Amazon is entering the streaming video market with a service that integrates well with either your TiVo set top box or your home computer. You can even watch these videos on your portable device.
Amazon Unbox Costs
Amazon Unbox allows you to rent movies for $3 or $4 (and half as much for tv shows) or buy movies for $8 to $15. Thankfully, there are no additional or hidden costs. Some services charge for a monthly subscription or require you purchase a set top box to watch your movie on your television. With Amazon Unbox, you can use either your personal computer or your TiVo to order and watch your movies or television shows.
How Amazon Unbox Works
After you pay for your purchase or rental, you’re given access to three different file types. One is for playing on your PC through the Unbox Video Player, one is for playing on portable devices, and one is for playing on TiVo set top boxes. While the formats somewhat limit the video quality (you’re not getting 100 percent DVD quality video, though most consumers won’t be able to notice the difference), they do make the service versatile and very user-friendly. For those wondering, Amazon Unbox uses the WMV codec for video compression.
In most cases, you can begin watching your streaming movie or television show within minutes (and sometimes seconds) from when you finished paying for your rental or purchase. The faster your internet connection and the shorter the video, the faster you can start watching. In most cases, you can begin watching before the download finishes. As you watch, the rest of the show continues to stream in.
How Do I Order My Videos On Amazon Unbox?
The two methods for ordering movies or television shows are through your personal computer using the Unbox Video Player. Amazon vastly improved the Amazon Unbox Video Player as I was testing the service… if you tried it a couple months ago and hated the player, it may be worth checking out again now. It still isn’t the most feature-rich and refined media application in the world, but it’s simple and it works. You use the Unbox Video Player for both downloading and viewing your Amazon-bought movies.
The TiVo integration provides Amazon Unbox with its most unique and useful attribute. If you have a Series 2 or Series 3 TiVo set top box and an active TiVo account, you can order and view movies and television shows from Amazon Unbox while sitting on your couch, watching your big screen TV and clicking away at your TiVo controller.
While the interface isn’t as rich and informative as the web-based interfaced used to order and download on the PC, it is very convenient and it does everything you need it to do.
One drawback of using the TiVo to order and download movies, however, is that you cannot begin watching your movie or television show until the full video has downloaded whereas on the PC you can begin while the rest of the video downloads in the background.
Amazon Unbox’s Library
Because Amazon is so huge and established, they’ve managed to secure a pretty broad and deep selection of videos and television shows. It isn’t ideal yet, but they do cover new releases, classics and cult favorites pretty well. Compared to many of the other services I’m currently evaluating for reviews, Amazon Unbox features one of the best selections (if not simply the best selection) of new releases I’ve seen.
Where’s My HD Video?
Unfortunately, Amazon Unbox does not yet support high definition content. So if you’re smitten with your blu ray collection, you may have a difficult time returning to the WMV-compressed standard definition of videos in the Amazon Unbox catalogue. However, we’re talking downloaded, inexpensive video, so I’m not sure one should expect too much high definition content in this area just yet.
So What’s the Score For The Amazon Unbox?
Simply put, Amazon is on to something with Amazon Unbox. It’s most glaring weakness is lack of HD video and the relatively poor quality (though it isn’t terrible!) of the downloaded video. iTunes, Vudu and Xbox provide better pure video quality. Another arguable weakness is the difficulty of burning your video to a DVD. However, it seems most services of this nature don’t want to give consumers this freedom yet, so it’s hard to count it against the Unbox just yet.
However, Amazon Unbox may feature the best catalog of available videos and the most user-friendly ways to order and watch your videos. The TiVo integration may be both the easiest and the cheapest way to get internet videos to your living room television (but of course, that requires you own a TiVo box). Compared to many other services, the prices are excellent. The individual prices are good and you don’t have to pay a monthly subscription or buy a set top box.
I hope this Amazon Unbox Review helps you take advantage of the latest technology to watch movies on the internet and to download movies legally.