Vizumi Movie Downloads Close Down

Arts Alliance Media (AAM) has closed its Vizumi movie download network. AAM cited the slow growth of the UK's transactional online movie sector as one of the reasons behind its decision to discontinue its download services. AAM's resources will now be focused on the digital cinema business.

AAM's withdrawal from the online movie distribution sector comes at a time when many companies, such as Tesco, are only beginning to roll out video download services in the UK.

The 2005 launch of the Lovefilm digital store marked the first significant attempt to distribute legal movie downloads in the UK. While it is often the case that being an early entrant into a new market conveys some competitive advantage over slower rivals AAM's move into online movie distribution was perhaps too early.

Consumers have been slow to embrace legal digital downloads, deterred by a host of obstacles including long download times, prohibitively high pricing (particularly for digital retail) and the limited choice of titles. These issues are gradually being resolved; broadband speeds are increasing, pricing is coming down and Studios are becoming more willing to license their content. The transactional online movie market is beginning to pick up ? Screen Digest forecasts 1.3m digital movies will have been rented or bought in 2008.

However this market growth does not mean that AAM's decision to exit the market is unwise. The market has grown primarily as a result of the introduction of movies to Apple's iTunes store (iTS) in June 2008 and the iTS now dominates the UK online movie market. Outlets which are not closely bound to a device, including those run by AAM, struggle to generate significant sales volumes as consumers are reluctant to buy content which cannot easily be moved off the PC.

The launch of movies through the iTS has also compelled other stores to lower their prices in order to compete with those set by Apple - �10.99 for digital retail new releases and �6.99 for library titles. While this is good news for consumers, this price drop reduces the already low retailer margins still further.

From an economics perspective, the transactional online video market is shaping up to be a 'value-add' business, with successful service providers investing heavily and paying over the odds for content for digital distribution in order to drive a separate, higher-margin profit centre ? devices sales in the case of Apple or increasing supermarket footfall (through cross-promotion) in the case of Tesco. AAM does not have another business centre for which its online distribution network could play this supporting role. As such concentrating on digital cinema, in which AAM is one of the leading players in Europe, is likely to prove a far more profitable use of AAM's resources than maintaining its online distribution network.

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Movie Download Sites Part Two

In my last article I spread the word a little about Vizumi, which for those who don?t know is a reputable UK film download site. In this piece I wanted to go a bit further and see how Vizumi works ? to investigate it for users before moving on to compare Vizumi against the competition ? Lovefilm, Blinkbox and the rest.

First of all ? the homepage. You?ll see if you visit often that Vizumi tend to move the homepage titles around ? so that they are regularly refreshed. While this works in the sense that they get to push titles that you might not otherwise hear about (eg. Fools Gold), it also means that you might not necessarily pick up at first glance the quantity of big films available to download here.

Let?s say for example you want to have a look for a Batman movie download.
You have two options

1. Type in movie actor, film into the search box,and you?ll get a list of the relevant films.
   
2. Category Search - But let?s say, like me, you prefer to browse by category until something catches your eye then the route to finding Batman is slightly less straightforward

Step One - Select your Category
I pick action, because I reckon that?s the right area. I then get the head of a list of nearly four hundred action movies available for download. This is both great and awkward. Great in the sense that you get to browse through other movies on your way to Batman which you might not otherwise have considered. Awkward in the sense that the list is not alphabetisable by letter category ? meaning you can?t pick all movies beginning with ?B?. Instead you have to trawl through the pages until you get to your film.

I found Batman on page 3 ? not too bad ? but if I?d been after Jarhead I would have had to navigate to page 13, and if I?d been really pedantic and wanted the Bourne film download I would have had to work my way through to page 25 (of a total of 37 at the time of writing). This is why we use the search facility. But Vizumi Movie Downloads is set-up is quite clever too in that it forces you to check out the prices and availability of other films if you decide to browse by category.

Step Two - The categories
This is where Vizumi really come into their own. Top of the column is a category called Screen Gems ? full of things you thought you?d forgotten about ? Diff?rent Strokes, Bewitched, Starsky and Hutch ? admittedly mostly American shows, but classics nonetheless and if you?re a diehard fan, here?s the place to pick up your back catalogue.

Beyond this area, you have TV classics (not much in here unless you like Birds of a Feather or can be bothered to go back to Baywatch), then perhaps the next best area is Collections. In here a further subdivision takes you to various fun areas, like Haunting Horrors, where you?ll find all kinds of frightening nights? entertainment, At the Oscars, where you?ll rediscover some films that won gongs where plenty better failed, and Hot and Steamy, with a bizarre inclusion of Gaspar Noe?s conceptual masterpiece Irreversible, which should not be regarded as erotic, but which might escape notice in a more relevant category like Cult Favourites.

Final Step
Finally, below the films by genre, which should be obvious and easy to follow according to taste, is one of Vizumi?s best attributes, which I commented on in the previous article. This is the part where you get to download films cheaply (for as little as 99p!). I

In here ? well franklyt as you might expect for such a cheap price tag ? is a fair amount of stuff you?ve never even heard of. But one that sticks out for me is the much overlooked Comedy duo ? Priorite a gauche. Fun pretend-French satire. Tommy Cooper. And lots of kids? stuff ? good material to download and take on holiday for rainy days when you can?t let them run around outside.

This wraps up my review for this week. Next week, we move on to comparing the other main players in the UK film download market. Until then, turn on, tune in, press download?.and good night!

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Vizumi Website Review