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Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Great Movie Downloads Sites To Check Out

By Harry Nieves

We're a wired culture with the ability to satisfy and curiosity, question, or whim at a moment's notice. Many times multitasking has the inclusion of background music, taking time to social network, or watching your favorite movie while you work. You don't have to go to the video store anymore to get what you want and even the expense of pay per view is a thing of the past. The internet has democratized what we can do with entertainment and the prices are lower than ever.

The largest and most popular movie service is NetFlix which allows customers to subscribe, for little money, to a service that will deliver movies either to your door or through your computer. It is the quintessential model for on demand service. As more and more families have transformed their living rooms into entertainment oasis', the internet has come up and met the demand to stay home and have your fun on your own terms.

Video on demand (VOD) can come to you either from a live stream through your cable box, recorded onto your digital video recorder (DVR) for later viewing, or your computer. There is no difference between your DVD and VOD as the controls are the same in terms of skipping forward, backward, slow motion, pausing, etc.

This freedom with movie downloading has been around for quite some time, but it's only been recently that the business has legitimized itself toward paying websites. There are a multitude of websites that can allow you to get movie downloads from peer to peer networks, exactly like the file sharing that has changed the music industry over the last decade. However, besides the quality of free downloaded movies being suspect, there is the increased chance of putting your computer at risk for malware. Adware or spyware can be downloaded along with the movie you choose and can slow down your computer as well as steal your personal information. Legitimate movie downloading sites offer you quality and protection.

Some of the most well known movie download sites outside of NetFlix are Apple's iTunes, Starz's Vongo, Amazon's Unbox, CinemaNow, and Movie link. The disadvantage to Apple's iTunes outstrips it's advantages which include only that you can watch your downloaded movies on one computer and your video ipod. Also, there are no rental fees, what you buy on iTunes is yours, it is like buying a movie and with prices ranging from 9.99 to 14.99 it's better to go to the store and buy the DVDs you want.

Because you are only able to watch your downloads on an iPod or your computer, the price is exorbitant for the limited number of venues to watch your movie. Also, iTunes does not offer free movie selections and, for families, it has weak parental controls and no subscription or rental options. It's a hard pill to swallow to be forced to purchase a movie rather than just spending a little to watch one.

The Starz library of films is what powers it's download service Vongo and, as such, it does not offer current movie titles. However, being a rent-only site makes it more palatable to watch whatever you want without having to commit to a high price. The current subscription price for Vongo is 9.95 a month.

Amazon, the book selling as well as everything under the sun behemoth, has branched out into the movie downloading business with great results. Any movie you download can be viewed in multiple machines and platforms, all coupled with extremely sharp image quality. Their menu of choices also include both TV and movies for prices topping out at 3.99.

CinemaNow is one of the best, if not the best, downloading service on the web for the ability to get over 4,000 movies in five different ways including: renting, buying, a subscription service, free, and most impressively the ability to burn the movies you watch onto a DVD. The ability to burn movies makes CinemaNow a cut about the rest.

The cheapest option with middling results is found with MovieFlix. With fair image quality and a lack of new movies, there is a mix of free and older movies at your disposal for under $8 a month. Bringing movies into your life in a way that you decide should have you using a legitimate movie download service that works for you.

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