Fox plans to launch its own movie and television show download service this October. According to Forbes, Fox will use the Direct2Disk service that its parent company, News Corp. purchased last year. X-Men: The Last Stand Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties The Omen, and Thank You for Smoking will all be available for download at the same time as they are released on DVD.

Movie download pricing has not been set yet, but it is expected to be about US$20.

Fox also plans to offer some of its television programming for download within 24 hours of the show's airing, just as it does on the iTunes Music Store. Each episode will be priced at $1.99. Initially, 24, Prison Break, and FX's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia will be available.

Once the initial TV and movie offerings are available, Fox plans to ramp up its service by making more programming available.

By offering its own movie and TV show download service, Fox may be positioning itself to compete with Apple's iTunes Music Store (iTMS). Fox's offerings, however, will be encoded with Microsoft's digital rights management technology, which limits their playback to Windows-based PCs and Windows Media Player-compatible devices.

In comparison, the iTMS offers cross-platform media files. The iPod, however, is the only portable device that iTMS purchases are directly compatible with.

Apple is rumored to be working on its own deals with movie studios so that it can start offering feature-length downloads through the iTMS. Analysts expect a new iPod geared towards movie watching will be launched at the same time as an iTunes movie download service later this year.