Entered CNET Catalog: 09/08/2006
SKU: SERVAMAZONUNBOX
Manufacturer: Amazon.com
Product summary
The good: Amazon Unbox offers an easy shopping interface and one-click buying process, as well as a decent selection of movies and television shows. You can purchase or rent movies, and the prices are comparable to those of other online video stores. Progressive downloading lets you watch your selection while it's still downloading. Unbox also has user-friendly support options, and the early problems involving going online without permission as well as uninstalling difficulties have been fixed. It works with TiVo Series 2 and Series 3 boxes.
The bad: Amazon Unbox has no Mac version, and purchased movies can't be burned to DVD for television playback. It works only with Windows-compatible PMC portables, the downloading is slower than with other services, and there's no subscription plan.
The bottom line: Amazon Unbox has taken its knocks, but it's a strong choice if you own a Windows PMC, or if you don't mind watching movies on your monitor.
Editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 04/02/2007
Editors' note, October 22, 2008: Amazon Unbox is now Amazon Video On Demand. Many of the features are the same as immediately before the name change, but there have been several updates since the posting of this review. For more information, click here.
Amazon Unbox, the online retailer's video download store, could be the Apple iTunes Store's biggest competition so far. It has the benefit of the Amazon name and the site's many regular shoppers, it uses a site interface we're all familiar with, and it offers a good selection of movies and television shows for rental or purchase.
While the service got off to a rocky start and took plenty of knocks from the press, including , it has fixed early errors such as going online without permission and uninstalling difficulties, and now only suffers the same problems as nearly all the video download sites: while it offers a convenient way to rent or buy a movie, it doesn't let you burn a standard DVD from your purchase to watch on your big screen set.
Apple's way around this problem was to create the Apple TV , which lets you wirelessly transfer shows to your television. Amazon's solution was to partner with TiVo, letting TiVo subscribers with Series 2 or Series 3 boxes download video directly to their televisions. CNET's Webware has a complete look at the TiVo experience, so this review will focus on the PC experience.
Users can shop for Unbox titles directly on the Amazon site--look for the Unbox link high on the left side--but you'll need the Unbox downloader software to receive titles. Sorry Mac owners, but Amazon Unbox doesn't love you; the iTunes Store is still the only video-download site that works with Macs and iPods.
Unbox titles are divided into rentals and purchases. (There's no subscription plan, as with Vongo, and there's no streaming content except for previews.) Purchases are generally $1.99 for a TV show and run between $9.99 and $14.99 for a movie, while movie rentals are $3.99. We're not sure how many titles the store has because Amazon won't comment, but it looks comparable to the other stores. It carries most of the major film studios, with Disney as the glaring exception. It also offers an impressive selection of TV studios--seeing that it carries BBC content made our geek heart beat faster, but seeing that we could download Dr. Who episodes from several seasons, including the first, nearly made us faint.
Amazon does an excellent job of spelling out the usage rights before you buy a video--we wish the other stores would follow suit. On each page, you'll find information telling you either that rentals can be kept for 30 days but must be watched in a 24-hour period, or that purchases can be watched on as many as two PCs. That seems stingy, but it's standard for most video sites.
Purchasing on Unbox is strictly one-click, so be sure of your selection before you hit that button. Downloads are definitely on the slow side, but on the other hand, Unbox gives you a higher-quality video than most--2.5Mbps--so it's going to take some time. Downloading an 85-minute movie, for example, took us 80 minutes. Luckily, Unbox's progressive downloading lets you start watching while the movie is still downloading. We were able to start watching that 85 minute movie in only 10 minutes. You watch and transfer movies directly through the well-designed Unbox software.
Image quality is noticeably sharper with Unbox titles, although you'll never forget that you're watching on a computer monitor. We'd prefer to burn a DVD, but so far only Movielink allow users to burn DVDs that will work in any DVD player.
Downloads can be transferred to any Windows-compatible PMC, and we transferred purchased movies to a Creative Zen PMC in our testing with no problems; rentals, however, can't be transferred. When you download with Unbox, you automatically get a separate, smaller file for portables. (No, they're not compatible with iPods.) If you run into problems with your download, Amazon Unbox offers easy support pages where you can look up an answer or send an e-mail request.
It's still questionable how successful online downloads can be without easy television support, so Amazon Unbox's appeal will certainly be limited unless you own a TiVo. But if you don't mind watching on your monitor or you have a Windows PMC you want to fill up, Amazon once again makes the shopping experience easy.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20out of 20 user reviews
A Service Not Worth Promoting Let Alone Using
Pros: Good selection of movies on Amazon.
Cons: Too much of a hassle to view any. Way inferior to such services as Netflix or Vongo, or even Blockbuster.
out of 20 user reviews
HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE
Pros: None - cant get it working
Cons: it stinks they make you use there player and i have read all kinds of problems online. i will be canceling the charge with my cc company as soon as it shows up, amazon says no refunds even though i could not download it at all
out of 20 user reviews
Worked fine, but can't transfer to DVD
Pros: Everything downloaded fine and as far as I can tell, everything has played well.
Cons: You can not transfer your videos to DVD or VCD. If I purchase a movie or TV show, I want to be able to watch it on something other than my computer. Amazon immediately downloaded without asking my form of payment - did not like that!
out of 20 user reviews
Don't Do It!
Pros: NONE! Nothing Good About It!
Cons: All Cons, No Positives!
out of 20 user reviews
fear not -- you're not as restricted as you think
Pros: very high quality (DVD or digital quality) video
Cons: WMV files with DRM; large file size (because of high quality)
However! All you have to do is a little searching via Google to find out how to un-DRM your Amazon Unbox WMV files. There are hacks out there (mirakagi, FairUse4WM). Once you've un-DRMed the WMV files, they are as portable as any other WMV and you can play them on a Mac or a PC.
Sadly, there is still no decent WMV player for Mac. Even VLC doesn't play these high quality WMV files seamlessly. Pans that are slow and smooth when played in Windows Media Player on a PC are a little jerky when played in VLC. Also, the Mac OS X version of Windows Media Player won't even play these high quality WMV files, whether you download every possible codec, or not. At least I haven't been able to get the official Micro$oft Mac OS X version of Windows Media Player to play any of the un-DRMed Amazon Unbox WMV files. But VLC does play them on a Mac, so they are at least playable.
On the Pros side, the WMV Unbox videos are really high quality. Gorgeous, in fact. I don't use the portable "AMZN" video files (yet) because I haven't found a satisfactory device (I don't want to be wedded to Windows Media capable devices because my primary machine is a Mac -- but I must use my PC to download my Amazon Unbox videos). But it is definitely not exaggeration to say that the Amazon Unbox WMV files are DVD quality. They look fantastic.
With that high quality comes size issues. A roughly 43-45 minute TV episode downloads as a roughly 800M WMV file. The portable AMZN files are roughly 200M. This means if you download both the PC-playable and the portable-device-playable files, you're looking at about 1Gig per 45-minute TV episode. Not a problem if you have a large hard drive or a large external USB or FireWire storage hard drive.
In short, look for the hacks for DRM (they're out there and they work). You might have to step backward on your Windows Media Player (on my XP Home Ed., I'm using Windows Media Player version 10) to get the hacks to work, but it is well worth it. Then you can also use any good quality DVD burning software to burn DVDs of the un-DRMed Unbox WMV files. I have read that Windows Movie Maker will do this, but I haven't tried it yet. I prefer open-source programs, I just haven't had time.
Eventually I plan to have the Unbox portable files on a portable device which I can use with both my Mac and PC.
Since the DRM files can be un-DRMed with hacks you can easily find on the net, I'm sure someone out there will eventually or has already figured out a way to hack/convert the proprietary AMZN portable files so that you can play them on portable video devices OTHER THAN WMV-compliant devices. I don't want a Zune, I need something both Mac and PC compliant for portable video. When I figure it out, I'll try to update this review.
I forgot to mention, the speed of your Amazon Unbox video downloads depends on the speed of your connection, and whether or not you leave the Amazon Unbox application running all the time in the system tray.
Amazon Unbox wants to start as soon as you start Windows. Since it's always running, it can check regularly to see if you have new episodes available for download (if you have a season subscription, which I bought for one show). I prefer not to leave it running all the time. I start the Amazon Unbox app in Windows when I know a new episode is going to "come down."
For example, for new Friday night episodes on CBS, the Amazon Unbox downloads are available around 1:30am-2am that night. I have the slowest/cheapest DSL connection (about 500K/s download speed and about 270K/s upload). My Amazon Unbox packages of WMV file and portable AMZN video file downloads start around 1:30-2:00am; they are available for viewing (and completely downloaded) around 4am.
This works fine for me, because I can start the Amazon Unbox app before I go to work, and the full episode is available for me to view by the time I get home around 7:30-8am.
Your mileage, of course, may vary.
out of 20 user reviews
Does not work, and you cannot get your money back!
Pros: If it worked, I would save a drive to the video rental store.
Cons: I tried twice, and hit a brick wall twice
out of 20 user reviews
Unbox horrible; Amazon dismissive, rude.
Pros: Not one, bad sound quality?
Cons: wont load, play, amazon: GTH dude!! BAD sound!!
out of 20 user reviews
Do NOT waste your time or money - you get nothing but disappointment!
Pros: I learned a hard lesson never to deal with Amazon again
Cons: Unbox was NOT ready, but Amazon had to beat Apple before their announcement
It took me research, wasted time and a reboot to get rid of all of the Unbox components, several of which are made to run in the background when Unbox is not running.
A can of worms is exactly what Unbox is, it was not ready to be released, but big Jeff just had to announce movies before Apple did. Wow great work Amazon, you announced first, but your product is much worse than second rate - it simply does not work.
Try and get a refund on your movie? Ha, you should have first read the miles of text, which in a nutshell, allows Amazon to revoke your movie without your permission. Unbox installs components in lots of places, and gives Amazon access to your PC.
I used to be a die-hard Amazon customer, and spent $1,000s on products from them. Because of a $3 movie, and principle, they won't ever see another penny from me.
They left me completely disgusted, and I never got to watch my movie, even though they kept my money. Isn't that called robbery?
I also cannot believe CNET gave it a 7.2, even though CNET's Tom Merritt wrote an article on 9/08/2006 called "My fight with Amazon Unbox" in which he went through the same nightmare as I did. What What irks me is, that was written 9 months ago, and Amazon has done NOTHING to improve their horrid service, but they keep taking customers' money!
Do yourself a favor and steer clear from going through the aggravation of Unbox - use either Walmart or Apple for watching movies.
Cheers
out of 20 user reviews
Good product but a few downsides to it.
Pros: I like the idea of buying just the episodes you want in comparison to buying a full season dvd or vhs. If you have DSL or Broadband, your downloads don't take too much time.
Cons: I don't like the idea of not being able to burn a DVD for viewing, It says you can burn a DVD but you can't watch it...I tried to burn a DVD & my software would not let me.
Another thing I have found out that you can do is watch the movies in other players, like "RealPlayer" and "Windows MediaPlayer". Just open up the player you want to use & click "File" "Open" & go to wherever it is stored. Unbox stores my files in "Shared Documents", "My Videos". You can move them by copying & pasting to another folder or drive.
out of 20 user reviews
Still Not Ready
Pros: It downloads most of the time, Great Customer Service
Cons: It downloads most of the time
I have pruchased 6 movies, and have only been able to download 5 of the movies. i was told that Star Trek Generations had a known problem and they would have it fixed in 3 to 4 days. i would receive an email notification thnat it was fixed and then I could download the movie, but amazon would keep my $9.99 till they fix it. 14 days later. Amazon has my $9.99 and I still have no Star Trek Generations.
Another con is no full screen on my HD TV.
A pro is the customer service is great, besides the Star Trek Generations problem.
Unbox does not list the movie "Apocalypto" for rent or for sale.
out of 20 user reviews
Unbox on Tivo a big letdown
Pros: good selection of content
Cons: LOTS of bugs
There's no good reason that the downloads should take this long. When I rent films through my Xbox, I'm able to watch them within ten minutes. Also, many new release are Buy only. Pretty annoying. After another wasted Saturday night, it's back to the video store for me.
The most recent error tells me I have to much content stored on my Tivo to download a movie. I've deleted now over 5 hours of content and it continues to e-mail me the same message.
out of 20 user reviews
worked perfectly
Pros: good download speed, excellent video quality
Cons: first release choppy, no current problems
I have no problems with the most current version of Amazon Unbox.
out of 20 user reviews
Works well with Tivo but has a few DRM kinks to be worked out yet.
Pros: Downloaded rented unboxed movies to my Tivo with ease.
Cons: DRM is too restrictive.
The movie that we had rented was not as kid appropriate as we had hoped. Having started the movie, we now had 24 hours to finish watching it. Since it was late, we decided to call it a night and try again the following evening since it was a school night and the kids would be in bed earlier. We started the movie right where we left off but the 24 hour DRM ran out with around 4 mins of the movie remaining unwatched. As stated, it was instantly deleted from the Tivo.
The only positive thing is that DRM this inflexible will continue to alienate consumers. With luck, enough consumers will vote with their dollars (or lack of) to convince the industry that DRM needs to be much less restrictive or better yet, totally eliminated.
out of 20 user reviews
24 hours is WAY too short
Pros: Easy, convenient
Cons: 24 hrs to watch rentals in WAY too short, somewhat lacking image quality (compared to DVD)
The image quality is also a bit low, particulary in a movie like The Illusionist, the blacks VERY clearly show compression artifacts in the dark scenes which are annoying and even confusing (not certain what is a planned illusion vs. compression artifacts). I guess getting the filesize down to 2GB takes some heavy compression compared to the 7-8GB you can put on a dual-layer DVD.
Anyhow, I still very much enjoyed the experience and will certainly use it again if I can find what I am looking for amongst the 1000+ titles.
out of 20 user reviews
Good Tivo Adition
Pros: Tivo support
Cons: No Mac support
out of 20 user reviews
Nice idea but good luck getting it to work
Pros: Easy to buy / rent movies
Cons: You may not actually be able to use the video you've purchased
out of 20 user reviews
Overall, a Great Service
Pros: Easy to use, supports mobile devices; great video quality
Cons: slow downloads
out of 20 user reviews
Great concept, But
Pros: Tivo option
Cons: license management
out of 20 user reviews
Nice UI - if only the video played properly
Pros: UI and download/purchase system are intuitive and work well, can play purchased video on multiple computers and portable devices
Cons: video didn't play properly - basically unwatchable
I had my first hint of trouble when the app wouldn't exit full-screen mode when I was watching a preview and downloading a movie in the background. Had to force-quit the Unbox app. When I finally got the movie downloaded (download speed was fast), I tried playing it but playback was very "choppy" - i.e. it would pause on a frame for a second or two every 15 secs or so, then start playing again at the correct time (so it skipped a second or two of frames here and there). I noticed that Unbox was being a real CPU hog, taking 60-70% of a 2.8GHz P4 while playing.
So I installed Unbox on another computer, a 1.8GHz Core Duo and downloaded the video to this other computer. Problem was not as bad, but still bad enough that I couldn't watch the movie. Both computers running up-to-date XP-SP2 and 1GB RAM.
Too bad this didn't work for me because I like the Amazon shopping interface and the Unbox UI, too. I uninstalled the app from both computers and got a refund from Amazon for the movie I bought and won't try this app for a while until I read that these probems have been fixed.
out of 20 user reviews
Abysmal -Purchased my movie last Friday and I'm still waiting.
Pros: Great selection of movies.
Cons: Too many to list. See my review.
So, my shinny new “Creative Zen Vision:M”. is on the list supported and my trusty Dell desktop more then exceeds the minimum system requirements. , yet installing the software took almost an hour. One I resolved the software conflict; I setup an account and purchased my first movie. Down load wind informed me that my movie would take about two hours so I cooked dinner, cleaned up the kitchen and settled in for a night of movies and TV classics –NOT!
As you may have guessed, the movie did not download as it said it would. So I call Amazon tech support. After about two hours on hold I’m that you have to tell the media player to down load your purchase movie. Ok, I thought this was a bit odd, you’d think that by forking over $15 of cold hard cash would cause for downloading to commence. Affter an additional 2 hours the movie downloaded, at this point it late and I'm too frustrated to watch the move so I head off to bed.
The next day I tried to move the move over to my “Creative Zen Vision:M” -the move won't transfer. This is the same player recommended by Amazon, the same player advertise prominently on Amazon.com with $20 of free video downloads. I check the specks on Amazon’s UnBox site a second time to make sure I have a supported player (who knows, maybe the marketing wiz kids screwed and put their push behinded the wrong player).
According to Amazon’s web site my player is supported. So I called Amazon and after a long wait I get another rep that says even though the device is listed on the site as supported it's not a guarantee that it will work. What?!?!
There might be a happy ending to my story; today I went to Best Buy and exchange my Zen player for an Apple iPod. I’m not happy about Apple’s DRM monopoly, but my desire to rent/purchase movies online, messured with the Best But sales person’s push that the Apple just works convinced me to give it a try. This is my first Apple product and I'm hoping it will work. Unfortunately iTunes offers few movies, and you can’t rent them either. However, if iTunes works I'll stick it out with Apple until either they get more movies, or Amazon sorts out the glitches -the race is on Amazon.
