Yesterday was a random confluence of having an evening mostly to myself and all major North American sports, other than baseball, on hiatus. So I did something I’ve infrequently had opportunity for over the past few years. I rented a movie.
Actually, it wasn’t much of a rental. Since I’m an Amazon Prime subscriber, Amazon graced me with a free streaming access to a number of videos through its Instant Video service. So I gave it a test drive with Guy Ritchie’s movie, Revolver, a surprisingly psychological gangster film.
Overall, the experience was pretty good, although not great. I watched it on my laptop over Wi-Fi, with Verizon Fios as the backhaul. There were only the occasional drop outs and stutters. And I paused and resumed with no ill effect multiple times.
This brought to mind the slew of options I now have to get digital content including:
- The aforementioned Amazon Instant Video
- HBOGo, which is offered through Verizon. Had a few glitches the couple of times I’ve tried it, but where else am I gonna get every episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm for free?
- The iTunes Store, which I’ve used to good effect for nomadic content fixes
- And Netflix, who seems to hit me with a new promotion every other month or so since I’m a former subscriber
Not to mention other services like Hulu which I haven’t even bothered to stay informed about.
There’s a burgeoning groundswell of “cordcutting” to get rid of cable/dish through such Internet services. For me, they’re not quite easy enough to deal with (or more accurately train up my wife), and I’m a serious sports junkie. It’s just easier to pay the monopolists and graze the live broadcast sports buffet.