Registering (free) allows you to track your favorite videos, categories, and searches, as well as upload videos. Uploaded videos can be of any length, but files must not exceed 200MB, and of course, Guba.com reserves the right to take down copyrighted and obscene material. Once you get bored of viewing, rating, and sharing home movies, music videos, and a universe of free clips, you can browse the premium section for a decent list of movies, encoded as DRM WMV files. While there are recent hits such as Syriana ($19.99 to purchase) and Good Night and Good Luck ($2.99 rental), the site lists less than 100 films, many of which can be purchased but not rented and vice versa. The $9.99 price point is reasonable enough and covers the majority of movies, such as Death to Smoochy, Best in Show, and The Matrix. However, we feel many consumers will scoff at the $19.99 premium price point, which matches that of Movielink and CinemaNow and applies to films such as Analyze That and Firewall, since actual DVDs can be found for less. While most of the titles are worth watching, you won't have the selection offered by Movielink, CinemaNow, or even Starz Vongo. At this point, online movies are more about convenience than value.
But the Guba infrastructure is ripe enough for further content development. Video streams were instantaneous on our corporate network, and the quality of premium content was excellent. Minor features, such as frame-by-frame previews of free videos as you mouse over a thumbnail or icon-based functions for each video clip, give Guba something different in the growing world of online video sites.
