S&V's Guide to Movie Downloads Page 3

In contrast, the 2-hour-and-37-minute Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire took more than 4 hours to download. Though I could start watching Goblet soon after beginning the download, I had to keep restarting it when the download couldn't keep up with the play speed. Tech support called this sluggishness a temporary issue and said that Dick and Jane was "much more in line with the download times most of our customers experience."

Microsoft's PlaysForSure.com, which lists devices compatible with Microsoft's digital rights management (DRM) scheme, claimed that iRiver's PMC-120 Portable Media Center (PMC) is compatible with CinemaNow, so I tried syncing my purchases with the iRiver portable. But every time I hit Play, nothing happened. CinemaNow tech support told me it hoped to fix the problem by fall. (So much for "plays for sure.")

I did successfully burn both Harry Potter and Dick and Jane to data DVDs as WMV files, which then played (and copied to the hard drive) in another computer once it retrieved the DRM licenses from the Internet. As we went to press, CinemaNow launched a "Burn to DVD" beta service that lets you burn complete DVDs from about 100 titles for from $9 to $15 each. You can make one copy to a DVD+R or DVD-R, and a printable DVD label and cover art are included. "Burn to DVD" movies include 5.1-channel surround sound, subtitles, foreign-language audio, and bonus features such as director commentaries. CinemaNow.com

Guba

Guba started out as a video-sharing site where users could download and keep TV shows and other content irrespective of copyright issues. It's since gone legit, much like Napster. You can rent titles for 24 hours or buy them for $19.99, beginning on the day the DVD is released. But unlike the other two sites, which offer downloads from all the major studios, Guba's "premium video" downloads are limited to Warner and Sony titles. Also, while Movielink and CinemaNow work by downloading and installing a client (a small database-management program for tracking purchases) before you can download a movie, Guba depends entirely on your computer's Windows XP operating system.

Since Guba doesn't have a placard on Windows Media Center's Online Spotlight, I used Internet Explorer to go directly to the site. (The practical difference is that you use the mouse instead of the remote, and the fonts are smaller since the browser isn't meant to be read from 10 feet away. The wireless keyboard works either way.) As I downloaded Firewall ($19.99), one onscreen button said "Watch Now" and the other said "Watch Later." I chose the former, and the movie began to play. The 105-minute movie downloaded in 21 minutes. When I came back the next day, though, it had disappeared from my computer. Since my Guba account listed Firewall as one of my purchases, I clicked on "redownload." Again, I started playing the movie before it fully downloaded, and again the next day it was gone. A spokesman explained that I needed to completely download the movie before playing it if I expected it to be saved. Duh? What part of "I'm buying the movie for keeps" didn't they understand? The third download was the charm, since I didn't start it until it was all there, and it stayed.

X