The first thing you need to do is to make sure that what you are downloading is totally legal. Most websites are and have the appropriate files available. But of course sadly the legitimacy of all websites cannot be guaranteed. And like most such ventures they are hard to distinguish from the good guys and it can be a case of pot luck in some cases. A rule of thumb though would be not to trust any website that pertains to offer downloads of whole movies, especially not latest release big studio affairs, because such things don’t exist, not in the world of legality in any case. So beware. Especially as the punishment for sharing illegal files or just downloading them can be quite severe depending on you’re the laws of your place of residence.

Well obviously you need a computer and good fast internet access, broadband if possible. Most websites that offer downloading will also have ready to install compatible software for you to download onto your hard drive to run the movie. If the website itself doesn’t offer such and most do, no software to run the movies means no customers ultimately, then there are plenty of other sites that can be easily googled where you can download the relevant real time players, MP3’s etc.

Setting up a movies own website that offers inside info, news etc and probably most importantly of all the opportunity to download trailers for the film, sometimes months before it is given full release now seems de-rigueur for most studios and especially their promotional budgets. Most such trailers though are quite often similar or even the same to pre-release trailers that are shown in the cinema, so from that angle they offer very little different and are only serving as teasing aperitifs for the main course. But there is something just that little more exclusive and personal somehow about being able to download these trailers and watch them in your home and at your own convenience and then if you are so inclined to send them to your friends. It creates a new kind of word of mouth box office smash and of course the studios are naturally keen to exploit this exclusiveness.

There are also websites who offer you the consumer the chance to download movies. Some are run by kindly individuals who just want to make these things freely available to all, or even to show off new equipment or even just to prove that they can. These people are in a way pioneers because sooner or later this is will be the way we all view our movies.

Others though use their websites for profiteering rather than pioneering. And though there is nothing wrong with charging for downloading nor should it implied that it is illegal to do so or that every site that charges has ulterior motives because most don’t but some do, again this will one day be the way that we’ll pay for our cinematic delights, they quite often are offering pirate versions or some other illegality or scam.

Downloading technology is helluva lot more advanced than it was five years ago but positively prehistoric to what it will be like five years hence. The ability of home computers to receive high quality moving pictures for the length of a movie is still in it’s infancy and still relatively basic. At the moment most computers with added on accessories can receive reasonable pictures for a few minutes, and a very few can carry the picture for longer if not in a better quality resolution. This will gradually get better until eventually, at a point in time still not certain, we will all be receiving our movies in their entireties, plus I guess trailers for other movies with them too!! From downloading.