Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Online movie rental?!?!?!

This is topic Online movie rental?!?!?! in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Dan Lyons (Member # 1454) on 01-24-2004, 04:25 AM:

Don't recall this being discussed, nor found it in a search....

Just saw that AOHell is offering downloadable movie rentals of new films for 99cents each. What the hell? When did this come about? I can only imagine how bad they look blown up full screen on the monitor. Even with cable or dsl it would take hours and hours to download a 2 hr film.

Danny [Confused]

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 01-24-2004, 01:04 PM:

Actually, I watched a streaming version of "Chinese Connection" just the other day. I have recently discovered a lot of websites that offered "downloadable" and "streaming" video rentals. Depending on your internet connection, your video card, and if you are willing to pay - it is actually a pretty neat idea.

BTW - The stream website I found offered free trials of their movies for first timers. www.netbroadcaster.com

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 01-25-2004, 03:08 AM:

Wow, the major telcos are going to love this. FINALLY, a use for the (currently) insane amount of extra global bandwidth.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 01-25-2004, 04:18 AM:

The telcos might love the idea (though remember the old computing adage: data will always expand to fill the space available), but Jack Valenti et al must be having heart attacks over it. I don't know what sort of encryption they're using (i.e. how they're trying to make sure that it remains a 'rental' and not something you can keep permanently), but sooner or later someone will work out how to save the stream. It took me about 10 minutes to discover how to save the supposedly secure streamed audio on BBC Radio 4's website (just record it off the sound card's output using a bogstandard recorder program, like the one which comes with Nero!) - if I can work that one out given my very limited computing expertise, these movies sure as hell ain't going to last long...

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 01-25-2004, 04:53 AM:

As long as they make money, any piracy concers will be overlooked. Just look at the way the studios operate.

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 01-26-2004, 11:21 AM:

AOL is doing this through Movielink, which has been around for over a year, if I recall correctly.

Movielink is supported by several studios, as is their chief competitor, CinemaNow.

http://www.movielink.com

There are some caveats, which may or may not be a problem for people:

1) Site requires IE 5 or higher to operate.

2) Movies are full-frame only, no widescreen that I've seen.

3) Movies are not in any discrete digital format, so the best you can probably hope for is stereo w/ ProLogic decoding.

According to the Movielink site, movies cost between $2.99-$4.99, you can begin watching movies as they download, and you have 30 days from the time you download a movie to watch it (but you only have 24 hours from the time you begin to finish watching a movie).

For these reasons and the fact that I have no desire to watch most movies on my PC (I have a TV for that), I have never installed the Movielink downloader or watched any of their films.

I much prefer the other online movie rental option: Netflix.

I feature both services on The BigScreen Cinema Guide in our Gift Shop, and while no one has signed up for Movielink in the past year, I have seen several signups for Netflix in the same time period.