Some Thoughts on Downloading Movies

Anyone who knows me knows I love TiVo. It's changed the way I watch television 100%.
It may be changing the way I rent & buy movies as well. TiVo has teamed up with Amazon.com to provide a way for movies to be rented or purchased online and watched on the TV in your living room.

Movies are bought online at Amazon.com and then sent to your TiVo where the film appears in your "now playing" lineup just like the shows you tape. It takes a while to download to the TiVo, but I'd say about as long as it takes for me to go the video store, so what's the difference, right?

Video quality isn't quite as good as a DVD and there are no extra features. My copy of Talladega Nights cost $14.99 but as part of a promotion for the service, I actually paid nothing for it. Mickey got his DVD copy of Talladega Nights for a couple bucks cheaper so the prices obviously have to come down a bit for the service to really catch on. The selection isn't great at this point either, but I expect it will improve rapidly. It's amazing how quickly the film download market has filled out.

I was also pretty satisfied with downloading movies from iTunes (two actually, Rattle & Hum & Errol Morris's amazing documentary, The Thin Blue Line) and from xbox360's online marketplace (Nacho Libre...I think I fell asleep?). All three of these services have pluses and minuses, but I fear Apple's attempt to link the Mac and the TV will fall flat for those of us who already have two TV bridges (TiVo & xbox).

To sum up...the services are pretty good but it comes down to three things:
1) Ease of use
2) Quality of Content
3) Cost