Pick Your Movie Format – Download or DVD

 

 Hollywood is now making its latest movies available in the US for download the same day DVDs arrive. First movie for simultaneous DVD and download treatment will be Brokeback Mountain, available on Tuesday at Movielink (www.movielink.com).

Playing on the service just launched today, are recent releases King Kong, Memoirs of a Geisha, Pride & Prejudice, Rent and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

 "For the first time, consumers have the ability to not just rent a (downloadable) major motion picture from the major Hollywood studios but to own them," Movielink CEO Jim Ramo says. Consumers will pay for the convenience. New films such as Brokeback, King Kong and Memoirs of a Geisha will cost $20 to $30; older films such as Jaws, Easy Rider, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Sting will cost $10 to $16. By comparison, new DVD releases often are discounted as low as $14.

Until now, few of Hollywood's recent films have been available online, usually weeks after they release on DVD, but usually confined to rental on sites like Movielink, CinemaNow and Starz's Vongo. Movielink's announcement pips to the post a similar service scheduled to launch in the UK next week by movie site Lovefilm, Universal and America Online. Online retailer Amazon also is reportedly talking with studios about the idea.

"We're probably three to five years away from any huge market, but early adopters are very interested," says Mike McGuire of Gartner Research.

Movielink's downloads will be of lesser quality than DVD but comparable to that of digital cable and satellite TV, Ramo says. "It certainly looks good on a notebook computer, desktop computer and a TV."

It takes about an hour to download a film, but it can be viewed within minutes. Customers can burn copies to DVD, but the movies, which are in Windows Media format, can't be played on standard DVD players. Downloads can be transferred to up to two PCs. A copy can be transferred to a laptop, but not to an iPod or Sony PSP, though eventually it will be compatible with Microsoft-supported portables.

Studios that will supply films to Movielink include Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount, Fox, Sony and MGM. Talks continue with other studios, Ramo says.

"The smartest people in Hollywood realize that they are not in the movie business; they are in the content business," says Shelly Palmer, media analyst and author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV. "It is their job to listen to their customers and deliver content in form factors that consumers want."