MovieLink 2004's Top Film Download Service, So Far

An anonymous reader writes "The NPD Group has released some research on the fledgling pay digital movie download services. Numbers for the first half of this year show MovieLink as number one with a third of total users followed by MovieFlix with 13% of the market. It's a very small market though, with purchases equalling only 0.3% of the total movie market (and nowhere near the numbers of those trading on the free P2P services). Also of note, 80% of users are male and the top films purchased are sci-fi and fantasy."

Comments

Re:What about...

[AoT]

Its not the services that are illegal, its what everyone's doing on them.

Back to P2P

[Xenna]

Movielink is not catering to Europeans.
MovieFlix doesn't seem to have any decent movies anywhere.

Back to mlDonkey and Bittorrent...

X.

Re:Back to P2P

[chazwurth]

It is also apparently not catering to Linux or MacOS users, which is a shame, because I'd be willing to pay what they seem to be charging, at least on occasion.

Re:Back to P2P

[Celt]

You got that right!

"Thanks for your interest in Movielink, the leading source for movies delivered directly over the internet. We want you to enjoy our powerful movie download experience, but it is presently unavailable to users outside of the United States"

What a extremely helpfull site, can't even browse the bloody thing!
And the above is when I tried to access movielink.com directly

Re:Back to P2P

[ImaLamer]

I assumed that mlDonkey version you speak of is for Linux, but if not here goes:

Try Starz! on Demand, it's a subscription based service that lets you download hundreds of movies a month. Basically every movie shown on Starz is available for download. Plus you can watch Starz.

Bad thing: It uses Helix, RealPlayer's DRM technology and last time I checked wasn't available for Linux (hmmm... I wonder why). Requires substantial bandwidth. Can't keep the movies, they expire after 2 weeks.

Good thing: It's a good service, good movies and good quality too, at about 500 MB per movie. Good for someone like me who doesn't want to pay for cable or satellite, but will pay for a nice movies.

I used the trial and stuck with it because it allowed me to watch a movie a day, when I wanted to.

Re:Back to P2P

[krymsin01]

I wouldn't. Even at around US $2.00 I'm not willing to pay for something that I only have a "24hr Viewing period" for. Sure, whatever their protection mechanism is could be defeated and I could get a copy of the movie to watch indefinately (think wargames playing 24hrs a day), but I could have just as easily gone to alt.binaries.movies.* or a bittorrent tracker site and just downloaded the same movie.

Re:Back to P2P

[tarunthegreat2]

Here here! The least the fsckwads can do is extend the viewing period. If you happen to be in a timezone ahead of the USA (Asia), you can NEVER watch a movie, becuase the movie is timestamped with yesterday@!#!@$!$@. Adn this is going to stop piracy (a lot fo which originates here in Asia) HOW?

Internet Explorer Only

[zapf]

Looks like I won't be switching to Movelink soon. BitTorrent doesn't have the same nasty requirement.

Sorry, but in order to enjoy the Movielink service you must use Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher, which supports certain technologies we utilize for downloading movies. Click here to get the latest version of Internet Explorer.

We do not anticipate supporting Mozilla or Netscape in the near future.

They're probably trying to install Gator onto my machine anyways...

Re:Internet Explorer Only

[adrew]

I got a different one using Safari on OS X 10.3.4.

"Sorry, but in order to enjoy the Movielink service you must have Windows 98/SE, ME, 2000 or XP, which support certain technologies we utilize for downloading movies.

We do not anticipate supporting Mac or Linux in the near future."

Re:Internet Explorer Only

[Wm_K]

"Thanks for your interest in Movielink, the leading source for movies delivered directly over the internet. We want you to enjoy our powerful movie download experience, but it is presently unavailable to users outside of the United States."

Why don't they just say "Sorry, but we only support Internet Explorer on Windows in the United States. We don't plan on supporting anything or anyone else".

Re:Internet Explorer Only

[aussie_a]

Why don't they just say "Sorry, but we only support Internet Explorer on Windows in the United States. We don't plan on supporting anything or anyone else".

Which is why it's not a mystery the market is only very small. While American Windows IE users aren't insignificant, I imagine they wouldn't be overly large in comparison to the movie consumers.

download movie services still lacking

[Doppler00]

In general, I find that online renting of movies still lacking. They charge you more per download than if you were to go to a store to rent it. Second the view period is usually only 24 hours. And if these two factors are not enough to turn you away from a pay to rent service, the video quality is severly lacking compared to the DVD version (I have a 3mbps internet connection, a 2GB version of a movie shouldn't be a problem).

There are also the questions of compatibility. Do you need special software for Windows? Will it play on a Mac, Linux? Probably not. I think this sums of the situation quite nicely:

Sorry, but in order to enjoy the Movielink service you must use Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher, which supports certain technologies we utilize for downloading movies. Click here to get the latest version of Internet Explorer.

They are probably using some weird activeX components to launch a movie playing applicaiton.

Re:download movie services still lacking

[NanoGator]

" They charge you more per download than if you were to go to a store to rent it."

Yes. And though that sucks, you're still not spending 20 minutes or so getting the movie and returning it.

" Second the view period is usually only 24 hours."

Yes, but it's also 'on demand'. >24 hours makes more sense when you have store hours and your own schedule to worry about.

"Will it play on a Mac, Linux? Probably not. I think this sums of the situation quite nicely:"

You caaaaaan't alwaaaaaaaaaays haaaaaaaaaaaave what you waaaaaaaaaant. Seriously, though, have you ever tried to serve video over the web? It's not so easy to support everybody under the sun. Let's not forget that they feel they need to lock up everything. Granted, we all have issues with that, but they're the ones making it available in the end. Frankly, I think it sucks when a company makes a game I want for the Playstation but not the GameCube I have. Can I really complain about it, though? They have to make money. (Damn I wanna play San Andreas.)

"They are probably using some weird activeX components to launch a movie playing applicaiton."

I'm not claiming I know how their service works, afterall I'm not a customer, but I can make a few guesses:

1.) They need some sort of auto install capability.

2.) If they're using WMP, it's possible that they only allow IE to access the video because MS says that's the way to do it. Otherwise, it's possible they're trying to cut down on people intercepting and re-broadcasting the movie.

3.) I used another service that make the video full screen with controls right through the browser. Maybe they didn't feel comfortable enough making something like that work with all browsers.

Again, I'm operating under ignorance with these guesses. However, I have been involved with a company trying to come up with a video technology for streaming on the net, and you wouldn't believe all the lock downs and simplifications the customers wanted. We HAD to support IE and all its fancy shit. We HAD to make sure plugin install was automatic. We HAD to have content lock controls. Etc.

Frankly, I'm a little surprised that some of the "but it only runs on Windows" complaints aren't addressed with either a dual-boot machine or a cheapy 500mhz machine running Windows. I'm sorry the Linux users out there can't do everything they wantbecause of an inconsiderate decision by a company providing a service, but life's like that all over the place.

Re:download movie services still lacking

[Rhone]

Frankly, I'm a little surprised that some of the "but it only runs on Windows" complaints aren't addressed with either a dual-boot machine or a cheapy 500mhz machine running Windows. I'm sorry the Linux users out there can't do everything they wantbecause of an inconsiderate decision by a company providing a service, but life's like that all over the place.

First of all, those of us who have been using Linux for a while generally don't like booting into Windows, and we certainly don't want to monetarily support a company that forces us to do it in order to use their product.

Secondly, I think you misunderstand the attitude behind the "but it only runs on Windows" (and only IE, and only in the US..) posts. Nobody's crying and getting upset about it. Instead, everyone seems to be saying "Oh well, I'm going back to bittorrent."

Nor do they cater to Non-IE users...

[kcb93x]

...hence the following message upon visiting their site with Firefox 1.0PR:

"Sorry, but in order to enjoy the Movielink service you must use Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher, which supports certain technologies we utilize for downloading movies. Click here to get the latest version of Internet Explorer.

We do not anticipate supporting Mozilla or Netscape in the near future."

No thanks, I'll take my movies non-DRM'd to death, thank you.

*follows X back to Shareaza and Bittorrent*

Re:Nor do they cater to Non-IE users...

[evilviper]

I'll take my movies non-DRM'd to death, thank you.

So you don't have any DVDs at all, huh?

Re:Nor do they cater to Non-IE users...

[BeerCat]

more like "no intrusive DRM"

Like music on iTMS, as long as it doesn't get in the way of what most people want to do (in this case, watch a film they've bought when they want to), then DRM is the necessary eveil that allows it to be sold at all.

Provided your use of DVD content is not simply to rip it to computer (whether or not you intend to post it as a torrent), then the DRM doesn't get in the way.

That shit is stupid.

[Lord Kano]

Pay anywhere between $1.99 and $4.99 so that you can use your own bandwidth to download a movie. You have ONE 24 hour window to watch the movie. You can't burn it to DVD. You have to pay to watch it again after the window is over.

Netflix is a better deal.

LK

Re:That shit is stupid.

[forkboy]

Netflix has specialized videos that Blockbuster won't carry....pr0n and import anime, for instance.

The first company to offer both movie and console game rentals for the same monthly price combined gets my business, for sure.

Movieflix movies

[Lost Dragon]

Wow, with movie greats like "Zontar Thing From Venus" and "Matango Fungus of Terror" I just don't see why MovieFlix isn't #1.

whoda guessed

[RTPMatt]

Also of note, 80% of users are male and the top films purchased are sci-fi and fantasy.

Anybody else supprised that pr0n aint toppin the list?

Re:whoda guessed

[squarooticus]

What do you think "fantasy" is?

Duh. :-D

800 mb of fun!

[mrshowtime]

This service is great for someone who is in college and if their college has a really good connection and they also have access to that connection "privately" as most sysadmins will not allow anything as huge as the 800mb+ files to cross their system. I have a pretty fast, stable, cable modem, and it would take me several hours to download one movie, so it's not really a "gimme" yet. Once bandwidth gets cheaper and more readily available, you will see these services offered directly from your cable company. Most of the movies offerred you can just get off of PPV anyway.

Don't know about Zontar, but

[rsilvergun]

Mantango's suppose to be a classic. It's actually a Toho monster movie(one of the few non-Kaiju flicks). I imagine the dub leaves something to be desired though. They probably tried too hard to Americanize the thing...

Surprisingly good quality

[_dl_]

I've watched 3 movies so far and even though the regular prices are too high [but if you go through real.movielink.com they have a small number of movies $1 every week, which is how I watched mine], the limitations (24h after first view, IE, windows, etc...) are painful,... It does work suprisingly well.

I have a 100inches front projection home theater and it looks almost as good as a good DVD, and the files are only ~540Mb(*)... They must be using some pretty powerful codecs (better than dvd's mpeg2)

*: Or twice that for the "EQ" (higher quality) but again, standard quality was actually pretty good

Just my experience

Re:Movie Link's "Watch now or up to 30 days later"

[bdptcob]

I downloaded a couple of movies from movielink only because they were free when signing up for crappy sbc dsl. Movielink installs a proprietary "downloader." This downloader connects to their database when watching the movie, I guess to verify download date and if it has been watched. I tried to watch my movie with allowing it to connect to the internet and it was a no go.

video on demand

[Wm_K]

The South-Koreans have a nice service as well vod.naver.com. The service is very cheap compared to those mentioned above, only about 2000 won for new movies (which is about $1,50). The quality is near DVD and is distributed by a p2p like network, on which i usually get speeds above 150KB. Besides lots of Korean movies (sometimes with English subtitles) they also have a gazillion American movies.

I'm worried about their bottom line...

[killbill!]

Apple had to serve hundreds of millions of songs before economies of scale started kicking in, before they could even make a small profit.

Now replace 4 MB songs with 600 MB movies. Even if MPAA fees were less outrageously high than RIAA fees, how can they expect to turn a profit?
If they want to be a serious competition to Blockbuster, they'll have to have a pretty large product range. This means storing and serving petabytes of movies: huge costs - even when storage and bandwidth costs going down - which I'm pretty sure they can't cover charging $5 a movie.

The RIAA wanted to replace p2p flows through unidirectional flows (e.g. iTMS to customer only) in order to keep tight control of what is being downloaded on the net. However, this is materially impossible for movies. The only cost-effective way of distributing large files is over p2p.

Re:Hear hear!

[blixel]

I want to rent games online. I also want to rent movies online. Until a service exists wherein I can do both these things with the same subscription, nobody gets my business.

You go girl.

Geeks not impressed? I'm shocked!

[Cereal Box]

It almost seems kind of pointless to post stories about pay-per-download stories on Slashdot, because there's never going to be one "good enough" for geeks. Might as well just post one last "All pay-for-download services suck. Back to Bittorrent" story and be done with it.

I could be wrong though. There might someday be a movie download service that offers

• The largest video library known to man
• Every possible encoding format, from raw HD to 200Kb/s XviD + Ogg Vorbis (for PDAs, of course).
• No DRM to keep users from sharing their download with millions of other users
• Guaranteed 10Mbit+ connetions

... all for $0.99 per movie.

100% are male...

[ticklemeozmo]

Also of note, 80% of users are male

The other 20% signed up using their mother's credit card...