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 food store, pay a couple of 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 be found every few miles, and since they could not provide a big 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 may 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 because of this convenience, you were offered a lot more limited selection than you would have if you got within your car and drove to the local video store.

The problem of limited selection was quickly solved, however, with the creation of mail-order movie rental. A subscription to a mail-order movie rental service would make it possible for you to pick from literally tens of thousands of movie titles, set them up within your rental queue, as well as have them mailed directly to your door. Generally, though, the trade-off was time. As soon as you mailed back the film you had finished watching, it took a few days for the following to arrive.

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

Depending on the internet service you choose, you can find several methods used to acquire movies online. The very first is streaming video. You can stream video either to your computer or to a device attached to your television. You can start to watch your movie almost instantly, as well as the price is extremely reasonable… in fact, several subscription services include unlimited streaming video in your membership package. The one drawback to streaming video is the fact that you cannot save the movie to a DVD or 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 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’re going to expire after a particular period. This may vary by service and be from 24 hours to 30 days.

Eventually, it’s possible to download complete movies, burn them to DVD, and watch them on your TV, home entertainment center, computer, or anywhere else, just like any movie that you have purchased in a shop. Costs due to try this may vary widely, as well as you can find movies priced from 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 ultimate in twenty-first century convenience. For anybody who is prepared to shop around a bit, you will in all probability locate a movie download plan that will fit your needs and accommodate your lifestyle.