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Amazon Video on Demand Review
- Prices vary depending on the title
- Rental Movies
- New releases - $3.99
- Older titles - $2.99 or less
- Movies to buy
- Prices range from $5.99 to $19.99
- U.S only
- Free download manager/player software
- Download to your Tivo Player
- Watch on Xbox 360
- Purchase and watch movies through your Sony Bravia TV using Sony Bravia Internet Video Link
- Watch instantly online or save to your PC for later
- Watch on a wide range of portable devices, including mobile phones
- Purchase using your 1-click payment Amazon account
- Lots of free content
- Movies for as little as 99 cents!
- Backup your purchased movies to disc
- Familiar 'Amazon style' interface
- Full screen and high quality video
- Download TV shows
- Handy 'similar movies' feature
- RemoteLoad feature to set downloads going from another PC!
- Rent to watch or buy movies to keep
- Mac or PC
Pioneers of online shopping Amazon are branching out into the uncharted territory of online movie downloads. As you would expect, their offering exudes the simple elegance and ease of use now synonymous with the Amazon brand. With lots of great movies and prices to match, Amazon Downloads sits high on our top ten list.
If you have ever shopped at Amazon before (and I'm sure most of us have) prepare to nod wholeheartedly in agreement as we describe the experience to the few people left who haven't. Amazon are the company others look to when setting the standard for online shopping - and their movie download section is no different. It's integrated so seamlessly with the rest of the Amazon web site, you wouldn't even realise you were there if it wasn't for the new logo in the corner of the screen.
All the features we have come to expect from Amazon are there: customer reviews, recommendations for other products, previews.and the list goes on. The search feature is the best we have seen among any of the sites we have reviewed and lets you search the huge amount of content Amazon offer. The only gripe we had was that there didn't seem to be a way to search only rental movies or only purchasable movies. However, that can be forgiven since Amazon Downloads offers the much loved 1-click buying option previous customers will be familiar with. Essentially it means Amazon store all your details so that you can download a movie with a single click instead of having to fill in a multitude of forms.
As is standard for these services Amazon Downloads provides free software for managing your downloads and organising your movie collection. It is an excellent piece of software and very easy to use, but also comes with a neat feature which makes it stand out from other services' offerings. The Remote load feature allows you to set a download going to a PC or device other than the one you are accessing the site from. That means you could instruct your Tivo player to download a film from work so that it's there for when you get home.
Not so standard for most of the services we reviewed is the way Amazon also lets you watch content on demand through a browser based player. The player is flash based which means Mac users can access content this way (although they can't download movies) and makes Amazon one of the only providers we have reviewed to cater for Macs. That gets big thumbs up from Apple lovers everywhere.
The movies on offer from Amazon come in a variety of different quality settings and viewing types. These are all explained in detail on the site and each title shows clearly which options are available. A nice feature is that the on demand player will try and match the quality to the speed of your connection - although you can set it explicitly if you want. The highest quality movies are offered at 480p, which is standard DVD quality, at a rate of 1.2 Mbps. You can also choose to download versions optimised for Tivo players or portable devices.
All the content from Amazon Downloads is DRM protected - as is the norm. Purchased movies can be copied to two other devices or, if watching online, can be streamed to two receivers at once. They can also be copied to two portable players that support Microsoft's PlaysForSure technology. Amazon allow you to backup the movies to an external hard drive or storage media, but you will have to import them back into the player in order to watch them. Rental movies can only be downloaded to one device and can not be copied to portable players. You can watch a rental movie an unlimited number of times within 24 hours of first starting it.
Amazon's prices for movie downloads are on par with the rest of these kinds of services. Individual prices for purchasing can vary quite a lot depending on the title, but new release rentals are generally always $3.99. Where Amazon Downloads breaks free from the norm is the amount of free content it offers. Although there are no feature length movies on offer, there are plenty of short clips and instructional videos to entertain you for a while.
You can't go wrong with the Amazon Downloads service, and if you have an Amazon account already you can start using it right away. The quality and range of movies does not disappoint and the player you watch them on is very easy to use. For now the site is only available to customers in the US, but we are sure it will be rolled out to other countries if it proves popular. However, if you are in the states we challenge you to find a better service than this!
>> Visit Amazon.com Video on Demand
or
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