There are many options in downloading and/or watching movies online. First of all, like music downloading, downloading movies online usually meant doing something illegal. These days, there are many places to download or watch movies online. The illegal options will be still available, simply, however the legal movie sites are picking up steam. The following post shall concentrate on the legal online websites to watch and/or download movies.

There are a lot of options available. Each site offers their very own pricing model, selection, movie formats, and user experience.

You’ll find 2 main pricing models that the online movie download sites use – monthly subscriptions and per download pricing.

Sites which offer monthly subscriptions give unlimited downloads, for a flat monthly cost. CinemaNow, Netflix, and Vongo operate under this model.

The other major pricing model, per download pricing, is exactly what it sounds like. There will be a fee for each movie download. Amazon Unbox and iTunes operate this way.

Unless you are not planning on watching very many movies in a month, the flat monthly fee will be the way to go. Additionally there are some movies that can be accessible for free from each of the services and various free movies online trials are available to try them out.

The selection varies from service to service. New releases are hit or miss. Movies seem to be available on DVD as well as for rental just before being available for download. CinemaNow seems to get the movies more quickly than the others. iTunes selection will be the most limited of the key services.

The predominant file format for the download services is Windows Media Video files (.WMV). iTunes is the obvious exception, which offers files as MPEG-4s.

Each service requires you to download their software in order to download and watch movies. Each interface will be different, but its really a matter of personal preference. Vongo and CinemaNow each have good interfaces.