Movie rental downloads are the wave of the future. It isn’t rocket science. People want convenience and hate to waste time and gas driving to their local video store. From the movie studio’s perspective, the shift to downloadable content can’t come soon enough. The switch to downloadable movies will free them from all the costs associated with the production, storage, distribution and packaging of physical media. They may still sell the films for a healthy amount, but show increased profits.
The capability to rent downloadable movies has been with us for a few years now. The problem for a lot of men and women has been twofold; the lack of widespread broadband Internet access, as well as the requirement to work with a computer to view the films. Even when the computer was successfully hooked to a TV (sometimes no mean feat in itself) for a bigger picture, there have been all kinds of other issues related to computer use that made this a less than satisfactory solution for nearly all of movie renters.
The passage of time has largely solved just click the up coming document broadband issue. An April, 2008 report from research firm Scarborough Research revealed broadband penetration is up over 300% since 2002. Nationally, 49% of households have broadband Internet access, and that number continues to improve with the continued rollout of services such as Verizon’s FIOS. As more households get broadband the demand for renting movies via Internet download shall increase even further.
The greater gains alternatively, will come from the introduction of alternative methods of downloading movie rentals. To this end, a great many products are already introduced or are planned for market introduction. Most cable companies offer some sort of video on demand rental service. The quality and selection of these offerings vary, but they will be accessible to many people.
For people that do not have cable or for a number of reasons want another service, there are alternatives available. TiVO has partnered with Amazon.com to offer the capability to rent movies from the Amazon Unboxed service. That collaboration has a lot going for it. TiVO has a universally praised user interface, offers HD capability from off air or cable services, and integrates the Amazon Unboxed service seamlessly into their interface to make things extremely easy for consumers.
AppleTV is a piece of hardware which allows people to download movies from the Apple iTunes Store for viewing on their TV. It’s a small, set top box like unit that connects to the net, and retrieves movies from the iTUNEs library. Like with many things from Apple Inc. it’s well designed and has a very easy to use interface. It does not stop at movies either. You may watch TV shows, music videos, and YouTube videos also. It also allows A/V content from your computer to be viewed on your TV. There is a 24hr window from the time for movie rentals, immediately after the movies vanish, along with your rental fee. It’s like video on demand, but with a lot larger library.
HD video for the Apple TV is delivered in 720p (You may watch them in 720p or 1080i). With Apple TV 2, the bitrate will be around 1/8th that of Blu-Ray, so the video obviously is not as good, but it’s not bad either, and you aren’t required to get off your couch. A problem for some is that there’s absolutely no form of video below component 480i. If you have an older TV that does not have component inputs, you’re out of luck. Another issue will be the FF and rewind performance. The film has to be rebuffered to do this so it will not work like your regular Blu-ray player or cable company’s video on demand.