.movielink.com/

you can also get "starz on demand" through realplayer for approx $13 a month. you're limited to the current line up of STARZ movies--and they often suck. but it's better than paying $70 for premium cable. quality is ok, but still not DVD.
http://starz.real.com/

but i dont know if those are the kind of things the poster wants. his question was amorphous at best.

Netflix is strongly rumoured to be looking into it, as is Sony, and Apple is dipping its toe into the water with downloadable music videos. I think Apple is waiting for the right time to announce their portable video player, and also to finalize their deals with the movie distributors.

As to download speed, mp4 files may be a bit large, but bandwidth is steadily increasing, codecs improving, and even a download that takes three or four hours is faster than the day or two it takes to get a physical DVD from Netflix.

And back to Apple, movies sized for a portable player could be quite a bit smaller than that needed for full HD video...

There's a movie service that has allowed you to download movies for quite awhile. The only downsides to MovieLink are that a) It requires IE/Windows and b) It's only rentals.

Still, I was able to watch Dr. Strangelove that way. Which is more than I can say for the blank stares at Blockbuster:

Me: "Do you have Dr. Strangelove?"
Guy Rep: "Dr. Wha?"
Me: "Dr. Strangelove, or How I learned to love the bomb."
Guy Rep: "Say what?"
Lady Rep: "It's an old movie." [checks computer] "Nope, sorry."
(Blockbuster guy continues with confused look.)

I have previously used movielink.com but it requires IE and alot of windows voodoo. The actual service I was quite impressed with, other than the slightly high prices.

I would definitely be interested in this if it was more open, etc. (I realize that it's impossible to have them ship the *.vob files, but I would like some usability in the files. I want *my* definition of fair use, not Valenti's).

I've noticed MovieLink being advertised with $1 movie downloads

Movielink has been doing downloadable Hollywood films for a long time now. Not sure why everyone overlooks them when talking about the iTunes Movie Store and NetFlix, but they've been in this game for a while.

MovieLink is one. Also, those "little video clips" from places like ifilm.com are fun to watch, and can be a real pain at less-than-broadband speeds.

There are also lots of internet radio stations, online music stores, and legal free downloadables around.

And for those who like their adult entertainment with a side of legality, there are lots of VOD sites that really need a fast connection to use.

Tomorrow's Technology today!

enabling one of the features that Hollywood has been demanding before Internet distribution of movies will be allowed by the studios
Really?
Both MovieLink and CinemaNow are both distributing movies on the web with Hollywood's consent.

• It's definitely the future. It's so much easier to click and download a movie you want to watch instead of going to the store and renting it. And it has a significant advantage over Netflix in that you don't have to plan in advance, you get instant gratification. I decide I want to watch Troy - I log in to my computer, pay the fee and can be watching it 2 minutes later as it starts downloading
  
  
• Movielink is the venture put forth by a bunch of big movie studios. As such it has the latest movies which is good. However, it is expensive ($4.99 for 24 hour watching period!). It is also very restrictive DRM wise - you only have 24 hours, and you can only watch it on the computer you downloaded. The plus side is that they have all the latest movies
  
  
• Starz Ticket on Real Movies - this one is cool because for a flat fee ($12.95/month I think) you can watch all the movies you want. A drawback is that they have a very limited set of movies (300 movies I think), most of them you never heard of, or heard of and never wanted to watch, and a lot of very, very old movies. BUT, besides that, the service is pretty cool - you can activate up to 3 computers, so you can download to one computer and view it on another. And you can view and download as many movies as you want. They rotate through different movies and always have about 300 or so in the library, so if they rotate "out" a movie you were watching, you can't finish watching it. But I do like this service, because unlike Movie Link you're not limited to 24 hours
  
  
• Digital Cable / VOD / On Demand - I have Adelphia Digital Cable, and they seem to have a large library of movies "on demand". The convenience factor is great - it's already on your TV, you don't have to plug your computer into your TV to use this. Drawback is steep price - like MovieLink its $4.95 for 24 hours of viewing time. They do let you view the movie from any digital cable box in your home, so thats a little flexibility right there. And you can obviously record it to your TiVo and watch it beyond the 24 hour period. They have a lot of new movies, I'm watching Shrek 2 using this right now.
  
  If someone managed to combine the Starz Ticket pricing and DRM model with the movie collection of the others, that would be close to a winner.
  
  After having been a Netflix subscriber for 5 years, I realized that this is really the future, once people start getting it. (The vendors AND the consumers need to get it)

Downloads will have to be at least 720 x 388 in order to compete with existing download services -- and maybe more to compete with pirate downloads. Which is what this is all about, coming up with a legal download service that people will pay to use, instead of pirate downloads they don't get any money for.

Granted he is also offering all the TnA you can stand, but the idea is already there. I would hope he is making money off this as it would allow more "content providers" to place their stuff on the web for pay-per-view.

I mean - where is the _legitimate_ online services where I can download a movie I read good comments about at midnight?

Yeah, it's really bizarre. There are non-Apple-based movie stores that work just great and plenty of non-iPod portable players to watch them on (from Archos, Creative, etc.), but it's not interesting news until Apple is rumored to be doing it. Gimme a break.

It is simply good business sense to move into this largely untapped market, especially if you already have a platform for charging for and delivering digital content. Though they aren't the first; MovieLink and CinemaNow are already offering movies for legal download.

There are certain legal sites out there, but they all have that all-too-familiar achillies heel: The content owners want to use the step up in technology to ratchet a step up in price. They also only work on Windows XP machines. On the other hand, these days they have a heck of a lot more movies than when they launched.

Cinema Now - High cost but a lot of good stuff.
Movieflix - Cheap and plentiful, but old and obscure.
Movielink - The original, but won't even let you in the site without I.E. Similar cost / selection to cinema now.
iFilm - Always free, always a crapshoot as to what you will get. Probably the best thing to happen to independent filmmaking since Clerks.

They have, there are services up like Movielink. The only problem is this one doesn't support linux.

There are already a few of these, like Movielink and CinemaNow, among others. But why bother? It's so much easier to just get a DVD from Netflix/Blockbuster or to download the same film with BitTorrent and not have to worry about all the DRM crap.

http://www.movielink.com

MovieLink currently runs a promotion where any movie costs 99 cents.

They have all the MPAA stuff, like Matrices and stuff available on DVD right now.

Requires Windows DRM client, and once you start watching, you have to finish within 24 hours.

They are selling us movies over the internet now: click me

Movielink also has video downloads in either Real or Windows media format (though Linux is not supported).

The complete download takes about 90 minutes over an SBC supplied DSL though you can begin viewing after about 20 minutes of buffering.

If someone's going to rent something at home, it needs to be totally intangible, like a pay-per-view movie on cable or a rented tape. It comes and goes, and leaves nothing behind.

You mean like MovieLink? (note, site states that it requires IE5.0+, maybe it just wants flash or something, YMMV).

Choose your movie, download it (stream it if you like so you can start watching right away), store it for up to 30 days, during which time you can choose any one 24 hour period to watch the movie.

I presume you have to have windows to use it, and you have to use their movie-manager software (at least thats what they imply), but this is a big step in the right direction.

Movie prices vary, from under a buck for classic stuff to about 5 bucks for new releases.

If they'd bump it to 3 days to watch they'd be better than the video store.

Takes me about an hour to download a movie from Movielink on my cable broadband connection.

I would agree with this. Having these DRM functions in Media Player allows services like Movielink to exist. Why do I hear the whining about the constant lack of innovation by the RIAA and the MPAA followed by the rejection of technologies that would encourage this innovation in the realm of downloadable media purchases?

Are you talking about Movielink? Unless they let people burn the movies to DVD to watch on their TV as opposed to their computer monitor (like Apple does with burning music to CD), I don't think it will really take off.

Purchases from the iTunes Music Store are available only in the United States and are not available in any other location. You agree not to use or attempt to use the service from outside of the available territory. Apple may use technologies to verify such compliance.

All this is saying is that you may not use the iTunes service outside the US. This is likely not of their own choice, but because of agreements with the record labels that restrict them to distribution in the US.

What about indie musicians that want their music to be available overseas. Or overseas musicians that want fans in their native country to have access to the online music.

This looks like yet another case of the RIAA putting a stranglehold on something to the exclusion of all others.

Of course, the recent article here on /. on Disney movies online basically show that it is the same thing for movies.

From the Movielink website's terms of service:

11. NON-UNITED STATES RESIDENTS. The Services are available only to customers located in the United States of America, excluding its territories. If you are outside of the United States of America, kindly refrain from using the Services. Movielink makes no representation that the Services and any content or products offered on the Services and their copyrights, trademarks, patents, and licensing arrangements, are appropriate or available for use in locations other than in the United States of America.

Microsoft has been adamant that the Xbox is and will remain a gaming platform. Period. The knee-jerk reaction to news of additional capabilities, such as voice and music, is "The Xboxes aren't selling as game consoles, so they're trying other applications in hopes of selling more boxes."

This doesn't make much sense when one considers that Microsoft loses money on every Xbox. The bill of materials is $400-$500, and they retail for $200. That difference can't be made up on volume. This business model is to lose money on the consoles but make it back (and then some) on the games, much like the razor/blade model. Games are high-margin products, especially those created in-house, and I would think that the Xbox business case is dependent upon preserving those margins. So pushing the Xbox as an enabler of low-margin services doesn't make much sense. Let's look at those mentioned...

Voice
Sure, Xbox Live voice quality is pretty good. Since Xbox Live requires broadband, it's not tough to obtain toll quality. But why would they want to? There are many reasons why voice over IP hasn't taken off (customers don't want to be tethered to their PCs, long distance is already cheap -- you'd better not be paying more than $0.05/minute for interstate calls), and to my knowledge Xbox Live doesn't have the billing capabilities required for voice services. The article states that Microsoft would move the chat capability to the Xbox Live dashboard, which implies the requirement of an Xbox Live subscription. It's unlikely that this feature would convince consumers to subscribe to Xbox Live. Microsoft would also need VOIP-PSTN gateways, so their customers can call people who don't use an Xbox. Telephone service is complicated. Maybe Microsoft would partner with a company such as Vonage, but they certainly aren't the easiest to work with.

Music
A neat capability, much like the QCast Tuner for the PlayStation 2. Consumers have shown little willingness to pay for this, however, as they're accustomed to free players. Service like Rhapsody and pressplay would undoubtedly benefit from freedom from the shackles of the PC, but their revenue shares are micenuts compared with Microsoft's costs. Given the current crop of LAN-to-stereo bridges, like the AudioTron and the SimpleFi, the Xbox does stand out, but this advantage may be gone in a few months when the likes of Linksys launch its low-cost device.

Movies
One of the reasons for Movielink's slow start is the simple fact that most consumers prefer to watch movies on their TVs, not their PCs. This problem is defeated with the Xbox in the mix, as it enables high-quality video output to the TV. Perhaps Microsoft plans to download the top 3-4 pay per view movies to the Xbox hard drive each night (Movielink movies are 500-600MB each, so they would easily fit on the 8-9GB Xbox HDD), so when the consumer chooses a popular movie playback begins immediately. The margins on this business are low, too. And Microsoft will compete with existing TV-based PPV and Video on Demand, which is slowly rolling out to cable systems. This makes a tough market even tougher.

Summary
Low margin + low penetration services will not lift the Xbox to profitability. Great games will. Strong Xbox Live games will give customers a reason to pay $9.95 a month for the service. Hopefully the EA/AOL exclusivity deal will end soon, so Xbox can benefit from good sports titles. Until the games improve, Microsoft is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. They have the cash to be patient, however.

Disclaimer: I work fo

You can already watch Hollywood movies on your PC legally.

Top 5 Downloads on Movielink.com:

1. Men In Black 2
2. The Sum Of All Fears
3. Changing Lanes
4. 13 Conversations About One Thing
5. Death to Smoochy

It's not consumer demand for movies driving TCPA/Palladium.

The movielink logo looks like they took the "M" from Miramax and played with it in photoshop. Trademark infringement, anyone?

According to the Terms of Use you need to download the Movielink Manager Software to use the service. Is there any reason why they couldn't just port this software for Mac, without breaking their DRM schema? Does the Windows operating system offer any inherent advantage to DRM over Apple, or is this just a political statement?

Film piracy is never going to cut into box office dollars, period. No computer setup -- not even one with a projector screen and 5.1 surround sound -- will ever duplicate the theater experience, especially with a grainy telesync. The big screen and crowded theater hold too much fascination for us as human beings, and it won't go away any time soon.

The place where film piracy will hurt the most is in the home video market, because DivX rips of DVD films are at least VHS quality, usually better in some cases. Still, the movie industry has an advantage over the music industry here, because DivX rips are hard to download and DVDs are cheap. Hell, it's easier to rent a DVD and rip it yourself then to hunt down a film on Gnutella, and even then, you're still supporting the filmmakers in some small way, because you're paying the rental fee.

If the movie industry can improve the video quality and service quality of sites like MovieLink and CinemaNow, they'll have the one thing the music industry never really created -- a convenient, inexpensive alternative to piracy in the marketplace. Gee, is that all it takes? Who knews?

1. The MPAA is a non-profit organization that represents the common interests of the studios. It handles anti-piracy efforts, title and trademark registration, ratings, etc., as these are common among all studios. It does not have a 'business model,' per se. The studios do. The studios produce the products and reap the financial rewards. The MPA/A covers overhead and salary. About the MPAA
2. The MPA/A does not do anything the studios don't want done. The studios control funding, approve new positions / departments, etc. If you want to blame somebody for something, blame the source. Jack Valenti and the MPA/A are the voice of the studios. Anything they say comes originally from MGM, Disney, Sony, Paramount, Universal, Fox, and AOL/Time Warner.
3. The studios are working on putting out an "Internet rental" site. MovieLink.