Movie Experience

Most moviegoers agree that the best movie-watching experience is on a big screen, but more and more movies are available online for viewing on our much smaller computer screens. Netflix is quickly becoming a leader in this service by offering the ability to stream movies to a Windows PC as part of consumers' subscriptions. And, now they are offering a device that sends those movies--streaming--to your big screen TVs: the Roku Netflix Player. For our "I want instant gratification" society, this is a great service, but the quality is reportedly still not great:

According to an article in BusinessWeek--"The Roku is a small box that superficially resembles products such as Apple TV or Vudu. But while the setup is similar, the operation is completely different. Other services download the content to a hard drive for playback; Netflix is pure streaming. The quality is not as good as Apple TV or Vudu, but it's about equal to standard-definition digital TV. Making it work smoothly requires an Internet connection that consistently delivers at least 2 megabits per second."

The services out there for movies on-demand at home are getting better and less expensive, but you still can't beat the experience of watching a movie on a big screen. And free is best of all. If you live in Little Rock, be sure to check out Movies in the Park this summer. Free outdoor movies--shown on the big screen--every Wednesday night for eight weeks starting June 4th with E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial. Bring friends along with the beverages and snacks of your choice and hang out under the stars for an evening. It is a fantastic movie experience.Here is the Movies in the Park schedule for the summer:June 04, 2008 E.T.: The Extra TerrestrialJune 11, 2008 RockyJune 18, 2008 Happy FeetJune 25, 2008 Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky BobbyJuly 02, 2008 Notting HillJuly 09, 2008 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate FactoryJuly 16, 2008 Casino RoyaleJuly 23, 2008 The Wizard of Oz