Why Movie Downloads suck

The guys over at Gizmodo posted an article detailing the top ten reasons why movie downloads suck. They listed some valid points and I agree with many of them. Here are their main points, reworded, with a few comments of my own included.

1) Price (equal to a tangible, retail box DVD)

2) Lacking selection (movie studios are still resisting movie downloads or have formed agreements with only one or a couple services)

3) Portability transporting the movie download to a TV (consumers have trouble getting their downloaded movie to their main TV)

4) Quality options (sometimes less than DVD, no HD options)

5) Adoption difficulties (long standing purchase and delivery habits are tough to change without significant new features or advantages)

6) DVR competition (Why pay for a movie download when you can record that movie off HBO HD?). DVR = Digital Video Recorder. e.g. TiVo.

7) Download speed (movie download delivery can take a while, why not drive to the store instead?)

Broadband limitations (bandwidth quotas, throttles and other limitations can decrease the attrativeness of movie downloads)

9) Digital Rights Management DRM (download a movie to find that you can’t burn it to disk or have other restrictions that make it a hassle)

10) Complicated processes (movie downloads often require new software, players or other processes that make it more complicated than just popping in a DVD)

While they addressed some very good points, they also left out additional complications and barriers to potential movie downloaders such as Hard Drive space requirements, competition from BitTorrent / peer to peer networks and a few other items.

With all of these complications and barriers to downloading movies, Gizmodo predicts that these type of services will not take off until 2010. Personally, I have yet to purchase a movie download, as I prefer renting with Netflix or Blockbuster in order to get my movie fix.

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