Full FeedTiVo now downloads content from Amazon Unbox
Amazon Unbox debuted in September 2006 with a downloadable movie store to rather little buzz or fanfare. As of yesterday, many TiVo owners (Series 2 and 3) can begin renting and purchasing movie downloads via Unbox. Content downloaded from Unbox to your TiVo will be in standard-definition. Single episodes of TV shows can be purchased for $1.99. Movies are available for rental starting at $1.99, or can be purchased for between $9.99 and $14.99, depending on the title.
When you register on the Amazon.com TiVo site, your information will link your Amazon and TiVo accounts, allowing you to buy or rent movies from Amazon Unbox directly from their TiVos, leaving the PC out of the equation entirely. To entice new users, Amazon and TiVo are offering $15 in free rentals for anyone signing up for the service through the end of April.
Has anyone used this yet? Let us know.
Read [Ars Technica]
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I just tried it last night. Connecting and buying a show is easy, works great. It was a little weird that it took 10 minutes for the show to start downloading. Once it started downloading, it appeared just like a show being recorded.
Over wireless the speed seemed like it took 3 minutes to download 2 minutes of content. One annoying thing was that you can’t start watching the content until it finishes downloading. I’m not sure if this applies to all Tivos and all shows from the service.
Video quality was good but slightly jerky. My wife and I decided that the video quality was better than iTunes played from a powerbook to the TV, but worse than Tivo at highest quality setting. There are very few artifacts or shading problems. The issue is with slow pans and fast motion on screen. When watching the same content from DVD, the pan is smooth and “cinematic”. With unboxed, the pan has 1/30 second jerkiness somehow. Audio was fine. Test material was an episode of Veronica Mars on a standard TV.
I think the video issue is purely an encoding issue. I think when broadcasters play content, they use very sophisticated resamplers, filters, etc. to make it look good on regular TVs. Amazon unboxed is probably skipping some steps here. The jerkiness kind of looked like an interlacing issue, but I’m not expert. In any case it is better than iTunes, but decidedly NOT DVD quality.
on March 13, 2007 at 01:27 AM - LINKI have been angry that Amazon will not download movies and videos to a Mac or should say an Apple computer. This article caught my I only becuase the cable DVR system I have is inadequate. Do I bite the dust and get a Tivo when I don’t really watch any TV but with two kids I am never there when I should be. That and their addiction to American Idol and the fact we have to be home is driving me crazy. I still watch my grammys and the opening ceremony of the olympics though. So much to spend money on though. I think I will go with the Eos wirless speakers for the ipod if they are as good as reviewed.
on March 14, 2007 at 01:50 PM - LINK