Pros and Cons of downloadable movies on paysites?
 

Soom sites allow you to download the movies, some only allow you to stream. I would imagine the only reason some paysites allow downloading of movies is to prevent trial chargebacks from the freeloaders maybe? What do you guys think?

Best way is to use DRM and let them download the movies and only watch them if they are active members. :2 cents:

i think dial up users like to download and then play

All of the above.

I joined a movie paysite once several years ago and then requested a refund of the trial price because NONE of the movies were downloadable. I was on dialup and streaming the movies took SOOOOO long, but if I could have set 3 or 4 movies to download to my system and been doing something else, then I could have viewed them later. I would have stayed a member so that I could download 3 or 4 movies a week.

But that streaming crap sucked. The movies were boring, the sizes were too small and they would constantly lock up and pause for several seconds at a time. I hate streaming movies, even now that I have broadband.

I would never recur to a site that had only streaming movies.

Most people prefer downloads over streaming. Streaming, even on cable, has the tendency to lag and be of relatively bad quality.

A recent email from one of my members:

Hi,

Just want to say your site is the best value site I've seen - I am mystified by other sites going for streaming media in a big way, as this is utter rubbish and a waste of money. Downloadable video is what I like, and you have plenty of it - keep it up, and don't fall for the streaming deals that make it look like there's loads of content but what you end up with is some jerky piece of rubbish running via an applet that keeps breaking off! I have never, and will never renew my membership to any site whose content is predominantly streaming media, but I will definitely be renewing my membership to your site...

Nuff said...

Thanks

As the man says... nuff said :)

i guess streaming movie sites make a lot of $$$ - lot more then downloadable :Graucho

I got this a few days ago:

He is happy and converted the 8.95 Euros 3 days trial to a monthly membership...

personally the only kind of site i would join would be a large downloadable movie site. streaming has its pros and cons but for the most part, is not something the surfer wants. sure you keep him coming back and staying a member but if your site was quality and what he/she wanted, they would stay anyhow. streaming uses up bandwidth i would imagine when someone could of just downloaded it once and had it on their machine.

I set a daily download limit, so far so good..

We have made our streaming clips downloadable as well, based on member feedback. There are a lot of dial up guys still out there, plus recurring members love to save their fav clips for quick play. We still offer streams, but the download option is a big plus with our members. :winkwink:

Downloadable vids are a must for members. If you only offer streaming vids then the members that do cancel will never return, however if you have downloadable vids then the members that do cancel quite often rejoin a few months later to see what new vids you have to download..:)

I'm On Dailup and i Must say Streaming Video's Give me the Shits!! You wait minute or two then you see 3 seconds of the movie wait 10 seconds and then see another 3 seconds! Defentailty Downloadable Movies are the way to go for Dail-up Users!

Thanks for all the replies, I think i'm going to give the downloadable option an try, once thats in place i'll work on streaming options and monitor what gets clicked. Thanks.

Is that a bulletproof solution?

Tom, offtopic... how much do you charge for hand submissions for TGPs? How many TGPs?

As far as I know (we are only given the streamed content to webmasters) a lot of users prefer it to have a chance to download the video. Also many users still have problems with the online videos, mostly regarding bandwith. For e.g. when a modem user like to get a DSL stream, he will get the Audio only via streaming the clip, but on download he will be able to get a full screen video.
The best solution will be if you can offer both, streaming and download.

Streaming sucks and should mainly be used as filler content IMO.

I sale only downloadable MPG files. They are the best and surfers love them Streaming sucks for my sites. I dont use it.