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Amazon Unbox Video Store Launches

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the online-box-offices dept.

andrewl6097 writes "Amazon.com has launched it's Amazon Unbox video store. Looks like about 1300 movies and 350 tv series, at $9.99 and up for movies and $1.99 per TV episode. Downloads come with a DVD quality version and a version more appropriate for portable players (using Windows DRM). Also, videos can be re-downloaded from your Amazon media library. Cool!"

1 of 308 comments (clear)

  1. maybe for future by yagu · · Score: 1, Redundant

    I got all excited.... shouldn't have. Virtually no shows I care about watching are offered (only one major network, CBS has offerings, unless you include FOX). Even if, the offerings are old shows... shows if I'd cared to watch I'd have (and did) watched long ago courtesy of TiVo or some crappy knockoff (Comcast, anybody?).

    That aside, I'm guessing many people will consider this a decent offering (I don't). The next hurdle is:

    • XP is the only OS for now on which this will run
    • minimum 1.5GHz processor (I'm guessing that's of the x86 family).
    • minimum 512MB memory (many, many machines out there still don't come close to this)
    • DirectX 9.0 compliant Video 64MB (ironically, Amazon misspells it "complaint"... Freudian?
    • internet connection to support sustained 800kbps transfer speeds. I don't know many people who subscribe to this kind of pipe.

    But, further consider the recommended requirements:

    • 2.4GHz processor
    • Direct X 9.0 compliant Video (128MB) (again, the interesting typo, "complaint"
    • internet connection capable of 1.5+ mbps transfer speeds.

    What are these guys smoking?

    Of course it's all neatly wrapped around the axle of DRM so it can be more of a nightmare for anyone who helps and support friends and neighbors.

    DOA