movie streaming rental downloads are the wave of the future. It is not rocket science. People want convenience and hate to waste time and gas driving to their local video store. From the film studio’s perspective, the shift to downloadable content can’t come soon enough. The switch to downloadable movies will free them from all of the costs associated with the production, storage, distribution and packaging of physical media. They may still sell the movies for a healthy amount, but show increased profits.

The capability to rent downloadable movies has been with us for a number of years now. The problem for a lot of men and women has been twofold; the lack of widespread broadband Internet access, and also the requirement to use a computer to view the movies. Even if the computer was successfully hooked to a TV (sometimes no mean feat in itself) for a larger picture, there were all sorts of other issues linked to computer use that made this a less than satisfactory solution for a large number of movie renters.

The passage of time has largely solved the broadband issue. An April, 2008 report from research firm Scarborough Research revealed broadband penetration is up over 300% since 2002. Nationally, 49% of households have broadband Internet access, and that number continues to improve with the continued rollout of services for example Verizon’s FIOS. As more households get broadband the requirement for renting movies via Internet download will increase even further.

The higher gains alternatively, will come from the introduction of alternative methods of downloading movie rentals. To this end, a great many services and products are already introduced or are planned for market introduction. Most cable companies offer some sort of video on demand rental service. The quality and selection of these offerings vary, however they will be accessible to a lot of men and women.

For individuals that don’t have cable or for a number of reasons want another service, you will discover additional options available. TiVO has partnered with Amazon.com to offer the capability to rent movies from the Amazon Unboxed service. That collaboration has a great deal going for it. TiVO has a universally praised user interface, offers HD capability from off air or cable services, and integrates the Amazon Unboxed service seamlessly into their interface to make things extremely easy for consumers.

AppleTV is a piece of hardware that allows people to download movies from the Apple iTunes Store for viewing on their TV. It’s really a small, set top box like unit that connects to the net, and retrieves movies from the iTUNEs library. In most things from Apple Inc. it is well designed and has an easy to use interface. It will not stop at movies either. You can watch TV shows, music videos, and YouTube videos as well. Additionally, it allows A/V content through your computer to be viewed on your TV. There is a 24hr window from the time for movie rentals, thereafter the films vanish, in addition to your rental fee. It’s like video on demand, but with a significantly larger library.

HD video for the Apple TV is delivered in 720p (You can watch them in 720p or 1080i). With Apple TV 2, the bitrate is approximately 1/8th that of Blu-Ray, so the video obviously is not as good, but it is not bad either, and also you do not have to get off your couch. An issue for some is the fact that there’s no type of video below component 480i. Should you have an older TV that will not have component inputs, you are out of luck. Another issue will be the FF and rewind performance. The movie must be rebuffered to do this so it will not work like your regular Blu-ray player or cable company’s video on demand.