Cinemanow Apple Mac Movie Downloads

In a move that could step up the competitive pressure on Apple, movie download service
CinemaNow has inked a deal that will make its movie and TV show downloads playable on both PCs and Macs.

CinemaNow announced today it has signed a deal to use Widevine Technologies' multi-format digital rights management and copy-protection technology to make CinemaNow's video downloads playable on Windows, Mac and Linux platforms. The technology also enables CinemaNow to stream movies to users through the Internet Explorer, FireFox, Safari and Opera browsers.

The move could help the company wrestle market share away from Apple iTunes, which dominates the paid digital video business. Up to now, iTunes has been the only download service to sell major studio movie downloads playable on Apple computers and PCs.

CinemaNow, Amazon.com, Movielink and others have been restricted by DRM to offering downloads compatible with PCs and Windows Media portable devices, the latter of which make up a fraction of the portable market compared to the iPod.

ITunes still offers the only downloads playable on the iPod, giving it a considerable edge over competitors.

With its Widevine partnership, CinemaNow�s digital content will be available on a wide range of consumer electronic devices as well as new devices shipping to retail with CinemaNow�s "CE Store" application. CinemaNow downloads still won�t play on iPods, a spokeswoman confirmed.

"Widevine�s technology helps CinemaNow expand delivery of high-quality digital content across any consumer electronics device or platform," CinemaNow chief technology officer Jesse Keane said in a statement announcing the deal. "With the integration of Widevine�s multi-platform and multi-format solution, we ensure our content partners receive the highest level of protection, which is a key factor in their ongoing support for CinemaNow�s open platform and domain-based business model."

The move comes as several competitors have dropped out of the download business and others are shifting their models. Last week, news broke that Starz Entertainment's Vongo service and Morgan Freeman-backed movie service ClickStar shut down. Meanwhile, Amazon launched a streaming movie service called Amazon Video On Demand in beta last month as an eventual replacement for its Unbox download service, which has gotten off to a slow start. Amazon's streaming service is playable on PC, Mac and Linux computers.

CinemaNow Movie Downloads Review

CinemaNow movie download service offers movie rentals, memberships and downloads for purchase from popular movie companies like Disney, MGM, 20th Century Fox and Miramax.

This service has a little something for everybody, from family favorites, cult classics to major new releases.

This service even offers streaming video, HD downloads and they are completely compatible with Windows Mobile??based Portable Media Centers.

CinemaNow has collaborated with many Hollywood heavy hitters to total over 250 licensors to offer over 4000 titles. They have created relationships with media moguls like Disney, Microsoft, MGM, Miramax, NBC Universal, 20th Century Fox, ABC News and Vivid Video.

Movie Download Selection
This movie download site is a little more adult oriented than some of the other sites that we reviewed. For example, they only offer 105 titles in their family section, whereas they offer 600 Drama and 300 action titles as well as a large adult content section. However, they do provide parental controls and do not display graphic images on their regular pages. It is a good idea to visit this site before your kids do, to set the parental controls, because they are not automatically on.

At the time this review was completed they offered almost 25 pages of New Releases for rent, which included popular titles like Ghost Rider, Pan?s Labyrinth and the Astronaut Farmer. CinemaNow also offers independent films and titles from smaller production companies.

Ease of Use of Movie Download Service
This movie download service is a bit different from other movie download services, they offer a membership plan, movies for rent and for downloadable purchase (digital sell through).
CinemaNow has recently included a ?Burn to DVD? section that allows you to burn selected titles and play them on most DVD players. Furthermore, they let you browse their extensive selection without having to register or sign up for a membership-you can see what they offer before making a commitment.

Their membership is a bit pricey at $29.95 per month and includes adult content videos, news and concert downloads and access to nearly 1400 free videos. However, membership does not provide unlimited access to the Hollywood hit rentals, these are offered pay per movie only.

If you choose to rent a movie, they range from $1.99 to $3.99 each and you have unlimited access for 24 hours after you begin watching the film.

Digital sell through movies vary in price and they offer nearly 1400 of these titles.

Their downloads are extremely compatible with Microsoft products, they work with Windows Mobile??based Portable Media Centers and are available for streaming or download. They also offer High Definition (HD) downloads. However, their services are not available for Macintosh or through browsers other than Internet Explorer.

CinemaNow posts customer reviews and hosts several account management tools including parental controls, My Media Manager and a Recently Browsed section. The service supports searches by title, actor, director or keyword, genre, format and device.

Summary
For quick, studio backed and legal downloads try CinemaNow. This service offers choices for all ages and all tastes, from Comic Superheroes to Cult Classics to Feature Films. So instead of getting in your car or waiting for a two hour download, visit CinemaNow, and get it NOW....

94% of Americans Believe Movie Downloads Are Better for Environment

A new survey conducted by CinemaNow, the digital entertainment innovator in delivering high-quality Hollywood movies and TV shows across multiple platforms, points to what industry experts have been saying for years: downloading movies is far more convenient and eco-friendly than taking a drive out to the local video store.

The survey reports that 94 percent of Americans believe that they make a bigger contribution to the environment by downloading a movie online versus renting or buying at a video store. It's a finding bolstered by results that indicate more than 64 percent of those surveyed believe the biggest benefit to downloading online is not having to drive to get a movie or wait for it in the mail in the first place.

"With the hike in gas prices, it's not surprising that a significant number of movie-lovers are changing old habits like driving down to the local video store," said Ashley Woodworth, senior vice president of marketing, CinemaNow. "What surprised me the most about our latest poll results is how many people thought Christian Bale looked best in his Batman outfit, since I myself have always been a big fan of Adam West's retro look."

The survey found that consumer adoption of digital sharing features such as streaming to IP-enabled TV or loading content onto MP3 players still lags in comparison to burning DVDs. In fact, more than half (51 percent) of Americans say they've tried burning the digital movies onto DVDs versus 18 percent who have tried connecting them to set-top-boxes or cable box.

CinemaNow's Digital Download Survey was conducted on the CinemaNow.com website May 19th through June 19th, 2008.

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.

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Comparing 6 Movie Download Websites

Here's some useful information for all of those considering ditching your Netflix account or the weekly trip to Blockbuster and downloading movies instead. One of the following methods for watching movies might be right up your street:

If you are on a PC you can try any of the services below, which include:

Vizumi Movie Downloads
CinemaNow
Movielink
Guba
Amazon Unbox
iTunes

If you are a Mac user, the choice is easy. Only iTunes will work on your platform.

Note, however, that you?ll be forced to use Internet Explorer to download these movies unless you use iTunes or Amazon Unbox.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a big part of all of these products. Make sure you read the terms and conditions carefully before agreeing. At least for Amazon Unbox, the terms are somewhat draconian. DRM will keep many users away who?d like the ability to burn movies to DVD, transfer to other computers, etc. These users will simply purchase and rip DVDs directly (removing DRM), or use bittorent to acquire movies.

Vizumi are backed by media giants Arts Alliance Media and studios are constantly being signed up as partners from Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox to Paramount and Sony. They offer 100% safe, legal and official movies. Vizumi software is easy to use and becoming a member (for free) allows you to download films to own or to rent, on a pay per view basis. They also offer free downloads every day.

Since branching out from their Usenet product through a deal to sell Waner Bros. movies in June and Sony movies in July, GUBA has mainly been competing on price and referral fees for recommending more users to the site. GUBA also features user-generated and usenet videos for free alongside premium movies users can buy or rent. Usenet movies can be downloaded in iPod and PSP formats as well.

CinemaNow?s most recent claim to fame has been their release of ?Too Fast Too Furious? online at the same time as the DVD release, an industry first. They also have a Burn-to-DVD feature that allows you to burn a DVD playable on almost any DVD player for select titles. CinemaNow provides movies from Disney, Fox, Lionsgate, NBC Universal, Sony, and Warner Bros. Like most of the others, CinemaNow requires users to have a Windows PC and use Internet Explorer.

Formed out of a joint venture between major movie studios, Movielink has by far the largest catalog of new release and library titles. Their major partners include MGM, Paramount, Sony, Universal, Warner Brothers, Disney, Sundance Channel, BBC, and National Geographic. While not as consistently low priced as GUBA, if you look closely enough you can find various discounts for military personnel, college students, and mystery rentals.

After its initial launch, Ubox received wide criticism, most notably from BoinBoing about its user-unfriendly license agreements. Unbox has by far the best meta-data on movies and TV shows, incorporating plot summaries, release information, production stills, and consumer ratings. Unbox sells from 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight, Lionsgate, Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros.

View video review of Amazon Unbox here:


As expected, iTunes launched their movie download service back in September. It features Disney movies and managed over one million dollars in sales during its first week. iTunes 7 has been criticized for the buggy 7.0 release corrected with 7.0.1, but nothing seems to be stopping the iTunes juggernaut.

View iTunes Movies review here:



Recommendations:
For all you Apple Mac users the choice is easy with iTunes. For PC Windows users, Vizumi and Movielink have the deepest catalogues with Guba having the most competitive pricing.

CinemaNow has an outrageously priced burn-to-DVD product that may be attractive to some users (although simply buying the DVD seems to make a lot more sense).

The options in the UK are somewhat more limited for Movie Downloads with Vizumi the best choice. Alternatively, try Love Film where you can buy a new release for �20, download it and they also send you the DVD.

What they all do seem to have in common is they are all (except Guba) quite expensive for such low quality content. The more people who use these services however, the more chance these prices will be slashed in coming months.

Vizumi has a few HD Downloads and this is where the future is as Blu-Ray has seemingly won the battle over HD, can it win the battle against digital downloads?

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CinemaNow, Macrovision Ink Tech Pact

Online movie download site CinemaNow Inc. has struck a deal with software maker Macrovision Corp. aimed at making it easier for manufacturers of media players and other devices to make their products compatible with CinemaNow's on-demand movie service.

Terms of the agreement, which was being officially announced Thursday, were not made public.

CinemaNow has been pushing to make its movie service available beyond users' personal computers, with the goal of enabling users to easily transfer movie downloads for viewing on TV sets.

CinemaNow users can currently download movies and videos from the service for viewing on televisions via several devices, including Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, certain portable media players from Archos and Samsung Electronics Co., and on Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Media Smart LCD TVs.

The Macrovision deal should eventually lead to many more compatible devices coming to market in the second half of this year, said Curt Marvis, CinemaNow's chief executive officer.

"This year we'll see CinemaNow start to become available across a very, very broad spectrum of products," Marvis said.

The agreement called for both companies to integrate their technology. Consumer electronics manufacturers, many of which already incorporate Macrovision's anti-piracy or digital distribution technologies in their products, will have to update their Macrovision technology for their new devices.

Devices equipped with the technology will be able to download movies, music videos and other CinemaNow programming directly to digital TV sets, set-top boxes and network-attached storage devices. The devices will also be able to find, stream and play other content stored on a home network, CinemaNow said.

The Macrovision-CinemaNow technology alone won't make devices automatically compatible with CinemaNow's service, but it should make it far easier for manufacturers to adapt them, Marvis said.

CinemaNow is privately held and has about 1.5 million monthly users.

Among its investors are Lionsgate Entertainment Corp., Microsoft Corp., Cisco Systems Inc. and Blockbuster Inc.

On the Net: http://www.cinemanow.com

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