Movies To Go, On Your PC

Imagine if you could watch any movie ever made at any time. Well, keep imagining. That day hasn't arrived. But it is now possible to download movies on demand to watch on your PC.

Two services - Movielink and the newly launched STARZ! Ticket on Real Movies both allow you to legally download Hollywood hits for a fee. With Movielink you pay for each title you download while the Starz service, which is operated by Real Networks, allows you to download as many movies as you please for a flat $12.95 a month.

Both require a broadband Internet connection such as a cable modem or digital subscriber line. You don't, however, have to be online to watch the movie once it's downloaded.

Before I get into the differences between these services, I need to answer an obvious question. Why would anyone actually want to watch a movie on a PC?

Given a choice between watching a movie on a PC or a big screen TV, I'd venture that most people would opt for the TV. But sometimes you don't have a choice.

If you're traveling, for example, it's a bit impractical to carry along your TV and DVD player but if you carry a laptop computer you can watch movies on the go.

I frequently watch movies on my laptop on planes and sometimes view them from my hotel room. I've even been known to watch a movie from a coffee shop, wearing headphones of course. My wife doesn't particularly like the idea of kids watching movies in the car, but it is certainly possible to plop a laptop in the backseat to entertain the kids.

Many laptops have DVD players but the problem with rental DVDs is that they have to be returned. If you're on the road, that could involve a late fee. Downloading a movie saves two trips to the video store. You don't have to pick it up or go back to return it. The NetFlix web-based subscription service solves that problem but it still involves ordering physical DVDs that arrive and are returned via the mail.

Both Movielink and the Starz! service have their pros and cons.

With Movielink and the new Starz! service you can select and download your movies at any time. When you're done with them, you just delete them from your PC or - if you do nothing - they will be deleted automatically after the movie expires which ranges from a few days to a few weeks, depending on the title. With Movielink, you have 30 days to start watching a movie but once you start it, you must finish it within 24 hours when it self-destructs

Movielink works like a video store. You go to the website, pick out your movies and pay for those that you want to watch. Like a video store, there is a good selection of recently released titles. Unlike a store; you don't have to worry about your choice being unavailable. Unfortunately, Movielink's prices are generally higher than video stores. New releases typically cost $4.99 to watch, though there are some available for $3.99 while some older movies are available for $2.99. Also, college students can get a 25 percent discount and there is one movie each day for 99 cents. The good news is that there is no initiation fee, monthly fee or minimums.

The big advantage to Movielink is that you get a large selection and pretty recent titles. The obvious disadvantage is that it's expensive if you want to watch a lot of movies.

The Real Networks/Starz! collaboration is a totally different model. Instead of paying per movie, you pay $12.95 a month for as many movies as you care to watch. The downside is that the movies tend to be older and there is far less of a selection. The service provides access to 100 titles at a time - the same titles that are currently playing on the Starz! cable & satellite service. New titles are added each week but other titles become unavailable.

So, while Movielink customers can now get their hands on such relatively recent titles as Big Fish and Calendar Girls, subscribers to the Starz! service must settle for a more limited selection of older titles. Still, Starz! has some nice movies to choose from. Current listing include Finding Nemo, Bringing Down the House and About Schmidt. The selections, however, change as Starz! adds and retires movies from its line-up.

I downloaded several movies from the STARZ! Ticket on Real Movies service last week just before I left on a roundtrip between the West and East coasts. Because it's an all-you-can watch service, I loaded up on about ten movies (each one takes up about 500 to 600 megabytes of disk space) and watched four of them during the trip.

What I liked most about the service was that it allowed me to discover movies I might not otherwise see. I hadn't even heard of "Children of the Revolution," but I loved it. Michael Moore's comedy/satire "Canadian Bacon" wasn't on my list of "must-sees," but I enjoyed it, too.

How long it takes to download depends on your Internet service. With my cable modem, it typically takes about 30 to 40 minutes per movie.

The video and audio quality of the movies is pretty good. It's not quite DVD quality but it's close - certainly better than VHS. The resolution is certainly high enough for a laptop screen but, to my surprise, it also looked pretty good on my 17-inch monitor.

Although we still have a ways to go before the studios make it easy and affordable to access any movie in their libraries, these two services are a good start. For the frequent viewer, the Real Network/STARZ service is a better value, despite its more limited and older selection. For anyone looking for a specific title, Movielink is a good - albeit somewhat expensive - pay as you go service.

By Larry Magid