Movie Downloads in Ireland

Movie rental stores are doing great business these days -- in games consoles, mobile-phone handsets and digital music players. They have been forced to diversify to cope with the fall in popularity of DVD rentals.

Ireland still has one of the biggest cinema-going populations in Europe, but the availability of movies on the internet has revolutionised how we watch films at home. Stephen McCormack is CEO of Irish company WildWave.com, which uses new digital technology media for distributing film and TV content. He says that the pervasiveness of the internet has allowed the public to find and consume entertainment in non-traditional ways -- and the movie industry had better catch up.

"At the moment, there is no digital download site specifically for Ireland so people go to illegal download sites and get the latest movies there," says McCormack. "They download in BitTorrent form, which is to movies now what Napster was to the music industry."

Illegal it may be, but McCormack estimates that many people under the age of 25 in this country habitually download content in this way.

There is good news on the way for the Irish consumer, however, who does not want to pay ?5.25 for a new release at a movie rental store -- but doesn't want to operate outside the law either.

All the major Hollywood studios have started to make their movies available online for a download fee at sites such as amazon.com and on Apple.

These downloads are not yet available in Ireland, but industry experts, including McCormack, suspect that will change in the next year.

"The music industry moved too slowly to prevent piracy and illegal downloads, but the movie people are starting to play catch-up and join with the internet to provide people with what they want."

The Irish Film Board has just posted 10 films from Irish producers online in a bid to get the material out to a wider audience. These can be seen at Youtube.com/virtualcinema.

For the Irish movie fan, there are also online rental options such as screenclick.com and moviestar.ie where films are sent by post to subscribers. There is also the option of downloading popular TV programmes legally on sites such as Lovefilm and Channel 4's 4OD. Eircom are hoping to roll out a new TV-on-the-web site soon.

When Ireland gets its own movie download site -- and it's a case of if, not when -- it is expected that downloading will replace DVD rental altogether. In Britain, the site www.vizumi.com allows consumers access to a wide back catalogue of movies.

This has given an extra lease of life to old horror movies, forgotten and cult classics, giving the current blockbusters a run for their money. Another important factor in paving the way for a download future for Irish film fans is the improvement to broadband services.

Downloading a feature-length movie needs 10 to 20mgbs of broadband speed, but many broadband solutions in rural areas are currently providing only 2mgbs.

It's not enough, but is set to improve.

The ability of most newer-model computers to hook up to TV sets will also enhance the home entertainment experience.

But even the download industry could be surpassed when consumers move onto the 'next big thing': VoD (video on demand).

This new service means that a customer can just click on a film and watch it straight away -- while it 'streams' -- rather than wait ages for it to download on to their hard drive. Amazon.com was reported last month to be replacing its download service with Amazon Video on Demand.

Irish consumers can only wait for a major provider to do the same here.

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