We started testing the various movie download services earlier this summer when rumors of Apple’s new movie download store first heated up. We’re now regular customers of three of the services. Michael Arrington is an iTunes junkie because he likes having movies and music videos on his iPod, Nik Cubrilovic likes Movielink and I’m hooked on Guba’s very low prices. For those of you considering ditching the Netflix account or the weekly trip to Blockbuster and downloading movies instead, one of these might be just what you’re looking for.
If you are a Mac user, the choice is easy. Only iTunes will work on your platform. If you are on a PC you can try any of the services below, which include CinemaNow, Movielink, Guba, Amazon Unbox and iTunes. Note, however, that you’ll be forced to use Internet Explorer to download these movies unless you use iTunes or Amazon Unbox.
DRM is a big part of all of these products. Make sure you read the terms and conditions carefully before agreeing. At least for Amazon Unbox, the terms are somewhat draconian. DRM will keep many users away who’d like the ability to burn movies to DVD, transfer to other computers, etc. These users will simply purchase and rip DVDs directly (removing DRM), or use bittorent to acquire movies.
More on each below.
Guba
Since branching out from their Usenet product through a deal to sell Waner Bros. movies in June and Sony movies in July, GUBA has mainly been competing on price and referral fees for recommending more users to the site. GUBA also features user-generated and usenet videos for free alongside premium movies users can buy or rent. Usenet movies can be downloaded in iPod and PSP formats as well.
CinemaNow
CinemaNow’s most recent claim to fame has been their release of “Too Fast Too Furious” online at the same time as the DVD release, an industry first. They also have a Burn-to-DVD feature that allows you to burn a DVD playable on almost any DVD player for select titles. CinemaNow provides movies from Disney, Fox, Lionsgate, NBC Universal, Sony, and Warner Bros. Like most of the others, CinemaNow requires users to have a Windows PC and use Internet Explorer.
MovieLink
Formed out of a joint venture between major movie studios, Movielink has by far the largest catalog of new release and library titles. Their major partners include MGM, Paramount, Sony, Universal, Warner Brothers, Disney, Sundance Channel, BBC, and National Geographic. While not as consistently low priced as GUBA, if you look closely enough you can find various discounts for military personnel, college students, and mystery rentals. We go to Movielink first when looking for a movie because they have the deepest catalog.
Amazon Unbox
We covered Amazon Unbox pre-launch and post-launch. After its initial launch, Ubox received wide criticism, most notably from BoinBoing about its user-unfriendly license agreements. Unbox has by far the best meta-data on movies and TV shows, incorporating plot summaries, release information, production stills, and consumer ratings. Unbox sells from 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight, Lionsgate, Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros.
Apple iTunes
As expected, iTunes launched their movie download service back in September. It features Disney movies and managed over one million dollars in sales during its first week. iTunes 7 has been criticized for the buggy 7.0 release corrected with 7.0.1, but nothing seems to be stopping the iTunes juggernaut. Our guess is that Apple will successfully bring on additional studios in the near future.
Summary
Look for studios to ink multiple deals with a number of services, and for there to be little difference in offerings or pricing over the medium term. Walmart and others will also be launching their own services, possibly with in-store DVD burning kiosks as well. As download services become more popular, the large DVD retailers, particularly Walmart and Target, will continue to push for lower wholesale DVD prices as well. Hopefully, competition from these various services and products will ultimately push consumer prices down.
The following chart sets forth additional comparison information about the services:
Our recommendations: If you are on a Mac, your only choice is iTunes. For Windows users, Movielink has the deepest catalog, and Guba has the best pricing (they are actually taking a loss on sales). CinemaNow has an outrageously priced burn-to-DVD product that may be attractive to some users (although simply buying the DVD seems to make a lot more sense).
Additional notes: All services except iTunes had rental agreements allowing users to rent a movie for 24hrs from pressing play or 30 days, whichever comes first. The number of movies in catalogs were taken either from company numbers or number of movies accessible on the site (these numbers fluctuate). The top 10 movie rentals drawn from IMDB data were: “The Sentinel”, “Take the Lead”, “Poseidon”, “Friends with Money”, “RV”, “Inside Man”, “Akeelah and the Bee”, “Scary Movie 4”, “Silent Hill”, and “Just My Luck”.
When trying out the services, I found the $0.99 rental from GUBA to be the best choice. It was cheap enough that I didn’t mind spending the time downloading a movie and deleting it after I was finished. Renting from the other services just didn’t seem a fair deal at $2.99 or $3.99 with Blockbuster down the street and Netflix in my mailbox. I can’t believe that most of these services expect me to pay the DVD price for a movie that hogs my hard drive, comes with a highly restrictive license, and sucks up my bandwidth for 1-2 hours of downloading. However, in the long run I choose iTunes as the service to watch. Their catalog is a lot smaller than the other services, but they offer the most value with their digital movies by easily integrating with my iPod and granting me more licenses. For now, I think I’ll continue using DVDs to archive my favorite movies, but rent digital versions of the ones I just want to see once. What I’d really like to see in this category is a digital Netflix service that automatically rents, downloads, and deletes movies from my computer for a flat monthly fee.
Interesting comparison… thanks.
All your links in the Amazon and iTunes summary are borked.
Yeah i like the comparison. I’m a Guba fan myself.
Should Yahoo! go buy one of em?(sure,except itunes)
Revealing article, this arena should become increasingly competitive and heated. Netfilx must adapt or fall behind, just as the conventional movie theaters will have to adapt as digital cinemas will change the movie theater industry. We live in fast times… Mike
Lovely comparison although you should have also mentioned location as im UK resident so not all these options are availble.. Im also on a mac.. so heh very little choice….
@5 Not a chance. Other than unemployed college students, or completely out ot touch geeks, who the hell has the time to waste in downloading full length movies. Netflix and the like will still appeal to the masses for the foreseeable future. Hell, cable companies and satellite companies will provide services more appealing than wasting time downloading movies to watch on devices not designed to play movies. Surely you are not suggesting these services will replace the quality and experience of watching a movie at a theatre or a large digital screen, are you?
We live in fast times. he he. Sure. So, who is going to subsidize all that bandwidth necessary when we get to the nirvana you describe? The consumer, I’m guessing.
First, I apologize for going nuclear with the spamming.
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The correct addresses for the links in the Amazon and iTunes summary should be:
Amazon
pre-launch http://www.tech...red-pre-launch/
post-launch http://www.tech...nbox-goes-live/
user-unfriendly http://www.boin...ox_to_cust.html
iTunes
launched http://www.tech...nnounced-today/
one million dollars http://www.tech....com/tag/itunes
corrected with 7.0.1 http://www.appl...d=2088%E2%80%9D
As with Dave Sherratt I’m UK based. Liked your suggestion on price for MovieLink, but blocks me due to a UK IP address. Perhaps a good thing to add to your comparison tables would be the international support.
why dont you just download from the net for free, paying for downloading something? the world is ending..
Um, you don’t have to sit there while they download ABCotaa.
You can just download two or three and have them sitting there, waiting for the next time you want to watch a movie.
Why is there a Mac a row header? That would only matter to the ones that have a desktop client I would imagine.
All that truly matters is the video format, which is wmv on the four that do not support Mac, and wmv is supported on Mac through numerous means (i.e. Windows Media Components for QuickTime).
Is this a bit of a misnomer?
You’re right that wmv is partial supported on the mac through third parties, but NOT drm-infected wmv.
Windows Media is Microsofts lock-in product for the Windows platform, as various technologies have been before, like for instance Internet Explorer.
Same tactic as Apple uses on its iPod-platform with the FairPlay-DRM, where they hope to lock their customers to the iPod ecosystem.
Yes, and as a further example, just try going to the movielink site from a Mac (or any non IE browser on a Windows PC). You can’t even get in the front door.
A good comparison – at least, for what’s available in the US right now. The options in the UK are somewhat more limited. Love Film, for example, you can buy a new release for £20, you can download it and they also send you the DVD. In my case, they sent three – presumably by mistake. By DVD, they send you the disc in a plastic jacket, but with no normal DVD cover. So why bother? Why not grab it in the store for less?
Cheers,
Ian.
Blogged on blog.ianharris.info
What do they all seem to have in common? They are all (except Guba) super expensive and I just don’t get why people want to pay such high prices for such low quality content. Me personally? I’d rather just tell my HDTV TiVo to record something from HBO or somewhere in high def for viewing at home and I’d rather just record something on my Media Center PC and transfer it to my laptop if I want low res crap.
Until any of these services can come up with HDTV quality and reasonable prices they are not for me.
Of course BitTorrent is always an option too.
Exactly! Why would any experienced P2P person even look for any of these options. Its like all these firms are not just quite getting it:
o People will share
o People don’t wanna pay
o People know “people” who have their hands deep into all the latest stuff.
o People just wont *buy* it.
Does anyone know any cheap/free services offering independent films? Perhaps with some sort of a recommendation system? Im fond of the current netflix recommendation system and general service. I wouldnt count them out as a major player in this arena because they understand the fact that most people prefer to just pop in a dvd, sit on the couch and watch a movie on their tv not their monitor.
What about Vongo? I know it has a terrible rep and again it is only PC. The rep isn’t unjustified. The app is sluggish and could use some serious GUI help plus the service itself is a bit buggy BUT…. I have to say that I have watched far more movies from it than any of these other services. I’m always downloading something to the laptop for travel. 1,000 better than dvds.
It is nice to have a library that you can download something to and keep it around for a few months – rewatching it as you please without Movielink’s absurd “as many times in 24 hrs” business or having to outright buy it. This for what it costs to download 2 Movielink titles. More than anything it has me interested in subscription services in general. I never thought I would go for that in music but now I don’t know, I can see being it working…
@11 Duh. Yes, I realize you don’t have to sit there and wait. But the point is, you have to do something,…more than just place your order on the website, or head down to Hollywood in order to ensure your movie downloaded.
Few people other than dateless geeks want to take the time to do that. Can’t you just see it? “Hey, baby, how about you come over for a quiet evening tonight and we can have dinner and watch a movie? We can surf CinemaNow and you can pick whatever you want. Then, a couple hours later we can watch the movie. Sure, may not be quite the quality we can get by running down to the video store and getting a DVD, but that’s not the point. The point is, I can do it! And it’s cool!”
Thomas is right. Unitl this becomes as easy as changing the channel and the quality is a good as anything I can get today from the current sources, this will NOT have broad adoption, and will remain the the domain of geeks and kids with no jobs still living at home.
As for this ultimately replacing the movie theatre. How many times have we heard movies are dead? Weren’t we told TV would kill movies 60 years ago? How’s that worked out?
Even if I COULD download the latest releases it won’t replace the experience of going to a movie.
ABCotaa where are you getting that it takes a couple hours to download? What is your connection speed? Maybe you could ask your parents to up it? It takes way longer for me to go to a video store – which I haven’t done in years actually – than it does to download something. With some of these you can start watching in 10 minutes. If you want to know the date angle to replace that romantic drive to the video store what you do is pick out the movie, finish cooking dinner and your DL will be ready when you are.
The quality thing is an issue but plenty of people said that since music downloads weren’t the same quality as CDs they would never take off. How did that work out?
great comparison Nick…I’ve been considering testing these services as well.
Where’s Vongo? The only service with a reasonable price plan (all-you-can-eat). It would be nice if the chart displayed video resolutions provided by the various content providers. Both CinemaNow and MovieLink offer up to 720 – significantly higher than iTunes.
ALL of these service WILL work on new Apple computers: http://www.appl...acosx/bootcamp/
Enjoy!
Here is one that works on Mac and PC. It treats downloaded content as a DVD which I can either play on my PC with DVD decoder software or burn to a DVD with a DVD writer. I was able to successfully download and play a movie on my PC. External DVD writers cost about $100.
http://www.eztakes.com
Comparison is irrelevant without information regarding Vongo. For rental download, content is king and Vongo has the Starz content which is pretty darn good content.
There’s still a wide opening in this market for a cross-platform, rental service. Movielink/CinemaNow/Amazon suffer from being Windows-only. iTunes suffers from being purchase only (most people watch most movies once. duh.).
Movielink won’t even spit at my Mac because I live in Belgium, it hates my IP address more than my G4.
Why is international support not part of this discussion?
I disagree with 16 and 17. At least 16 states that this is there own opinion, and it’s true for others as well, no doubt. Lots of people are used to downloading what they want on bittorent for no money and have gotten used to it. They also want HD content. But lets also understand what the benefits of these services are, namely:
a) legal, legitimate means of watching movies. Many (if not most) people are generally honest and don’t want to break any laws, as stupid as they seem to be, given an alternative legal means to get what they want, even if it will cost them a little money. The more money they have to pay, of course, the less likely they are to grin and bear it.
b) Largish catalogs where movies don’t go away or are hard to download if they aren’t that popular, unlike bittorent.
c) Ease of use – not everyone is technically minded and would rather go for an easy solution with an Interface For Dummies, rather than a bittorent client that may be confusing to some.
True, there are disadvantages too, like a monetary cost, lack of HD content, crippling DRM, inability to burn to DVD or to put on the portable player of your choice (at least with some of these options). But the way I see it is that the entertainment industry is FINALLY providing an option closer to what a lot of people want, instead of fighting tooth and nail to maintain their “control” over everything.
Yes, you still have to pay for these movies, but if you are a casual movie watcher and only watch one movie or so a week, or less, the prices aren’t that bad for rentals. If you want to “own” movies, well, that’s a different story.
What these companies need to do ultimately to compete against piracy as well as legitimate business models is to offer similar all-you-can-eat subscription plans that the music industry has done with Yahoo! Music, Napster ToGo, and Rhapsody. That and start offering HD content and both MP4 files for iPods as well as WMV files for other players. Of course the kink in this is Apple which has it’s own store and so far as refused any kind of subscription model.
In any case, the fact that there are these multiple services out there competing for customers is, I think, very hopeful. Despite the fact that these services don’t offer everything everyone might want, they are all competing and will want to offer the best services they can for the money in order to gain more of the market share. That only bodes well for us, the customer.
Nice analysis.
However, I think the issue they all have, excepting iTunes, is DRM. It is risky to buy DRM’d content from a player that may not be too stable, as what happens to your investment if they fall over or stop supporting you. I think most people will mentally apply a steep discount for that.
Rental may be the only way to go therefore, as the DRM risk is lower – then it will probably become a tradeoff between price and whose DRM is easiest to crack.
In fact i wonder if sales would actually be better if there was no DRM, as those who want to pirate can do so anyway, and perhaps DRM puts off more people than it prevents copying.
Anyway, I’ve put some more detailed thoughts down on our blog
What did you think of Vongo?
These are not even services.
It would be possible for Netflix to offer, today, and without reservation, a service which would:
1. Encompass their entire 65,000 title library.
2. Allow for full resolution downloads.
3. Offer packaged or seperate DVD extras and alternatives in resolution.
4. Allow unlimited downloads for $15 per month.
5. Remain profitable to both them and movie producers.
6. Allow access to and distribution of independant films.
The only thing which is stopping this technologically feasible and consumer friendly service from existing is unbridaled greed.
Knowing what we do about the economics of movie making and who recieves what percentages of revenue, I am hard pressed to even concieve of an argument which would make the motion picture cartel’s price demands anything but morally offensive.
I am simply not content to have acess to a technology which would allow on-demand viewing of any and all media ever created, and yet be told that I can’t do that because it isn’t profitable ENOUGH.
While you may easily call me naive and unrealistic, it is the tolerance of consumers that allows this to continue and for uncompensating sites like piratebay.org to thrive.
-Ian
Great comments. I really think it’s the content owners that are holding real innovation in this space back. I think A) they don’t want to cannibalize retail sales and B) they think because people will buy a song for .99 (basically at the price of a CD if you figure an average of 13 songs), they are justified with their prices. They really haven’t taken into account the consumer costs involved in downloading movies (even pirated ones), time, storage space, and the loss of useability.
I think we really have to wait on the studios to get more comfortable before things really start to change. Warner Bros. has been really pro-active in releasing their content online. Maybe they’ll figure out a way to make it work. For now, Hollywood is working based on the old cost-benefit analysis for the lifetime of a movie. I think it will be a while before they figure out how to take into account online sales and ditch the DVD gravy train.
@22 No need to get personal. My t3 connection works just fine, thank you. but you miss my point. My time (and a lot of other people’s) is worth more than waiting to download crappy quality video to watch on a small screen. If that is your idea of a good time, great. It’s not mine. Sure this content works well for watching on an iPod or similar device while travelling, but it is no where near being able to challenge the movie going experience or the video rental.
The only thing preventing me from using these services is the DRM restrictions. I use several computers and change computers every year or so and reformat almost every month. I think DRM have to be locked to the person, not the device. It would be acceptable if a device only could be activated for one user at the time unless its a typical family device like a PC or MCE (then perhaps 2-5 users).
I think the download time quite acceptable as long as you buy a few movies at the time and not just before you want to watch them and the quality often better than both DVD’s and cable. I usually find 720p WMV HD a lot better than HD on cable or satelite.
Hear, hear for an international perspective. I am so sick of getting turned down by all these fee or free sites in my attempt to PAY THEM for the shows and movies I want, because they don’t like my IP address and/or my credit card billing address.
You forgot http://www.direct2drive.com/
ABCotaa – I apologize but you called people who use these services “unemployed college students, or completely out ot touch geeks,” which seems personal to me. Probably because my laptop was downloading even while I posted.
I honestly don’t understand this bit about your time being time valuable to download because these services make seeing a movie so much quicker and convenient than renting them that TIME is the number one reason I use them. It takes only a couple of minutes to click it and forget it. You aren’t overseeing every second of the download the way you are every second of your trip to a video store. That trip is in fact my idea of a total waste of time. With some services you can schedule downloads so they are happening without you even thinking about it. In one browsing session you can schedule downloads for a month’s worth of movies and just have them in your library whenever you are ready. I frankly shudder to think how much time that takes someone not using an online service. In this respect Netflix is the real competitor to these and as the video stores going dark across the country can attest to – for those that aren’t ready to provide it – convenience can be a killer.
I agree that content, say from iTunes, only looks good only on an iPod but that is all it is designed for. (I am anxious to see if they up it for use with iTV.) But I would also point out, as 24 did, that Movielink and CinemaNow provide resolutions that, while not quite HD, are actually better-than-TV resolutions.
Why choose iTMS overall? Amazon has much better quality, and you have an opportunity to regain fair use for your purchased movies. Plus if you’re determined enough you *can* put Amazon movies on your iPod.
So to sum it up:
1. Amazon looks better and is higher bitrate.
2. Amazon can be put on your iPod after 2 automatic processes.
3. Amazon, whether they like it or not, gives you your fair use back.
I always look to NetFlix first, Amazon second, and iTMS in dead last.
Because iTunes is Apple so it’s overhyped by retards.
Try EZTakes (www.eztakes.com). They let you burn a DVD; they support Windows and the Mac and they don’t use the DRM crap that everyone else uses.
Download videos from Youtube, Google, Metacafe, iFilm, Dailymotion… and other 60+ video sites ! And all embedded objects on a webpage (LeechVideo.com offers all kinds of online Video format,wmv,flv,etc.) ! Directly & quickly!
i want to the movies download
The Guba price discount ended today.
For a one-day rental t is now $1.79 per TV episode and $2.99 for movies. Considering the hours it takes to download, and the fact that you can only watch on your PC, there is no longer any reason to rent from Guba.
You would be better off using blockbuster or netflix, which have better prices and allowable viewing times. Or one of the other online rental sites which have a better catalog. Oh well. It was good while it lasted.
I buy my DVD’s at Hastings. The place is awesome and has a has a huge selection. I like to browse through the titles as I am a visual person. The prices are low, with used DVD’s for sale starting at $6.99 — check out http://www.gohastings.com They have a huge selection of used titles for low prices. Also, its not Amazon, so your DVD is in good shape when you buy it online. The store is cool, they are like Borders with coffee shop, books, magazines, etc… but they also have a huge selection of video games, etc… for cheap. They have a barrier to entry as they are large and dominate rural markets where people still actually rent from stores. (believe it or not …lol…)
Personally, I like buying used DVD’s and discount DVD’s for $9.99…. I get to have them in home for a long time… and let’s face it DVD is just not that bad — the picture is awesome, and I get to keep it!
Computers and entertainment should never be mixed — this is suppossed to be an escape from the office, work, etc… and with movie downloading it seems like a second job just to figure it out — I like putting a DVD in, and never returning it for 7 bucks! own some HAST stock for disclosure…
PS: I actually enjoy shopping there! the place is fun… DVD technology just ain’t that old. VHS was around for 25 years. DVD is pretty young……. I think it will be another 15 years before something THAT MUCH MORE CONVENIENT replaces the DVD… for now hastings is the best deal… in store rentals are just $1.99 at Hastings and I can get a movie any time from 11 a.m. to 11p.m. — personally I actually enjoy leaving the house for a deal like that… Also check there used video games, text books, and other hardbacks…. coffee is good too….
If you want legal and DRM-free movie downloads, then you have to check out EZTakes (www.eztakes.com). Because they don’t use DRM, they don’t have much major studio content, but they have one of the best selection of independent films around.
Great Post. After reading this
The new iTunes 8 is now screen reader friendly on both Mac and PC, or use your screen reader to purchase or download content from the iTunes Store. I got it from here: rosoftdownload.com/download/Windows/iTunes