...the one website that will hold your hand as you step into the wonderful new world of TV on demand.
Legally downloading TV here in the UK has now reached that point where ordinary chimps like me have stopped messing about with Limewire and BitTorrent and started trying to have a go. We're supposed to be paying for quality and convenience. But you soon realise that trying to do the right thing is not nearly as easy as it looks. Too many problems, too much confusion. It's enough to make a good guy go bad...
Why? Well, one reason is this:
instead of getting their vastly overpaid heads together and coming up with an internet version of VHS, the corporate big boys* have sunk millions into their own systems.
Some are better than others, but they all work differently and some of them really don't play very nicely together. Cue frustration.
Then there's the content - the stuff we came for. Some of it's free, some of it comes with a subscription you already pay and some of it is pay per view or season pass. And then there's how long you can view it for. Seven days or 24 hours or... Agggghhh ok. ok. I get it already...
So, unless you're up to speed with Hollywood studio politics and you're a bit clever with computers, it all gets too hard to bother with. And that means an awful lot of us will just give up and go back to BitTorrent.
And that is bad. Bad because legal direct downloads - either to your computer or the box under your TV is the way forward. It's going to happen, so you might as well get used to it. The good news is, the future will be great when we eventually get there - if only to stop all those really terrible Jean Claude Van Damme DVDs going straight to landfill...
Let me say it again just to be completely clear:
Paying to instantly and effortlessly download any content that you want to consume on whatever device you own is the way ahead.
We are nowhere near that Nirvana yet, but that's where we'll end up, or I'll be a monkey's uncle.
And before anyone gets on my big pink baboon ass about legal vs. torrent, yes I do know all the arguments and this isn't the time or the place to go over them all again. I reckon that if you're already grabbing all the music and video you want illegally off the internet, you're computer savvy enough to find your way around and there are loads of sites out there to help you.
But if you live in the UK, don't fancy piracy and are starting to listen to all that marketing blah blah blah about "downloading your favourite shows at the touch of a button", then you now have a Download Monkey on hand to help you.
We believe our reviews of the various services on offer are absolutely fair and accurate and all written by a team of people who actually use these services every day (unlike some of the marketing suits who are selling them to you). You can rate them, and if you don't agree with us, have your say in the forums. That's where you'll also find a wealth of help and advice from people who are in exactly the same place you are when it comes to trying to make it all work.
Finally, are we some covert operation? A stalking horse in the pay or the pocket of a media giant? Nope. We are a totally independent outfit that has no ties to anyone. We just loves our movies and our TV shows and will happily argue the toss about them all day. Because that's what real entertainment is all about.
*Should anyone from the corporate big boys stop hoovering coke off their PA's fabulous breasts long enough to think that this site might be a good idea and might want to help us with our costs, we'd be happy to listen. But remember - the only real value in having a site like Download Monkey is if it stays editorially independent - anything else would just be bananas.
The Zookeeper
April 2008