Amazon.com, the shopping giant which was one the first major companies to sell goods online over the Internet back in the mid 90's has just launched its own competing movie and TV show download service to the US market, called Amazon Unbox. The service is backed by Hollywood studios and various TV channels such as CBS. Up until recently, there have been various reports of leaks about this upcoming service, which mostly turned out to be true.
Like iTunes, TV shows are priced at $1.99 per episode and movies are priced between $3.99 and $14.99 per title. The service requires Windows XP and a broadband Internet connection and users can begin watching a purchased programme even as it downloads. At present, it seems like their service is only limited to PC viewing only, however their main objective will be to allow consumers to watch their programming on their TV as well as on the move.
An analyst at Global Crown Capital, Martin Pyykkonen predicts this will turn out to be a major profit source for Amazon, however some other analysts have different views in that media player compatibility may affect the success of the service, particularly when it comes to Apple leading the portable media player market and not opening its DRM to anyone. Thanks to GristyMcFisty for letting us know about the following news:
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Backed by top Hollywood studios and TV channels, including Warner Brothers and CBS, Amazon Unbox will offer programmes and films direct to users' computers. Amazon's move into the online media business reflects huge growth in the demand for digital entertainment. Computer and iPod firm Apple is widely expected to unveil a similar service on 12 September at a launch in the US. |
As most consumers watch TVs and shows in their living room, Amazon will need to make it as straight forward as possible for consumers to play their purchased content on their TV. One method will potentially be through the use of the recently announced recordable CSS copy protected DVDs, which can play in standard DVD players so long as they can play content from recordable DVDs. However, it is unclear how well consumers will react to the time it takes to transcode the video for writing to DVD, particularly on slower PCs.
Also, unless the movie download service is very reasonably priced to compete
with physical media such as DVDs, VHS tapes and so on, Amazon will need to
find a way of clearly showing benefits of purchasing movies as
downloads. It may be a different story when it comes to TV shows where
consumers typically only watch once and are most likely to download to catch up
on a missed episode or two.
Source: BBC News - Business
