ZML.com Review
I have been asked several times about any sites that offer movie downloads that aren't prohibitively expensive, and until recently, such a site simply didn't exist. However, ZML.com recently premiered as a new competitor and is taking the scene by storm. ZML is a movie download site that works similarly to many of the music download sites reviewed here at SongBoom, except that they sell movies (DVD quality, DivX, or for your iPod, iPhone, or PDA) for prices ranging from $1.99 to $4.99 depending on the chosen format. Please read on for a review and screenshots of all of the steps from signup to playing a movie, with details for those of you that are interested in inexpensive, high quality movie downloads.
Although this isn't a review of a music site, enough readers have posed the question of whether or not a similar site exists for movies that I've decided to add this review. I hope it will be useful for other people interested in this new service.
So what's this ZML site all about? Well, is a movie download service, but it basically works the same as many other music download services do (e.g. MP3Fiesta.com, LegalSounds.com, MP3Sale). You deposit some money in your account by credit card and then use that credit to purchase movies. For $20 worth of credit (the minimum payment), you can buy up to 10 movies for your iPod or PDA, 6 (almost 7) movies in DivX encoded format, or 4 movies in regular DVD format. None of these movies have DRM of any kind, and can be downloaded more than once from their website.
The Catalog
Probably the most important characteristic of a movie service (aside from price) should be the quality of the catalog. While upon first glance I found several titles I immediately wanted (Big Fish, Live Free or Die Hard, and the nostalgic Back to the Future), I also found that you cannot always find what you want ("Goonies" produced no results). Of course, you cannot expect to always find what you want all the time (I very often cannot find movies in my local video rental store either, especially older titles that aren't very popular) - but they definitely have most of the newest popular titles in stock. "Back to the Future" (1985) is a good example of one of those old movies that they do have (it's practically a classic). While they don't state the exact size of the catalog, they do mention "Thousands of movies" and "Over 1500 DVD quality" , which leads me to believe they stock at least 2,700 movies or more if you examine the ratio of movies that they offer in DVD format to those that aren't. Of course, that is just a guess.
The Prices
The pricing scheme is really simple: iPod and PDA downloads are $1.99 each, DivX movies are $2.99, and full DVD downloads are $4.99.
The Formats
There are four different formats, with differing quality levels and download sizes. They are briefly summarized here.
iPOD Format
The resolution of these movies will be around 320x176 at 25fps, and are encoded using h264 at around 250kbps (this type of encoding is done to ensure it will be compatible with your iPod or iPhone). File sizes will be around 300MB or so.
PDA Format
This format is aimed at people with regular PDAs (PocketPC, Windows Mobile, Palm, etc) that are capable of playing multimedia files. The resolution is around 320x172 (or 320x128) and is encoded between 120-175kbps. A typical file download will be between 250MB-430MB or so.
DivX Format
Probably the most wanted format, DivX is a very popular encoding that provides a good balance between quality and file size. While the quality isn't as good as DVD, this may not matter for most people (me included). If you are interested in watching a movie a few times or burning it to DVD, you will probably want to download this format. The resolution can be one of several: a small survey found movie resolutions of various sizes between 592x238 to 592x324 at either 23, 25, or 29 fps. Typical bitrates are between 500-700kbps, which results in a file size between 700MB to 1.3GB.
DVD Format
This is the same resolution one would find on the original DVD with quality "almost like" the original DVD. If you are interested in having the highest quality and surround sound (say, for your home theater system), you'll want this version. Resolutions can be found of various sizes between 720x255 and 720x392. Encodings are also at varying fps values (23,25) at rates between 800-1230kbps+. File sizes will usually fall between 1.5GB to over 2GB.
Are There Any Special Software Requirements?
No, not at all. You simply download the file, and then play it! Most people will already have the DivX codec installed on their computers, so they won't need to do anything (although they advise against using Windows Media Player for movies encoded with multiple languages). If you don't have the codec installed, they provide a link for you to install it. They also provide a link to the VLC movie player - a great (FREE) player that can handle pretty much anything you throw at it. It is much more lightweight than Windows Media Player (this is completely optional, though).
Signup, Payment, and Download
Here are the steps that you'll encounter when you signup and download a movie. Each screenshot below will show a larger version of the image when clicked. I've posted these pictures so that you can get a better idea of the steps involved in the signup and download process.
The first step you'll need to do is to signup. You can do that right here.
The signup is painless, and you only need to provide an email address, your name, and country of residence. The next step is adding to your balance so you can begin downloading. In the following picture, I've circled in red the link entitled "Add Money to Account" that takes you to the payment page.
Payments are made with VISA and Mastercard and are available in denominations of $19.95, $29.95, and $49.95. Note: If you are planning on downloading DivX movies and take the $19.95 option, you'll have enough for 6 movies and have a bit over $2 left over - not enough for another DivX movie download. If you take the $29.99 option instead, you can download 10 movies and only have $0.05 left over.
After clicking on the amount you want, you are taken to Chronopay. Chronopay is a widely known online credit card processor. Since you are directed to Chronopay, this means that your Credit Card information isn't being sent to ZML, just Chronopay (for those that worry about that kind on thing). Below is a screenshot of the form you will encounter next.
The next steps are more interesting: selecting a movie and download format. In my example, I chose "Live Free or Die Hard" in DivX format. You can see that I am presented with an URL that I can paste into a browser window (or download program), or (as I did) I can simply click on the blue link.
Since movie files tend to be large, you might worry about what happens if your connection gets interrupted (cat turned off the computer, power outage, etc). Never fear - the download link is available for at least two weeks - so you can download it as many times as you want, and don't have to worry about not getting a complete download. To reach the download link again, you click on "History of Purchases" when you're logged in and you can re-download anything you've purchased.
Under the heading "Please Read This!", they suggest that you do NOT use Internet Explorer for downloading the movie (because it is not capable of resuming the download if it is interrupted for any reason). They recommend using FlashGet, which I have also used in the past - it is quite good. In my case, I just saved it like usual (no download manager) and everything went fine - no interruptions or problems. They also provide the DivX codecs for those of you that don't have it installed already, and the VLC video player if you are interested. To get more information on the VLC player, please have a look at the official website : http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ . Of course, the VLC player isn't needed, but it is a great player.
In the next picture, you can see my download and the speed at which I was downloading at the time (324 KB/sec). I noticed that the download speed varied over time, so don't get worried if you see a different number than what I had.
After the download completed, I opened the movie in my player made a screenshot of a random point in the movie:
Bruce Willis is shown here saying, "It can't be that easy!" Well, it is.
Conclusion
ZML is easy to use, with painless signup, account balance fill up, and downloads. I have a few suggestions that I'd offer to the webmaster - just a few things that I think would improve things on the site:
- Searching could be improved. While it is easy to find a movie by it's title, what if I want to see all of the movies directed by a particular director, or all of the movies that a certain actor stars in? I think these two search criterion would be very helpful to have.
- Increase the catalog size. While this is obvious (and I am sure they are working on this daily), I thought I'd mention it.
- Formats. While the availble formats are fine, not all movies have all of the formats available for download. It would be great if all of the movies listed were available in all of the formats that they offer.
If you have any comments or questions about ZML please go to the forums and post your thoughts.