Which Movie Download Site Is Best?

mikemuch writes "ExtremeTech has reviews today of five internet movie download and rental services. The services/sites — CinemaNow, MovieFlix, Movielink, Amazon's Unbox, and Starz's Vongo — have various takes on how online feature-length films should be made available over the internet. CinemaNow has the most alternatives: Free, Subscription, Rent, Buy, and Burn to DVD, while the others offer some subset of these choices. Amazon Unbox has the best video quality, using a 2.5Mb/sec bitrate and VC1 encoding, while CinemaNow is the only one that lets you burn DVDs. There are still disadvantages to getting movies this way, but VOD is making headway, as these services show."

Comments

This one!

[Anonymous Coward]

btjunkie.org

BT

[jrwr00]

I never liked these services, i know there the legal path, but i still stay Bitorrent is better

Re:BT

[Teresita]

ED2K with the emule/amule client and one of the German servers.

Re:BT

[Itchyeyes]

I think the biggest problem with most of these services is that the technology just isn't there yet in the US, primarily the bandwidth. My personal favorite of the video download services is Xbox Live. For $6 I can watch a HD full length movie on my TV in my living room. The copy protection is restrictive, but it's usable. The biggest problem is the download time. It takes about 10 hrs to download the 6 GB file over my cable modem. At this rate, it's no longer an impulse buy. I have to think out ahead of time when I will want to watch the movie and plan accordingly. This puts it at about the same convenience level as Netflix, erasing any benefit it would have had.

Re:BT

[jZnat]

Since I just started using ed2k again (MLdonkey), I noticed that practically all the servers nowadays are German anyhow...

Re:BT

[WhyDoYouWantToKnow]

Yeah, but getting your movies buy snail mail is so last century. Now days, if you don't get your movies delivered along the interweb's tubes you're just not cool.

Re:BT

[Kadin2048]

Agreed. Honestly, if it takes longer to download than it does to drive to Blockbuster and back, then it's probably not going to convince many people that it's worth the added complexity.

Just doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations here, if it takes me about half an hour to go to Blockbuster and back (ten minute drive there and back, another ten minutes to find the movie and rent it), it would require about a 28Mbit connection.

( 6 GiB * (1024 MiB / GiB) * (1024 KiB / GiB) * (1024 B / KiB) * (8 b / B) ) / ( (30 min) * (60 sec / min) ) = 28633115.3 b/sec

Not unreasonable, if you have FIOS or one of the superfast DSL variations, but pretty much out of the question for most households.

I think what's more likely to happen is that cable and telephone companies will begin offering PPV videos streamed over a much narrower pipe, giving you the impression of a huge library of movies, but storing them all at the head end. That allows them to concentrate and pool storage in large servers, and reduces the bandwidth requirements. It also allows them to keep tighter control over the content, since it could be encrypted to play back only on their STB.

Most people aren't going to watch internet-delivered movies (that cost money) when the receiver is their computer; it's when the receiver is their cable box that it'll become mainstream.

Re:BT

[Itchyeyes]

Really, it wouldn't need to be that fast. It only needs to download faster than the bit-rate of the video. For that you only need about 1-2 Mbps with good compression. The problem is that even though my cable company advertises my line a 6 Mbps, these files are only downloading at about 100 Kbps. Part of the problem is on Microsoft's end, part of the problem is with the cable company. However, it doesn't really matter to the average consumer who's fault it is. All that matters is that it doesn't work better than the alternative of driving to the nearest Blockbuster.

Re:BT

[drsquare]

it would require about a 28Mbit connection.

And that's assuming you manage to download constantly at your connection's maximum speed. What are the odds of that?

Re:BT

[redcane]

My personal favourite is demonoid.com. For $0 I can watch a HD full length movie on my TV in my living room. The copy protection is unrestrictive, so I can burn to DVD (and potentially HD-DVD if I bought a burner). The biggest problem is the download time. It takes about 16 hours to download the 6GB torrent over my DSL modem. At this rate, I just tell it to download all the movies I think I might want to watch, then when I feel like watching a movie, I just pick out of the ones sitting on my MythBox that have finished downloading. Until the movie studios provide me with some of that convenience, I'm not going to be paying for downloads. I'd just go back to the method of borrowing a bunch of potential movies from the video store, ripping en masse, then choosing out of the current collection when I felt like watching a movie.

Re:BT

[Brad Eleven]

Hands down. Although the quality--and legality--of BT-available "goods" varies widely, the mob, the swarm, the random group of people who are somehow *way* more committed to using their own personal equipment (and time) than people paid to do the same thing on equipment and time they don't own.

USA Today's front page, featured article is about how the DoD is analyzing "small business" (i.e., craigslist) to understand the viral appeal and explosive growth.

Surely they won't declare the War On The Future out loud ... will they (or ... I've been busy lately, have they already)?

Re:BT

[Lumpy]

EXACTLY!

These services only serve up sub par quality. I can get HD rips of Movies on bittorrent sites or regular DVD rips at Full quality and resolution.

IF they want to have a legal service they had better up the quality to as goo or better than what I can get elsewhere.... Oh and have it in a format I CAN PLAY on my hardware.

I cant find ANY legal movie downloads that will play on my HTPC.... No I will not downgrade to Windows Media Center, I enjoy a HTPC that works very well and has features well beyond what you can get on WMCE...

Oh wait, their downloads need a special player or wierd codec and app installed? I'll star buying when they meet my needs.

easy answer

[minus_273]

mininova.org
piratebay.org
itunes

I've tried CinemaNow and Movielink

[Anonymous Coward]

Movielink requires you to download additional software, while CinemaNow works with the software already installed with WindowsXP.

Re:I've tried CinemaNow and Movielink

[mikemuch]

CinemaNow does require downloading and installing an ActiveX control for its player window, which in turn uses Windows Media Player. Also, there's another download if you want to burn DVDs.

the best movie download site

[b4stard]

Short answer: TPB
Long answer: The Pirate Bay

Re:the best movie download site

[otis wildflower]

TorrentSpy FTW.. (shush!)

And FWIW, the only "non-pirate" downloadable movie format that has a future is HD video, since the physical format will be torpedoed by proprietary format bickering.

(And remember how bad some of the original DVDs were, when the studios were too cheap to do new transfers, and just slapped the 'letterbox' laserdisc video onto a DVD? Methinks there'll be a ton of "pre-upconverted" high-def vids being pimped around...)

Re:the best movie download site

[ubrgeek]

All of the BT comments can basically be translated as follows:

Hey, look at me. I'm so l337 I can download pirated material and ignore the law. Aren't I cool?

No, what you are is a criminal and one that puts even more evidence in the hands of the MPAA and RIAA to to and get Congress to criminalize any use for torrents, include legal, educational ones.

Grow up and stop posing as nerds.

Re:the best movie download site

[b4stard]

No, what you are is a criminal ... Grow up and stop posing as nerds.

It's called civil disobedience. When laws are written by big biz, these methods is what the rest of us must resort to. You may call me a criminal, I'll take it as a compliment.
Fall into the line and conform, if that's what you want. I won't.
(And I'm quite the nerd, believe it or not.)

Re:the best movie download site

[Yvan256]

There's a difference between civil disobedience and stupid laws you shouldn't follow.

It's civic disobedience when an Aussie rips a CD he bought and puts it in his computer and iPod. It's a stupid law.

It's morally wrong to get content without paying for it (if required, ex: commercial releases). People work hard to make those stories/songs/movies/etc, they have the right to be paid. The fact that you want it for free doesn't make it right.

What's wrong is copyrights that last for decades, then get pushed back for more decades, etc. Copyrights were invented to protect the author AND put that content into the public domain after a while. Current laws only work for the first part of the copyright, which is wrong.

What would be civic disobedience is to upload/share/torrent everything that should have its copyright expired. If the original spirit of the copyright law was set for 30 years, then everything from 1976 and earlier should be up for grabs, no matter what the current laws are because those new laws were made by lobbyists for the industries.

Re:the best movie download site

[swillden]

It's called civil disobedience. When laws are written by big biz, these methods is what the rest of us must resort to.

No, what you do is almost certainly not civil disobedience. To call it civil disobedience, you have to have an explanation as to why the law you're breaking is wrong, and an idea of how the law should be. Further, your actions must be in harmony with the "correct" version of the law, as you see it.

While I'm sure that you have good reasons why the current law is wrong (I probably have more complaints about it than you do!), just what do you think it should be?

Do you think copyright should be shortened to a reasonable duration like, say, 28 years? If so, can I assume you don't download any movies made after 1978?

Do you think copyright should not allow format and time shifting? If so, can I assume you don't download any movies you haven't already bought on, say, DVD?

Do you think copyright should simply be abolished? In that case, you shouldn't download any movies at all, because that's pretty much what you'll have. I think music could survive the abolition of copyright, but movies, at least the kind of big budget productions we get these days, would disappear in an instant.

"Civil disobedience" is taking some risk and some pain upon yourself in order to correct a social injustice. Taking without paying just because you can get away with it isn't civil disobedience.

I use Bittorrent to download TV shows. I justify it with the rationale that if I were sufficiently patient I could wait for all of the episodes to air and grab them from there. I realize this rationale is a little shaky, since what I'm downloading is mostly commercial-free, high quality DVD rips, so I'm getting a little more than just the convenience of not having to wait. Still, I can live with that.

But I absolutely do not try to tell myself or anyone else that I'm engaging in "civil disobedience" for the betterment of society. I'm just taking a convenient route to the entertainment I figure I've (mostly) already paid for. Be honest with yourself, and I think you'll find you aren't trying to right a social injustice, either. You're just getting movies for free because you can get away with it.

Re:the best movie download site

[spoco2]

If the original spirit of the copyright law was set for 30 years, then everything from 1976 and earlier should be up for grabs, no matter what the current laws are because those new laws were made by lobbyists for the industries. My question is though... why is that right? Why should someone, who's still alive, who made a movie/song back in 1970 say, not still be getting money from it if people are still wanting to buy said movie/song?

Sure you can go on about copyright being in the hands of the record companies/studios etc. rather than the artists, but that's another argument.

The argument I'm trying to resolve is why should the artist just stop making money from something they made 30 years ago?

Re:the best movie download site

[Yvan256]

The argument I'm trying to resolve is why should the artist just stop making money from something they made 30 years ago?

Because that's the spirit of copyright. You're protected for 30 years, then it falls into the public domain. Without copyright, everything would fall in public domain the second after you're done making it.

Copyright was meant to protect the authors for 30 years, as an incentive to create new works. After that 30 years, they should've made new works.

You're not getting paid for something you did 30 years ago (say, hammer a nail), why should they be? In fact, even with 30 years of copyright, if successful, they could sit on their asses and do nothing for 30 years if they're popular enough.

Re:the best movie download site

[mrchaotica]

My question is though... why is that right? Why should someone, who's still alive, who made a movie/song back in 1970 say, not still be getting money from it if people are still wanting to buy said movie/song?

Conversely, why should someone who made a movie/song today be getting money for it in the first place? It's equally debatable...

Re:the best movie download site

[EzInKy]

No, what you are is a criminal and one that puts even more evidence in the hands of the MPAA and RIAA to to and get Congress to criminalize any use for torrents, include legal, educational ones.


What? Make more laws that people will ignore? Yeah, that's the ticket. It certainly worked well for Prohibition, didn't it? I've seen more people talking openly about file sharing lately than pot smoking. If people don't want to obey a law they won't obey it, and when enough people don't obey the law then the law means squat.

Re:the best movie download site

[ubrgeek]

If people don't want to obey a law they won't obey it, and when enough people don't obey the law then the law means squat

Tell that to the more than 1 million people who have been arrested, fined, punished because of pot laws (which you reference.)

Re:the best movie download site

[spoco2]

Because that's the spirit of copyright. You're protected for 30 years, then it falls into the public domain.You're not getting paid for something you did 30 years ago (say, hammer a nail), why should they be? In fact, even with 30 years of copyright, if successful, they could sit on their asses and do nothing for 30 years if they're popular enough. And I suppose the question is "Why shouldn't they be able to sit on their arses if what they did is popular enough to still be desirable to people?" I mean, the hammer and nail analogy is different... I'm providing a once off service to you by hammering in those nails, and you pay me for it. And the same is true with the creative work too... I pay once to get it (ignoring format shifts etc.)... if I like your movie, I buy it once, and that's it.

The analogy is more like me creating something really useful... a great new widget. People love it, buy them, and continue to buy them... I set up a manufacturing plant, or have someone else do it, and continue to make money off my great widget invention until I die... I don't see an issue with that or continuing to make money off a movie or song you made that people still want to buy.

It can become public domain after I die (or, perhaps 30 years after or when I die, whichever comes last), so that others don't continue to make money off something they didn't create.

I just don't see why something that I create has to become public domain while I'm still around to benefit from sales of it... to say that I should be creating something else is a little poor I would think, what if it took me 30 years to create said work?

Re:the best movie download site

[EzInKy]

Tell that to the more than 1 million people who have been arrested, fined, punished because of pot laws (which you reference.)


When I was a kid possession was a felony, now it's a barely a ticketable offense in most jurisdictions. THC itself is legal as a prescription, but I doubt any smokable form of the drug will be made totally legal today. You can thank the crazed anti-smoking brigade for that.

Re:the best movie download site

[Yvan256]

Your idea of "public domain when I die" may be better for the author, but I'm simply guessing that the original writers of the copyright law saw things differently. Since they're all dead, we can only read the original copyright papers (if those are still available at all).

Not yet good enough for me.

[PrinceAshitaka]

I think this technology is still cannot compete with having the actuall DVD sent to you. I usually on't mind waiting one day.

I use dvdone.com.

I get the DVD the next day before noon if I order by 5pm. (and the movie is not rented out)

I can pay online with wa wire transfer

I pay less than 2 dollars for shipping up to 4 DVDs round trip

I can rent as many DVDs as I want, renting many DVDs does not affect when they ship the DVDs I want. (ahem netflix)

Sorry if this sounds like a plug but it is not, I just want to tell other people what is possible so other companies improve thier services (ahem netflix).

Re:Not yet good enough for me.

[PrinceAshitaka]

sorry, the web site is DVDONE.CH.

Re:Not yet good enough for me.

[zorg50]

Maybe you should have clarified that this is not an American company. You can't really compare them to Netflix as it is much more complicated to get DVDs to people quickly when they are spread out over a much larger area. Sure Netflix and Blockbuster Online have problems (though I like what Blockbuster has been doing lately), but suggesting a European-only alternative isn't much of a solution. Are there any smaller American Netflix-esque companies?

Re:Not yet good enough for me.

[teh_chrizzle]

i agree. i rent from blockbuster online. i get 3 dvd's at a time, which i can then take to the local video store to swap for a dvd there. plus i get one free coupon per week to take to the local store for another free rental of a video or a game. i pay something like $20 a month. i use the online stuff to rent TV series (so i get them in right order) then go to the store for new releases with my discs/coupon. that's a potential for 7 movies a week, which i really don't have time to watch.

Re:Not yet good enough for me.

[FLEB]

Actually, I'm surprised more digital products (movies, music, software) aren't delivered through a two-prong approach, where for an acceptable premium they'll send you the boxed copy and give or rent you a downloadable copy in the meantime. I'd even accept lower quality and more DRM if it was an additional stand-in for a standard-issue disc coming in the mail. I can't even see it adding that much overhead to the process, as long as licensing terms were worked out sanely (I know, I know, I ask too much!)

Re:Not yet good enough for me.

[markwalling]

the supermarket chain in my area installed redbox machines. i have used them a couple of times and find them to be meh. there are no subscription fees (one of my biggest turn offs about netflix (i don't rent enough to make it worth while)), but the selection isn't that large.

Re:Not yet good enough for me.

[edwardpickman]

You've got me interested. I tried the Blockbuster service and it was pathetic. I never got my first selections I only got unpopular selections and it took up to a week to turn movies around. Their selection wasn't that good to begin with. I had the service for less than a month and I'd never do it again. I wish Netflix would offer a paid shipping service where you pay say a flat monthly fee then pay a buck a film for shipping. Maybe offer the first five with free shipping but the point is to not penalize heavy users because of shipping costs. I don't want to wait a week because they are trying to save a buck. Better to pay the postage and actually get my movie.

Re:Not yet good enough for me.

[stuffisgood]

Sounds like how I just purchased Defcon from Introversion... Download now, boxed copy in the post...

Linux Support?

[md17]

It doesn't appear that any of them support Linux. Possibly movieflix.com but I don't want to subscribe just to test it. Has anyone successfully used any of these on Linux?

Re:Linux Support?

[EsbenMoseHansen]

You might be a troll, but in case some impresionnable types were reading it.... I, for one, only buys stuff that support Linux. Life is too short for windows. If it doesn't work on linux, it generally isn't worth owning. oprofile, valgrind, kate, bash, octave, opengl, fork(), GPL'ed kernel, lots of (L)GPL/BSD libraries, KDE (big one), ordered journaling filesystems, liveCDs... the list goes on. The only advantage windows (for me) had were adventure games. Since games are slowly but surely becoming consoles only, why bother with windows which does less and have a bigger pricetag? And the argument about pirating windows to avoid pirating movies... that is so sublimely stupid that it deserves the 2007 stupid advice excellency award.

This article...

[Anonymous Coward]

...sounds like an advertisement for some online video download service called CinemaNow. I wonder, considering the number of ways and option to burn to DVD this service has, whether CinemaNow is really just a front for a the biggest movie houses? Does anyone know what connections to the industry CinemaNow has?

Re:This article...

[mikemuch]

Yes. It's in the article: "And CinemaNow claims more than 4,000 feature-length films, television programs, and music concerts from licensors such as 20th Century Fox, Disney, Lionsgate, MGM, Miramax, NBC Universal, Paramount Pictures, Sony, Sundance Channel, and Warner Bros." If you want to do it legally, you need connections with the studios.

Re:This article...

[surrealestate]

Also, CinemaNow is owned at least in part by Lion's Gate, IIRC. MovieLink is a partnership between several studios as well.

What about DRM

[inkhaton]

What kind of DRM do these sites have?? Are you ever going to be able to have access to your own movies or will your media be held hostage like by iTurds. The copy to DVD feature seems best because i would like to watch movies in my living room with actual people and not by myself in front of my computer screen in my underwear. Cause let's face it... if you have a >21in computer screen you have no friends anyway.

Re:What about DRM

[jrwr00]

I know with "CinemaNow" Renting feature, there is DRM

Windows services

[AnyThingButWindows]

Sorry, I hate to be the one to bring this up. But you mentioned "Windows ONLY" websites. The sites don't work with anything but that one OS, and the downloads are infected with DRM on top of that. Until any of the sites mentioned WORK, then I will not use them.

So I have to be the parrot and repeat what others have said so far. Pirate Bay, and Demonoid are my 2 movie download 'services'. They are the ones that allow you to practice your "FAIR USE" rights, and copy to media, CD, DVD, thumb drive, etc...

Re:Windows services

[Mr. Jax]

Do any of these services that support Linux actually exist? I would be very interested in that. Even my ISP provides this kind of service but requires IE and the windows media player.

Re:Windows services

[RoutedToNull]

How about you guys get video playback to work reliably first, then do it in a web browser, then we can talk about video on demand.

Re:Windows services

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I hate to be the one to bring this up. But you mentioned "Windows ONLY" websites. The sites don't work with anything but that one OS...

Give me a break. When you go to your Ford dealership, do you bitch to them because their spare bumper doesn't fit your VW? Either buy compatibility or start your own service. Be an entrepeneur and make some bucks.

...and the downloads are infected with DRM on top of that. Until any of the sites mentioned WORK, then I will not use them.

So then vote with your wallet and shop elsewhere.

They are the ones that allow you to practice your "FAIR USE" rights, and copy to media, CD, DVD, thumb drive, etc....

WTF? How on Earth can you call this "FAIR USE"? I assume you don't own the DVD, otherwise you could simply rip it without issue (which is fair use.) Renting to copy or downloading a copy when you don't own the DVD is certainly not fair use.

Re:Windows services

[DrXym]

Sorry, I hate to be the one to bring this up. But you mentioned "Windows ONLY" websites. The sites don't work with anything but that one OS, and the downloads are infected with DRM on top of that. Until any of the sites mentioned WORK, then I will not use them.

Which is a fair point if you want to own a movie, but not if you just want to rent one to watch. You have to implement some kind of DRM or the rental model simply can't work for downloadable content. While it would be nice to implement a cross-platform way to do this, I expect it is hard enough to do it for one platform let alone all of them. So instead I expect that most companies will target Windows for the time being, and if that succeeds they'll move onto the Mac, and possibly in the dim and distant future onto Linux. Probably someone like Real is the best candidate to do something for Linux, assuming there was an audience for the model.

As well as this I expect Sony & Microsoft will do something for their respective consoles. Personally I believe Sony is in an excellent position to deliver a downloadable movie system which is actually easy to use and trustworthy. But only for rentals unless you trust Sony to let you keep your movies forever. Which I don't.

Re:Windows services

[Duds]

You have very few fair use rights on a rental.

Also complaining that the service doesn't work on Linux is like me complaining it doesn't work on my Amiga or my toaster. It's not relevent. It might be something that stops you taking advantage of it but it doesn't make it "broken" and it certainly doesn't give you the right to pirate.

Which one meets my needs?

[TheRaven64]

Which one give me the following?

1. No DRM.
2. Available in the UK.
3. Fixed rate up to 30-per-month downloads.

I don't have the disk space or the inclination to archive every film I download - most I only want to watch anyway - but I do want the option to transcode it to something I can watch on a portable device of my choice for when I'm travelling. I can't do this with DRM, so it's simply not an acceptable option.

Until a company starts caring more about the service they provide to their paying customers than about the spectre of piracy, they won't have my business.

Re:Which one meets my needs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Spectre of piracy? So far the sites people are most happy with are all torrent sites. Let's face it, given the option most of us would download a free movie rather than pay for the same legit download DRM'd or not.

Now, I don't agree with DRM either, but sadly there is a need for it.

Re:Which one meets my needs?

[Znork]

I have to agree. If someone starts offering an emusic.com like service for video (ie, high quality, DRM free content) I'd subscribe in a heartbeat. But the current crop of crap?

It ain't the price that makes torrent sites a far more compelling offer.

Re:Which one meets my needs?

[elrous0]

There already *ARE* E-music like, no DRM services like that (YouTube, Google Video, etc.). And that's about as good as you're going to get without studio support. Quality movies aren't like quality music. Music produced on the cheap can sound just as good as studio-produced stuff, with enough talent. Not so with film. You can produce a song in your basement that can sound as good as a U2 song, with virtually no budget. You can't produce a film in your basement that's going to look as good as "Return of the King" on no budget.

No DRM means no studio support--which means all you would have to "sell" would be a lot of lame videocasts and crappy, out-of-focus videos of kids jumping off roofs.

-Eric

Re:Which one meets my needs?

[Znork]

"DRM means no studio support"

And DRM means no money, as the end users will get the non-DRM'ed versions elsewhere instead.

"You can't produce a film in your basement"

Well, true, you need a kitchen, a livingroom and five PC's (see Star Wreck) :). Seriously tho, it's on the verge of becoming debatable; the cost of high quality effects, bluescreen tech and quality recording and editing capacity is plummeting. And actors have never been particularly rare (see any local theatre or dozen).

That aside; if you instead compare with TV financing schemes, you get a vastly different equation. If $30 per month can finance a whole load of channels sending non-stop things I'm not watching anyway, why would paying $10 per month for a select number of shows be untenable?

Re:Which one meets my needs?

[DocSavage64109]

"If $30 per month can finance a whole load of channels sending non-stop things I'm not watching anyway, why would paying $10 per month for a select number of shows be untenable?"

That's what i've always wondered. Advertising must be driving up the cost of things by an enormous amount if it is subsidizing the cost of t.v. entertainment as much as the price of downloadable content would suggest.

Re:Which one meets my needs?

[Salsaman]

You can't produce a film in your basement.

http://lives.sourceforge.net/

Re:Which one meets my needs?

[TheRaven64]

Let's face it, given the option most of us would download a free movie rather than pay for the same legit download DRM'd or not. Given the choice between supporting the producers of media I consume and not doing so I will, all other things equal (and the price being reasonable) support the producers. Given convenience and inconvenience I will, all other things being equal (and the price begin reasonable), choose convenience. Currently, we have two options:

1. Free, not very convenient to acquire (have to hunt for the right thing, possible trojans, no guaranteed server bandwidth etc) but convenient to use (no DRM), and doesn't support the producers.
2. Relatively expensive, convenient to acquire (search, click on the one you want) but inconvenient to use (DRM) which does support the producers.

Since people use illicit P2P methods more than they use legal ones, it seems that the convenience of acquisition is not an issue. This leaves the question of whether people choose it because:

1. They want free stuff and don't care about supporting the producers.
2. They want DRM-free stuff.

Personally, I consider both options unacceptable, and I want DRM-free stuff that does support the producers. I won't put it on filesharing networks, but even if I did, it's probably there already, so what does the studio gain from preventing me from transcoding it and watching it on my 770, or on my FreeBSD machine?

Re:Which one meets my needs?

[imsabbel]

Because the 30$ a months are neglectable and merely pay for the infrastructure.
The real money comes from ads, ads and ads.
Which people wont watch if they cherrypick their downloads.

Re:Which one meets my needs?

[Threni]

Perhaps the OP should have put "you can't produce a film which doesn't look like it was produced in your basement in your basement".

Re:Which one meets my needs?

[Salsaman]

I have done. Actually it was my living room/kitchen.

Re:Which one meets my needs?

[elrous0]

What I actually said was "You can't produce a film in your basement that's going to look as good as 'Return of the King' on no budget."

Yes, a lot of people have done a lot with a little. But I have yet to see a fan film that even APPROACHED the quality of a studio film. The closest I've seen was probably "Star Wars: Broken Allegiance." And that was produced on a $10,000+ budget with professional actors and crew-members donating their time (not exactly a "basement" production). And even it looks shoddy in places.

There is just a world of difference between producing a professional-quality song and producing a professional-quality movie.

-Eric

Which one of them is viewable in Linux/BSD/MacOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer is none of the above, all use Micro$hit Media so screw them all.

TorrentSpy

[dekkerdreyer]

I've been fairly pleased with the movies I downloaded from TorrentSpy. Good quality, fast download times, decent DRM. Even high definition movies!

Re:TorrentSpy

[smadasam]

Although using torrents to download movies is not always legal, I would have to agree. This is especially true about the quality if you are downloading DVD ISOs. There are a lot of other torrent sites that specialize in movies.

Re:TorrentSpy

[s31523]

Isn't "decent drm" an oxymoron? ;)

Re:TorrentSpy

[Anonymous Coward]

No DRM is good DRM. Or decent. Or whatever.

Amazon Unbox

[Danathar]

They Rated Amazon Unbox as high, but OBVIOUSLY they had not tried to uninstall the software. As they would of found out, Amazon's idea of "uninstall" is different from what most people think as they leave services installed and RUNNING on your system.

Re:Amazon Unbox

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh, wasn't this fixed with the second version of their software, which they released about three weeks after their initial launch (i.e., about 3 months ago)?

Re:Amazon Unbox

[Danathar]

NO

Re:Amazon Unbox

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to add to this...

Their draconian license agreement is truely appalling. Read it and you will be surprised how much of your rights you give over to Amazon buy signing up with Unbox. In regards specifically to the parent poster's comment, they have the right to make all the movies you purchased from them (for near retail price of a dvd) go bye bye or cease to play if you uninstall their software. They have the right to keep your movies from playing even if you refuse to download an update to their software.

Frankly, it's one of the worst license agreements I've ever seen. Amazon should be ashamed.

How about none?

[Salvance]

"Which Movie Download Site Is Best?"

I think the real question is "Which movie download site sucks less". Really, none of them seem very good. When I want to watch a movie, I don't want to wait 12 hours for it to download and then watch it on my computer screen. And the burnable movies quality are awful, even compared to a standard DVD, let alone HD on-demand via cable.

I still think we're years away from a large percentage of the population downloading their movies. Before any of these options become viable, average download speeds need to hit 50-100Mbps and computers (or TB capacity video iPods/game consoles) need to become part of the family room, not the office.

Re:How about none?

[Sancho]

I dunno. It seems likely that bandwidth (or rather, throughput) and movie size will probably grow at similar rates, if at dissimilar increments. By the time we have 50mbps to the home, digital media might have grown even larger in size. Of course, this probably depends quite a bit on how the next-gen-DVD wars play out.

Re:How about none?

[TheRaven64]

Both the next generation formats have a maximum data rate of 30Mb/s from the disk to stay within spec. If downloadable movies hit this bitrate then they will be HD-DVD/BD quality. Also, downloadable video can easily switch to a better CODEC, which HD-DVD/BD can't. In the UK, home Internet connections are currently at about 8Mb/s and doubling roughly every 18 months. In two years, they should be fast enough to stream HD content, while I doubt either HD-DVD or BD will have anything like the installed base of broadband users. Expect Internet delivery of HD content to increase.

Re:How about none?

[Threni]

> When I want to watch a movie, I don't want to wait 12 hours for it to download and then watch it on
> my computer screen.

I do. My laptop is 14inch or something, and it's currently on my lap and the picture appears about 4 times as big as the 24inch tv across the room from me. It's 1024x768 which is nothing special but, again, a better resolution than my non-hd tv. 12 hours isn't very much - it means I can choose a film tonight and watch it tomorrow now. Or choose one before work tomorrow morning and watch it in the evening.

> And the burnable movies quality are awful, even compared to a standard DVD, let
> alone HD on-demand via cable.

12 hours is enough to download a 4gig dvd image if it's seeded efficiently. That's more than enough quality for me.

Re:How about none?

[Threni]

> By the time we have 50mbps to the home, digital media might have grown even larger in size

Perhaps, but a movie will still fit on a single cd at reasonable quality, or on a dvd at much higher quality, forever.

Young whippersnappers!!!

[caffeinatedOnline]

Bittorent... blah. Usenet is the only way to go. Been around longer then the world wide web, and most ISP's have a news server, so your download speeds are usually as fast as what the ISP supports. alt.binaries.multimedia FTW

Re:Young whippersnappers!!!

[CastrTroy]

My ISP cut off it's newsgroup server, saying there wasn't enough people using it. Do you know of any public newsgroup servers that offer good speeds?

Re:Young whippersnappers!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The first rule of Usenet is that you never mention Usenet.

Re:Young whippersnappers!!!

[caffeinatedOnline]

When I don't have access to a public news server, I use Easynews.com. There is a nominal charge to use it, (I think $10 a month for 20 gig through HTTP, 40 gig through NNTP), but the nice thing about the HTTP is they combine binaries on their servers, so you can download completed files vs downloading 1000 binaries and combining them yourself. They are based out of Phoenix, AZ, and max my cable bandwidth on downloading.

I have used Newsparrot to find public open servers before, seems to work well.

Re:Young whippersnappers!!!

[jZnat]

Easynews is superb, but they cost money. You will max out your connection while downloading from them; it's great! (I don't work for them or anyone for that matter right now)

Re:Young whippersnappers!!!

[Lxy]

Last I checked, most local ISPs choose not to mirror alt.binaries on their local boxes. Between the space requirements and the legal issues, it works out a lot better that way for them.

Re:Young whippersnappers!!!

[j235]

Easynews really is excellent, I wish more servers allowed ssl encrypted connections. Personally, I've switched to Giganews. 90 day retention is so awesome it's almost overwhelming (even though you pay a little more.)

Re:Young whippersnappers!!!

[dpilot]

While I'm not the elderly one you were asking, especially not infinitely wise, I am sufficiently elderly and wise to know about Usenet, and use it appropriately. I use "knews" and sometimes Thunderbird's news facilities. On my home system I bridge mailing list into local newsgroups on leafnode2.

Re:Young whippersnappers!!!

[bogie]

My God what is wrong with you? Pipe down already.

My fav

[NineNine]

My favorite isn't on the list. I like torrentspy.com

Xbox Live

[elrous0]

While I understand that this article was talking about SITES, I would like to mention the new Xbox Live service as well. True high definition movies, TV shows, reasonable prices, and they play on your TV (no sitting in front of a computer screen or trying to reencode them for DVD).

The only big downsides are:

• The 360's small hard drive--Come one MS, what's with the increasingly bizarre delay on what should be a simple matter--releasing a REAL hard drive (120 GB+)? You promised it over a year ago. Just how hard is it?
• Movies are rental-only probably related to the small hard drive, anyway.

-Eric

Re:Xbox Live

[Erwos]

The only problem is that it requires a $400 investment to get going, whereas these other services run on your PC. I'm guessing that it's more of a subset of PC owners who have a 360, rather than the reverse.

I've heard a lot of good stuff about it, though - the launch week issues have cleared up nicely, and the selection is getting better constantly. It also "just works", which isn't something to be ignored, either.

Re:Xbox Live

[RaboKrabekian]

While I understand that this article was talking about SITES, I would like to mention the new Xbox Live service as well. True high definition movies, TV shows, reasonable prices, and they play on your TV (no sitting in front of a computer screen or trying to reencode them for DVD).

The only big downsides are:

The 360's small hard drive--Come one MS, what's with the increasingly bizarre delay on what should be a simple matter--releasing a REAL hard drive (120 GB+)? You promised it over a year ago. Just how hard is it?
Movies are rental-only probably related to the small hard drive, anyway.

Some other factors to keep in mind:

- TV shows are not rental only. You can watch them as many times as you like with no expiration and if you delete them you can re-download them. I assume they're linked to your gamertag.

- The quality of the HD movies is just ok. This isn't a replacement for an HD-DVD or bluray player, or even a good cable/satellite/fttptv signal if you really want a high quality HD picture. These are super compressed movies, and you can really see noise on a good HD display like a front projector. Still, they're inexpensive and convenient, and it's nice to have the option.

It's a nice service to have, especially sicne I wasn't expecting it when I bought the 360.

Re:Xbox Live

[RAMMS EIN]

``Come one MS, what's with the increasingly bizarre delay on what should be a simple matter--releasing a REAL hard drive (120 GB+)? You promised it over a year ago. Just how hard is it?''

Well, pardon me if I sound a bit harsh, but how hard is it for you to understand that when MS says they will do something that doesn't mean they will actually do it? This wouldn't be the first time they announced features that bring there offerings on par with or ahead of the competition, got people to buy their products, and then canceled (sometimes silently) the announced features. Honestly, anybody giving MS their money risks this happening to them.

Best movie download site for HD content

[Anonymous Coward]

The best movie download site for High Definition content (720p, 1080i, 1080p) is easily http://www.hdbits.org/

The downloads are not always super-fast, but watching HD movies on the computer screen is worth it! :)

Re:Best movie download site for HD content

[PenGun]

I'll need an invite it seems ....

none (but unbox comes in second to 'none')

[gEvil (beta)]

I dabbled with all of these services a few months ago, generally downloading two or three movies from each. Unbox was the most straightforward with consistently good video quality. CinemaNow had the problem of not indicating whether a movie was widescreen or fullframe, so a couple of movies I downloaded from them ended up being fullframe with no option for a widescreen version. Movielink was in the middle--decent selection, fairly straightforward, but with so-so video quality in a few places. IIRC, most of the movies came with a stereo audio mix. Overall, I was left with a 'meh' feeling about it all. However, if I had to use one, it would probably be Amazon Unbox. And oh yeah, FairUse4WM worked on all of them. ; )

Re:none (but unbox comes in second to 'none')

[gEvil (beta)]

Oh, I should mention that this was all done using Windows MCE running on a 32" HDTV (not that any of this stuff was HD). MovieLink and CinemaNow both have MCE plugins for them, so you can browse and rent using the 10' interface. Even with those slight pluses, I still lean a bit towards the Amazon service (even though it does require an additional program to be installed).

Torrents

[shirizaki]

Sadly, the illegal path provides the best way to QUALITY movie downloads. Encoded in xviD and around 700 Mb per movie. Sometimes sites will have a hanheld category with the same movies optimized for portable video players like the PSP and the ipod. Then there's torrents of either full DVD isos or re-encoded video with extras. Sadly, when these video services started their first plan was to create a DRM system that was "maybe possibly sometimes not able to be broken". they shot themselves int eh foot from the start. I think in the early days CinemaNow had player compatability problems: http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/06/cinemanow-claim s-94-of-download-to-burn-dvds-work/ If you're going to offer movies offer content, not some haphazard way to hinder my purchase. there will always be the perosn who gets it for free, no matter what. Hindering legal online purchases leads people to get the stuff for free. I don't think Mr. Johnson, with his 4 kids, plans on selling a movie he purchased over the internet to Mr. Willowby across the street and not let the MPAA in on theri greedy share. Chances are Mr. Willowby will buy a different movie and *gasp* they'll share the movies, which has been going on since the invention of VHS. In short, torrents are the best way to get DVD quality movies from the tubes to your....tube. Anythign else is a system built on maybes and is slaved by people makig hand over fist. If you feel really bad buy the DVD later or send the studio itself a check for $15.

Re:Torrents

[Aladrin]

You haven't met Mr. Willoby, then. He's a leech. He never gives back, and he never buys anything that he can download. Sure, he shares with his neighbor, but only so he can borrow his neighbor's DVD and copy it, then use the copy to trade content with others.

It used to be that Mr. Willoby was a rare person, and hard to find. He was quite popular and outgoing. Now, there's so many of him that every small community has at least 1. It's too easy to get the stuff online now. You can even get it online quicker and easier than going to the store, and have all the quality and often the unwanted content such as commercials and previews are already edited out.

Content produces need to start thinking about what people want again, instead of how to make money off people.

I finally subscribed to cable. Why? Because that ugly little box under my TV will download High Def episodes of my favorite shows when they are aired. I do not have to wait for someone to post it. I do not have to settle for crappy resolution or some idiot's coax-rip of a video that's missing the end. Cable now provides what I want, faster than I can 'steal' it. It's a little on the expensive side, but I'm willing to pay to have what I want.

DVD and Music need to get on track with this. (I guess they've already tried with on-demand movies, really. Still too expensive for me, and I can't take it to my Mom's house.)

Maybe if I scream they'll hear me: GIVE ME WHAT I WANT AND I'LL PAY YOU FOR IT.

-sigh-

Re:Torrents

[SQLGuru]

What I always find funny about this argument are that the main people that complain about DRM are also the main ones that are essentially stealing the digital content that DRM is supposed to protect from (albeit doing a poor job in the process).

Mr. Johnson and his 4 kids could care less about DRM because if he *IS* using an online service to get movies, he either accepts that he can't burn it to DVD and just watches it once or he uses CinemaNow and pays to burn it. When he shares with Mr. Willowby, it is by inviting him over for popcorm or by passing a DVD across the street.

But I really don't see why there is such a complaint about DRM. There are many programs available that remove it if you don't want to be so hassled. And worst case, you just get a program like Audigy and re-record the song as it plays over your speakers....slightly manual, but a solution none-the-less (I'm sure there is a similar technique for video).

Layne

Re:Torrents

[AK Marc]

But I really don't see why there is such a complaint about DRM.

It only punishes those that can get around it, so it is counter-productive. Most people would never notice DRM or lack thereof. They want to use it once then delete it, never sharing it. DRM is a useless cost, added inconvenience, and drives those with portables and such into just breaking it (or getting it illegally from someone else that broke it). DRM exists solely to hurt the consumer, removing their Fair Use rights and restrict their ability to use the content they bought. I have seen nothing that indicates that DRM is a net benefit to the content producers, so I'm left looking at it thinking that it has many negative attributes, but not a single positive one. That's why I complain about it.

It would be like selling every car with a yellow boot on the spare. To make sure that you aren't changing the tire without following the directions of the manual (they do get sued when cars fall on people), you have to call the manufacturer whenever you change your tire. Of course, that isn't that hard, since people should have cell phones, but what about those without cell phones or that change their tires in the dessert? The yellow boot would be something that was good for the manufacturer only and harmed the consumer, even though it was apparently reasonable and protected the manufacturers interests. Would you like a yellow boot on every spare sold in the US?

Re:Torrents

[shark72]

"What I always find funny about this argument are that the main people that complain about DRM are also the main ones that are essentially stealing the digital content that DRM is supposed to protect from (albeit doing a poor job in the process)."

Well put. If I were with the MPAA and read all these messages that state (in effect) "I pirate because I don't like the DRM," this wouldn't be a huge motivation for me to drop the DRM.

You see, saying "I pirate because I'm cheap" makes you look... well, just cheap. "I pirate because I don't like DRM" makes you a savvy freedom fighter on the forefront of digital rights. In the 1950s, these were the people who stated that they read Playboy for the articles.

When the day comes that there's ample content available DRM-free, many pirates will simply find another rationalization for not paying for it... then they'll take the official, authorized, studio-released DRM-free movies and put them in their share directory.

Movie download sites and the long tail

[hcdejong]

This sort of service would be ideal for all those movies that aren't in the 'recent blockbuster' category. Video rental places usually have a really limited selection, and you can't buy that many DVDs either.
And then there are all those indie movies that don't get a distribution deal with one of the Big Few, so they're doomed to obscurity. They may never show up in theatres or on DVD. All that's needed is a download site run by someone with more vision than the MPAA.

Foreign genre??!

[MaGogue]

From TFA:

and there isn't even a Foreign genre choice for "Buy" or "Burn to DVD" WTF? Can you really stuff Bollywood romances, dr. Who, HonKong Kung-Fu, Al Modovar and Monty Python's Flying circus into a 'Foreign' genre?

What's next, the 'Digital' genre??!!

Re:Foreign genre??!

[Idbar]

You know, it was a bit sad finding for example Netflix doing this categorization? Drama (american drama), Comedy (american comedy), horror (american horror), etc... and Foreign.

That should take them lots of points! When you are looking for a good horror movie you expect to find it in the Horror section. You shouldn't have to browse all the foreign movies to see what they have there, read their tag-lines and hope for the best.

!Nothing to see here!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing to see here, please move along.

No one uses Usenet, Usenet sucks, Usenet offers nothing. In fact, Usenet does not even exist, it is a fictitious extension to UUCP that never made it out of the lab.

You Young whippersnappers!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah I remember the good old days when people used Usenet for what it was meant for, actual text messages for others to read and reply to. Then you kids came along and couldn't tell the difference between ftp and nntp and fucked up Usenet good. Usenet is not and was never meant to be file transfer network so stop using it as one! Doing so is at least as perverse as using excel as a database.

quality heh

[Anonymous Coward]

'Sadly, the illegal path provides the best way to QUALITY movie downloads. Encoded in xviD and around 700 Mb per movie.'
quality xvid and 700mb a movie, nah really and you are tagged insightful just because xvid is open source I bet....
you are the kind that drool over a 192kbps Ogg
gimme high def TS mpeg2 in newsgroup with at least 15Mops bitrate, and sacd, dvda or hidef cd....

open source and cheap bastard seems the norm here heh....(700Mo to burn on a cd just means either your too cheap for a dvd burner, and too cheap to pay for a good broadband connection....)

Re:quality heh

[TheRaven64]

Why would you pick MPEG-2 over MPEG-4 (of which XviD is an implementation), since the quality is lower at the same bit-rate. Actually, these days, why would you pick either over H.264 (a.k.a. MPEG-4 AVC).

Re:quality heh

[PenGun]

No clue eh'. The 700M DVD rip is the sweet spot for an SD DVD ripe. Almost indistinguishable from the DVD done right.
  Now the sweet spot is around 4G for HDTV rips and HDTV .ts satellite HD 1080 material. A little less for 720p where the bulk of HD and my favorite, BBC documentrys, (nature porn) are.

Public Domain torrents

[Rob T Firefly]

Without re-echoing all the above "lol bittorrent" posts, I'd like to plug Public Domain Torrents. It's got all the benefits of free and easy torrenting, with the added bonus that it's completely legal stuff that not even the **AA have any power over. There are already iPod/PSP/whatever conversions for everything as well.

Re:Public Domain torrents

[d_54321]

Also Google Video has a lot of public domain movies available for download:
1; 2

All I need to know

[novus ordo]

Player/manager software to download     Yes     Yes, ActiveX Control     RealPlayer     Yes     Yes

What?

[Overzeetop]

Nobody uses Usenet anymore?

Screen. Like. Buy DVD when it comes out.

Screen. Don't like. Download something else.

Heck, I even pay a monthly fee for my access - it makes it realatively easy to search, easy to download, and I get music as a bonus.

Oh, sure it would be nice if it were legal. Bonus points for easier serachability and a reliable back catalog. But for now, I'm happy with it.

Re:What?

[agent420]

The irony is these kids think they are sooo 1337, yet they have no clue what's really going on. Personally, I like it that way ;-)

Re:What?

[pandrijeczko]

Only we old folks use Usenet these days - after all, we have fewer days ahead of us than these young "l337" whippersnappers and can't hang about while BitTorrent downloads a 1GB movie file at 2bytes/week...

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

I few young people know what is going on. I like the fact that usenet is free of most of the fools. Bit torrent could learn from Usenet. If torrents used xml like nzb files or used a par file or two it might be faster. Anyway I do exactly what you do as far as screening content before I buy and I do buy. I like DVDs I want their shiny packages, but I don't want to get shafted by spending too much on something I don't end up not caring for.

If the movie companies are listening, I know it is a risk for you to screen content On-line. It will force you to make better content and when a movie bombs it will not even come close to paying the bills. But the way I see it you will have no choice. People will continue to download "illegal" content. Piracy will grow too. Stop trying to cover your ass, and give us your content so we can give you our money. I am sick of playing your corporate games. This isn't a legal battle, it is a battle for your survival. Respect your viewers, give them what they want and they wont forget where it came from.

thats because its spyware

[Anonymous Coward]

Phones home frequently
http://reviews.cnet.com/4531-10921_7-6636289.html? subj=blog&part=rss&tag=6636289
http://slashdot.org/articles/06/09/09/1844200.shtm l

and the EULA is even worse
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=196163&cid=160 72472

fsku em all

Amazon? Hell no

[Electric Eye]

Sorry. Amazon is "Windows only" and uses the strict and incompatible Windows "Pay for Sure" DRM technology. No thanks. I'll head to the iTunes store or Torrent sites instead.

USA + Windows only services?

[Yvan256]

Do any of these services work on OS X and are available to Canadians?

I'm getting tired of companies that think "world = USA + Windows".

Re:USA + Windows only services?

[distilledprodigy]

Then quit reading blogs based out of the United States that report on stuff that has relevance in the United States. I'm tired of people complaining that news doesn't relate to them when they live somewhere other than where the source is located.

Re:USA + Windows only services?

[Yvan256]

Last time I checked, the internet was for the whole planet. Last time I checked, nerds were not all americans. And last time I checked, stuff that matters happened everywhere.

Besides, this is Slashdot.ORG not Slashdot.US

If you don't want the outside world to bother you, then follow China and close your part of the internet to outsiders. IMHO that's the kind of thing Dubya would like very much.

Re:USA + Windows only services?

[Yvan256]

Also, I wasn't commenting about Slashdot itself, I was commenting about the media companies that can't get their act together and start releasing/licensing their stuff everywhere at once (instead of USA first, Canada two months later, Europe one year later, etc).

I meant "Play for Sure"

[Electric Eye]

Sorry for the typo.

Beware of MovieFlix - They SPAM

[woolio]

I used their services for a while... Okay selection.

But what gets me is their SPAM practices...

Go and enter your email address in their "unsubscribe" portion on their website (without first subscribing).... You will start getting emails every month saying "we want you back", etc etc...

I filed two BBB complaints in the state of California... But it was only a waste of time.

Apple's iTV

[goombah99]

The so-called iTV according to one rumor site will have the following features:

1) you can download movies in high res
2) watch them on the TV
3) Burn them to DVD one time
4) You can keep the digital copy on your hard drive as long as you want, but it will only play on that machine (or iTV)

plus you can play a normal DVD you rented on your mac and your iTV will tivo it for viewing later after you return the disk. You cannot reburn these or move them to another machine but you can view them later on that machine.

that seems pretty fair. it basically gives you all the capability and ownership rights you have now with physical media but it does not aid in piracy. If so once again apple will get it right.

Re:Apple's iTV

[kimvette]

Ah, but TPB already offers the following features:

1) you can download movies in high res or low res - your choice!
2) watch them on the TV (Burn to disc and play in your Divx/Xvid-compliant player, now $50)
3) Burn them to DVD as many times as you like
4) You can keep the digital copy on your hard drive as long as you want, and it will play on any machine regardless of platform, using open-source codecs and players

In order to compete, legitimate download services (not that TBB is totally illegitimate, I mean, there is public domain and open source material linked from there) need to offer that feature set.

Re:Apple's iTV

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically the iTV is a glorified HDMI cable with software restrictions. $299 sounds a bit pricey, don't you think? Can it do anything you can't already do with the computer?

Re:Apple's iTV

[livingdeadline]

Burn to dvd once? What the hell? It's anything but *fair*. It's fucking outrageous and ridiculous. It's useless.

Re:Apple's iTV

[goombah99]

How many DVD's do you get when you buy one DVD in the store? one. Why should they let you burn more than one?

Re:Apple's iTV

[livingdeadline]

There is a big difference between the quality and durability of factory pressed and burned optical media. I have cds that were manufactured in the 80's and early 90's that work just fine, while some (not all, though) of the cds i burned during the early 00's are already getting unreliable. pressed DVDs from the 90s work just fine, but what about those burned with some crappy laptop drive a couple of years ago? Should the normal consumer figure out how to (propably illegally) copy some CSS- and Macrovision and region code infected one and only legal dvd-video on dvd-r copy before it gets unreliable?

And besides, buying files that a
A) contain non-standard obfuscated data in some proprietary format that only hardware players of specific brands that have licenses for the format in question can play
B) require you to authenticate to some online service that will go down when the store you bought it from does the belly up thing
C) are only playable with some crappy, privacy invading non-free, outrageously incompatible piece of software

is obviously out of the question. I don't want to pay for neither music music or video that doesn't play on any setup i want it to. Today, illegal file sharing are the only *online* options for those who want anything that doesn't blatantly offend what all consumers should demand.

Re:Apple's iTV

[goombah99]

true the quality is less. But you paid less too, and had a wider range of title in print to choose from. If you want high quality and can tolerate a longer wait you are free to pay more to get the higher quality one shipped to you assuming you can find a seller where it is in print. It's not a rip-off any more than fast food is a rip off compared to a home cooked meal. You sometimes eat fat food right? Well you only got one burger not a whole pound for your $3.00 and you only got to burn it once.

Re:Apple's iTV

[mcdermd]

Okay, burn to DVD once from the original downloaded version but then I'm sure that you can re-rip and/or copy the burned disc as many times as you want. That would be the same as they do with albums and songs with the exception that you can burn audio discs from a single playlist seven times.

Re:Apple's iTV

[livingdeadline]

This leads us into a universe of interesting arguments. what rights will you want to give up? History has on many occasions proven that giving up any rights whatsoever that have become obvious could turn out to be an amazingly idiotic thing to do. This applies to everything from civic liberties such as labor unions to consumer rights to geopolitical affairs.

What if this form of restrictions-infected, horrible, crippled online content becomes really successful? The possibility to buy non-infected not self destructive physical media that you can use with non-bloated Free Software or "non-approved" hardware players might become very rare at some point. What if your entire music or movie collection is rendered useless as a consequence of some stock market catastrophe? Or what about outages in your internet access? If that same stock market crash causes you loose your job or if you have to pay huge medical bills and can't afford broadband, will you enjoy not being able to listen music or watch movies you've actually paid for over the years? And what if some items in your music collection will be considered unethical, indecent or not politically correct after the next war, terror attack or political scandal? I don't see the possibility that the pigfuckers who control big media would decide to retroactively end the availability of certain content you've downloaded especially from these eat-as-much-as-you-want services as very remote. These examples don't even sound that extreme, right? Needless to say, corporate control over the access to media and hideous closed standards could also have negative effects on future historians' access to today's popular culture

In a nutshell, does it really seem fair to give away all your rights to get material that becomes increasingly cheap to distribute for the rights owners?

Re:Apple's iTV

[goombah99]

it's rent versus own. rent is cheaper--less rights--but maybe all you actuall want at the time. But as I understood it the apple DVD you write was only CSS protected like any DVD. The digital hard disk format had some other protection (fairplay?) to make piracy difficult. Seems like the perfect blend to me.

Re:Apple's iTV

[livingdeadline]

Breaking "only" CSS has been trivial for a long time, but it's also increasingly illegal as more and more countries adopt DMCA anti free speech lookalikes under pressure from entertainment industries (and if you happened to miss it, the entertainment industry gladly tried to ruin a young talented programmer's life even in a country where there was no DMCA look alike prohibiting dvd decryption at the time). And you fully ignore that all DRM formats inherently are as usable as a Spanish galleon on wheels when it comes to portability, freedom (nudge nudge, wink wink), usability and simply every consumer's (excluding you, seemingly) wish to avoid Pottersville patterns, as in not be tied to certain, often inferior proprietary hardware and software without being referred to as these pie-rat persons you continue to make noise about.

Have a pleasant evening wherever you are and please enjoy your AIDS

Re:Apple's iTV

[livingdeadline]

Since when do you want to transcode data beween lossy compression formats? You will end up with worse when you rerip, let's say a song you bought on iTunes from your "backup" on an audio cd created from the iTunes-fucked-up aac file to mp3, to actually be able to play the file on something as ironic as your expensive hi-fi set in your living room through your dvd player.

Re:Apple's iTV

[CryoPenguin]

Who said anything about transcoding? Just copy the dvd, bit for bit. The GP's point is that you don't need the permission of the media store program to burn multiple copies: if you can burn one copy, then any generic cd/dvd duplicator can do the rest.

Re:Apple's iTV

[livingdeadline]

Unless you buy download your purchase as a dvd video (containing a specified structure of mpeg2 video and ac3, dts, pcm or mpeg audio) iso image, which you most certainly won't be able to do using any of these god-awful services, you will have to transcode it to dvd-video from whatever mpeg-4 like/windos media format you bought it in. Yeehaw! Your "backup" copy that the media companies so generously allow you to make, is inferior.

this one:

[Anonymous Coward]

www.videobox.com http://www.videobox.com/

Hidden download costs

[brunes69]

My cable ISP still caps my download at 100 GB a month. So, if I download a 1 GB+ movie, theres an extra $0.50+ cost to me on top of that film download.

Re:Hidden download costs

[babyrat]

My gas station still charges me PER GALLON of gasoline, so when I go to rent a movie it costs me an additional amount to pay for the gas to get there.

Re:Hidden download costs

[SeaFox]

My cable ISP still caps my download at 100 GB a month. So, if I download a 1 GB+ movie, theres an extra $0.50+ cost to me on top of that film download.

Wait, why do you have to pay and extra 50 if you have a 100GB bandwidth cap? Wouldn't that only apply if you're already used up all the 100GB you were alloted?

What about iTunes?

[Blakey Rat]

I downloaded The Life Aquatic from it, and the quality is good, the transfer to the iPod is entirely automatic and easy (as you'd expect) and the price wasn't too bad. Is there some reason iTunes isn't on the list?

Re:What about iTunes?

[pabster]

Yeah, iTunes isn't on the list because /. isn't full of Apple fanboys like Digg. :o)

I agree with you, though. iTunes Movie Store is real nice. I've downloaded a couple titles and while I wish they'd drop the price a few bucks, and perhaps increase the quality a bit, overall ... it is a good experience for the end user.

These other jokers ... Movielink, et al, I can't believe anyone actually uses those DRM-infested excuses for movies.

Re:What about iTunes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, iTunes isn't on the list because /. isn't full of Apple fanboys like Digg. :o)

You're new here, aren't you?

Video store is still faster

[davidwr]

For those of us with a video store on every corner, brick-and-mortar is still a faster download, and you get factory-DVD-quality.

There's still that nasty DRM but workarounds are available.

Selection is limited, older and specialty titles may not be immediately available.

Re:Video store is still faster

[Anonymous Coward]

DVDs don't have DRM.

BitTorrent - The Pirate Bay

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the best is BitTorrent with site like The Pirate Bay.
DC++ is good too.

Noway in hell I would pay money and get some DRM-crippled shit.

Online v. DVD rental

[sowhattf]

While there are problems facing these download services, I am willing to give them a try. At least one-third of the DVDs I have rented from Netflix have skipped and stopped during playback because of scratches, etc. The problem doubles to nearly two-thirds with HD-DVDs (which seem to stop altogether much more often for minor blemishes on the disc). If the downloads are verified before playback with a hash check or something and the movie actually runs through to the end, sounds like a step forward to me if the quality of the original DVD can be preserved. I am fortunate to have FTTH, so I am looking for some advantage to having the bandwidth. I'll be happy not to have my move interrupted several times so that I can Windex the disk to get it going again!

Re:Online v. DVD rental

[Anonymous Coward]

It's very rare for me to find disks from Netflix that are so badly scractched up that my dvd player can't handle them. I haven't kepts records but it happens to me maybe once out of 30 disks. My suggestion would be to get a better DVD player. I have a Denon that wasn't cheap but it can handle almost anything (an plays SACD and DVD Audio :)). Of course, they have no HD-DVD players so you're out of luck there (and there may be issues with that technology that make it much harder anyway).

Remember the first rule, jerk!

[tacokill]

The first rule of usenet is you do not talk about usenet.
The second rule of usenet is - see the first rule.

Now, be quiet and go have a glass of shut the hell up!


(p.s. I kid, I kid...)

Re:Remember the first rule, jerk!

[caffeinatedOnline]

The funny thing about Usenet is that most of the people that don't already know about it (ie anyone in their 20's) don't have the understanding of how it works or the patience. "You mean I have to download all these attachments from these messages, and then somehow decode them, then combine them as well? Heck, I am just going to fire up my torrent program and hope that the file I want is out there."

Forget about the community that has evolved from Usenet, the history, etc. It is the age of instant gratification. Nevermind that the world wide web as we know it was launched by a post on the Usenet, the Mosaic browser and the introduction of the image tag as well. If you can't click a link and get a file, well, it's too much work ;)

Re:Remember the first rule, jerk!

[Anonymous Coward]

Usenet is great and I used to use it all the time and I'm in my 20's. In fact, I could be considered part of the "Napster Generation", as I was a freshman in college when Napster was first released. That said, I especially remember using usenet to hunt down pr0n back before pr0n became so much easier to get on the internet (IE, before P2P services became the rage). That said, I have been plagued by ISPs that like to shut down their NNTP servers. My university did it back in 2000 or 2001. My ISP at home did the same during the summer of 2001 when I was home. Years later I had yet another ISP that didn't even offer an NNTP server. I haven't checked my new ISP yet, but I fear that it may be more of the same. It seems to me that Usenet may be going the way of the Gopher...

Re:Remember the first rule, jerk!

[Anonymous Coward]

giganews.com is where it is at..

$25/mo unlimited and i get a solid 8MBit connect to them (would probably be faster but that is the max for my cable modem).

You may mod me down...

[Anonymous Coward]

But when a site goes down next month, remember that I warned you!

Re:You may mod me down...

[jac89]

Like its so hard to go to google and type in torrents.

this is a simple problem

[tacokill]

The problem with these, and all sites of their kind is simple.

They want us to pay more for "online content" and from what I can tell, that's the only feature above and beyond what you would get with a DVD or rental. Its "online" so they want me to believe it should sell for a premium compared to its offline equivalent. $6 for a movie (or so) AND you have to wait until tommorrow to watch it (because of bandwidth). And I am not even going to get into the DRM issues or the quality of the videos.

If they were really serious about this, they would offer online content at a discount. Doing this would increase adoption and might just make it a real business. As it stands now, only "testers" are playing in this market and with prices that high, for such a low quality product, its no wonder these sites are flops.

There is no online movie market because there is no "value" for the customer. In other words, the alternatives (offline, pirate sites, etc) are MUCH better offerings and people have clearly shown they will pay THAT cost because they are getting good value for their money. Not so with the online movie sites. They are, quite simply, a rip-off.

Torrents are Real

[PopeRatzo]

Those of you who are viewing the comments that say sites like The Pirate Bay are the best sources for downloaded movies as a joke are missing a very important point: They really ARE the best way to get movies downloaded. I've tried a few of the mainstream ("Legal") methods of getting movies downloaded and none of them could compete with the best torrent tracker sites. I refuse to list the names of those sites here because the people who run those sites prefer a lower profile ("The first rule of Torrent Club is Don't Talk About Torrent Club").

When a law is widely ignored to the point where a huge portion of the community is in violation, it's time to examine that law, and the sooner a fresh look at Intellectual Property is taken, the better off we will be as a society. There's no getting around the fact that the model upon which the entertainment/art industry is based is simply faulty and does absolutely nothing to help either the artist/innovators or the consumers. It only benefits a small number of people who have stacked the deck in their own favor at the expense of everyone else.

Those of you who puff out your chests and call people who download movies or music "Criminals" are also not adding anything to the discussion. Yes, I've personally experienced having my own work copied and losing revenue because of it. No it did not me want to stop having new ideas and being creative.

As far as I can tell, the worst thing that happens when the Intellectual Property House of Cards come crashing down is that fewer movies will be made that cost over 100 million dollars. That's OK with me. My top 10 movies from the past year were all in the low-budget category (and the list includes some excellent science fiction, by the way, so those of you who fear there won't be any more sci-fi films if the mega-studios go under are worrying for nothing).

Innovators will continue to innovate. Artists will still be creative. Both will figure out how to make a living and have their work widely available (they're already doing so). The vampires who sit at the top of the entertainment industry pyramid may have to go out and find real jobs, but life will go on.

Re:Torrents are Real

[rubypossum]

Those of you who puff out your chests and call people who download movies or music "Criminals" are also not adding anything to the discussion. Yes, I've personally experienced having my own work copied and losing revenue because of it. No it did not me want to stop having new ideas and being creative.

I think there's some truth to what you say. I suppose it's true that artists will always produce art. But I might wonder if they'll be able to make a living from their art. It's true that the media companies make large profits off the work of their artists. But the artists who don't work for them are even poorer than those who do.

I think it's just possible there's something beyond all this. Some idea which needs to be acknowledged. Why should we decide whether a man can sell his ideas for money? That's where this whole thing leads. Whether or not the producer controls the distribution of his product.

You seem to be very angry that the producer can charge for it. You even use lots of loaded words like 'vampire' to describe the collectors. But I don't understand why. Why shouldn't a man be able to charge whatever he can get for his work? Why should we get it for free? It's his work, not yours or mine. He has a right to charge whatever he wishes.

If we were to take his work we would be the vampires. And the thing that we would hunt is the pure artist. The artist who produces even though he isn't paid.

Re:Torrents are Real

[hitchhacker]

But I might wonder if they'll be able to make a living from their art.

It's actually really simple: People will pay artists to create.
Just like people pay me to program.

Information that hasn't been created yet still has instrinsic value.
That value is something the artists can charge money for.

-metric

Re:Torrents are Real

[PopeRatzo]

I have no problem with the people who produce art or innovation to charge for their work. I object to a third party being able to purchase the right to profit from those innovation. I'm not sure I believe that Intellectual Property should be transferable in any manner. And, it should only last for a short time, say, 5 years. I don't think it benefits mankind that a songwriter should still be making money for a song he wrote 40 years ago. Maybe if he had to come up with something new every so often, we might have more good songs. And certainly, nobody besides the author (not even his family) should be able to profit, except indirectly, and during the author's lifetime.

Re:Torrents are Real

[rubypossum]

I appreciate your taking the time to respond to my post. I'm fairly ignorant when it comes to issues of intellectual property. Which is why I still have to wonder; why is it you believe these things? What are your reasons? Is it because you believe you have the right to the author's work for free within a time period you find reasonable? If that is the case, why do you believe you have this right?

How do "free" copies of media benefit man-kind? Moreover, how do these free copies benefit mankind more than costly ones? It would seem to me that the vast majority of modern content would not be beneficial (i.e. Mickey Mouse) or is already available for free via public libraries.

Why do you believe you have the right to decide in the first place? Isn't the decision of who to sell to up to the artist? In other words shouldn't they be able to sell to a third party if they want to?

I apologize for additional questions, I've heard this ideology espoused quite a bit on Slashdot and have yet to see answers to these questions. And judging from the eloquence and forcefulness of your original post I'm sure you are capable of a sound response.

Re:Torrents are Real

[Duds]

It doesn't have value is whoever is paying you can't make money from it.

Re:Torrents are Real

[PopeRatzo]

Ruby,

It's not that I believe I have a right to "free" copies of media. I believe that the system of "ownership" of creative work that has emerged in the past decades is completely out of whack. Do you think Mozart got paid every time an orchestra performed his work?

The part of my original post to which I am most strongly attached is the belief that the ownership of ideas should not be transferable. Yes, of course artists should be able to sell their work, but not to convey the right to profit from it in perpetuity. And if your idea is used to create a product (say, a CD or "record"), and that product is sold, why should you retain any special control over what the consumer does with that product. The inevitable end of this system is artists getting exploited, anyway.

Art should have a shelf life, IMHO. Especially popular art. I have seen the current system of Intellectual Property in relation to popular art do much more to stifle creativity than promote it. Study the relationship between big record company and newly signed band for just one example.

I make a living from my ideas. I have personally lost revenue because of unlicensed copying of my work. It made me examine the current system from ethical and practical viewpoints. These are my conclusions, and personally, I'm now adjusting to what I believe is a better way for innovators to make a living from their work, made inevitable because of the current inequities in the way business is done.

Re: Torrents are Real

[gidds]

Yes, I've personally experienced having my own work copied and losing revenue because of it. No it did not me want to stop having new ideas and being creative.

I see this 'creative people will always have ideas' line a lot, but I don't think it's actually helping the discussion; it's almost a straw man. Because the problem isn't only about having ideas; it's also about developing those ideas into something that people can enjoy, or at least experience.

Different fields of creativity make that more or less hard, of course. If your medium is a blog, then it's pretty quick and easy to type in those ideas -- thousands of people can be reading them within minutes of them occurring to you. Which, of course, is why there are so many blogs. (And, presumably, why so few of them are worth reading.)

At the other end of the scale, movies can take many years to reach the screen, and involve the years of work from hundreds of creative people in many different fields. That time and effort costs money. (Unless you want all these people to starve in the meantime?) As do all the resources they need. A director and/or writer can come up with all the creative story ideas they like, but without all that organisation behind them, those ideas are never going to end up as a movie that people watch.

And in between come everything from sketches and short stories to musicals and operas, paintings and installations, albums, concerts, novels, designs, ballets, plays, radio dramas, fridge magnets, web cartoons, and tons more, each with its own method of getting from someone's head out into the real world. Some just need raw materials and time; some need skilled and/or trained people; some need resources such as venues or equipment.

Now, it's true that some of that time and money isn't always necessary. Some films work best as quick, low-budget efforts, and some soungs sound best as live acoustic recordings. But many don't. And any work of art worth the name will take time and effort from the creator at least. (Tolkien may not have needed an army of technicians to write 'The Lord of the Rings', but he did take 12 years to do it.) The gap between idea and realisation can in some cases be narrowed by technology or skill, but it can never be removed.

As an amateur muso myself, I know how much grind goes into realising a work. Coming up with melodies and sounds can be relatively quick and easy; putting in the sheer hard work needed to turn those into a recording people can enjoy, or sheet music people can perform from, is often very far from quick or easy. And without being able to give up my day job and devote some serious time to it, most of my ideas will remain just that: ideas, unheard, and unloved.

Of course, I'm not saying that the business model of current Big Media is the only one, nor even the best one. There are plenty of others that can work in some circumstances, from a virtual tip-jar to old-fashioned patronage. But there needs to be some form of business model, because without it, creative people can have all the ideas they want, without any of the rest of us being able to benefit from them.

mod up

[b4stard]

Well said! If I hadn't posted the GP, I'd modded you insightful.

Regular mail is very high bandwidth.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bandwidth is the problem and, for now, Netflix is the solution. Using the regular mail is just a very high bandwidth pipe with high latency. Netflix keeps the latency acceptable (around one day) because they have 40 distribution sites in the US. For watching movies it works. While Netflix isn't perfect it works well enough that I am willing to pay for it. The movie quality is better then much of what is available through various bittorrent sites. Plus there are very few films out there that I actually would want to own or even store on my computer.

XBox Live and iTunes ?

[eples]

They left out the movie download services offered by Microsoft and Apple. Um, oops?

Re:6$ for a movie is bad

[Anonymous Coward]

you can goto a theatre and get a HUGE screen for 4$
why should somehting (your bandwidth ) you pay for cost you more than say 1-2$
multiply that out by say a few million for quality movies and what you ahve is some profit.
Not everyone has a computer and for example the starwars movies id still want that theatre experience like the revenge of the sith at the begining when the ship battle is ON.
And yes not only did i goto the theatre but i grabbed the torrent and files form bittorrent.
its about them 1st off realizing that like all htings technology cheapens the costs so you have to pass that to the consumer. Examples are cars with all those robots. there are plenty of other examples where technology makes things cheaper . WHY DO THEY WANT ME TO KEEP PAYING 1990 prices then.
its greed. No one here would pay 80$ for a carton of milk and i am thinking that suddenly a lot a cows would go missing or farmers would hae to try and put up as the mpaa and riaa do "fences" which of course do not work cause you can get wirecutters.

When they get there heads out of there butts and realize they cant sue average people for what is an easy and cheap way for them to get stuff to you they will be ok or esle like all ancient tech that is obsolete they will die.

why dont they charge 20$ a month and provide you with say 30GB a movies a month( the seemingly sudden ISP cap limits for those 5 megabit unlimited accounts ...which is another topic on why dows a 100mb line cost me 100$can with 1000GB transfer and for half that cost i get a home connection with 5 megabit doing 30GB at min it should be about 50GB to be same ratio but then i should also have 100MB speed...)
they could use a tracker and make a custom client and do it all.
its just too easy and cheap to do it another way. Hence why warner brothers i think bought utorrent. not to stop the use of it by pirates but to try and get into the game better. Maybe, we shall see up to 161beta dont have any spyware or call homes but if they make some exploit to get at tutorrent users its going to be chaos)
no one takes that threat seriously.
Anyhow the movie prices for downlaod are too expensive so back to free bittorrent until they give me something like i have suggested here.
For albums (full ones not single tunes) make the cost like 20$ for 50 albums.
I know it sounds cheap but when you talk about the fact that they only have to get it seeded ( cost = 1 downlaod or maybe at most 3-4 to get seeded) and the servers tracker costs which most big ones run about 500$ a month. So take 5 million honest joes times 20$ = 100Million - 500 for server
then say 1000 movies times 4 at 700meg = 2.8gig times 1000 or 2.8 terabytes = about 300$ can /month
so a running cost of say about a grand a month Plus whatever paid staff
they have to see the dollar signs for all there greed ????
im sure that somehting like this could achieve a lot of results and yes there will still be some places (private ) that give out for free but most of those places are very very strict and hard to maintain your ratios anyways. Plus they also some require doantions ( which may in fact not be a donation but paid monthly matter of reality)

Welcome to the future

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.comcast.com/whatsondemand/

This provides exactly what you're proposing. A library of free movies, and pay movies, along with episodes of TV shows, stored at the headend and piped over the wire "on demand." Regular controls work with a brief delay.

Faster than NetFlix

[Civil_Disobedient]

if it takes me about half an hour to go to Blockbuster and back (ten minute drive there and back, another ten minutes to find the movie and rent it), it would require about a 28Mbit connection.

That's one way to do it.

Another way I hear is fairly popular is this company called NetFlix, where they actually snail-mail your movies to you. That's at least a day of waiting, yet their business model doesn't appear to be in jeopardy. My own back-of-the-envelope calculations:

( 1.5 GB * (1024 MB / GB) * (1024 KB / GB) * (1024 B / KB) * (8 b / B) ) / ( (24 hours) * 60 min / hour) * (60 sec / min) ) = 139130.8 b/sec

That's the equivalent of a slow-ass ISDN connection to compete with NetFlix. And since you're d/ling precompressed material, it's not 6 gigs... more like 1.5 for a good rip.

Not on Linux

[edfardos]

Info I was looking for:

Requires Windows Media Player to view from your PC (Windows only)
Requires you dload and install proprietary dvd burner (Windows only)
Downloaded content to be burned is 1.5G, converted to DVD format (33% DVD quality)

My money clearly does not meet their minimum requirements for the download
and burn service, so I'll be keeping it. Fantastic idea however! Complete
failure in implementation.

(speaking about cinemanow.com)

--edfardos

Re:Not on Linux

[PenGun]

Oh please ... set your sights a little higer. I have 75 gig of HDTV files downloaded in the last 2 months. Just look around a bit.

Re:Not on Linux

[Yvan256]

Downloaded content to be burned is 1.5G, converted to DVD format (33% DVD quality)

Do not assume that smaller file size equals lower quality. Ten years ago, a VideoCD could only contain 72 minutes of 352x288 MPEG-1 video with MPEG-1 Layer 2 stereo audio. Today, the same CD can contain an H.264 movie of DVD resolution with surround sound encoded in AAC.

Lots of reason to prefer this to BT

[goombah99]

it will give you access to legal dowmloads so the back catalog will be enormous and always available on demand. The interface will be infomrative and first rate like itunes. The quality of video assured and in the language you actually needed (not sweedish or madarin). it can make what you do with bit torrent legal.

Finally it may well be using BT as the conduit. For all I know one could imagine it would be a way you could actually re-sell your bandwidth using BT. if you are a seeder for some movie maybe you could earn credits to get new movies.

the point is. yeah it's not free but it's legal. People are already shelling out money for PVRs and Tivo. this will replace that for less money and no montly service charges and offer onle-click conveninece. that's worth paying for.

VONGO not too hateful ...

[notpaul]

Laying aside the issues of DRM, M$, no-burning, etc ...

Just evaluating it as a downloadable movie service, VONGO is not too terrible. My kids love it.

PROS:

1) VARIETY - The library has some "churn" to it, so you aren't stuck with the *same* 2000 titles forever.
2) KID-FRIENDLY - a pretty good selection of kids movies, most of which are tolerably decent, and you can password-lock by rating.
3) SPEED - on a cable modem, movies are ready to "Watch Now" within 3 or 4 minutes, and are usually fully downloaded in about 20 minutes.
4) PRICE - cheaper than most other options, considering you get unlimited viewing of most titles (I'm not paying $100 a month for cable)
5) QUALITY - will it please videophiles, NO! - is it good enough for most people, yes. I rate it about as good as a new VHS tape.
6) CONVENIENCE - when the kids want a new movie, they can always find something instantly, and I don't have to make a trip to the library.
7) FEATURES - You get instant previews of EVERY film, even old obscure titles like "Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows" (which I made my kids watch because I remember watching it thirty years ago ...), and other tools like genre search, etc.
8) BONUS - You do get a free "live feed" of the STARZ movie channel, which may not be that great but at least it's a little something extra they throw in.
9) ACCESS - You can watch the same subscription on up to 3 PCs and also on some portable devices.

CONS:
1) VARIETY - it ain't NetFlix.
2) QUALITY - it ain't 1080p.

If they had closer to 5,000 titles, and the quality was simply a consistent DVD-quality, I would be willing to pay as much as $20/monthly for the convenience alone. As it is, it really isn't too bad for $9.95 ... my kids love it, and the wife and I have watched our share of movies as well. (Just watched 'Click' the other night)

It ain't perfect, but it really isn't too bad.

Not time

[kahrytan]

Broadband is not yet ready for DVD downloads. Your basic cable or dsl line takes to long to download DVDs. And when I mean by DVD, I mean entire DVD iso and not just the movie. Though, Verizon's Fios service may just improve the download speeds. It would still be better when every household has a high end T1 line. Until then, I'll stick to my Blockbuster Total Access.

Re:Not time

[myz24]

a T1 is quite slow in comparison to what most people get for broadband speeds. ~1.5mbs vs the 3mb+ that other people get. Though a T1 would be 1.5 up and down and latency is much lower, but low latency isn't going to get that movie to you any quicker.

Re:Not time

[kahrytan]

Dude,

  1. Cable is shared. I wonder how long it would take if everyone in the neighborhood decided to download 8gb dvd.
  2. aDSL is dedicated but some areas don't reach 1.5mbps.

As I said before, Verizon has everyone going in the right direction with Fios but I would still like to see T3 lines attached to houses.

Piracy is NOT fair use!

[benwaggoner]

Unlimited download of copyrighted material for personal use is NOT part of Fair Use.

Fair Use is a good thing, and we should have it, but Fair Use has nothing at all to do with being able to watch movies by yourself for free.

Re:Piracy is NOT fair use!

[Wildclaw]

I think he meant was that as long as legitimate movie sites can't provide Fair Use compatible downloads (specifically no Digital Restriction Management), he will continue to use the illegitimate sites because of their greater respect for the "customers".

Re:Piracy is NOT fair use!

[Anonymous Coward]

Piracy is fair use. get over it. If the industry decided to put high quality digital downloading alternatives to dvd's at a fair price, the marketplace wouldn't be providing it. I'm not going to bother downloading something that expires after a certain period of time, let alone pay for it! I hate to say it, but the only way to secure a dvd movie is to embed the advertising into the product and set it free. I don't want to watch bad commercials, but the only way to guarantee the interest gets paid, is to have the advertising revenue pay for it and throw the drm in the toilet.

Re:Piracy is NOT fair use!

[ne0n]

Maybe not in your country, but in many countries around the world you can make a private copy for personal use.
The truth is, the vast majority of movies recoup their production expenses in the theaters, although there's a saying, "no movie ever made a profit" which is true because of taxation reasons.

Not your average site

[Foehg]

If you're into soviet stuff, check out multiki.arjlover.net. If I were to imagine an ideal movie-downloading site, I would imagine it kind of like this one. Only with American movies, too.

depends

[doti]

Torrent is faster for new, popular movies.
Edonkey may be slow, but only there you can find those old, rare, or obscure movies.

Re:depends

[cursorx]

There are private torrent trackers around that specialize in alternative, non-mainstream and older movies. They're often almost as slow as ed2k, though, but the community is a nice plus.

Here's a good one:

[Elote]

www.yourtvlinks.com

Re:6$ for a movie is bad

[HistoricPrizm]

Anonymous Coward said:

you can goto a theatre and get a HUGE screen for 4$ I wish it was $4.00 to see a (new) movie in the theater here in Atlanta. Current prices (adult) are $9.50 after 4 p.m. and $7.25 for a matinée.

Another collection of links to movies

[Elote]

A quickly growing site run by one of my good friends: www.yourtvlinks.com

Re:6$ for a movie is bad

[Drooling Iguana]

I used to be able to watch movies for $4.25 (matinée) here in Toronto, but that theatre chain recently jacked up their price to $6.50.

Media center to 360

[proteus421]

Anyone have any experience with playing the downloaded movies from media center or an open source variant to the 360? I'm wondering what the A/V quality is like.

list of "TOP 10 FREE MOVIES" on CinemaNow

[likerice]

list of "TOP 10 FREE MOVIES" on CinemaNow (here)

1 The Longhouse Tales Episode 101

2 Ninja Academy

3 People from Space

4 Urban Street Bike Warriors

5 Maslin Beach

6 Roy Orbison: Greatest Hits

7 Dancing for Dollars

8 Fallen Arches

9 Dope Game 2

10 Flynn

score (this round):

intellectual property protection = 1, artistic integrity = 0

Public Library

[bohemian72]

I gave up all my movie service memberships/subscriptions etc. when I discovered the movies at my local library.
It's not direct to my door in a return envelope but it's still mighty convenient.
I go to the website. I search through the catalogue. I click on a button to hold the item for me at the branch of my choosing.
When it's ready to pick up, they send me an email. I then have a week to pick it up.
When I pick it up I have the movie for free for one week. If no one else has a hold on the movie I can renew it on the website for a week from the renewal day. (For instance, If I renew it three days into the borrow term, I'll have it for a total of 10 days. I can't just go home and click on renew 10 time and have it for 10 weeks)
I can then return the movie at any branch.
My library carries many television series, documentaries, fine arts programs as well as blockbuster first run release type movies. I borrowed Superman Returns from there not long ago.
Currently, I have a couple disks from the 1st of the recent series of Doctor Who.
The selection isn't going to be up to netflix, but it's still more than I ever have time to watch and frequently the original booklets and other material are still in the dvd case.

MovieLinks "Special feature!"

[phantomcircuit]

Movies rented using MovieLink can be perminantly held by copying the movie file and backing up your key ring or manually disabling the movielink service. I personally prefer movielink :P

Mac Friendly

[KrisKlee]

Both Slashdot and CinemaNow neglect to say that the "best" movie download programme IS NOT Mac friendly which is pretty disgusting after you've filled all the forms, signed up and provided your credit card information and there's no format to unsubscribe!! Also, to download movies from their website you need to use Internet Explorer which has not written a Mac version for years. There is no love lost from any Mac user and Microsoft. We read with glee when something goes wrong with a Microsoft programme which is fairly often!

downloading for free isn't backing up!

[benwaggoner]

And there's a big difference between downloading something for free that one didn't pay for, and making a personal backup of something that one did.

Fair Use is an important concept for use in commentary, news, and parody. I fear the common misuse of "Fair Use" as justifying rampant piracy will detract from the real value of the real concept.

Re:downloading for free isn't backing up!

[ne0n]

I'm not even talking about making a backup, although that certainly is a common reason to make personal copies.
In Canada, for example, personal copies are expressly allowed regardless of whether you've paid for a copyrighted work.
The fact is, copyright is supposed to provide some incentive for the arts & sciences while enriching the public domain. The raison d'etre of copyright is to provide benefit to society as a whole. You call copying "piracy" yet it enriches society. Before the CRIAA, RIAA, MPAA, there was entertainment. There will be entertainment long after they're gone. Society will win because it doesn't need huge greedy child-suing monopolistic thugs to tell it how to enjoy the arts. Legally enforced monopolies compete against common sense.

"The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." - - US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

get a service

[tacokill]

there are tons of usenet providers. ISP's have no incentive to keep up with usenet. But if you pay for a premium usenet provider you will easily max out whatever ISP connection you have.

So what I am saying is: usenet doesn't need the ISPs. It has enough critical mass to exist on its own.

Because ideas and art are not physical things.

[jotaeleemeese]

The law is trying to cordon off something that by its own nature can't be cordonned off, specially now when it should be patently obvious that anything that is presented in a digital means will be copied.

Laws and regulations that close the eyes to this most simple of realities are wrong.

Artists could still make a living, but it will not be by equating ideas with physical objects.