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New Movie Download Pay Service
SailorBob writes " After nearly two years in production, Hollywood-backed Movielink is giving the green light to its online movie rental service.
The Web site, a joint project of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal and Warner Bros., will debut Monday with a limited selection of first-run and classic films from the five major motion pictures studios, in a test of the technology to select U.S. residents. Though the film studios have licensed content to other video-on-demand sites, it is the first time they've introduced a service of their own.
Of course, just like the new music services, this is also only available to US residents. "
Hmmm.
;)
When I first saw the headline I assumed it was going to a great step towards truly using the power of the internet and online sales.
However, this is nothing more than glorified movie rental with the user paying well over the odds.
I've been using something called DVDSONTAP for a while now, pay £9.99 a month and rent as many dvds as I like and send them back when I like. $4.99 AND the "pleasure" of downloading AND having to install their DRM crap? No thanks. I'll stick to regular DVD and of course, leeching from usenet
It's early on for Movielink, but in its initial incarnation, its strictly Windows & Strictly IE. If you try anything else, you'll get:
Thank you for your interest in Movielink. We want you to take part in the powerful Internet movie rental experience that Movielink delivers; however, you currently do not meet our minimum system requirements. You will need to adjust the following:
*
You Need Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP
Running Netscape, even on Windows will get you:
Thank you for your interest in Movielink. We want you to take part in the powerful Internet movie rental experience that Movielink delivers; however, you currently do not meet our minimum system requirements. You will need to adjust the following:
You need Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher - Upgrade Now
Spoofing your browser & javascript settings will just hang your machine.
Dont they want money from outside the US?
The difference is that in the United States, the studios own the movies' copyrights because of the "work made for hire" rule. Elsewhere, the "work made for hire" rule applies less or not at all, and the studios do not own the movies; the director, screenwriter, and score composer do. The studios may have to negotiate a separate contract for each country where the service is offered.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I tried it last night. Rented and downloaded an older classic for $1.99 (took 1.08 hours on my DSL). It seems their codec could have been much better. I have seen DivX movies the same size (628MB) and same length movie that were higher quality. I would say the quality was similar to VHS. I don't know what codec they are using, but it doesn't seem like MPEG4, which is what I would like to see them use to make maximum use of bandwidth. :-)
This service would actually be useful for us, because we live so far away from any rental store... and sometimes have problems getting the movies back on time.
We usually watch DVDs on the computer anyway.
If a service opens up that uses MPEG4 (or DivX) and has good prices, then we will be using it quite frequently.
They aren't streaming. The site is way sparse on details but from what I can see, you download their "Movielink Manager". The MM handles your movie downloads (resumes, etc). You download the full movie in whatever format they send it in and you have 3 days to watch it. Once you start it you have 24 hours to watch it as many times as you like. I don't know the quality but it will be much better than streaming.
The MM also "convieniently" removes movies files when your rental expires.