I've started trying out the new Amazon Unbox service. So far I'm pretty impressed, but there will be limits as to how much I use it.I have downloaded a movie to my TiVo box and it seems to have gone very well. I have not watched the video yet, but did check it to make sure it was there. The main complaint I have for the service combined with TiVo is the fact that movies are downloaded in a "TiVo format" which means it's a 4:3 rendition. I would certainly be much more interested if it were of higher quality and letter boxed. But we'll give it a shot and see how it looks. I'm sure they will add more format options if the service is successful.
I also downloaded and installed the Amazon Unbox player. I did have a little trouble getting that setup for some reason. I'm not sure why, but after uninstalling and reinstalling it seemed to work. I think my problem may have been not having a video downloading so the "player" wouldn't show up on the screen. After I started downloading a video to the computer it would show up. If that's the case it's not the best design for user experience, but hey...
Watching the video was no problem. I got my usual pings and pops on the sound for a little while, but that is just my computer and NOT the Amazon Unbox player. (I know from many hours of painful testing of various things.)
The pricing from this service is the only real issue. I can't see spending $15 for a video download when I can buy the DVD for next to that same price and have full control over what I do with it and how I play it. Where I see this getting used more for me is in Video rentals. You can rent a movie for $3-4 and you have it for 30 days. Once you start watching it you must watch the whole thing in 24 hours. That's not too bad and it saves me a couple of trips to the video store.
Given the Apple TV product coming out and NOT being able to play on any TVs that don't have HDMI or Component Video (aka my TV)I may actually use this service even more in the future. Eventually I'll have to upgrade my TV and then perhaps the Apple service will be better. Will have to wait and see I guess. Good to have some competition in there!!
