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 THE STAT 26Percentage of wireless customers who use their cell phones to take picturesMore Vitals
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DECEMBER 7, 2004
By Steve Rosenbush Movie Downloads Hit Prime Time Industry-backed MovieLink easily delivers hiqh-quality piracy-protected films via the Net, and its so-far thin selection will soon be improving  MovieLink, the online video-on-demand service backed by the movie industry, was little more than a curiosity when it launched two years ago. With only 175 titles to choose from, the selection paled in comparison to the personal library of the film buff down the street.
Now the reliable, easy-to-use service is quickly coming into its own. The selection is still pretty limited, with just 1,000 titles available. But that's going to change quickly as movie studios gain confidence in the technology and the systems that protect them against piracy, according to MovieLink CEO Jim Ramo. Thousands more titles will be offered over the next few years from MovieLink's owners, which include MGM (MGM ), Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment (SNE ), Universal Studios, and Warner Bros. (TWX ). The service also carries material from other studios such as Walt Disney (DIS ), Miramax, and Artisan. "Over time, we expect the Internet to emerge as a full-fledged distribution alternative to cable and satellite," says Ramos. BROADBAND NEEDED. Even now, MovieLink has a decent, if uninspired list of offerings. It has a little bit for everyone. Popular downloads include Hollywood hits that were in the cineplexes as recently as nine months ago, such as Mean Girls, Pirates of the Caribbean, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Ladykillers, and Hellboy. Genres run from action and thrillers to drama, comedy, cartoons, documentaries, short films, foreign offerings, and independent movies. But the depth within each category is pretty limited. The classics bin has about 150 films, but that includes filler like Airport. I like Airport, too, but it belongs in the thriller section. In every other way, MovieLink works well. Downloading the software you need to use the service is easy -- as long as you have a broadband Internet connection and a reasonably up-to-date computer. Finding and downloading films is a snap. I downloaded three trailers and a full-length feature without a hitch. The picture and sound were outstanding. "We think the quality is comparable to digital cable," Ramos says. PRETTY GOOD DEAL. A handful of "Enhanced Quality" selections are also available on MovieLink. These films offer close-to-DVD quality. I checked out the enhanced version of the Hellboy trailer. I downloaded the film over a regular DSL line at work and watched it with an 18-inch digital liquid crystal display monitor from Sony. The result was visually stunning, even when the image was blown-up to full-screen size. But you need a pretty fast PC to view enhanced films. A PC with a 1.5-gigahertz Pentium 4 microprocessor or better is required. The service operates much like a VCR or DVD player. You can pause, fast forward, or rewind -- even before the download is complete. You also can "bookmark" a frame of the movie, which is useful if you want to shut down your PC and resume watching later. MovieLink works out to be a pretty good deal. Fees range from $1.99 to $4.99. For that price, you can watch the movie right away or store it on your hard drive for as long as a month. Once you start watching the movie, you can view it an unlimited number of times over the next 24 hours. And if you decide to rent the same title again within the next month, you pay a discounted fee and don't have to download it a second time. You don't have to worry about late fees, either. BETTER ON A TV. For now, most people who download movies will end up watching them on a PC. I enjoyed the experience much more than I expected, thanks in part to the high-end audio and visual capabilities of the PC that I was using. But watching a movie on a computer still isn't ideal. In the future, I suspect that many MovieLink users will view their movies on a digital TV that's connected to a laptop or PC. The Internet isn't quite a full-fledged alternative to the video store yet, but it's a lot closer than I thought. The technology has arrived. The picture quality is reliable and clear, and you can even watch movies on a regular TV. The big drawback is limited selection. But I strongly suspect that problem won't be around for very long.  Rosenbush is a senior writer based in New York
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