Gary, I missed Battlestar Galactica recently due to travel. Downloaded it off iTunes the next day for $1.99. It was painless, downloaded quickly, and was very watchable on my PC. It came without advertisements too. I really only watch ice hockey and battlestar galactica on the television. The rest of the time I am on one of the many computers in the house. If I could get my wife to give up the satellite TV, I would.

Lucky you.

I haven't worked out how to do it it. I'm still working with a subscription based mail order DVD's.

It's better than free-to-air television or pay television both of which I detest, but its not good. You have to accept what comes in the email from a large chosen basket. It's a lucky dip.

Your's is a much better deal.

Gary, I have spent a grand total of $1.99 on iTunes video though. We spend $70 a month on satellite TV, and another $20 or so for Netflix. I barely use the latter two, my wife is the main consumer there.

Netflix is a much better deal than Homescreen which has become Quickflix. Suzanne is the main consumer, though I watch the odd movie and the old episodies of Westwing.

Neither of us are interested in satellite TV--I think Foxtel is junk; so does Suzanne. I'm far more interested in iTunes video/movies. It will be some time before that arrives in Australia.

Gary, Hopefully it goes the other way too, I would pay to see the Sydney Swans play, or the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs. Copyright is still far too provincial, as are most national laws and regulations. As an example - region encoding - WTF?

Gary,
You need to read my opinion of the BigPondMovie download website. My cost-analysis of this situation is a blatant hoodwink of the target market, and they are deluding users with the costs involved for this new system, both dial-up and ADSL account holders. I believe you might concur with my results.
[actual post]

Stephen,
nice post. Good conclusion:

Personally I think the "Download a Movie" scheme is a blatant mis-advertising to the consumer. It's not just $2 a movie - you pay for it by the plan you choose to be on. I would hate to still be on dial-up. And worse yet, if I was ever to download something bigger than 250megabytes, you would need to be on ADSL to ensure you got it all.

One point.You say that ADSL2 downloading at 2000 bytes per second costs you about $90 a month minimum.

Hm. I have ADSL2 in Adelaide and it costs me around $59 from Internode.

It's a lot cheaper with greater bandwith than I was paying for ADSL with 1.5 bytes and I gig download.I was forever paying excess charges--it was a blatant rip off.