Wow, downloading movies off the internet? Brand new technology, amazing! Amazon is on the button!

Obviously geared toward Microsoft's upcoming Zune.

The article is fine, it's amazon I find amusing.

It about time someone besides Apple got into this business.

I'm not particularly bothered that it won't work on MacOSX or an iPod. They're not the be it and end it all of the computing world.
And as for the "it can't be played on a DVD player..." hook your computer up to your television screen. It isn't hard nowadays, there's a bunch ofways to do it through graphics-card S-Video or component out, and many newer TVs come with either a VGA input or a DVI input.
Regarding DRM... I don't like it, but it's a part of life nowadays. If you want to get things legit, you've got to go with DRM... and it doesn't look to be too horribly restrictive. More information really needed though.
Might take out some of the wind behind the forthcoming iTunes Movie Store though...

amazon's service will fail within a year. because they're not providing a seamless way to play these on a television, they're severely limiting the market. While it's true you can hook your computer up to your television, that assumes your computer is near your television. neither of mine are, and i'm not about to bring them closer so i can watch video off of them.

if apple releases what they're rumored to release - a wireless device that will stream the video off your mac (or PC) to your television, and if that device has a simple IR remote control, they're so going to own this market.

Apple has the better download service in the iTunes music store - the infrastructure is there, proven, and ready to go. all they need is content, and that'll happen fast, just like it did with music sales. Apple may have to DRM stuff as well, but at least their DRM is somewhat reasonable (assuming they can use the same arrangement as they do with music).

this whole business is about the customer experience, and it really feels like only apple gets that.

unbox sounds pretty cool, but i think its just an example of whats to come. its great to be able to watch the films as you are downloding them, and to be able to buy on one machine but download on another.

the lack of os x support sucks though, ive just switched to a shiny new mac book pro!
i think apple will expand on this though and stay on top of the market when it opens the revamped itms and its new airport thingy on the 12th.
as always it depends on what film and tv companies sign up for each service, apple/steve seems to be able to convince/bully them better than most.

"One redeeming quality the Amazon service has is the availability of season 1 and season 2 of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is only the best show ever. Sadly though, if I can't burn them to DVD or put them on my iPod and watch them wherever, I have no interest in buying them. Especially when my primary portable computer isn't supported at all. "

actually yea it is on itunes..i have both seasons 1 and 2 with some added bonuses on my ipod..theyve been there for awhile.

The nice thing about OSX is that it's BSD/Unix based. This means when someone writes an open source player for Linux (and they will), porting and recompiling for OS X should be a joke.

I was excited about them having adult swim, only to find they only have one season of aqua teen and no venture bros.

how bad are these DRM thingies (i haven't really been following the news about them), i generally watch my moves on my computer anyway so i don't mind being limited to that.

i do mind movies installing unwanted and non removeable little programs on my pc though, so what exactly happens when i buy a movie from amazon?

I suspect they don't support OS X because Apple isn't pushing DRM the way Microsoft is. Notice how DRMed Windows Media stuff doesn't work on Mac either, because Microsoft hasn't released a DRM-compatible version of the player for OS X.

But, again, yawn. Why should I care about direct download at those prices when I have Netflix, and when Amazon themselves often offer DVDs (movies, anyway, not season DVD sets. But I expect the figures above are likewise.) at the same prices before too much time has elapsed? And since the DVDs are much more widely compatible and useful, plus often have extras that one presumes the downloads don't....

Great Scott! Amazon has downloads? Why? We can already get DvD quality from Amazon by buying a new or used DvD* online at a decent price! And I can play the DvD on my computer's DvD-Drive, or a friend's house, or my portable DvD player! Why get the Legal downloads from Amazon, when their DvDs are less $?
The only way for this to make sense to me is if they lowered the prices dramatically!
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