Streaming Media Services
I remember when ‘Back to the Future’ came out. I don’t know exactly how old I was, but I must have been about 8. I was the only person at school who hadn’t seen it. I’d asked my Mum to take me to the cinema to see it in the way that only an 8 year old can (160 times a day, every day), but for reasons involving my younger brother, the potential suitability of the film and issues of fairness that I didn’t really understand or much care for at the time, she insisted that I should wait for it to be shown on TV (terrestrial TV that is, because I was also the only boy at school who didn’t have Sky TV).
But what Mum didn’t seem to understand was that when I was 8 years old, the average time for a film to be shown on TV once it had been shown in the cinema was measured in years. When I was 8 years old, years seemed like a very long time indeed.
If only I was 8 now. If I was 8 years old now, I’d have just downloaded it from the Internet.
Downloading films from the internet is something that I get asked about in my work at Homeplay on an almost daily basis. It’s clearly something that most people know you can do, but not so many people are clued up enough to know the ins and outs of how to do it. In this article I’ll be going through the various ways of achieving your digital movie nirvana at home.
I’ll skip briefly over the illegal way of downloading films from the Internet for 2 reasons:
1. It’s illegal and I’m certainly not in the business of advising people on how best to break the law. Particularly as movie studios are starting to prosecute copyright thieves with help from internet service providers.
2. Even if one were comfortable with the idea of stealing copyrighted material, downloading movies illegally is fraught with complex compatibility issues, poor audio/video quality and most scarily of all, computer viruses. Risk breaking the law in this way and there is a fair chance that you will inadvertently infect your computer with a nasty virus hidden within the film file you’ve downloaded that renders your computer almost useless orworse still, steals all of your bank details without you ever knowing.
Fortunately though, there are several ways that you can download films relatively inexpensively and completely legally. You’ll need 2 things – a playback device and an account with an online streaming content provider. I’ll start with the streaming content providers…
iTunes
My favourite as it’s easy to use, surprisingly good quality and has the familiar iTunes user interface which most of my clients are familiar with. Movies are priced from 99p - £4.49 to rent, depending on whether they are HD and how new they are. Many of the newest films are only available to buy at £9.99 for standard definition (SD) and £13.99 for HD, which is similar in price to a DVD or Blu-Ray. Once you’ve purchased a film on iTunes, you can watch it on any of your Apple devices (iPad, etc) that are associated with the same iTunes account. The only downside is that the library is not as
extensive as your local HMV by any means, but it’s still the biggest around at the moment and growing all the time.
Love Film
Many of you will have heard of Love Film, who are best known for their postal DVD rental service. Well, they have now added a streaming feature to their service that lets you stream movies to your laptop, internet enabled TV or PS3. For £9.99 a month you get an ‘all-you-can-eat’ type package that allows unlimited movie streaming. However the size of the library is quite limited, although it is growing all the time. Once the choice of films builds up (likely to happen as they are owned by Amazon), this flat fee type system should look like a much better value than iTunes, assuming you watch more than a couple of films a month. Although iTunes will no doubt adjust their pricing to stay competitive…
Blinkbox
Similar to iTunes and Love Film, but without any support for anything other than a laptop, which makes watching the movies a little ungainly.
Boxee
I’ve been messing around with Boxee since its first Alpha release in 2008. It’s a great piece of software that can run on a computer or a dedicated piece of hardware called a ‘Boxee Box’. The software grabs all kinds of internet TV content from all over the internet and makes it easy to navigate and watch. It will also enable you to listen to and watch any music and films that you have stored on your local network. It even links with various social media sites allowing you to see what your friends are watching and get recommendations from them. You can try it out for free at www.boxee.tv and soon you’ll be able to buy a Boxee Box in the UK (they are currently only available in the US) so that you can easily get Boxee working on your TV. I’m going to their UK launch party next month so will be sure to keep you posted.
iPlayer/4oD/ITVplayer
Terrestrial TV services that are available to watch on most of the devices listed below. Not really for streaming movies, but worth a mention and very popular. Don’t forget you still need a TV Licence to use them though!
Sky Anytime+
Requires a Sky+HD box and finally makes use of that network socket that has been on the back of the Sky+HD box since it was launched. Allows you access to a whole host of diffent movies and content as part of your Sky package. Does currently require you to also have Sky Broadband though at the moment, which is a shame. Hoping this will change soon...
UltraViolet
Not so much a service, but more of a standard that manufacturers and movie studios are trying to get off the ground. It’s a licencing format that will allow you to buy a licence to a piece of content and play it back on any device you like. It’s very new at the moment and is far from widely adopted, but is one to keep your eye on.
There are other services out there (‘Google TV’ exists in the US but not yet in the UK), but these are the most popular ones around. Now here is the hardware that you need to access them:
A Laptop/Desktop Computer
Without doubt the cost effective way to watch online content, assuming you have a computer of course! Unfortunately though, huddling around a laptop screen and listening though poor quality speakers makes it difficult to enjoy the movie experience, at best. At worst, you won’t be able to make out what’s going on at all. You can of course plug your laptop into your TV and surround sound system if you have one, but it’s a rather messy affair fraught with all sorts of wires and mess and a rather tricky control interface, even with a wireless mouse and keyboard. Best avoided if at all possible.
A Streaming Media Player to connect to your TV
These come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, the most popular and well known being the fantastic ‘Apple TV’ box. They are designed to plug into your TV and surround sound system and come with handy remote controls and an on-screen user interface. Can also come in the form of games consoles such as the PS3 and some of the most up to date internet connected Blu-Ray players too. Highly recommended for families and anyone who wants simplicity
and good quality.