Digital Home Thoughts: Geardigest Compares 4 Movie Download Services

"We all love going out and buying new DVDs, but that takes so much time and effort. What if there was an easier way? Downloading movies from the Internet has been in the works for some time now, and the services have become sophisticated enough that they're worth looking at. In this article I'll cover four of the leading movie download services: MovieLink, CinemaNow, iTunes, and Amazon Unbox. I'll tell you how usable each is and about the quality of downloads from each. Keep in mind right off the bat, if you really love watching movies, you'll need plenty of free hard drive space to store your films. Pirating of downloaded movies isn't all that easy. All the services except iTunes provide .WMV files with usage rights intact. The first time you try to watch the movie you need to be connected to the Internet so a license can be authenticated. From there on out it's smooth sailing."

I have tried movie download services before and just did not like the concept of leaving my machine alone for several hours, until the movie is done downloading, so as to not mess with the network connection. Although, I am surprised that Netflix wasn't part of the comparison mix here. Anyways, I agree with the article's conclusion that when you consider that DVDs provide better quality video, true surround sound and nifty special features, online downloads just can't compare.