Movie Download Memberships: Why They Make Sense
Marc Sandford
April 24, 2008
With the advance of technology and the growth of the Internet, we are no longer forced to drive to the local video rental store to get our movies. We can make our movie selection on the Internet and wait for the video to arrive by mail. However our options don't end there since we can also select and view the movie immediately online.
There are two ways to go about this. We can pay for our movies via a movie download membership site or we can try for the free route online. This article will discuss the benefits that an online membership has over the offline video rental store as well as the advantages of the paid membership over the free alternatives online.
A big advantage of joining a movie download site is the sheer size of movie title selection that you have access to. You can download as often and as much as you please from these extensive movie archives. Traditional brick and mortar DvD stores have a storage capacity that is limited by building space.
This means that they are forced to cater to popular tastes. Online download memberships don't suffer from this type of restriction and therefore can accommodate a broader variety of movie genres. If you're into the more obscure movies whether they are very old classics or cult films, you are more likely to find them online.
Searching online is often an easier task than browsing through endless shelves for a particular movie in a brick and mortar store. An online site will usually have a search box that can search by the title, actor, director or any particular keyword. Also, lists that group movies into different categories or genres are usually provided.
In addition to movie genre, their lists often group movies by popularity, latest additions, critic picks and alphabetically. Some even allow the members themselves to rate and write reviews for the movies. Movie reviews given by ordinary people can often be a better indicator of a movie's entertainment value than those of professional critics.
Online memberships have a large selection of movies in their archives. Free online movies that are actually legal are generally public domain movies with expired or un renewed copyrights. These tend to be very old 'classic' movies.
The major television networks will usually make recent episodes of popular TV series available for viewing on their web sites. However, only a select few of these series are available and only for a limited time.
Movie download memberships are safe from viruses, worms, spy ware and mal ware. However, downloading movies from 'free' sites can be a game of Russian roulette. For example, if you download using p2p, you are sharing files with a multitude of other users and are trusting that none of these strangers will infect the file with spy ware or viruses.
These are just some of the benefits that paid online movie download sites have over your local video store and over the so called free alternatives that exist online. The speed, convenience and economy of getting entertainment directly off the Internet is nothing short of amazing. However the shortcomings and risks of the 'free' downloads available online makes the choice of paid memberships a very intelligent and sensible decision.
Marc Sandford has an extensive interest in movie and video downloads from the Internet. See his critical review of two well known legal movie download sites at www.squidoo.com/Movie-Download-Membership-Movie-Club-Online.
There are two ways to go about this. We can pay for our movies via a movie download membership site or we can try for the free route online. This article will discuss the benefits that an online membership has over the offline video rental store as well as the advantages of the paid membership over the free alternatives online.
A big advantage of joining a movie download site is the sheer size of movie title selection that you have access to. You can download as often and as much as you please from these extensive movie archives. Traditional brick and mortar DvD stores have a storage capacity that is limited by building space.
This means that they are forced to cater to popular tastes. Online download memberships don't suffer from this type of restriction and therefore can accommodate a broader variety of movie genres. If you're into the more obscure movies whether they are very old classics or cult films, you are more likely to find them online.
Searching online is often an easier task than browsing through endless shelves for a particular movie in a brick and mortar store. An online site will usually have a search box that can search by the title, actor, director or any particular keyword. Also, lists that group movies into different categories or genres are usually provided.
In addition to movie genre, their lists often group movies by popularity, latest additions, critic picks and alphabetically. Some even allow the members themselves to rate and write reviews for the movies. Movie reviews given by ordinary people can often be a better indicator of a movie's entertainment value than those of professional critics.
Online memberships have a large selection of movies in their archives. Free online movies that are actually legal are generally public domain movies with expired or un renewed copyrights. These tend to be very old 'classic' movies.
The major television networks will usually make recent episodes of popular TV series available for viewing on their web sites. However, only a select few of these series are available and only for a limited time.
Movie download memberships are safe from viruses, worms, spy ware and mal ware. However, downloading movies from 'free' sites can be a game of Russian roulette. For example, if you download using p2p, you are sharing files with a multitude of other users and are trusting that none of these strangers will infect the file with spy ware or viruses.
These are just some of the benefits that paid online movie download sites have over your local video store and over the so called free alternatives that exist online. The speed, convenience and economy of getting entertainment directly off the Internet is nothing short of amazing. However the shortcomings and risks of the 'free' downloads available online makes the choice of paid memberships a very intelligent and sensible decision.
Marc Sandford has an extensive interest in movie and video downloads from the Internet. See his critical review of two well known legal movie download sites at www.squidoo.com/Movie-Download-Membership-Movie-Club-Online.