Web to TV still a long road for movie downloads Updated 7/19/2006 5:37 PM ET
By Gina Keating Reuters http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/services/2006-07-19-movie-downloads_x.htm LOS ANGELES Imagine a world in which the latest "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie can be delivered to your 48-inch plasma TV with the click of a button no waiting for overnight delivery, no trip to the video store. Hollywood studios such as Walt Disney, Viacom's Paramount Pictures, Time Warner's Warner Bros. and General Electric's Universal Studios have been signing deals almost daily with Web companies, seeking to expand a $24 billion DVD rental and retail market by offering movies for consumers to download from the Internet. But as studios seek to protect rich pay TV deals and curtail piracy, analysts say it will be years before consumers get an unlimited selection of movie titles and a direct way to play downloaded films on televisions instead of computers. The market for legal movie downloads is still small with a handful of competitors like Movielink, Vongo and CinemaNow offering a fraction of the 60,000 titles available on DVD. Nonetheless, industry watchers and Hollywood studios most of which have invested in download companies believe the arena will one day eclipse store- and mail-based DVD rentals now dominated by Blockbusterand Netflix. As a result, investment in technologies to deliver movie downloads is leaping forward. CinemaNow launched a service on Wednesday that lets consumers download movies and burn them directly on to DVDs to be played on standard DVD players. Selection is limited though, with about 100 older titles, such as 2003's Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and 1992's Scent of a Woman, available for the download-to-burn offer. Movielink Tuesday said it has licensed technology from Sonic Solutions to allow download-to-burn in standard DVD players, but implementation must wait until the company obtains a license for DVD encrypting technology. "We are hopeful this gets into the market in a big way in the next six months or so," Movielink Chief Executive Jim Ramo said Monday. FROM THE WEB TO THE TV MovieBeam, formerly part of Disney, leads the way in transmitting DVD- and high-definition quality files to consumers' televisions by sending them to a set-top box via datacast on a broadcast signal. Thus the service, available in 29 U.S. markets, is not affected by Internet bandwidth issues that govern how quickly large movie files will download. MovieBeam plans to offer on-demand movies and TV shows later this year, which it will "trickle" into the boxes via customers' broadband lines overnight. For consumers who don't want or can't get set-top boxes, there are other paths from Web to TV home networking software such as Microsoft's Windows Media Center PC and similar platforms from AT&T and Thomson, docking stations and cables to link portable players, hard drives or laptops to the TV. None have caught on in a big way. "There are devices... that exist today in the marketplace but not that many people know about them yet or understand them yet," said CinemaNow Chief Executive Curt Marvis. "What is the time frame when it will be generally accepted?... I think it's two to three years." Bob Greene, executive vice president of Vongo parent Starz Entertainment Group, predicted that game consoles such as Microsoft's XBox or Sony's PlayStation "within 12-plus months will be easily utilized as a bridge between TV" and Internet movie downloads. "I don't see the PC connected to the TV set as the main methodology," Greene said, adding that consumers don't want to configure more electronics just to download movies. SELECTION SNAG Further complicating Internet distribution are licensing deals that did not anticipate consumers' fast-growing appetite for online content, and which place strict limits on when movies can be made available for download. Although movie studios have made some new titles available for download concurrently with their DVD releases, most arrive at the pay-per-view sites months later when they also run on video-on-demand TV services. Some older titles play for up to 10 years in various television windows before they can be licensed for electronic use. Premium cable programmers, including as Starz, HBO and Showtime, collectively pay the studios about $1.5 billion each year for exclusive rights to run new movies a paycheck the studios are not likely to trade in order to make more movies available faster on the Internet. "We think that is not going to change," said Carl Crabill, MovieBeam's vice president of sales and marketing. "There's going to be a physical rental business for years to come." --------------------[BOXED FEATURE]------------------------ THE BIG PLAYERS Hollywood studios are investing in movie download companies that are vying for a piece of the $24 billion movie rental industry dominated by Blockbuster and Netflix. The following are some of the largest online movie rental companies and a description of their plans: CinemaNow: Movie rentals range from $2.99 to $3.99 each, purchases from $9.95 to $19.95. Users have 24 hours to view rentals from the time the file is first played. About 100 older titles can be downloaded and burned directly on to DVDs for play on standard DVD players. Movielink: Rental prices range from 99 cents to $4.99, and purchases from $8.99 to $25.99. Rentals can be stored for up to 30 days but must be viewed within 24 hours of initial playing. MovieBeam: Users must purchase a MovieBeam set top box for $99.99 and pay-per-view fees of $1.99 to $4.99 during a 24-hour window. The box stores 100 DVD and high-definition quality movies at a time, and is updated weekly with 10 new titles that are datacast to the box via a broadcast signal. Titles are available for about three months. MovieBeam is available in 29 U.S. cities. Vongo: Subscription rates are $9.99 per month for unlimited rental from its library of 1,600 titles including movies, concerts, TV episodes and sports. Select pay-per-view Disney titles are available for $3.99 each. Subscribers may download titles to up to three personal computers or handheld devices enabled with Microsoft's new Portable Media Center operating system. Subscribers have access to a 24-hour live streamed feed of the Starz premium cable movie channel. Source: USA Today Find this article at: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/services/2006-07-19-movie-downloads_x.htm ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 antunes at uh dot edu Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
