Movie File Terminology – from Confusion to Movie Download Revolution!

From Movie Theaters to Multiplexes to home cinema systems. From Betamax to VHS. From VHS to DVD. Analogue to digital. We all know the story so far.
But are you up to date with the latest? If you are new to the interent are you totally confused by the jargon?
From DVD to divx and MPEG4, MP3s, P2P, codecs and plug-ins. What does it all mean and does it matter?
The acronyms get longer, the speed of change faster, the confusion greater. I am one day transferring movies to my laptop – or even my handheld device and another day I am teaching my uncle to program his VHS recorder. The speed of change has opened up a huge gap between users and this gap seems to continue to grow.
I am a great fan of downloading movies to watch when I want, with perfect reproduction and now even to watch them where I want – usually on my laptop on the commuter train or on my tv.
To do so I have had to learn a new language and if you are interested in joining in the movie download revolution then some basic grounding in the essential terminology will help.
So where to start? Let’s start with something we think we know:
DVD: "Digital Versatile Disc" or "Digital Video Disc" - these are discs that look like compact discs (CDs) but hold much more data and are used now for storing movies. Although recordable DVDs can be used for storing your music and computer files. Sorry there is no space to go into the difference between DVD-R, DVD-RW and the rest – that would be a separate article in itself!
Obviously when people talk about downloading a DVD from the internet they really mean downloading the movie, not the disc itself! (The internet is clever but it can't yet transport solid matter from one place to another! You’ve been watching too much of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!)
So when you download a movie what do you actually download?
MPEG-4: this is a set of standards for a file for video and audio, put together by the "Moving Picture Experts Group" (hence MPEG) and yes, you guessed it, it is their 4th version at the standard. So you can now download a movie in MPEG-4 format – but this can take time!
DivX: developed by DivXNetworks, is a file format that enables movies to be downloaded much faster without losing any picture quality - just to confuse matters DivX is based on the MPEG-4 technology that we mentioned above!
MP3: short for "MPEG Audio Layer 3" - aha! our MPEG friends again. This file format is for digital audio only, it uses a compression method that means smaller file sizes. You do lose some information but most people can't notice the reduction in quality. So it's great for downloading music and playing on an MP3 player. But this is just for music, not for movies.
P2P: short for peer-to-peer. This is not a file format but one popular method of sharing the files I’ve mentioned. Peer to peer is a form of computer network that does not rely on a client and server, but each computer is a peer or equal - great for sharing and downloading audio and video content. Even with compressed files it can take some time and sharing the load amongst several computers is a clever way to harness the power of the internet.
So how do you play these files?
On Windows PCs these files will usually play without a problem on the standard Windows Media Player particularly if you have the latest version.
For Apple Macs QuickTime is both a file format and a player. Designed by Apple Computers QuickTime has been around a while. You can download the player from the Apple website and you can run it on a windows PC.
Having mentioned Apple it would be difficult not to mention the iPod. But playing video files on iPods and other portable players is another topic entirely!
© 2006 WhatMovieDownload.com

Movie Download Revolution!

I used to think it would be great if you didn’t have to go to the video store in the rain to get a video that then jammed or didn’t play back properly.

I thought it was solved with the arrival of DVDs!

Then I thought wouldn't it be great if you didn’t have to go to the DVD rental store in the rain to get a DVD? Wouldn't it be great if I could save myself the trip there and back?

I thought this was solved with the arrival of cable and satellite pay-per-view! But the choice was quite limited.

Then I thought that the revolution had happened when you could rent DVDs via the mail – fantastic - no more going to the store in the rain to find that they didn't have what you wanted!

So I started getting DVDs sent to me and that worked pretty well. I could choose from a huge selection on the web and put them in order of priority.

But I never knew exactly what I was getting (depends what they have in stock), there was always a few days delay (but I’m in the mood to watch it NOW!) and quite often the DVD was scratched so that the film jumped – really annoying!

Wouldn't it be great if I could have movies WHEN I wanted them, from a huge CHOICE, without leaving HOME and get PERFECT PLAYBACK every time?

I think the digital entertainment revolution has arrived as now you can do all these things, particularly with cheaper broadband interenet access.

How do you watch movies now? How do you think it will develop? Add a post to this blog!