You can't copy any of these downloads to a CD or DVD for viewing on a DVD player or move them to another computer. If you own a laptop with a TV-compatible connector, such as a composite-video or S-Video jack, you can plug it into your set for viewing on a bigger screen, but otherwise each rental stays welded to your hard drive.
....Both CinemaNow and Movielink suffer from a pathetically thin selection — 854 and 747 titles as of Friday afternoon. Since many movies are made available to these sites only for limited periods before moving to cable and satellite TV (for example, "Finding Nemo" was no longer available after Saturday from either service) those numbers fluctuate over time.
Unless you're looking for a movie from the past few years, the odds weigh heavily against you finding it on either site. Half of the titles I considered renting — for instance, "Heathers," "Glengarry Glen Ross" and "Office Space" — weren't available.
....Movielink's chief executive, Jim Ramo, explained that until the late '90s, studios didn't buy Internet distribution rights, which means the site must negotiate with individual copyright holders for each movie. Ramo noted that he can't provide "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," because the rights to the song "Twist and Shout," which plays in one scene [but it's a pivotal scene!], would cost too much to obtain.
Who would want to put up with services as dysfunctional as this? It's hard to imagine.
....Until they learn from the example of the music industry — offer their content at a discount online, but at a quality comparable to what you'd get in the store — this online video-rental business isn't going anywhere. [Washington Post]
Maybe if you were somewhere remote - but with a broadband connection - then this might make sense. Otherwise, what's the point? The movie fools would appear to be even more stupid than the music idiots.
Article comments
1 - Jim Carruthers
I know it makes sense, so it's doomed - but why don't they use bittorrent? Essentially users pool their bandwidth, so the more people involved, the faster it goes.
You could have a subscriber site where users were credited for their upload/download ratio, und zo on.
However, that would require new models from an industry which tried to kill videotape (and look where that got them).
As a side note - I saw the most recent ep of The Sopranos today - I downloaded it this morning, took about an hour, but I can't pay for it, they won't sell it to me -- why? No, I don't want cable, I use DSL, so why can't I buy a la carte?
2 - TDavid
We took the 7 day free trial of Cinemanow at the end of November. At the time we had a DSL connection, but now have a dramatically faster cable connection (like nearly 10 times faster). So wait times would be much more tolerable now.
I'd agree with all the points in the article mentioned and especially the pricing and the selection of "premium and premium+" titles.
We enjoyed a couple movies but couldn't see how it was worth the 100 bones a year. I guess if someone likes softcore porn (the After Hours stuff) then it could be a good deal.
The selection isn't really there otherwise. For movies that were worth watching, one could go through the catalog in a relatively short amount of time.
The On-Demand options of HBO and Showtime are worth checking into before this, IMO.
3 - Eric Olsen
excellent suggestions, guys, thanks!