Number 267 - August 2005

Link to digital movies with Movielink
by Sherry Zorzi , APCUG Advisor Cajun Clickers www.clickers.org, Baton Rogue, LA June, 2005
While Blockbuster and Netflix www.netflix.com battle it out for your entertainment dollar, a new online player just may sneak around them. Movielink (www.movielink.com) allows you to order and download recent movies on a pay-for-view basis.    The movies are downloaded to your PC for viewing there, or on a TV connected to the PC, or on your laptop. The cost is about $5 for a recent release, but some offerings are as cheap as 99 cents. You have 30 days after download to watch the movie. You are renting the movie, though, for a 24-hour period which means that once you click "Play", you have only the next 24 hours to watch (and re-watch, if you like) the movie. You can buy additional viewing time at a reduced rate.    While visiting the Demonstration Digital Home at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas in January, I got a coupon for a free download from Movielink. I visited Movielink's, website as soon as I got home and decided to give it a try. The selection of movies is pretty good and includes most of Blockbuster's Top Ten Rentals.    Before downloading a movie, you must register with Movielink. They are not overly intrusive, asking only for name, email address, sex, and age during the registration process. You will, of course, probably want to deselect the opportunity to receive a free email newsletter from Movielink.    Movielink installs Movielink Manager software onto your computer, which controls the download and playback of the movies you order. You should read the End User License Agreement carefully, since it does give Movielink and its partners (RealNetworks and Microsoft) the right to push upgrades and updates to you without asking permission. That might be a deal-breaker for some - indeed, it almost sent me running for the hills. But for the sake of you, the reader, I bit the bullet and signed on the virtual dotted line.	The download took about 25 minutes on my Cox cable internet connection and proceeded smoothly. It was several weeks before I had a chance to view my movie. When I clicked "Play", though, the media player would not load the movie so I went to their website for help. The live chat feature of Movielink's website worked beautifully. I was very quickly connected with a technician who reset my account and had me re-install the Movielink Manager software. Within minutes everything was working fine.    The video quality of the movie was excellent. Watching a movie on the typical PC, though, is much different from watching one on the typical TV. My computer screen is a 17 inch LCD flat screen. The image was beautiful but much smaller than my TV. I don't have a top of the line sound card nor great speakers on that particular computer either, so the audio was acceptable to me while not outstanding. Next time I'll probably download my movie to a different computer in my home - one that has a top-notch video card, a top-notch sound card, and an awesome Surroundsound speaker set that includes a huge subwoofer.    I'll probably rent from Movielink again. I'm intrigued by the possibilities of instant access to the movie of my choice without leaving home or waiting for it to be mailed to me. The service would be even more attractive to me if it offered a monthly subscription deal and if it allowed me to transfer my rental to the device of my choice, including my Pocket PC and other computers on my home network.    Movielink and other services like it may not overtake brick-and-mortar rental stores like Blockbuster or online CD rental services like Netflix overnight. But it's a worthy opponent and will become more and more of a threat as more homes connect their TVs to home entertainment PCs. Give it a try.    There is no restriction against any non-profit group using this article as long as it is kept in context with proper credit given the author. The Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an international organization of which this group is a member, brings this article to you.
Number 267 - August 2005