Movie rental downloads are the wave of the future. It’s not 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 not come soon enough. The switch to downloadable movies will free them from all of the costs associated with the production, storage, distribution and packaging of physical media. They can still sell the films for a healthy amount, but show increased profits.
The capability to rent downloadable movies has been with us for a number of years now. The problem for a lot of men and women has been twofold; the lack of widespread broadband Internet access, and also the requirement to make use of a computer to view the films. Even when the computer was successfully hooked to a TV (sometimes no mean feat in itself) for a larger picture, there were all kinds of other issues linked to computer use that made this a less than satisfactory solution for nearly all movie renters.
The passage of time has largely solved the 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 interest in renting movies via Internet download will increase even further.
The greater gains however, will come from the introduction of alternative methods of downloading movie rentals. To this end, numerous services and 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 a lot of men and women.
For individuals that don’t have cable or for various reasons want a different service, you will find other options available. TiVO has partnered with Amazon.com to offer the ability to rent movies from the Amazon Unboxed service. That collaboration has a great deal 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 that enables people to download movies from the Apple iTunes Store for viewing on their TV. It is a small, set top box like unit that connects to the net, and retrieves movies from the iTUNEs library. In most things from Apple Inc. it really is well designed and it has a simple to use interface. It does not stop Click At this website movies either. You may watch TV shows, music videos, and YouTube videos as well. 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, and after that the films vanish, as well as 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 is about 1/8th that of Blu-Ray, so the video obviously is not as good, but it is not bad either, and you do not have to get off your couch. An issue for some is that there is no type of video below component 480i. If you have an older TV that will not have component inputs, you are out of luck. Another issue is the FF and rewind performance. The film has to be rebuffered to do this so it does not work like your regular Blu-ray player or cable company’s video on demand.