Amazon Unbox Gets Unwrapped

 
By Sherri September 08, 2006



After tons of rumors flying all over the Internet, Amazon has let the cat out of the bag. Or, perhaps more appropriately, out of the box.

Amazon Unbox is officially live and the movie and TV download site is looking awesome.

The site offers show and movies for rental or purchase. The prices fall in at the iTunes rate of $1.99 for TV shows with most movies coming in between $8 and $15. Some are a little bit pricier. Rentals are $1.99 to $2.99.

The big perk to Amazon's buys is that they come with a DVD-quality video file for playback plus a video file for Windows Media portable devices.

There are some bugs that still need to be worked out, such as issues with playing files after download, but Amazon's certainly done its homework on this site. Plus, Amazon has managed to beat iTunes to the movie download market, which is more than notable.

Rumor has it, iTunes will get into the movie game shortly.

The downfalls to the Amazon site are the fact the DVD burns don't work in DVD players - they're just for backup - and, videos must be routed through a Windows-based player. On the rental end, videos must be watched within 30 days from the download and within 24 hours of first starting to watch them.

Despite some problems, however, the site's receiving a pretty warm reception so far.

Check out the site by clicking here.

Related:
Amazon Video Store Would Be Awesome
Amazon to Launch Movie Download Service
"Amazon Fishbowl", Online Talk Show