Amazon Unbox attempts to take PC into living room

Stan Beer
Monday, 11 September 2006 07:02

Opinion and Analysis

It’s what Microsoft has been aiming for since it released Windows Media Center. However, the release of Amazon Unbox, is a true test of whether consumers are ready to make the PC part of the living room entertainment set up.

Some consumers will want to watch movies on their notebooks. Fewer will want to watch full-length movies and TV shows on portable players with 4-inch screens. Even fewer will want to watch movies or TV shows on their PCs in their home office sitting at a desk.

Since Amazon Unbox does not enable users to burn movies to DVD, the only viable option that will give home consumers the sort viewing experience comparable to what they already get from renting or buying DVDs is if they hook their computers to the TV.

Amazon makes the point that you can watch the downloaded video on a TV if you can connect your PC to it using a “standard” s-video connection. You also need to use the audio system of the PC or connect it via the audio out to a home stereo system for sound.

According to Amazon, an average 2 hour movie is about 2.4GB. So a 1.5M DSL connection will take about 1 hour to download. However, the Amazon Unbox system has a progressive download feature that allows you to watch your video while you download. So theoretically, you can be up and watching you movie within a few minutes while it’s still downloading.

As far as price is concerned, taking the movie Office Space as an example, since it’s one of the biggies being advertised right now, the price for a download at US$13.45 is exactly the same as the price that Amazon sells the DVD. It can also be rented for 24 hours for US$2.99.

In order to accomplish all of this, you need to first download the Amazon Unbox Video Player software, which is copy protected using Microsoft’s PlayForSure digital rights management (DRM) system. Don’t even think of trying to play a downloaded video from Guba, CinemaNow or Guba using the Amazon Unbox player because it won’t work.

As for Apple Mac, well Amazon reckons you may be able to use its system with a Mac running Windows but doesn’t guarantee the results. No doubt if Mac releases its own video downloads this week, Mac users won’t care.

The bottom line of all this is that the emerging video downloads space is bringing the video DRM issue to a big white pimply head. Forgetting the Apple space for the moment, there are now a number of video download sites, all of which are protected by PlayForSure, most of which can be played on portable devices and notebook computers. Amazon has gone the extra step of trying to lock users into its own system by not allowing downloads from other sites to be played on the Amazon Unbox player.

It is fair to say that video downloads have not exactly become an overnight sensation and probably the main reason is that the PlayForSure DRM precludes users from burning their downloaded videos to DVD. For rentals, it is understandable. For downloads costing the same price as a DVD, it is sheer madness, given the ubiquity of DVD players.

Looking at the music downloads space, both the Microsoft and Apple DRM systems enable users to burn tracks to CD. It makes sense given that most consumers have CD players in their homes, on their computers and in their cars. Likewise, most consumers now have several DVD players in their homes and on their computers. To expect them to buy into a video downloads system that leaves their DVD player out of the loop simply does not make sense for consumers.

It will be interesting to see what Apple comes out with this week at its media briefing. The chances are it will also preclude DVD burning. Is it a coincidence that the new iMac includes a model with a 24 inch monitor?
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