If a person wants to see a feature film these days there are several choices available besides the familiar ones of watching one on television, rental of a DVD at a video store, or going out to  a theater. One can now get DVDs by mail from companies like Netflix, or the newest choice is downloading films from the web that are of reasonably high quality while not as good as films on DVDs.

Most film downloading services operate in comparable ways and have the same basic structure. They all feature a website with a database of movies. You can either browse the database, or do different types of searches, such as for a specific title or for a certain director or actor. To buy or rent movies, you normally have to have an account set up, and you either pay for individual movies, or you may just pay a monthly fee, or both. If you are renting, the site will give you a time limit and later remove the video from your computer or add a code that makes it unplayable, while if you are buying you get to keep it forever, but it has coding that restricts what you can do with it.

When choosing a download service, in addition to checking how good the selection is, the resolution (it should be at least 640 by 480), and price, you need to find out what operating systems, Internet browsers, and players are required. Most of them do not work with an Apple computer, and need the operating system to be Windows XP or a later version, and most can use either the Firefox web browser or Internet Explorer, but some can only use the latter. Some services use their own proprietary media player, but most use the Windows Media Player

Your choice of where to download movies depends on a variety of factors. Downloading services include the iTunes music store, Netflix’s WatchNow service, CinemaNow, MovieFlix, and Vongo. Among these, the one with the most ways of delivering films is CinemaNow, which offers everything from a few free, low quality movies to costly “burn to DVD” films which are almost as good in quality as regular DVD fims. Its selection of films is also one of the biggest. The iTunes store is about your only option if you have an Apple computer, while MovieFlix is the cheapest, and Vongo is inexpensive but only allows you to rent. Netflix is the best choice for where to download movies in my opinion, unless your computer doesn’t use Windows, because you have the addition of DVDs by mail, the selection and quality are among the best, and the downloading is a free addition to your subscription.