Ready to Download

The number of movie download services has expanded lately, with some offering new and exciting features. One key differentiator among the big players in the field is whether movies are available for rental or purchase.

With a rental plan, you pay anywhere from 49 cents (a rarity) to $3.99 (most studio films) for a 24-hour window that begins when you start watching the movie. Buying a downloaded movie (generally $10–$20) gets you a file that resides on your hard drive—you can’t burn it to DVD for playback on a standard optical disc player (with one exception noted below).

CinemaNow, Movielink, and Amazon’s Unbox all support both rental and purchase. The film libraries vary from service to service. What’s more, the films available for rental aren’t necessarily the same ones available for purchase (the most recent releases usually go purchase-only first).

All three services are compatible with Microsoft Windows only, and while the video and audio quality varies from film to film, all produced entirely watchable if sub-DVD-quality results, even viewed on a large plasma screen connected via VGA cable. Download speeds vary, but figure it will take about an hour for a feature film over broadband—don’t even think of trying this with a dial-up connection.

Next: CinemaNow and Walmart