June 6th, 2010 
Cliff Riseborough 
In an effort to curb the downloading of movies from torrent sites, a number of Hollywood studios, the UK Film Council and tech firm Blinkbox have joined forces to launch Full Stream Ahead.
Full Stream Ahead will be a week long promotion where anyone accessing a specific web address (fullstreamahead.co.uk) will receive a credit to spend on viewings of streamed movies. Those movies will be watchable on home computer or any television with the right setup.
The hope is that after a taste of the legal movie streaming service, more of the general public will turn towards using such options in the future rather than pirating movies. The other hope is that by jumping on to streaming technology more quickly than the music industry did, the movie business can better help turn the tide.
From The Guardian :
"We are doing it much earlier," says Michael Comish, chief executive and co-founder of Blinkbox. "By the time the music industry enabled strong and good-quality legal [streaming] services it was arguably too late. We are in the early days of digital retail for movies, and our ambition is to make people aware of the benefits of streaming services before it is too late."
Blinkbox already has more than 1.2 million monthly users, and their hope of substantially increasing that number is why they’re willing to bear most of the costs of the promotion.
"If millions of people take up this offer, yes, it is going to cost us a lot of money," he said. "But the cost of not doing it is far larger. If we do not make people aware that there is good-quality streaming video available, then we will hit a tipping point in online piracy."
So, if you’re in the UK and have broadband, give it a shot.
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It’s good to hear some kind of positive solution from the movie industry. I hope it works out well for them and maybe we’ll see a similar promotion in North America…
However, the skeptic in me leaves me wondering why it took until mid 2010 to do this. And it’s unfortunate that the stream ahead page presents you with a comparison between a legal and an illegal solution. That puts me on the defensive right away.
They claim viruses, where in truth, those groups would be banished from the ‘scene’ if that happened.
Quality is another. I’m not so sure, maybe, but are they using the latest technology?–such as .mkv (matroska video), which offers incredible compression at a high resolution.
Finally, freedom of choice. I wonder if I could watch something like Eraser Head or J-Men Forever…obscure to be sure, but it’s out there if you look for it.
I don’t think picture quality is going to be an issue, considering this company lives or dies by selling streaming movies. As for how long it took, perhaps we’re reaching the point where there’s a genuine impetus for something like this? Could also have something to do with an expansion of broadband availability (I don’t know anything about Internet availability in the UK).
As for North America, it’s going to have to be a split model…one for Canada, one for the US, to cater to Canadian Content regulations and requirements, different tax system, blah blah blah. I’d like to see it happen, though.
Why are we even discussing this, now that you’ve brought the Canadian content laws into the equation? lol
The reason for mentioning quality, even though streamed, is that it’s very tough to compete with free. After all, they are the ones touting this on their front page, when comparing to illegal methods. Had it not been for that, I wouldn’t have even mentioned it.
I, too would like to see this work and eventually reach our continent.