In the beginning, there was video rental. You might pay a visit to your favorite location, either a standalone establishment or possibly a corner of your supermarket, pay a number of dollars, and go back home to enjoy a movie on your VHS or Betamax (remember those?) VCR.

Then came DVDs. Movie renting became more popular, standalone rental stores may very well be found every few miles, and since they couldn't provide a large enough selection, the local supermarkets essentially got out of the movie 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 home. In exchange for this convenience, you were offered a significantly more limited selection than you could have if you got in your car and drove to your local video store.

The problem of limited selection was quickly solved, conversely, with the creation of mail-order movie rental. A subscription to a mail-order movie rental service would allow you to decide on literally tens of thousands of movie titles, set them up within your rental queue, and have them mailed directly to your door. Quite simply, however, the trade-off was time. When you mailed back the movie you had finished watching, it took a number of days for another one to arrive.

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

According to the on-line service you choose, there are several methods used to obtain movies online. The very first is streaming video. You may stream video either to your computer or to a device attached to your television. You can begin to watch your movie almost instantly, and also the price is quite reasonable... actually, a number of subscription services include unlimited streaming video in your membership package. The one drawback to streaming video is that you can't 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 restricted to viewing it on the device to which it is streaming.

Another method used to download movies online is a rental concept. Basically, you may download the film 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 24 hours to 30 days.

Lastly, it 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 have purchased in a shop. Costs for this will vary widely, and you'll find movies priced from 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 greatest in twenty-first century convenience. For anybody who is willing to shop around a bit, you will most likely find a movie download plan that can fit your requirements and accommodate your lifestyle.