unbox Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Let me start by saying that I think Tivo, along with the Macintosh computer and buying stuff on the Internet, is one of the greatest inventions of the 20th Century. The ability to pause live TV or record it via hard drive was a brilliant innovation that has changed the way people think about and use their content. So, it was with a great deal of interest that I ready this Hollywood Reporter article which talks about two of my favorite things joining forces to launch a new video download service.

The new service, known as "Amazon Unbox on Tivo", was originally announced last month but officially went live on Wednesday. It is an extension of Amazon's already existing Unbox service which lets buyers purchase video from Amazon's site and download it to their computers for viewing. With the addition of Tivo as a partner, buyers can now download the content to their computers and then play it through their networked Tivo boxes onto their televisions. Even with this new service, Tivo and Amazon have a long way to go to compete with content providers like Apple's iTunes Store.

As it states in the article, Apple has sold millions of iPods that can play video purchased from iTunes. In contrast, only about 600,000 users have networked Tivos. But even with Tivo's vastly inferior number of potential users, Tara Maitra, Vice President of Content Services at TiVo, is upbeat: "The rate at which we went from zero to 600,000 has happened very quickly. Something like 60% of new boxes are connecting, so certainly the level of interest for having the TiVo on a home network is growing," she said. I hope her positive outlook is warranted because I really want to see Tivo stay in business a long time -- even if they compete with my other favorite company, Apple.

What's the best way to give your own flagging video distribution a shot in the arm? Buy the most popular one on the planet. Google announced today that it was buying the popular online video sharing service YouTube for a cool $1.65 billion dollars in stock -- really nice payday for a company that hasn't even turned two yet.

YouTube is one of the most popular websites on the planet, breaking into the top ten with sites like Yahoo, MySpace, and of course -- Google. Earlier this summer, it was reported that YouTube was serving upwards of 100 million videos a day, with 65,000 new ones uploaded by users every day. That number will surely climb as they have more money and server space available to them through Google. Google's own GoogleVideo service tried to compete with YouTube, adopting a similar look and feel, but they never could match the popularity of the upstart company. If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em.

Now, why should movie lovers pay attention? With the announcements of both Apple's iTunes movies, and Amazon's Unbox services, mainstream movie distribution on the web has become something to start thinking seriously about -- ya know, it's not just speculation around the water cooler anymore. While there are other sites on the web that offer movie downloads, both Apple and Amazon have been the first mainstream sites to offer them in an easy-to-understand and affordable format. Google seems to be setting the stage for their own effort in the same arena.

This is some pretty big news, so let's use that handy old writer's crutch known as The Bullet Point:

• Starting this Thursday you'll be able to download movies (and TV shows) from Amazon.com's brand-new Unbox service. Rental movies are $3.99 and the permanent downloads will run you about $15. TV episodes will be 2 bucks, and you can get 'em the day after they play on network TV.
• Warner Bros., Fox, Paramount, MGM, Lionsgate, Sony and Universal are all on board. Disney is not. (You'll be able to download Disney fare via iTunes, but that's not what this story is about. This one, however, is.)
• Amazon will give members their own movie page, which will be accessible from any computer, to house all their purchases.
• The picture quality will (allegedly) be on par with DVD technology, and you'll most likely be using Amazon's own browser-embedded player to enjoy your films.
• The "window" issue still hasn't been clarified. We're not yet sure if we can purchase Movie X upon its DVD release -- or if we have to wait for the pre-cable pay-per-view window.

Sounds like a pretty good plan. (Check out an excellent sneak peek!) I'll definitely be checking out the Unbox service -- although nothing's gonna stop me from continuing to build one helluva powerful DVD collection.