時尚雙語:網上電影租賃升溫但阻礙仍存

從網上租借電影光盤的主意現在看起來比兩年前要現實得多，當時一個名爲“Movielink”的電影光盤租借網站剛剛創建。現在，隨着互聯網傳輸速度越來越快，用戶已經習慣於在網上租借電影光盤在家庭影院系統中播放，“Movielink”也不再是一枝獨秀，其有了一個競爭對手“CinemaNow”。

更重要的是，諸如蘋果公司的iTunes和Roxio公司的Napster等網絡音樂服務的發展已經顯示，用戶願意在網上購買價格優惠的電影。但是，電影租賃網站本身並沒有像iTunes發展得那樣快，儘管他們現在提供的下載速度要比以前快得多。分析人士稱，原因是網上租賃業務銷售的光盤內容和種類有限，而且與離線零售店相比價格上仍然略高，這使得他們在競爭當中對用戶的吸引力不足。另外，雖然現在用戶可以在沒有下載完整部電影之前就開始觀看，但下載的時間仍然較長，如果連接速度不快有時需要等待一個小時。

CinemaNow的下載速度不錯，但用戶需要擁有足夠的帶寬才能確保電影的畫面質量不打折扣。另外，兩家租賃網站的服務計費均是從用戶開始瀏覽就計算上了，而不是從下載完成之後纔開始計算，這意味着表面的服務費比實際上的服務費要低很多。

最後，用戶還不能將下載下來的電影複製到CD或是DVD光盤上在機器上播放或是將它們轉移到另外一臺計算機上，除非你擁有一個與電視機匹配的連接器，可以在電視上觀看，否則你無法將下載內容轉移到其他硬盤上。

The idea of renting movies online seems a lot less silly than it did two years ago, when a site called Movielink debuted.

Internet connections have gotten a little faster, we've had time to get used to the idea of the computer as home theater and Movielink has been joined by a competitor, CinemaNow

Most important, music services like Apple's iTunes and Roxio's Napster have shown that people will buy fairly priced downloads, even when the same stuff is available for free on file-sharing systems.

But the movie-rental sites themselves haven't improved nearly as much, to judge from a week of trying out each. CinemaNow and Movielink now offer better downloading options that reduce or eliminate the lengthy wait to transfer a movie to a computer.

But they still carry too few titles at too high a price. There's very little here to lure anybody from ordinary movie-rental stores, DVD-by-mail services like Netflix, or cable and satellite pay-per-view options.

Both CinemaNow and Movielink look and work alike in some respects. You must run Windows to watch anything at either site. Both require loading their own download-management software as well, but Movielink is more annoying to use -- the site can't even be viewed in any browser but Internet Explorer and was agonizingly slow.

Forget using either site without a broadband Internet account -- these movies weigh in at 500 or more megabytes apiece. Although you can start watching movies before they've finished downloading, that still involves a wait of at least a few minutes and as much as an hour, depending on your connection. (Over a 608-kbps digital subscriber line, "Finding Nemo" took 2 hours and 22 minutes to finish downloading.)

CinemaNow's streaming-media options permit almost immediate viewing, but to avoid sacrificing quality you'll need enough bandwidth to accommodate its full 700-kbps feed.

These sites' rental rates start at $2.99 for up to 48 hours of viewing -- the clock starts ticking when you first begin watching, not when the download completes -- but all the flicks I rented cost $3.99 or $4.99 and allowed 24 hours of use.

CinemaNow offers a few other pricing choices. You can sign up for $9.95 or $29.95 "Premium Pass" monthly subscriptions that include unlimited rentals; the more expensive plan adds access to an "After Dark" collection of adult movies. The site also sells 30 rather obscure titles as so-called permanent downloads -- "Manilow Live!" can be yours for $14.99 if you have a hankering for the syrupy singer's work.

You can't copy any of these downloads to a CD or DVD for viewing on a DVD player or move them to another computer. If you own a laptop with a TV-compatible connector, such as a composite-video or S-Video jack, you can plug it into your set for viewing on a bigger screen, but otherwise each rental stays welded to your hard drive.

Movielink offers its titles in RealVideo and Windows Media formats; CinemaNow only provides Windows Media downloads. Picture quality varies but never comes close to DVD; for instance, Movielink's wide-screen-formatted titles have a resolution of 512 by 288 pixels per frame, or less than half that of a wide-screen-enhanced DVD.

To my eyes, these services' downloads come closest to regular cable TV, aside from occasional outbreaks of pixilation or blurring in busy or cluttered scenes.

Both CinemaNow and Movielink suffer from a pathetically thin selection -- 854 and 747 titles as of Friday afternoon. Since many movies are made available to these sites only for limited periods before moving to cable and satellite TV (for example, "Finding Nemo" was no longer available after Saturday from either service) those numbers fluctuate over time.

Unless you're looking for a movie from the past few years, the odds weigh heavily against you finding it on either site. Half of the titles I considered renting -- for instance, "Heathers," "Glengarry Glen Ross" and "Office Space" -- weren't available.

The older the flick, the worse your chances: Of the top 10 titles on the American Film Institute's "greatest American movies" list, Movielink provides only one ("Lawrence of Arabia") and CinemaNow offers none.

Movielink's chief executive, Jim Ramo, explained that until the late '90s, studios didn't buy Internet distribution rights, which means the site must negotiate with individual copyright holders for each movie. Ramo noted that he can't provide "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," because the rights to the song "Twist and Shout," which plays in one scene, would cost too much to obtain.

Who would want to put up with services as dysfunctional as this? It's hard to imagine.

College students who have broadband Internet but lack TVs in their dorm rooms might appreciate not having to return a DVD to the store. Then again, most college students don't have money either and will probably stick to the free file-sharing services.

And I suppose that After Dark library at CinemaNow could also draw customers who are tired of hearing snarky comments from video-store clerks.

Otherwise, though, the only people these sites seem to have been designed for are movie-studio executives. (Movielink is owned by the five largest studios; a smaller studio, Lions Gate Entertainment, owns CinemaNow.)

Until they learn from the example of the music industry -- offer their content at a discount online, but at a quality comparable to what you'd get in the store -- this online video-rental business isn't going anywhere.