Band Rising

What would have been considered science fiction back in the days of the original Star Trek shows is becoming common place these days. A good example is that we can now go online and in a short time download a movie onto our computer for viewing. This was impossible not to long ago.

As online speeds increased, and PCs became increasingly more power, new possibilities arise. Downloading music files has been going on for years, since the birth of Napster. With the higher transfer speeds, and other innovations, it then became feasible to download entire movies in a respectable amount of time.

One of the ways people watch movies and TV and the internet is through streaming video. This is a cool form of movie downloading that downloads the movie at the same time you watch it, and to a temporary file that does not stay on your computer. They have a buffer so that if the download slows down, your stream won’t stop.

This type of download can often have a low quality image. This is due to the fact that it takes too long to download a better image. The image quality is sacrificed in order to have a smooth stream.

People who do P2P downloading are coming under the scrutiny of the law in regards to copyright infringements. The person doing downloads would just claim they are sharing their purchased item with someone they wish to. The movie industry sees it a bit different. There are no definitive laws established regarding this yet.

The legal issues are a little tricky. Can’t I share a movie with a friend of mine? When does this cross the line into copyright infringement? The internet has heated up these types of issues.

Netflix, the number one online movie rental store has added movie download concepts to its means of movie access for its members. You can watch unlimited movies from a 12,000 film library on your computer (or TV through an Xbox 360 live account) through instant access movie download streams. This is a company using downloads to its advantage.

Other companies like Amazon are now selling movie titles through a download format. This means no more trips to the video store, just fire up the computer and make your purchase for immediate download. The video store may become obsolete.

Most people won’t want to keep their movie downloads on their main hard drive. One option is to use an external drive to build your movie library. The more obvious move is to learn how to burn these downloads to DVD and then you can play them anywhere.

Some download sites provide films that are not up to par as far as picture quality goes. Make sure you read reviews of sites and check the blogs to see what’s out there. There is nothing worse than watching a blurry movie.

It seems like the movie download industry is just getting revved up. As technologies evolve things will get even better. Faster downloads and great values are possible in the near future.