WWW.SIGHTSOUND.COM 733 Washington Road, Ste. 400, Mt. Lebanon, PA 15228. Reviewed at both broadband speed and with a 56K modem on April 25 and April 26, 2000.
The underlying assumption behind SightSound.com is that people will be willing to sit in front of their computers for 90 minutes and watch a movie. While the vast majority of surveys show that most Internet users would rather undergo dental surgery, there are doubtless some hardcore Netizens who would be willing to watch a movie on a computer screen.
Given what a small segment
of the population this is, SightSound.com should try to make the process as easy as possible to capture those viewers. But the site instead makes the user wait for interminable downloads and offers a selection of movies that only the truly bored would ever want to view in the first place.
Each film is available for a one-day rental of $ 2.95. Encryption within the download prevents the user from passing the movie along to others, and it sets the film to expire within a given time period so that it can't be viewed repeatedly. And like most entertainment sites, SightSound.com also offers music downloads.
But with featured offerings like 1997's "Fait Accompli," starring Michael Madsen (tagline: "Not everyone who goes into the bayou comes out"), and 1998's "My Sweet Suicide" ("Life was never easy ... death was a pain in the butt"), one has to wonder who is willing to fork over $ 2.95 to watch a movie online that videostores might encourage you to shoplift out of the bargain bin.
The one movie on the site that may not entirely cause the average person to wince is "Cannibal! The Musical," a 1996 feature from "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Downloading the movie is simple enough: just click on the download option and wait. And wait. And wait.
On a 56K modem, it would take well over six hours to download the film to your hard drive. In theory, it would be fine to try to download the feature overnight --- provided everything goes perfectly with the modem line and you don't get knocked off in the middle of the night and have to start the whole process over again the next day.
To be fair, SightSound strongly recommends that customers have high-speed Internet access before they try to download a movie --- but it's just another example of limiting an already limited audience.
Even with broadband access, it takes upwards of a half-hour to download a film. The length of the download demands the viewer make a concerted effort and wait to watch the movie --- more effort and time than is required to walk to the nearest videostore or call the local cable system for a pay-per-view movie on television.
Still, while you're waiting, mull this bonus: If you can't do without "The Realm," an extreme snow sports compendium starring Olympic gold medalist Johnny Mosely, there's an option to buy the movie for $ 20 during the download process.
But not if you're on a Mac; the site's download feature isn't Macintosh-compatible. To illustrate how much this shortcoming bothers SightSound , the Web site's Frequently Asked Questions section spends more time talking about its TBWA/Chiat/
Day-developed monkey logo than it does on when Mac users will ever be able to use the site.
SightSound's product could be bolstered by a recent deal with Miramax to provide the technology that will allow the studio to distribute some of its movies for downloading on a pay-per-view basis by the end of the year.
One can only assume Miramaxis thinking for the very long term, when the convergence between desktop computer and television set is complete --- a technological outcome that is still iffy.
SightSound.com has filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of stock; if the company wants any buyers, it had best not sell the IPO through the Web site.
Contact the Variety newsroom at
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Date in print: Mon., May. 8, 2000