Amazon & Tivo Take on Netflix

RadioTV writes "Amazon is in Beta testing with select Tivo users to allow Unbox videos to be downloaded to Series 2 and 3 set-top boxes. The FAQ for the service is available." The price point for movies is fairly reasonable. No HD and won't work with DirecTV's obsoleted HD tivo, but this is a step in the right direction.

Comments

Re:This excites me

[badasscat]

I can't be the only one who thinks this is a cool idea. If you look at the FAQ, you can even erase it from the Tivo and download it again when you want to watch it. Sounds like an offsite movie storage arrangement simply for the cost of Unbox movies.

It's not as cool as what Netflix is already doing, which is letting you stream movies basically for "free" if you're already a subscriber. You get an hour's worth of streaming for every dollar you spend with them per month. And you can watch the same movie over and over if you want to. The quality is also better than Unbox (if you've got a good net connection - it automatically selects your quality level.)

You also really only get charged for the time you use... if you select a 2 hour movie and watch 5 minutes before deciding it sucks, you only get charged for 5 minutes, not the whole movie. Big difference from Unbox. And you can start watching immediately, you don't need to wait for a download.

You can argue about TiVo being hooked up to a person's TV vs. streaming over a computer, but TiVo doesn't exactly have a huge market share; I'd wager at least as many people have their PC's hooked up to a TV as have TiVo. And with people watching more video on their computers anyway, I'm not sure the distinction is really going to matter in a few years. A monitor will be a monitor.

Amazon's EULA == DRM NIghtmare

[mpapet]

Here's the link to a plain-english read on it by the chicago tribune: http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ez orn/2006/09/scary_movie_dow.html

Here's an explitive laced though pretty good summary: http://www.boingboing.net/2006/09/15/amazon_unbox_ to_cust.html

Here's the EULA: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.htm l/ref=atv_dp_cs_use/002-8388024-7705601?ie=UTF8&no deId=200026970

From the bottom of my heart, I thank all unbox consumers for abaondoning the decades of time and people's effort to create and guard the principal that I own my media.