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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."

15 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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    1. Re:Great.. by RipperMortis · · Score: 5, Funny

      12 hours?? Why, it only takes me a half hour to download a 700mb rip of a movie... Uhm, I mean that's probably how long it would take *Cough* if I were ever to do....uh. (backs slowly out of the room)

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

      They could use BitTorrent.

    3. Re:Great.. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Informative

      DivX and XviD are both names for encoders, and both are implementations of MPEG-4 Part 2 (IIRC). The new compression format is H.264 (also known as MPEG-4 Part 10, or AVC. This delivers considerably higher quality than DivX/XviD at the same data rate and is designed to scale from mobile 'phones to HDTV.

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  2. This will change everything! by saboola · · Score: 2, Funny

    Bezos says cities will have to be rebuilt to accommodate this new concept of "downloading" "movies". This changes everything.

  3. apple by minus_273 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder what this means for the apple movie store..

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  4. They still don't get it. by MindStalker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The average hour long TV show can now be downloaded for 1.99. This is fairly reasonable, and I only wish 30 minute shows were .99.

    But these guys are making the same mistake as movielink. They are charging retail and in many instances for older movies more than retail. Sure you'll make money because some people have plenty of money and would rather not run out to the video store. The rest of us will only use these services when they are cheaper than the video store or they have movies that you can't find anywhere else.

    1. Re:They still don't get it. by NosTROLLdamus · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Well, the thing is, this might not be that time efficient either. If I can go buy a movie at a store for the same price as it costs online, and I can get to the store, buy it, and come home before it would of finished downloading, that certainly lessens the appeal.

    2. Re:They still don't get it. by vector0319 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well considering amazon has always been about the long tail of online purchasing I'd figure they would be ramping up on all the movies you can't find anywhere else. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail

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  5. 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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    1. Re:Format? by moonbender · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Chances are the downloadable copies are gonna be of better quality than the freebies (..)

      Why would that be? I mean, in theory, yes, without the hassle of the transfer being illegal you can more easily transmit large amounts of data. On the other hand, while on P2P networks, the transmission cost is shared among all peers, a single distributor has to pay for all (or rather half) of the costs. Are the songs from the ITMS of higher bitrate than the typical scene releases? The TV episodes you can currently buy certainly aren't of better quality than the pirated versions, which are typically 350 or 700 MB per episode.

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  6. Link from Screenshot by kju · · Score: 2, Informative

    The screenshot shows this URL: http://www.amazon.com/gp/video/help/faq.html. It seems that this URL actually exists, because it gives 200 OK and a 48 byte response.

  7. whats with the prices? by noneme · · Score: 2, Interesting
    For about a dollar more (including shipping) at overstock you can buy Road Warrior on physical medium thats uncompressed and higher resolution than any download they'd probably provide.

    Plus they have "Batman Forever" listed for $10. I seriously hope this is just a mockup using current video pictures/prices or that they are considering paying me $10 to watch that movie.

  8. Related news .. by sunsrin · · Score: 2, Informative

    on DownloadSquad - here

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  9. Re:DRM :( by moonbender · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's already supported in all the important media players, including open-source implementations. There is no DRM in H.264.

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