Initially, there was video rental. You could pay a visit to your favorite location, either a standalone establishment or perhaps a corner of your grocery store, pay a few dollars, and go back home to enjoy a film on your VHS or Betamax (remember those?) VCR.

Then came DVDs. Movie renting became more popular, standalone rental stores could possibly be found every few miles, and since they could not provide a big enough selection, the local supermarkets virtually got out of the film rental business.

The home movie-watching market took a leap forward when the cable industry began to offer "Video on Demand." Now you could choose a film, view it at your leisure, have it charged to your monthly cable bill, and never need to leave your house. In exchange for this convenience, you were offered a lot more limited selection than you could have if you got within your car and drove to your local video store.

The problem of limited selection was quickly solved, on the other hand, with the advent of mail-order movie rental. A subscription to a mail-order movie rental service would make it possible for you to decide on literally tens of thousands of movie titles, set them up in your rental queue, and also have them mailed directly to your door. Now, even though, the trade-off was time. When you mailed back the movie you had finished watching, it took a few days for the following one to arrive.

At long last, it looks as even though we might have arrived at the greatest movies-at-home solution: movie downloading. When you download your movies online, your selection is virtually unlimited, your wait time is minimal, as well as your costs are affordable.

Depending on the internet service you choose, you will find several methods used to obtain movies online. The first is streaming video. You may stream video either to your computer or to a device attached to your television. You may start to watch your movie almost instantly, and the price can be very reasonable... in fact, a number of subscription services include unlimited streaming video within your membership package. The one drawback to streaming video is that you can not save the movie to a DVD or any other storage medium and take it with you for watching elsewhere or even in the future; you are limited to viewing movie it on the device to which it really is streaming.

Another method used to download movies online is a rental concept. Basically, you may download the movie to a storage device (computer hard drive, TiVo, even an iPod or video game console), and watch it at your convenience. Since you are only "renting" these movies and not purchasing them, they are going to expire after a specified period. This can vary by service and be from 24 hours to 30 days.

Inevitably, it really is possible to download complete movies, burn them to DVD, and watch them on your TV, home entertainment center, computer, or elsewhere, just like any movie that you've got purchased in a store. Costs due to this may differ widely, and you'll find movies priced anywhere from around what you will pay in a retail store, to "clearance bin" pricing, to membership and subscription plans.

In conclusion, downloading your movies online can be the best in twenty-first century convenience. If you're prepared to shop around a bit, you will almost definitely find a movie download plan that will fit your requirements and accommodate your lifestyle.