Electronic content delivery has taken another step forward in Australia, with ReelTime Media offering download-to-own movies available the same day as they hit the retail shelves.

Considering the download times, Reeltime ain't anywhere near real time.

The movies will be available in three formats: a Windows Media format for PC viewing, a Plays4Sure Windows Media format for portable devices (but not the Zune or iPod) and compressed VOB files for burning to DVD. The latter can be burned three times to DVD within thirty days, while playback of the Windows Media files is limited to the MAC address of the devices they are downloaded to.

Three files and formats sounds like a mess, but at least it acknowledges the fact that people want to access their content from different devices at different times rather than having providers dictate how they use content. One problem is the size of the downloads. According to James Bannan's interview with ReelTime Media managing director John Karantzis at APC; "The WMV file for computer playback is encoded at 1.6Mb/sec, and works out to around 800MB to 1GB for a 90-minute movie. The Plays4Sure WMV file is encoded at around a third of that rate, giving a 250-300MB file. The DVD image file is compressed down to around 2.5GB."

So that's almost a 4GB download, which by my maths is roughly 32 million kilobits - which would take 17 hours on a 512 Kbps connection at maximum warp. Not exactly Video on Demand, but then it's not claiming to be. Still, considering 4GB would realistically take a few days, it could be just as fast to buy the DVD online and have it shipped to you.

Of course under Australia's pathetic download caps, 4GB is more than most people are allowed in one month. Thankfully more than one hundred ISPs don't count data downloaded from ReelTime, including Netspace, People Telecom and Westnet. Noticeably absent are Telstra and Optus, which run 10 Mbps cable broadband networks that would make downloading movies far more practical. Major ADSL2+ provider iiNet is also missing.

Another problem with ReelTime's proposal is the price. New release movies sell for $AU33.99 - yet you could probably pick them up on DVD for less and then rip them to whatever format you want (which is, of course, illegal). The downloaded DVD from ReelTime is also compressed to fit on a single layer DVD, so it wouldn't look as good as a proper DVD when you watch it on a really big television. Also, the blank DVDs from the shop may not last as long as a commercial DVD. Plus, what happened if your PC is stolen, or your hard drives dies, or you have to replace the network card and thus change your MAC address. If I was renting the movie I might not care so much, but if I'm buying it I'd still rather own a hard-ish copy on a commercial disc than risk spending money on downloading files. Hard drive failures don't just happen to other people, trust me, and it's a lesson that many people who have paid for file downloads will learn the hard way over the coming years.

ReelTime is to be commended for having a go, but the model still needs some refining. A flat rate, all you can eat rental service like Real's Rhapsody music service is probably the most consumer-friendly model I've used for accessing content - but with Australia's pathetic broadband speeds it's just not practical for DVD quailty video.