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

[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

[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

[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.

the best movie download site

[b4stard]

Short answer: TPB
Long answer: The Pirate Bay

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).

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

[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.

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?

[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?

[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?

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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".

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.

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.

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: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.

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: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.