It's been several months since movies began the infant stages of mass distribution over the Internet, and there have been some obstacles to widespread adoption of the practice, such as price. However, Movielink LLC appears to have a solution to at least one of the hurdles -- if movie studios give the OK.
Through an agreement with Sonic Solutions
Back in the spring, both Movielink and CinemaNow made a big splash with movie downloads from studio heavyweights -- General Electric's
For example, the downloads seemed awfully pricey considering they were digital files, and downloading feature films is still fairly time-consuming. Last but certainly not least was the fact that consumers could only watch the movies on their PCs, which some people think is a pretty big obstacle to widespread adoption.
Of course, some folks don't seem too terribly averse to watching at least some video on their computers. YouTube has illustrated staying power when it comes to Web video. A headline over at CNET today proclaimed that YouTube is serving up 100 million videos per day. (Bear in mind, YouTube's known for its short video clips.) Meanwhile, file sharing and video streaming continue to be popular, and some movie studios like Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures hope to benefit, having made deals to distribute fee-based content through BitTorrent and Guba.
Increasing word of the evolution of movie downloads is interesting, to say the least -- and of course, a lot of us are surely wondering when, if, and how big names like Amazon.com
Dig around for some more recent movie download news:
- Prepare for a BitTorrential disruption.
- Warner Bros. made the first high-profile bet on BitTorrent.
- If you want movie downloads, you'd better pay up.
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Alyce Lomax does not own shares of any of the companies mentioned.