Roku Netflix Movie Downloads Review

It is the big horse race in the gadget market this year: who is going to win consumers' hearts with a box that brings internet movie downloads to the TV set? Now we may possibly have a tiny box that deserves to be a winner or at least a leading contender.

Roku, a small maker of internet-connected media devices, this week introduced a black box that grabs movies and TV shows from Netflix, the DVD rental-by-mail pioneer.

You attach the Netflix Player to your TV, and connect it to your home broadband connection over Wi-Fi or a cable. Pick a movie using the included remote, wait a minute for the download to start, and then watch on your TV.

There are couple of other boxes on the market that do the same thing, including the Apple TV. The Roku Netflix Player, which is half the size of a Nintendo Wii, is not really better than any of them, but it has one tremendously attractive feature: its price. In a shaky economy, that is the kind of feature that seals the deal.

It costs just US$99.99. Even more importantly, it is cheap to use. If you already subscribe to Netflix's DVD rentals, you pay nothing extra to watch as much internet video as you want, as long as your monthly plan is US$8.99 or more.

This makes the Roku-Netflix combination a far better deal than its competitors. Apple's device costs US$229 and lets you rent movies from iTunes for US$2.99 to US$4.99 each. Vudu sells an eponymous box for US$295, with similar rental prices. Various TiVo digital video recorders will let you download movies from Amazon.com. The catch with all of these is that you have just 24 hours to watch a rented movie; if you need more time, you have to pay the rental fee again.

If you are the kind of person who sits down once a week to a watch a movie straight through, that will cost you about US$15 a month for four movies with either box. But if you watch those movies in half-hour segments four days a week, you're paying more like US$60 a month.

Apple, Vudu and Amazon.com are not directly to blame for their rental terms, which are set by movie studios. Vudu has managed to double the rental period on independent movies.

Netflix, on the other hand, manages to skirt these onerous rental terms entirely by licensing the movies from the studios not for downloading, but for streaming.

The downside to this model is that Netflix has fewer "big" movies available, and they take longer to show up after they leave theatres. Some of its 10,000 instant-view movies are exercises in obscurity, like the Italian horror movie Planet of the Vampires. But there are enough good flicks to give you your money's worth and more, like Letters from Iwo Jima, La Vie en Rose and Pan's Labyrinth. TV shows include Dexter and Heroes.

You pick the movies on the website, using your computer, and place them in a "queue". Back at the TV, you pick among the movies in the queue with the remote. You can not access the entire instant-view catalogue through your remote — you have to preselect on the computer.

So how do the movies look? Good enough, in most cases. Everything is in standard definition, but the quality varies considerably from movie to movie, and with the speed of your internet connection. At a download speed of 2.2 megabits per second, the maximum quality delivered by Netflix, Heroes looks as good as or better than a DVD. Blade Runner looks terrible at any speed, apparently because of low-quality source material.

Most of the content is watchable, but if your broadband line is medium-range DSL at 1.5 mpbs, the quality will be substantially less than if you have 3 mbps or more.

I also found that if I connected the player to the internet using Wi-Fi, the speed of the download varied between 1 mbps and 2.2 mbps, with an attendant change in picture quality. When I connected the box to my internet router with a cable, everything came down at 2.2 mbps.

There is no surround sound, but if Netflix were to add that to its movies, the box would play it, according to Anthony Wood, chief executive of Roku. Wood also said the player is capable of high-definition video, if Netflix would provide it. HD would probably require a download speed of at least 6 mbps, and it might be tough to get it to work over Wi-Fi.

The Apple TV and Vudu are less dependent on the speed of your internet connection, because they contain hard drives that can store a movie for later viewing if the connection is slow. Each also has about 100 HD movies available.

The lack of a hard drive in the Netflix Player is part of the reason it is so cheap, but it is also behind its one really annoying feature: reversing and fast-forwarding takes much too long. Since it takes up to a minute for the box to "find its place" in a movie by downloading the content from Netflix, skipping back 10 seconds to listen again to a missed line can take much longer.

For me, the low price was an effective dose of Gold Bond powder on this irritation. Starting a movie takes up to a minute? Yes, but hey, it is cheap! The picture quality varies a great deal, and there is no HD? Yes, but you can not expect the world for US$8.99 a month.

Roku's box is just the first of what Netflix hopes is a whole family of products that get movies from its website. LG Electronics is planning to include the streaming capability in a Blu-ray DVD player later this year, and two other unnamed manufacturers are bringing out set-top boxes.

But I don't see a big reason to wait for them. Even if the Roku player sacrifices a few things to limbo under the US$100 price level, it is a no-brainer for the 8 million-plus Netflix customers out there. If you are not one, this is an added reason to become one.

CinemaNow: burn-to-DVD digital movies via Windows MC

Representing the latest effort to compete with iTunes in the burgeoning movie download space, CinemaNow is now offering a variety of paid content services through Windows Media Center. These include download-to-own movies, priced from $10 to $20; TV shows and music videos are priced at $2.

The company claims that download-to-own movies are available day-and-date of retail DVD release, but doesn't mention the breadth of the upcoming library (right now there are about 3,400 feature-length movies in CinemaNow's collection). The service will also offer 24 hour movie rentals priced between $3 and $4. Select Pay-Per-View titles are available day-and-date of retail DVD release.

CinemaNow also enables customers to legally download a DVD, play it back on their PC, and burn a copy to a blank DVD disc. The disc can then be played in virtually any DVD player with full remote control navigation and access to all of the special features. Burn-to-DVD movies are priced from $9 to $15.

The service will also take advantage of Microsoft's Internet TV Beta – a U.S. offering within Windows Media Center that "allows consumers to choose from more than 100 hours of TV entertainment, music concerts, movie trailers, news, and sports content" – and Online Media, which offers sports news and statistics from Fox Sports, XM Radio, HSN Vision, and Showtime TV.

PS3 Movie Downloads Coming Summer 2008?

Sony could be taking on 360's Video Marketplace with its own film download service for PS3 as soon as this summer. That's according to the LA Times, quoting anonymous "studio executives familiar with the plan".

Sony is apparently currently in licensing talks, with plans to beam TV programmes and movies to PS3 units via PSN.

The report comes after Sony marketing boss, Peter Dille, spoke of the incoming video service on the PlayStation Blog. "Many of you have been hearing rumblings about a video service that will allow you to download full-length TV shows and movies via PlayStation Network for North America."

He continued: "While I don't have any new announcements here for the PlayStation Nation, it's already been confirmed that we'll be offering a video service for PS3 in a way that separates the service from others you've seen or used. Ultimately the goal of the PlayStation Network service will be to break through the overwhelming clutter of digital media to give you the TV, movies and gaming content you want."

While Dille promised "more on this very soon", Sony UK refuses to comment on the LA Times report. We say get those broadband connections ready for a video-fuelled battering real soon.

Netflix launches movie download device

Online DVD rental company Netflix Inc. took another step into the home entertainment market Tuesday by unveiling a new set-top box that allows its subscribers to stream videos directly from the Netflix Website to their televisions.

Netflix said it developed the player with technology company Roku Inc. and will begin selling the device Tuesday for $99.99. The service will initially offer 10,000 movies and TV episodes from Netflix's 100,000-title library.

The announcement of the new device helped send Netflix shares up $2.85, or more than 9%, to $33.85.

Customers will need what Netflix calls an "unlimited" subscription, starting at $8.99 a month, in order to use the Netflix player. The player itself comes with no other charges aside from the original pricetag.

Netflix said the device is about the size of a paperback book and works with wireless Internet connections.

The move is seen as the latest attempt by various companies to establish a footprint in consumers' living rooms with devices to bring content from the Internet and their computers to their televisions. Similar devices have come from Apple Inc.

Separately, Lehman Brothers analyst Douglas Anmuth raised his rating on Netflix's stock to overweight from equal weight, and also increased his 2008 earnings target for the company to $1.26 a share from $1.24. Anmuth said Netflix is showing signs of benefiting from growing subscriber trends

Amazon's Unbox to Add HD Movies

Amazon's Unbox service will soon offer High-Definition TV shows and movies, according to an article by TV Week magazine.

The e-commerce site has offered movie and TV show downloads for several months, but only in standard-definition. The Unbox downloads are available at Amazon's web site and on TiVo DVRs that have Broadband connections, including the $299 TiVo HD set-top.

Jim Denney, TiVo's vice president of product marketing, tells TV Week that Amazon will soon add high-def programming. The executive would not offer a specific launch date, but said it would happen in "in the not too distant future."

Microsoft's XBox, Apple TV and the Vudu VOD set-top now offer high-def programming over the Net directly to the TV. For TiVo, the addition of Amazon high-def content would help the company's efforts to generate more subscribers in the growing HDTV audience.

Hollywood wants $15 million from Pirate Bay Downloads

Hollywood wants $15.4 million in damages for copyright infringement from the people behind The Pirate Bay, according to a claim filed by industry organization the Motion Picture Association.

Pirate Bay is one of the most widely used BitTorrent trackers for music, movies and software. Previously the recording industry, computer game developers and local movie companies, have specified damages totalling $15.4 million dollars.

Included in the claim are "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," "The Pink Panther," "Syriana," "Walk the Line," and 13 episodes from the first season of "Prison Break."

"The Pink Panther" is the most popular title among Pirate Bay users; the least popular, by a mile, is "Syriana." They have been downloaded 49,593 and 3,679 times, respectively, according to MAQS, the law firm which represents MPA.

The damages are based onper downloaded movie and every time someone had downloaded a copy of Prison Break. The sums are not unreasonable, because the distributed files didn't include copy protection, and were made available before the release of a DVD or a legal download, according to MAQS.

Included in the final sum is also interest, which will continue to grow, and damages for the harm Pirate Bay has caused.

Torrentspy.com fined $111 Million

A $111 million law suite has ruled in favor of 6 major Hollywood studios against file-sharing web site TorrentSpy.com

The web site was fined a total of $30,000 for almost 3,700 movie and television show downloads which were on offer.

Torrentspy.com was shut down in March and its operators Valence Media LLC have filed for bankruptcy protection in the UK asking for judgment on the ruling to be stayed.

In a major win for Hollywood studios, a California federal judge has ordered TorrentSpy to pay some $110 million in damages for infringing the copyright of thousands of films and TV shows through its BitTorrent search engine.

The Los Angeles judge, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, also issued a permanent injunction against TorrentSpy, which was once one of the most popular indexes of BitTorrent files before it shut down in March after a two-year copyright battle with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The company closed its site on March 24, citing financial hardship and a desire to protect the privacy of its users.

MPAA CEO Dan Glickman said the judgment should serve as warning to other search services of file-sharing applications.

"The demise of TorrentSpy is a clear victory for the studios and demonstrates that such pirate sites will not be allowed to continue to operate without facing relentless litigation by copyright holders," he said in a statement.

The judge ordered TorrentSpy to pay $30,000 per copyright infringement for 3,699 films and shows. That works out to be worth $110,970,000. How that amount will be paid is unclear. A call to TorrentSpy's attorney was not immediately returned. The judgment puts a fine point on another long battle between technologists and copyright holders.

The studios originally sued TorrentSpy in February 2006, alleging that the site promoted and contributed to online copyright infringement by helping people locate illegally copied films and television shows on the Internet. Last December, a federal judge sided with the MPAA by saying that TorrentSpy had destroyed evidence that would make a fair trial possible.

According to the court, TorrentSpy operators had intentionally modified or deleted directory headings naming copyrighted titles and forum posts that explained how to find specific copyrighted works; concealed IP addresses of users; and withheld the names and addresses of forum moderators. The company had previously been fined $30,000 for violations of discovery orders and were warned of severe sanctions if they continued to ignore the orders.

TorrentSpy's attorney, Ira Rothken, called that ruling "draconian in nature and unfair." He said he did not believe any data was intentionally destroyed, and that some actions were taken to protect the privacy of TorrentSpy users.

Rothken also said at the time that TorrentSpy would appeal any decision on damages.

Still, the permanent injunction prohibits Valence Media, operator of TorrentSpy, from engaging in any activity that "encourages, promotes or solicits, or knowingly facilitates, enables or assists, copyright infringement," according to the court.

ISPs Must Tackle Download Piracy

Internet service providers, website operators and manufacturers of devices that are used by some to pirate content should play a part in stamping out that piracy, Sumner Redstone, chairman and controlling shareholder of both Viacom and CBS, said on Tuesday.

"It is obviously impossible to check every computer or look over the shoulder of every user around the world to see whether they have a license to use our content and we don’t want to do that," said Redstone in a keynote address to the Seoul Digital Forum. "So solutions turn on enlisting the aggregators - ISPs, device manufacturers, hosting companies, and site operators - in this effort. We're not ask for perfection. But we do ask that companies that become aware of piracy using their facilities, do something about it."

Redstone, who was on his first visit to South Korea, spent about one third of his keynote address at the event speaking about piracy and the damage it does to companies like his own.

"When you can instantly and easily download a high-quality, feature length film for free, with no repercussions, the incentive to purchase it quickly evaporates," he said. "If this sort of theft is allowed to continue unabated, the incentive to create programming will disappear."

While battling piracy content providers need to continue forging on into new media markets and utilizing new distribution methods to reach consumers, he said.

"Media companies, in turn, need to make it easy for consumers to obtain our content in a legal manner," said Redstone. "We cannot let the lack of perfect antipiracy tools keep us from forging ahead in providing the best, most innovative, creative content to the consumer over whatever medium they prefet, whenever and wherever they prefer it."

Content providers like Redstone's CBS and Viacom have been battling online piracy of movies and TV shows for several years.

First efforts involved a string of high-profile lawsuits against individual internet users but with so many people participating in file sharing and other forms of piracy the target of actions switched to site operators.

YouTube has been a major focus, and a chorus of complaints from TV stations and movie companies pushed the Google-owned site to introduce a watermarking system that seeks to block copyrighted material from being uploaded.

"They cannot get away with stealing our product," he said of YouTube. We cannot tolerate any form of piracy by anyone including YouTube."

But getting ISPs to monitor and filter traffic of their users has traditionally been a difficult thing to do. Most keep their hands off packets traveling through their networks and devices arguing that they are mere conduits and not responsible for the actions of their users. Today many ISPs in the US will act on copyright complaints but only after a claim has been made under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA).

Redstone also called on regulators the world over to ensure copyrights are protected and infringements are punished.

In some nations the tide is turning against piracy thanks to new laws, he said, which were introduced not to help Hollywood but to prevent damage to emerging local content industries.

"The good news is: I am, increasingly preaching to the converted in piracy-prone markets around the world," he said. "Governments in China and India are starting to take an active interest in enforcing copyright, if only to protect their own homegrown content."

Sky TV announce movie download service

Sky TV has announced a new download service that will be charged at $5 per month and offer members unlimited movie and TV programme downloads to their computers.

Starting next month, Sky TV will offer a movie and TV programme download service through its Sky Online website that will allow users unlimited downloads for $5 per month.

Users will need to be current Sky TV subscribers, and for movie downloads you will need to be a Sky Movies subscriber. Sky TV chief executive John Fellet says the available movies will closely mirror the Sky Movies offering. Sky Box Office movies will not be included in the service.

Initially, only movies and programmes that have already screened on Sky will be available for download, but Sky is negotiating with Hollywood studios to secure rights to sell movies online that have not been broadcast on the TV service.

Telstra Clear and Vodafone are underpinning the service and John Fellet says these ISPs are likely to offer special deals that will reduce the broadband data charges users will face.

Vodafone spokesman Paul Brislen was not able to supply details and said that negotiations with Sky were still on-going.

Files will be delivered in the Windows Media format and will come with Microsoft's Advanced DRM 2.9. This means the file will be locked to the machine it is downloaded to and will come with a time-specific licence that may be anything from one week to a month.

Users can watch the movie or programme as many times as they like within the licence period. When the licence has expired, the user can log back in to the service to the renew the licence if it is still available.

Sky TV general manager Sam Morse said licences will remain current in much the same time frame that the same movies are playing on the Sky Movies TV service.

Apple losing money on iTunes movie download service

It’s common knowledge that superstores sell many products at a loss to get you into the store, once your there, they hope you will buy many other products to make them a profit in total. Selling products at a loss also builds their brand and business by word of mouth. When it comes to online stores and Apple iTunes things are no different, they would sell certain services and products at cost or even make a loss to build the brand and hope for repeat business from you.

Today we are hearing that Apple may be losing money on the new iTunes movie download service, the hype surrounding this new service is the fact that the movie downloads are being made available on the same day as the DVD release. This has been setup with an agreement between Apple and film studios (this includes the six largest movie studios).

From this week you will be able to buy new movies for $14.99 on iTunes, but it has been reported that Apple are paying around $15.50 for each movie, that may only be a $0.51 loss but over millions of downloads (that’s a big loss). Now Apple must have a plan here, and I am guessing that if millions of movie downloads do happen, Apple will be in a position to demand a better price from the movie studios.

Apple to Sell Movie DVDs

Apple, maker of the iPod media player, said yesterday that it would start selling movies through its iTunes online store the same day they are released on DVD.

New releases from studios, including Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros., will cost $14.99, Apple said in a statement. Previously, customers had to wait several weeks after the DVDs debuted. The service will start with such movies as "American Gangster" and "Juno" this week.

Chief executive Steve Jobs is counting on movies to increase sales of iPods, Macintosh computers and Apple TV devices, which let users watch downloaded films on their widescreen televisions. In January, Jobs said customers had bought 7 million movies, which was below his expectations. Apple began selling movies and television shows on iTunes in October 2005.

"People want to watch a movie as soon as it comes out, and they don't want to have to wait," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter Research in New York. "What Apple is doing is knocking down one more barrier for why you wouldn't want to buy a movie from them."

New titles will also be available from News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney Co., Universal Studios, Sony Pictures, Lionsgate, Image Entertainment and First Look Studios.

The studios are betting that Apple will repeat its success in music with films, Gartenberg said. "They are feeling that iTunes is an important venue."

ITunes, with more than 6 million songs, is already the most popular site for legal music downloads, according to NPD Group in Port Washington, N.Y. Apple said last month that iTunes had surpassed Wal-Mart Stores as the biggest music retailer in the United States. Apple has sold more than 4 billion songs since opening the iTunes store in April 2003.

Apple offers more than 1,500 films, including 200 in high definition. Studios now sell older movies for $9.99 each and provide films for rental under a service Jobs introduced in January. Apple said yesterday that it has 1,000 movies for rent.

"The Internet is a growing channel and one that many believe is the ultimate future of entertainment distribution," said Ross Rubin, an analyst at NPD. "For Apple, it's another step in reaching parity with the retail DVD market."

With digital downloads and rentals, the studios still need to figure out how to make movies available without jeopardizing the more lucrative DVD sales, said Steve Diamond, an entertainment-law professor at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, Calif.

At the same time, the studios want to put films online to stem the demand for pirated copies, he said.

Free Movie Download Risks

Looking to download the newest Hollywood hit movie from the Internet free of charge? Everyone you know seems to be doing it and maybe you'd like get in on this too. Or you may have done this a few times and are itching to get even more. Whether or not you've already downloaded some pirated movies, you might want to think about it. A good deal of the 'free movies' on the Internet are violating copyright law. The consumers who download these movies are technically breaking the law and could be setting themselves up for a lawsuit.

The problem of on line theft is growing every year and organizations like the MPAA are stepping up their efforts to fight it. When someone illegally downloads copyrighted films and movies, they leave themselves vulnerable to legal prosecution. Although getting caught is still somewhat unlikely, this will change in the future.

Sometimes, the file that gets downloaded is infested with viruses, spy ware, or unwanted pornography. People have experienced unwanted withdrawals from their bank accounts because of the release of private information. File sharing networks such as peer-to-peer (p2p) are especially insidious in this regard.

If you do your downloading off p2p networks, you may get a file that is nothing more than advertisements. In order to get access to the actual movie, you might be required to jump through a 'few' hoops. Usually it involves submitting your email address to an endless array of advertising promotions.

Both the music and film industries are taking online piracy very seriously and are working on ways to fight it. In the future, penalties such as criminal prosecution and having your ISP cut off your Internet access (proposals for this are in the works in the UK) will become a matter of course. European laws which facilitate the prosecution of people illegally downloading with p2p networks have been proposed.

Online movie memberships do not deal in pirated movies and offer safety from worms, viruses, spy ware and mal ware. By comparison, downloading free movies is full of risk. The required movie player needed to view your free movie or the shared file you've downloaded may be infested with a virus.

Increasingly, the established online download memberships are collaborating with the major studios to provide a huge array of quality movies. You can get peace of mind by staying clear of the hazardous risks that come with illegal downloads. Keep your computer, your bank account and your privacy secure by joining a legal movie download membership such as Vizumi Movie Download or Apple Movies.

Why Use Movie Download Membership Services?

With the advance of technology and the growth of the Internet, we are no longer forced to drive to the local video rental store to get our movies. We can make our movie selection on the Internet and wait for the video to arrive by mail. However our options don't end there since we can also select and view the movie immediately online.

There are two ways to go about this. We can pay for our movies via a movie download membership site such as Vizumi or we can try for the free route online. Here we discuss the benefits that an online membership has over the offline video rental store as well as the advantages of the paid membership over the free alternatives online.

A big advantage of joining a movie download site is the sheer size of movie title selection that you have access to. You can download as often and as much as you please from these extensive movie archives. Traditional brick and mortar DvD stores have a storage capacity that is limited by building space.

This means that they are forced to cater to popular tastes. Online download memberships don't suffer from this type of restriction and therefore can accommodate a broader variety of movie genres. If you're into the more obscure movies whether they are very old classics or cult films, you are more likely to find them online.

Searching online is often an easier task than browsing through endless shelves for a particular movie in a brick and mortar store. An online site will usually have a search box that can search by the title, actor, director or any particular keyword. Also, lists that group movies into different categories or genres are usually provided.

In addition to movie genre, their lists often group movies by popularity, latest additions, critic picks and alphabetically. Some even allow the members themselves to rate and write reviews for the movies. Movie reviews given by ordinary people can often be a better indicator of a movie's entertainment value than those of professional critics.

Online memberships have a large selection of movies in their archives. Free online movies that are actually legal are generally public domain movies with expired or un renewed copyrights. These tend to be very old 'classic' movies.

The major television networks will usually make recent episodes of popular TV series available for viewing on their web sites. However, only a select few of these series are available and only for a limited time.

Movie download memberships are safe from viruses, worms, spy ware and mal ware. However, downloading movies from 'free' sites can be a game of Russian roulette. For example, if you download using p2p, you are sharing files with a multitude of other users and are trusting that none of these strangers will infect the file with spy ware or viruses.

These are just some of the benefits that paid online movie download sites have over your local video store and over the so called free alternatives that exist online. The speed, convenience and economy of getting entertainment directly off the Internet is nothing short of amazing. However the shortcomings and risks of the 'free' downloads available online makes the choice of paid memberships a very intelligent and sensible decision.