In a victory for PR and Marketing:

Several major film studios are announcing plans Monday to make movies available for download onto PCs.

Consumers would be able to save the films to watch any time, and would pay between $10 and $30 to download, depending on how new the film is. New movies are expected to be released for download the day the DVD goes on sale.

The industry has been moving toward online distribution for a while, though just how eagerly is subject to debate. The new services, available through MovieLink and CinemaNow, should prompt repercussions along the distribution line, from DVD sales to cable TV to the video rental business.

Those of you who are regular readers of BBB will recall that MovieLink and CinemaNow (gotta love those iNterCap names) have been the long forgotten stepchildren of hollywood and the tech industry. What is amazing about this story is that it is a story at all. These services have been available for years (although the details have changed a bit) this is nothing new. Perhaps in light of the success of the iTunes Music Store selling tv downloads, the ugly stepchildren feel a little more confident these days.

We tried to checkout the details at the MovieLink site but encountered a stern:

Sorry, but as of May 2, 2005, Movielink no longer supports Windows 98 and ME operating systems.

Movielink also does not support Mac or Linux.

In order to enjoy the Movielink service, you must use Windows 2000 or XP, which support certain technologies we utilize for downloading movies.

And a similar warning pops up at CinemaNow:

You must use Internet Explorer Version 6 or higher on a PC running Windows 2000 or later in order to use the CinemaNow service.

Uh oh, we think we can predict how successful this Microsoft DRM‘d crap is going to be already.