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Film downloads nothing to stay home for By Patti Hartigan, Globe Staff, 09/24/99 It's billed as ``the world's first virtual video store,'' a new concept in home entertainment. The sales pitch goes something like this: Rent a movie on your personal computer without ever having to leave home. No more staring at empty shelves on a Saturday night. No more late fees. No more scoldings for failing to rewind. This is the future, say the founders of Sightsound.com, an Internet company located near Pittsburgh that recently began renting films for digital download on its Web site. Wave bye-bye to your VCR. Well, I've been to the future, and frankly, I'm keeping the old VCR. The idea of the virtual video store is great -- if you have a few hours, or a few days, to spare. A recent visit to www.sightsound.com turned out to be an exercise in frustration. First, it took forever trying to decide which movie to rent out of the library of 68 films. Hmm. Should we go for ``Cannibal! The Musical'' or ``Killer Condom?'' Or what about ``The Chosen One,'' starring Carmen Electra and a few of her playmates? As it turns out, the company that says it wants to be the Blockbuster of the Internet isn't exactly offering blockbusters -- at least not yet. We opted for ``Cyberdorm,'' a film described as ``The Real World'' meets ``Wayne's World'' -- on the Web. We paid $4.95 for a five-day rental; most one-day rentals cost $2 to $4 on the site. On a high-speed modem at the Globe, the film took about 45 minutes to download, which isn't really that bad considering the size of the file. But remember, it would take hours or days over a 56K or slower modem, in which time you could crawl to your local video store and back. Oh well, what's a little inconvenience when you're an Internet pioneer? When the movie was finally ready to play on the Windows Media Player, there was a slight problem: The audio and video were out of synch. As one woebegone character lamented, ``I used to have a main squeeze but she dribbled away with my hoop dreams,'' another completely different character was shown on the screen. (Given dialogue like that, maybe the film was supposed to be off kilter.) And that wasn't the only glitch. About 20 minutes into the film, the player just stopped cold, forcing me to close the file. I restarted the film, but the Windows Media player didn't allow me to fast-forward to where I left off. Nobody in their right mind would willingly watch ``Cyberdorm'' more than once, so it was time to come back from the future and give up watching movies on the computer at work. ``These are early days, and there are going to be problems,'' admits Scott Sander, Sightsound's CEO and president. ``It's not perfect, but we are scaling up with a site that shows the promise of Internet distribution of films.'' Sander and his partner, Sightsound's chief technology officer Arthur Hair, foresaw the dawn of the digital age nearly a decade ago. In the late '80s, Hair applied for a US patent on the idea of distributing video and music digitally, and in 1993, he received the patent, which covers the concept, not the actual technology that makes it work. In January, the firm took action against two Internet startups that distribute music on line; CDNow is fighting back in court, while MP3.com simply mocked the complaint by posting Sightsound's letters on its Web site. The patent is a bone of contention in Hollywood these days, where all the major studios are trying to figure out how to distribute their films on line without leaving themselves open to piracy. Industry analyst Mark Hardie of the Cambridge-based Forrester Research predicts that the patent won't hold up in court. ``It's like saying I'm going to patent levitation,'' Hardie notes. ``My theory is that that some day everyone is going to be able to levitate, and even though I don't know how to do it yet, I'm going to patent the idea of doing it.'' The folks at the world's first virtual video store aren't exactly levitating or walking on water yet, but they are, in fact, proving that Internet film distribution is inevitable. This summer, such films as ``Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace,'' ``Eyes Wide Shut,'' and ``The Blair Witch Project'' began appearing illegally on line, available for download by those with the patience to try. ``That was our clue that we'd better build our business now or they will steal the movies anyway,'' says Sander. A few weeks ago, Sightsound created quite a stir when it announced an agreement to distribute a film made exclusively for the Internet by Metafilmics, the production company that released the Academy Award-winning ``What Dreams May Come.'' That film will only be about 40 minutes long to make it easier to download, although it may be expanded for a theatrical version after it premieres on the Web. The Internet movie, called ``The Quantum Project,'' will be released on line in May. But for now, Sightsound is trying to build the library of its virtual video store, which is now limited to cult films, B movies, sports videos, and a few oldies. ``We want to get to the point where we literally have every movie ever made in every language,'' says Sander. ``Our job is to bring the convenience of the Web to the movie rental experience.'' But nonvirtual video stores give refunds. At Sander's suggestion, we requested a refund from the virtual video store's customer service department; we haven't heard back yet. The check is in the e-mail, no doubt.
This story ran on page F11 of the Boston Globe on 09/24/99.
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