Movie rental downloads will be the wave of the future. It isn’t rocket science. People want convenience and hate to waste time and gas driving to their local video store. From the movie studio’s perspective, the shift to downloadable content cannot 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 can still sell the films for a healthy amount, but show increased profits.

The capability to rent downloadable movies has been with us for a couple of years now. The problem for lots of individuals has been twofold; the lack of widespread broadband Internet access, and the requirement to use a computer to view the films. Even if the computer was successfully hooked to a TV (sometimes no mean feat in itself) for a larger picture, there have been all sorts of other issues related to computer use that made my day this a less than satisfactory solution for the majority 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 such as Verizon’s FIOS. As more households get broadband the interest in renting movies via Internet download shall increase even further.

The higher gains however, will come from the introduction of alternative methods of downloading movie rentals. To this end, an array of products or services 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, nevertheless they are available to a lot of men and women.

For people that don’t have cable or for several reasons want another service, you will find additional options available. TiVO has partnered with Amazon.com to offer the ability 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 enables people to download movies from the Apple iTunes Store for viewing on their TV. It’s a small, set top box like unit that connects to the internet, and retrieves movies from the iTUNEs library. As with most things from Apple Inc. it’s well designed and it has a simple to use interface. It does not stop at movies either. You can watch TV shows, music videos, and YouTube videos also. 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 movies 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 about 1/8th that of Blu-Ray, so the video obviously isn’t as good, but it is not bad either, and also you aren’t required to get off your couch. An issue for some is the fact that there’s absolutely no type of video below component 480i. If you have an older TV that does not have component inputs, you’re out of luck. Another issue will be the FF and rewind performance. The film has to be rebuffered to do this so it does not work like your regular Blu-ray player or cable company’s video on demand.