Major studios today will make mainstream movies available for downloading the same day they are released on DVD -- a significant step in Hollywood's tentative migration to the Internet.
But movie fans will pay for the convenience: Downloadable flicks such as "Brokeback Mountain," "King Kong" and "Pride and Prejudice" may cost as much as twice what the DVD versions do and play only on a personal computer. New releases can't be rented online, just purchased.
The constraints on services from Movielink and CinemaNow illustrate the central role that economics plays in the evolution of home video distribution. As they experiment with offering online video on demand, studios are keeping prices high and restrictions tough so they don't alienate retailers, whose DVD sales still provide the vast majority of revenue.
"We think this is a great consumer offering that complements the DVD release," said Rick Finkelstein, Universal Pictures' president and chief operating officer. "If somebody wants to get their content online and create a digital library, this gives them the opportunity to do that. This is another way for consumers to access movies."
Piracy fears also prevent online services from giving technological early adopters what they really want -- the ability to watch downloaded movies on their televisions. That's because the studios insist that downloadable movies include rigorous safeguards on copying. Users, for instance, can burn a DVD of a downloaded movie, but it will play only on a PC.
Finkelstein said people eventually would be able to watch downloadable movies as they would any other DVD. But rather than wait for the technology to burn it securely, Universal is rushing to make more than 100 movie titles available online to provide a legitimate alternative to Internet piracy.
"At this point, we wanted to get out there," Finkelstein said. "This is the only way we could do it at this time. The intent and goal is to allow people to also be able to have a DVD they could watch on their DVD players."
The download-to-own services starting today are among a variety of studio experiments that take advantage of the instant gratification of the Internet. Universal Pictures partnered with online rental service Lovefilm in Britain to sell movie downloads for the computer, and also ship the DVD by mail. Warner Bros., meanwhile, sells movies and TV shows online in Germany through In2Movies, a service that distributes video using a file-sharing technology similar to BitTorrent's.
