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Downloadable Movies from Amazon?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the glimpse-of-the-future dept.

StrongGlad writes "Screenshots of what could be an Amazon.com video store in the making surfaced Friday on the Web. Alan Taylor, who claims to have worked for the online retailer more than two years ago, said he discovered the screenshots while poking around an area of Amazon.com used by developers. The screenshots can be seen on Kokogiak.com. The pictures show a service called 'Unbox Video' that offers first time users a free TV show or $1.99 off the first movie they download. Instructions are given for downloading the player and buying movies and video that can be played on a PC, TV or portable media player. Amazon.com has declined to comment."

4 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Great.. by zyl0x · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Now all we need are reliable ISPs so we don't have to spend 12 hours downloading each movie.

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    Blerg.
    1. Re:Great.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Personally, I don't see having to download for 12 hours as such a bad thing if the company is smart about it. If you're paying about as much as if you rent a movie, and you can download a movie before it is released (suppose you download a movie and when it is released you get the 'key' to decode the movie), then you really just have to do a little planning on what you will want to watch; I don't think that it would be too much trouble to (about once a month) go online and "order" the movies you would want to watch that month.

      The only problem with any of these services is that I would want them to use an inexpensive set top box that was attached to my TV rather then be forced (I know, there are ways around this) to watch it on my PC. Inspite of being capable of setting it up myself, I prefer simple (easy to use) solutions to connect my TV to my media files.

    2. Re:Great.. by hey · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They could use BitTorrent.

  2. Format? by Zelbinian · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Downloadable movies/TV shows are great, because this is one area where they won't have too much trouble combatting filesharing networks if they do it right. Chances are the downloadable copies are gonna be of better quality than the freebies, and if they're cheaper than an in-store DVD, then most people - especially anyone who's into movies or cares about the quality of rips - will happily take a legal middle ground.

    The only thing I'm worried about is how proprietary this is gonna be. What's this download gonna be formatted as? Will it be some specialty format like Apple does with 'mp3s' you download from them, or will it be something standard, like an .iso image that you can burn straight to a DVD if you choose? Should be interesting to see where they go with this.

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    Putting the 33k in G33k.