Jim B, London
A Yes and no. A number of new services such as www.lovefilm.com and www.wippit.com offer films to download and own, sent over the web using clever compression technology. Movies are anywhere between 500MB and 1.5GB, depending on the quality you want. With a 1MB broadband connection these should take 1-3hr to download. As yet, this is a nascent market, there isn’t currently a huge selection and you can’t burn these files to DVD.
Q If I try to upload large files on my cable broadband account, it locks up. Why? Andrew Clarke, via e-mail
A You may have a duff modem, or your ISP may be deliberately locking out large files to deter illegal file sharers — contact them and ask directly. Do remember that the fast speeds currently being touted by suppliers apply only to download speeds, not uploads. Large file uploads may stall due to the slower speeds. My current broadband account supports “up to” 8 meg speeds, though I have yet to see faster than 2 meg downloads and 200K uploads (tested with myspeed.visualware.com). Also: try upgrading cables.
Advertisement
dontpanic@sunday-times.co.uk