noinput.net

A few days ago Amazon.com launched their new VOD service.  It’s quite nice and a quick to par competitor for iTunes.  Lets say you missed the Pilot episode to Fringe and wanted to see what the hype is about.  They offer a semi-fullscreen browser 2 minute preview (quality hot swappable based on your bandwidth) and you can watch/buy it in the same screen for continuous viewing.

Seems amazon only offers standard def 640×480 video for now (on my 20M FIOS line the best streaming I could get was at 480p) however it still looks quite good and the stream comes through fantastic.  I havn’t yet found an HD option, so for now iTunes still takes the win with the $1 HD upgrade proce @ $2.99 if you’re so inclined to buy an episode.

As for their movie purchase/watch on demand, the selection seems decent.  Yet on average $12-$14 for a digital download is still quite annoying, especially not in High Definition. Oh well, I give it time to see how Amazon VOD pans out.  I have quite a bit respect for how they rose their game on their music service.  These days I’ll buy from Amazon MP3 before before I would from iTunes for the simple NO-DRM policy.  Since every track I buy off iTunes I still burn to CD-RW, re-rip, apply artwork and strip DRM for safe keeping, this is much more convenient and works just as quick.  I’m a fan of simplicity, and amazon has always done that with finesse in my book.