The old way of watching movies required going to a movie-theater or watching the movie at your house by renting videos. Even though visiting a movie house or watching blockbusters on DVD's are still very popular, there exists another option, which is giving those two methods some competition, is to watch movies on your computer. Another advantage is that many times the movie or video is totally free.

Watching movies on your PC may reduce the quality if you don’t have the correct software installed in your computer. Otherwise you will discover that the quality of the movie is low and the picture may flicker, which would spoil the experience.

The first thing you need is a fast connection. Broadband is needed, and is now commonly available almost anywhere. As an example, if your modem’s speed is 64 kb, the movie will not start playing immediately. The reason for this is because most movie files are streaming videos involving the mpg or mpg4 file format. As you play these files, they need to first create a buffer on your computer and only after doing that, will the movie begin playing. In comparison, if you are using a broadband connection (Cable or DSL), your movie will usually begin playing immedately.

Free hard drive space is also needed for a smooth movie experience. As some of these files are rather large, they will need room on your computer to download and play. So make sure you have a big chunk of free space.

If the movie does not play within the first five mintues or if there is a broken Q image in the middle of your monitor, it indicates that you do not have the Quicktime software installed on your computer.

So to review what you need for a good movie experience: You will need a good internet connection, free space on your computer, and Quicktime movie player. If you don't have quicktime, you can download and install it by here.

Download QuickTime