Amazon Dives Into Busy Download Video Market

Filed in archive Companies , Retail , Video on September 8, 2006

The AmazonUnbox (sadly an ugly name) is the name for their new movie and TV download service. Amazon doesn't offer major recording label releases at this point, only a few promotional songs. The Unbox competes against services from Apple iTunes, AOL, Movielink and CinemaNow, with even more players on the way.

Movie downloads are a loss leader with a price of $7.99 to $14.99. Movie are $20 at other services, with a wholesale price from Hollywood at $15. TV programs at $1.99 and rented movies at $3.99 for a day are competitive. Amazon has agreement with all studio except Disney, which is the only film studio that Apple currently has.

AmazonUnbox also features a high resolution format with movie files typically over 2GB in size and a second much smaller video file for playback on Microsoft DRM-compatible portable media players.