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CinemaNow: movies how you want them

CinemaNow: movies how you want them

Molly Wood Former Executive Editor
Molly Wood was an executive editor at CNET, author of the Molly Rants blog, and host of the tech show, Always On. When she's not enraging fanboys of all stripes, she can be found offering tech opinions on CBS and elsewhere, and offering opinions on everything else to anyone who will listen.
Molly Wood
Finally, after much kicking, screaming, and tantrum-throwing by the movie studios, they're starting to catch on to the fact that we kids want our downloaded movies--without stupid restrictions. Well, some of them are starting to catch on, which is leading to better services for all of us. Movie download company on Wednesday by announcing it would offer movies that you can download and burn to a DVD that can, wonder of wonders, actually be played on a standard DVD player. You may recall that both services launched to mediocre reviews due to intense restrictions on what you could do with their movie downloads, plus limited libraries. From CinemaNow, you'll get all the bonus features and the menu options of a standard DVD, plus you can print out the liner notes and the cover art. Sweet. Granted, it's not perfect--movies start at $8.99 and range to $14, which is slightly hefty when you consider that these movies are not first-run, and there aren't many of them. The stable of about 100 movies comes from Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Lionsgate, MGM Worldwide Digital Media, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, EagleVision, and Sundance Channel, while Warner, Paramount, and Fox remain stubborn holdouts. What did MovieLink do? Oh, yeah, sorry. It said it's going to do the same thing. It just hasn't gotten there yet. Paid Content interviews CinemaNow's CEO here, if you're the follow-up type.