SharedMovies Review

 

A movie-watcher’s dream, Sharedmovies sounds like a wonderful program, offering over 80 million movies and television titles that can be played on the computer, home theater, or television.

It offers users the ability to burn DVDs without ever having to pay money for expensive burners, as well as granting them unlimited access with no charge per movie, no download limits, and no Spyware, banners, Popups or advertising. Sound too good to be true?

Let’s take a closer look and see what Sharedmovies is all about.

So what, exactly, is Sharedmovies?
Sharedmovies is, essentially, a club of sorts. While they promote that you get all of their software for free, you are required to pay a membership fee prior to downloading it. These fees, they explain, are not for the cost of the free software, but that the money is instead used to pay for their employees and tech support. Furthermore, if you decide that you dislike the program and that it’s not all that it was cracked up to be, within the first 30 days, you can cancel your membership, receive a full refund, and keep the free software. Of course, chances are pretty good that you won’t continue to receive software upgrades and this leads one to be leery of just how well the software will work without these upgrades, but they say you don‘t get something for nothing - expecting the software to work perfectly for you, for years to come, would be a bit far-fetched.

What is available for download?
At the main page, Sharedmovies boasts more than 8 million titles, although they only claim 6 million in their FAQ. While this is most likely just an updating error, it does suggest a potentially bogus number somewhere. One concern, however is that, while they do claim to have programs available for those on Mac, they do not specify how many, what percentage, or stress what they are doing to make the system more Mac friendly. If you’re a Mac user, it’s highly advisable that you email tech support ahead of time and find out what is available and what kind of problems fellow Mac users have been known to have, if there are any.

Available downloads range from full DVD quality movies, television programs, unreleased music videos and home-made amateur videos, though there are definitely some questions that should be posed here. Things that immediately come to mind are what percentage of the downloadable movies and television shows are new releases and what are very old programs? Also, with Sharedmovies touting the fact that they have home-made amateur videos on their site, this prompts one to question what sort of regulations and policing, if you will, there is in regards to explicit content. A lack of any would definitely give parents concern over what sort of video that their children have access to on the site, and may be reason to steer clear of it, if they don’t want to risk their children viewing improper downloads.

Is there live technical support?
Good question. Fortunately, tech support has their own link and page, though most of the information is marked Members Only, making it difficult to discern whether or not customers are offered an upgrade or priority assistance over non-members. Non-members, however, are told that tech support works round the clock, from Mondays through Fridays, and that most queries and issues are handled within 48 hours. Not bad, but it would be nicer to see a faster response time offered here and I definitely have to wonder what happens if something happens over the weekend. Apparently, what happens is that the members get out from in front of their computers and go to the beach for the day.

Not having live support that is available could prove troublesome, particularly if the problem is not handled in one easy email. Sending and waiting on emails can prove just as frustrating as sitting on the telephone and pushing buttons in response to different prompts. Either way, you probably end up thinking there are a dozen other things that you should be doing.

In summation…
Sharedmovies sounds like it has the potential to be a good thing, unlike many gimicky movie download sites this one seems to be the real thing.