Movie and Music Collections
Preview movies online: If you're looking for DVDs to rent or buy, start with Ifilm. You can search for a movie and pull up, at a minimum, a synopsis and credits. Most entries also include video trailers and often special features such as interviews with the actors and directors. In addition, Ifilm has a staggering collection of small-screen videos for your computer, with brilliant short films, music videos, game previews, sports, and TV clips in the Windows Media Video, QuickTime, and Real Video formats. (Caution to parents: The site's Uncensored tab leads to explicit videos.)
Get the most music options: A cross between a radio station and record store, Rhapsody provides nearly 100 streaming music stations with various themes such as sixties pop, alt country, baroque, new wave, and underground hip-hop. Users can create their own stations, or stream most of a performer's songs or CDs on demand. They can also download songs, either as RealAudio 10 files for 89 cents a tune (99 cents for nonsubscribers) or as free "tethered" Windows Media Audio downloads that play as long as the user's membership is current (similar to offerings from services such as Napster to Go). Unlike other stores, Rhapsody offers some file format leeway: Its software converts Real Audio 10 songs to copy-protected WMA or Apple's FairPlay format. Rhapsody is also supported by a number of network streaming devices--such as the D-Link MediaLounge, Omnifi DMS1, or Roku Soundbridge--which pipe Internet radio to your stereo system, provided one PC on your network is running Rhapsody's software. Fees are $5 a month for basic radio service; $10 if you want to stream music and download tethered songs to your PC; or $15 to transfer tethered songs to a portable player.
Explore indie music--for cheap: Music download services are now abundant, providing similar collections, prices, and restrictions. But EMusic offers a different, and thrifty, model for music fans. The basic $10 subscription allows up to 40 copy protection-free downloads per month in MP3 format, which plays on nearly any device. If you later regret taking a download, you'll be out only a quarter. You won't find many Top 40 hits on EMusic, but you will discover an impressive collection of lesser-known acts and exclusive live albums, such as Taj Mahal Live at Fox Theatre.
Download DVDs? If only we had a similar glut of sites selling movie downloads. The few currently in operation, such as MovieLink and CinemaNow, have small collections that play only on PCs or handhelds that support Windows Media 10 and Microsoft's digital rights management technology. Around the time you read this, however, EZTakes plans to let you download the real deal--MPEG2-encoded movies complete with menus, subtitles, and surround sound--to burn to disc and watch on TV using any standard DVD player. EZTakes expects to have a few thousand movies available by the end of the year, at prices lower than those of store-bought DVDs. But don't expect Hollywood blockbusters: As of press time no major studio had signed on.
