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Amazon To Debut Streaming Movie/TV Service Today

by Rob Walker | July 17, 2008 at 10:30 am | 183 views | add comment

Amazon is offering streaming television and movies starting Thursday, after the early success of their music download service. A huge slew of offerings are on the table as Amazon seeks to compete with iTunes and Netflix.

Amazon will have full streaming capabilities via the web browser, unlike itunes which requires the use of their application, though Netflix does something similar.

Some bloggers are quite happy with the news, as the new offer would allow customers to download the movie from anywhere once they had purchased it, as well as making backups for it on other mediums.

Amazon has clearly been rethinking the Unbox business lately, and let some details slip about this new service in May. The main difference seems to be that the movies are streamed and can be watched instantly.
40,000 movies and television shows are available now.

Amazon also plans to pipe the data in directly to large screen TVs. they signed a deal to include the service in Sony Bravia high-definition Television sets. To access the movies on their Bravia TVs, users must purchase a $300 Bravia Internet Video link, the Times reported. Brad Stone, who wrote the story, noted that this “was an awkward extra expense, for now.”

Yet some people aren't too pleased with the offering and say there are many questions which haven't been answered yet.

Customers of Amazon’s new store will be able to start watching any of 40,000 movies and television programs immediately after ordering them because they stream, just like programs on a cable video-on-demand service.

Which 40,000 movies and TV programs? Sourced from where? In what window? The same as cable VOD, as iTunes, as Amazon's own Unbox service?

That is different from most Internet video stores, like Apple iTunes and the original incarnation of Amazon’s video store, which require users to endure lengthy waits as video files are downloaded to their hard drives.

No, it's not. Both iTunes and Amazon offer progressive downloads that let users start watching a video within a few minutes. As do most download based services these days. Moreover, it simply puts Amazon on the same footing as Netflix, which already offers streamed movies and TV shows.

Amazon on Thursday is revealing Video on Demand, its second approach to online video. Unlike the company’s own Unbox service, which requires that users download the entire video, the new feature will depend on streaming alone; while it depends on an active Internet connection, the feature will allow devices with little to no hard drive space to buy TV shows, and buy or rent movies, with the same access as full computer users.