Google's immensely popular internet video sharing website, YouTube, has moved to take on rival services from iTunes and Lovefilm today be announcing the launch of a competing online movie rental (streaming) service in the UK - YouTube Movies.

The service includes over a thousand full-length feature films from major studios and builds on the FREE service that was launched last year (here). With the expanded service users can now pay up to £3.49 to rent a recent film release for 48 hours (renters have 30 days to begin watching).


As you'd expect the service isn't radically different from its rivals and again the most recent films are only those that you can already buy/rent via DVD or BlueRay. The sooner we can access cinema releases online the better but that's unlikely to happen anytime soon (nobody wants to damage the lucrative cinema chains).

On top of that consumers need to be mindful about using up too much of their ISP's precious broadband bandwidth through video streaming, which on some providers could incur additional charges or result in your connection performance being penalised through Traffic Management. Make sure your package can handle it before you try.

YouTube Movies
http://www.youtube.com/movies