While the focus of Watch Free Movies Online will continue to be watching movies free online, I would be remiss not to include some excellent, robust services which provide tons of quality movie downloads for a small monthly fee or very small per-use fee.
In this section I will review 9 different services. Some of them are strictly online video services while others require the purchase of some kind of set top box, not unlike the kind of set top box many use for digital cable services. All of them require an internet connection, and the higher the bandwidth, the better.
The first reviews are up. I’ve written very thorough and detailed reviews of Amazon Unbox and CinemaNow as well as Netflix. I hope they help you better understand your options. I will also have a review of Vongo up very soon, with the rest to follow in the coming week.
So you can see how the big guns compare to the little guys, I will review both major services such as Apple’s iTunes, Amazon Unbox and Microsoft’s Xbox Live Marketplace and I will review lesser known services such as Vongo and Vudu. I will even throw in a couple very small, independent services I’ve discovered, such as the ambitious but terribly disappointing Watch Direct.
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So CinemaNow offers a direct competitor to services such as Amazon Unbox, MovieLink and Netflix’s streaming video service. The basics are the same as Amazon Unbox, MovieLink or iTunes: pay-per-view style rentals for tv shows or movies with the option to buy some movies for a little more. CinemaNow separates itself from other similar services with a wide range of ways to use the service (single rentals and purchases, burn-to-dvd purchases, or a subscription service), but I finished my testing feeling that none of these CinemaNow options matched up well against its competitors.
CinemaNow Review: Costs
CinemNow’s basic rental service is pretty typical of these kinds of services, averaging between $2 to $4 per rental. It’s basic purchase service is also similar to Amazon Unbox’s, offering movies from $9 to $20 for popular recent releases. I’d say this is the most reasonable of its offerings, but it is just a touch more expensive than the Amazon Unbox. I’m not sure many people will find $20 for a recent release a reasonable cost for a downloaded file lacking the cover and disc you get when you pay almost the same for a physical copy of the movie.
Read CinemaNow Review
Most of you are probably familiar with Netflix already… but did you know that most Netflix subscriptions include unlimited, instant streaming of thousands of movies and television shows through an easy-to-use web interface?
This is a free addition to their standard DVDs-in-the-mail rental program for which Netflix has become so popular. Oddly, I’ve known people who were devout Netflix subscribers who didn’t even realize they had this option available to them (here’s looking at you, mom).
Netflix also offers the best instant gratification of any of the video services I’m reviewing. With their generous free trial and the fact that their streaming videos literally begin instantly, you could start watching one of your favorite movies or television shows only a couple minutes from the moment you finish reading this sentence:
Netflix Unlimited Streaming Video & DVD Rentals – Try For FREE
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