From the beginning, there was video rental. You might pay a visit to your favorite location, either a standalone establishment or a corner of your super market, pay a few dollars, and return home to enjoy a film on your VHS or Betamax (remember those?) VCR.

Then came DVDs. Movie renting became more popular, standalone rental stores may be found every few miles, and since they couldn't provide a large enough selection, the local supermarkets basically 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 might choose a movie, view it at your leisure, have it charged to your monthly cable bill, and never need to leave your house. In exchange due to this convenience, you were offered a significantly more limited selection than you might have if you got within your car and drove to the local video store.

The problem of limited selection was quickly solved, conversely, with the advent of mail-order movie rental. A subscription to a mail-order movie rental service would allow you to choose from literally tens of thousands of movie titles, set them up within your rental queue, and have them mailed directly to your door. Simply, however, the trade-off was time. When you mailed back the movie you had finished watching, it took several days for the following to arrive.

At long last, it looks as however we might have arrived at the best movies-at-home solution: movie downloading. Whenever you download your movies online, your selection is virtually unlimited, your wait time is minimal, and your costs are affordable.

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

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

Lastly, it's possible to download complete movies, burn them to DVD, and watch them on your TV, home entertainment center, here. computer, or anywhere else, just like any movie that you've got purchased in a store. Costs because of this will vary widely, and you can find movies priced anywhere from around what you should pay in a retail store, to "clearance bin" pricing, to membership and subscription plans.

In conclusion, downloading your movies online can be the ultimate in twenty-first century convenience. When you are prepared to shop around a bit, you will more than likely find a movie download plan that may fit your needs and accommodate your lifestyle.