Nickname: ithkuil

Review: Downloading movies for free is stealing. We need services like these so that we don't always have to drive to the video store (which is silly now that we have broadband). The CinemaNow and Movielink movies are much better quality than stolen movies downloaded for free. I agree that the prices are too high. Hopefully there will be more services in the future with better movies and prices that will offer some competition, but for now I think we should give them credit for taking a big risk. Just because we hate the movie industry doesn't mean that we should stop thinking rationally.

Date reviewed: Jan 7, 2007 6:05 AM

Nickname: acerview

Review: Apparently the studios are only making this "amazing" offer available to customers in the USA. Lucky you!

Date reviewed: Apr 4, 2006 11:38 AM

Nickname: lamah

Review: The point of downloadable movies is to save money on cost, and instead of passing the savings to cusumers, they insult us with a higher price. The marketing idea will fail.

Date reviewed: Apr 4, 2006 2:41 AM

Nickname: surfingmarmot

Review: Who are they kidding? This is a weak, sub-par offering just to prove there is no market for legally downloaded cinema titles. Meanwhile, people in ever increasing numbers ae downloading, renting, and ripping. Eventually they'll quit this and give consumers what they want. But in the waning days of their cartel they are still holding on nostalgically to their old business model and cartel. It would be sad to watch if they weren't such greedy, pathetic weasels. Instead, I am cheering and I want a front row seat when they go down ;-)

Date reviewed: Apr 3, 2006 11:17 PM

Nickname: Dare978Devil

Review: Will wonders never cease. Did the movie execs not learn a thing from the years the music industry was trying to find an acceptable legal music download format? It took Steve Jobs to finally come up with the 99 cent offer for only the tunes you want. The movie studios will instead charge more for an essentially useless file that can only be played on a computer. Great. Not. It seems to me that the movie industry is deliberately going for failure so that they can say, "See? It's not the content. It's the pirates! That's why we lose money!" Why not just charge $600 dollars per movie? Or $1000? That would be just as ridiculous as the limitations they have imposed, at the price they are offering. Anyone can walk into Wal-Mart and buy the latest movie, usually for about 20 bucks, often for less than that. Why in the world would anyone pay 50% more than that for an unburnable, no-extras, no-packaging, no-case, no-inserts, no-making-of, computer-only movie?

Date reviewed: Apr 3, 2006 7:24 PM

Nickname: c_moo

Review: This is ridiculous. The vast majority of consumers won't have the knowledge to get their computers hooked up to their TVs to play movies back, and I'm sure that most of them don't even have their computers in the same room as their TVs. My guess is (as was postulated on Slashdot) this is just an 'alibi' type action on the movie studios part. In a year or so, this dis-service will go away and the studios will be able to say, "See, we tried legal downloads but no one used it so its not a viable business model". I have a suggestion for the movie studios... take a lesson from the porn industry. Just yesterday there was a news story on Wired about Vivid Entertainment beginning to offer DVD downloads at the same price as a traditional DVD, but the key difference in Vivid's service and Movielink's is that Vivid will offer the ability to burn that movie to a DVD and you will have the SAME menu system, the SAME extras as the physical DVD when you're done. Once again, porn leads the way.

Date reviewed: Apr 3, 2006 3:27 PM

Nickname: unamused

Review: Let's see here: -cost more than buying the dvd -no added value -more restrictions on use -small selection -can't be transferred to dvd -can't be tranferred to a portable player uh, yeah, thats a great idea. Someone actually gets paid to come up with this stuff?

Date reviewed: Apr 3, 2006 3:10 PM

Nickname: pigbag

Review: The price point of these services is all wrong. Why would a consumer pay the same price as a DVD to receive limited access? I can watch a DVD on any DVD player, copy it as many times as I want, back it up and share it with my friends. If the studios are going to limit the users' rights they should also be limiting the price.

Date reviewed: Apr 3, 2006 3:06 PM

Nickname: Wolfger

Review: Absolutely ridiculous. Why should I pay full price for a crippled download when I can pay Wal-Mart price for the DVD, and create my own computer copy of the movie legally and for free? The movie industry is dumb as rocks when it comes to technology.

Date reviewed: Apr 3, 2006 2:28 PM

Nickname: notmyopinion

Review: Presumably all the restrictions will mean that I can't back up the movies for when I need to reinstall windows (seems to happen too often these days), or when I upgrade my PC past the 2-copy limit. And the "special cable" route to TV means I can only use a TV if it's in the same room as my PC (assuming I don't want to start moving furniture). Hmmm... they need to try harder, I think.

Date reviewed: Apr 3, 2006 2:02 PM