Press release follows verbatim:
Amazon.com today announced the launch of Amazon Unbox(TM), a new digital video download service offering customers thousands of television shows, movies and other video content from more than 30 studio and network partners from Hollywood and around the world. Unbox is the only video download service to offer DVD-quality picture. In addition, Unbox RemoteLoad(TM) technology allows customers to buy from one PC (such as an office computer) and download to another (such as a home computer). Customers can visit http://www.amazon.com/unbox to try the Unbox service with a free TV show.
Unbox offers triple the video quality of the leading commercial Internet video services, delivering content encoded at 2,500 kilobits per second using the ultra-efficient VC-1 Advanced Profile codec. At no additional charge, Unbox also automatically includes a second file optimized for playback on any Windows Media-compatible portable device. In addition, Unbox uses progressive download, eliminating the need to wait for the entire video to download before watching. This means the typical cable broadband customer can start watching any Unbox TV show or movie within five minutes of ordering.
“Amazon Unbox offers TV and movie enthusiasts a fast, convenient way to watch thousands of their favorite videos from around the world,” said Bill Carr, Amazon.com’s vice president of digital media. “Now Amazon.com customers can choose to get videos delivered to their doorstep from Amazon’s DVD store or choose Amazon Unbox and download DVD-quality picture movies or television shows to their PC.”
Unbox RemoteLoad technology offers customers the convenience of shopping for Unbox videos on Amazon.com from any Internet-connected PC — like their PC at the office — and download their videos to that PC or any other connected PC — like their PC at home. Plus, customers get the added flexibility of taking their video collection on the go using any Windows Media video-compatible portable device, including the popular Creative Zen Vision:M.
“Amazon has built the ultimate solution for anyone who has ever had a friend or coworker tell them that they missed a great TV show last night,” said Carr. “Now customers can visit Amazon.com while at work and download DVD-quality TV shows and movies to their PC at home or wherever it is most convenient for them to watch.”
Amazon Unbox customers will be able to access their videos in the Amazon Your Media Library, a personalized Web page that indexes and organizes their media purchases from Amazon.com, including books, CDs, DVDs and Unbox Videos. Your Media Library provides each Unbox customer a place to keep track of their Unbox video purchases, and even download them to an additional PC.
Amazon Unbox customers can download episodes of their favorite television shows that aired as recently as last night or favorites from decades past. Unbox offers current hits from top networks like CBS with “CSI” and “Numb3rs” and FOX with “24” and “Prison Break” as well as classics like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Firefly” and “Star Trek.” Unbox also offers a broad selection of popular shows from cable networks such as A&E, Cartoon Network, Discovery Channel, FX and several channels from MTV Networks, including Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, MTV and VH1. From September 14th through September 27th, all of the final, cliffhanger episodes from last season’s “CSI,” “CSI: Miami” and “CSI:NY” will be available for $0.01 to celebrate CSI Week and the launch of the season for all three “CSI” series.
Several television series and films will make their digital download debut with Amazon Unbox, including all 79 episodes of the original “Star Trek” series (plus the pre-Shatner original pilot), many anime series including “Mobile Suit Gundam SEED.” HGTV, FINE LIVING TV Network and VH1 are three networks making their digital download debut, offering titles such as “Design on a Dime,” “America’s Dream 18” and “Breaking Bonaduce,” respectively.
Movies available on Unbox include new releases such as “V for Vendetta,” “Inside Man,” “Failure to Launch,” “RV” and “Walk the Line” as well as numerous classics like “Ben Hur,” “Chinatown” and “Poseidon Adventure” from top studios including 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. Unbox will also have independent films from studios such as Focus Features, Fox Searchlight and Lionsgate, including “Akeelah and the Bee,” “Brokeback Mountain” and “Friends With Money.”
Amazon Unbox also offers a broad selection of international television shows and films from the UK, Korea, Hong Kong and Japan. These include the epic Korean period drama “The Immortal Admiral Yi Sun-shin”; the popular BBC comedy “Coupling”; Hong Kong’s “Hand of Death,” directed by John Woo starring Jackie Chan; and Japan’s “Escaflowne.”
Unbox customers can purchase television series episodes for $1.99 per episode, purchase most movies for between $7.99 and $14.99, or rent the latest movies for $3.99. To learn more about Amazon Unbox and to download your first television show free of charge, visit http://www.amazon.com/unbox.
Participating Television Networks
A&E, Adult Swim, Animal Planet, BBC, The Biography Channel, Cartoon Network, CBS, Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, Discovery Health Channel, Discovery Kids, E! Entertainment Television, FINE LIVING TV Network, FOX, Fuel TV, FX, HGTV, The History Channel, KBS (Korean Broadcast System), Logo, MTV, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, The N, PBS, Speed, Spike, Travel Channel, TV Land and VH1.
Participating Movie Studios
20th Century Fox, Paramount, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Lionsgate and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc.
Unbox Partner Quotes
CBS
“With its broad and extensive user base, impressive marketing capabilities and the Unbox technology, Amazon.com is uniquely positioned as a programming platform in the online world, and we’re excited to be one of their charter content providers,” said Larry Kramer, President, CBS Digital Media. “The site is a perfect vehicle to further extend the reach of our Network brand and create more opportunities for audiences to discover current and classic CBS programming.”
Fox Entertainment Group
“We expect the convenience of Amazon’s Unbox to be a catalyst in expanding the reach of our digital offerings,” said Peter Levinsohn, President, Fox Digital Media. “Amazon has made a name for itself as having the biggest selection of physical goods online. We are happy to be a part of its effort to realize this same goal in digital content.”
MTV Networks
“VH1 has chosen Amazon Unbox for our download-to-own premiere of select shows because it offers viewers a flexible and high-quality way to enjoy their favorite programs — the very qualities our 30-something viewers find important,” said Tom Calderone, executive vice president and general manager, VH1. “We are excited to join the other MTV Networks’ brands in this launch, and to extend VH1’s hit shows to yet another platform.”
Paramount
“Amazon is one of the great trusted brands in the digital space with an excellent track record of building direct consumer relationships via the Internet,” said Thomas Lesinski, President, Paramount Pictures Digital Entertainment. “We are very excited about Amazon’s new Unbox service, which will provide consumers with a convenient high-quality option for downloading movies directly to their computers.”
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
“This agreement with Amazon is very exciting for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. It represents the first time one of our established customers has embraced digital distribution,” noted Benjamin S. Feingold, Worldwide President of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Digital Distribution and Acquisitions. “Sony and Amazon share the goal of delivering outstanding entertainment to consumers whenever they want it, on whatever platform they choose to experience it and in the most efficient manner possible, and we are delighted to partner with Amazon in fulfilling this mission.”
Universal Studios Home Entertainment (USHE)
“We are pleased to partner with Amazon on this exciting venture, which offers a convenient and flexible alternative for purchasing and enjoying Universal films,” said Craig Kornblau, President, Universal Studios Home Entertainment. “Consistent with NBC Universal’s strategy for ubiquitous content distribution, we are very excited to align with Amazon, a top-tier partner that is on the forefront of a unique new electronic sell-through technology to deliver our entertainment product: The Unbox Experience.”
Warner Bros. Entertainment
“Warner Bros. digital distribution strategy is to provide consumers with access to our world-class entertainment through as many platforms, devices and channels possible,” said Simon Kenny, President, Warner Bros. Digital Distribution. “Amazon is the Internet’s leading online retailer, and our customers are already comfortable acquiring entertainment from the website. Unbox is a natural extension of this and a good fit for Warner Bros.”
MGM
“Delivering on our strategy of distributing MGM movies and television series on robust new digital platforms, we are very pleased to be able to offer MGM programming to the launch of Amazon’s Unbox service and hope to include additional product in the weeks to come as the service undoubtedly flourishes,” said Douglas A. Lee, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Digital Media at MGM. “We are thrilled to extend our partnership with Amazon as it introduces its millions of users to its new service, and welcome them to receiving new ways of obtaining MGM’s extraordinary library of films and television,” he said.
MacDailyNews Note: From the FAQ: Can I make a DVD from my Amazon Unbox downloads? You can store your downloaded files on a DVD or other removable computer storage device for the purpose of backup in the same format as the original files. However, any DVDs that you burn with Amazon Unbox files will not be readable by a DVD player. You can only view the files using Amazon Unbox installed on the computer that originally received the downloads.
Amazon Unbox System Requirements follow:
Minimum System Requirements:
OPERATING SYSTEM: The Amazon Unbox video player application is only compatible with Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows XP Professional SP2, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP2, or Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Update Rollup 2. The Amazon Unbox video player is not compatible with Apple/Macintosh operating systems.
COMPUTER HARDWARE: A PC with a 1.5-gigahertz (GHz) processor or faster, at least 512MB of memory, and a DirectX 9.0 complaint Video (64 MB Memory) and Sound Card.
INTERNET CONNECTION: Broadband internet connection capable of 800 kbps sustained transfer speeds.
Recommended System Specifications
COMPUTER HARDWARE: A PC with a 2.4-gigahertz (GHz) processor or faster, at least 1024MB of memory, and a DirectX 9.0 complaint Video (128 MB Memory) and a Multi Channel 5.1 Capable Sound Card.
INTERNET CONNECTION: Broadband internet connection capable of 1.5+ mbps of sustained transfer speeds.
MacDailyNews Take: “The popular Creative Zen Vision:M?” Yeah, right. Please define “popular,” Amazon. Come on, please, just for laughs? Fact: the Creative Zen Vision:M is about as “popular” as a case of the crabs (and we’re not talking about the online game).
Yet another Windows-only also-ran? Tsk, tsk. Not very smart to ignore the computer users with the most disposable income, Amazon.
Oh well, that’s okay, we can wait to spend our money until Tuesday. 
Compared to iTunes, this and other online media services look and feel like “rush jobs” to us. You can almost hear the Amazon execs screaming at their web coders late last night, “Rush, Jobs is launching in 5 days!!!” It’s not good when the press release is better organized than the website.
Addendum: As we wrote on August 29th, “Apple’s iTunes serves both Mac and Windows customers, as does Apple’s iPod. Obviously, all of these [other] services feel they need to use Microsoft’s DRM. Why they make this decision is another question, as using Microsoft’s DRM has proven to be a death sentence for many services for years now… Boil it all down and the basic question still remains: why can’t Microsoft make a DRM that’s Mac compatible? What exactly is the problem, Redmond?”
[UPDATE: 11:58pm EDT: Added to “Take.”]
Related MacDailyNews article:
It’s Showtime: Apple invites media to special event in San Francisco on September 12th – September 05, 2006
DVD quality sounds reasonable. Looks like they’re widescreen too. I wonder how it goes in practice downloading and playing back over the net after a few minutes wait? Wonder if the resolution/quality is any good?
Pity it’s PC only, and the blaming of Apple for this is total b.s. but many will believe the propaganda. It’s the studios who insist on draconian DRM (yes, I am not a huge fan of regions on DVDs at the very least, and before that Macrovision.)
Are Walmart going to continue putting pressure on the movie biz to lower their wholesale DVD prices in light of this? It’s no longer Apple now.
Well, it certainly sets a new bar for Apple anyway. 320×240 is looking mighty crap. VHS quality?? Yea, right.
One thing which might happen is that there’ll be two – Apple and the rest (wrt to compatibility/DRM etc.)
The hardware requirements are pretty steep. The only PC users I know with boxes like that are gamers. What are all the people with those famous $400 PCs supposed to do?
re:So if Amazon is going to adopt a Mac-hostile attitude, would someone please suggest a friendlier place for me to make my future purchases? I don’t want to patronize a company that doesn’t want my business
Apple should pull the plug on Amazon!!
I think it is telling that they are blaming Apple for the inability. That makes it sound to me like they may have approached Apple first, and when Apple wouldn’t share, they used Microsoft. Therefore, it would be Apple’s fault.
Just my wild speculation.
“You can only view the files using Amazon Unbox installed on the computer that originally received the downloads.”
I wonder what the Norwegians, Dane and Swedes will have to say about consumer rights over this.
All in all, it’s still much easier to go rent a movie and watch it on a real television from a comfortable chair vs. on a computer monitor in an office chair.
PANIC!
It looks like you have to use Amazon’s unbox player to view the videos. Since the videos are in WMA format, why can’t you just use windows media player? Probably because of new special DRM for downloadable videos that the standard WMA DRM doesn’t address. I am guessing the unbox player is where this extra DRM resides and piggy backs on the standard WMA DRM. So all you hackers out there, get the unbox player and break that sucker!
They are pulling some of the same Windows-only shenanigans with some of their smaller sellers.
There’s no panic on Apple’s part. It has knowledge of what the studios are willing to allow – and that’s what Amazon offers plus the Amazon Your Media Library (an idea which rumors previously said that Apple was going to offer. All this press release does is give us a five-day advance notice of what Apple is likely to offer.
Apple holds the trump card – getting the movies to the TV.
Amazon has to depend on Microsoft and its hardware partners for this. And that solution, Windows Media Center has been out for awhile and well, we all know how people have really taken to it. Not! So will Amazon movies make it more attractive. Maybe a little…
But when people see what Apple’s done with the Airport Express video device, which of course will only work with Apple downloads since the device will be decompressing the video, they’ll forget about the Microsoft solution and the Amazon Unbox.
So don’t panic unless Apple fails to deliver this device…
Bad choice of name too. Un… is negative. Unbox has a less than zero sexy ring to it. Perhaps this has been rushed too.
No iPod. don’t bother, sucks for sure
Bozos!
😀
S.
The magic word is, appropriately, “expect.”
Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research has a most accurate take of Unbox at
http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/gartenberg/
After noting that Amazon only indicates that it works with 6 handheld devices and that Plays for Sure may or may not work, he concludes:
“The iTunes music store succeeded because of the iPod, not the other way around. iPods drove people to the store. Without a compelling device story (and it’s not clear YET whether Zune will play protected music or video from Plays for Sure services) it’s hard to see this as a real threat to Apple.. for now. Pricing isn’t likely to drive folks to use this so for now it’s mostly a mobility story without a super interesting mobile device to use it with.”
I just made the mistake of ordering a movie download from Amazon, but then found out they wanted me to download a “.exe.” file. I looked everywhere on their site without success to find a way to cancel my order and finally had to send an email to their customer service. I told them I have always had pleasant experiences with Amazon, but this time I was quite irritated. I told them to cancel the order and that I will be waiting for Apple’s solution to video downloads.
Lets hope the new itunes store has more then just Disney movies at launch. This isnt like launching with three of the top rated TV shows, we need MAJOR content catalog at launch. If apple is really having issues signing deals with movie stuios we might have a problem.
WHAT IS HAPPENING is this.
Apple doesn’t license it’s “Fairplay” DRM because if and when it gets broke only Apple loses out.
Mircosoft’s DRM has been cracked last week and just cracked again in a matter of days, this places enourmous pressure on M$ because many buisnesses are losing money if people get content for free.
IE: pernamently keeping subscription music for instance.
Steve Jobs beleives no DRM can stand the test of time, but makes a pretty darn secure OS.
M$ beleives they can make their DRM harder and harder to crack, but makes the worst secure software in existance.
So eventually DRM cracks is going to cripple these online buisnesses selling content.
Napster anyone?
I suppose Apple don’t want to have anything to do with this as it’s a direct competitor. I can easily imagine Apple making it awkward – indeed impossible – for Unbox to work on a Mac. Locking in – by definition – is also Locking out.
Check some of those prices!
“Do The Right Thing” — $36!
“Aeon Flux” — $20!
“Poseidon” — $14.87 (How’s that for a random number?)
Yikes!
CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN HOW THE PREVIEW FOR THE SHOWS WORK ON A MAC BUT YOU CANT PLAY THE FULL VIDEO?!?!?!?!?!
FLOOD THEM WITH EMAIL!!!!! WE DEMAND MAC SUPPORT NOT THEIR STUPID EXCUSES!!!!
LOOK AT THOSE TIMES!!!!
4 – 7 HOURS!!!! to download 1, repeat 1, 2 hour movie !!!!!
UN-AC-CEPT-ABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!
“You can only view the files using Amazon Unbox installed on the computer that originally received the downloads.”
That means that when it comes time for a Winbloze Unbox user to replace that particular PeeCee, he/she will have to say g’bye to all of its Unbox video content. Hard to believe that those terms would be anything but Unsatisfactory.
Bart: You have to download some kind of Unbox Movie Player in order to watch the videos- I’m sure that is the .exe file they want you to download.
“‘Poseidon’ — $14.87 (How’s that for a random number?)”
It’s not random. They only expect to sell one copy and that’s the exact amount for the last tab for the Chinese food lunch when they wrapped filming. Kurt Russell had to split an egg roll with the Key Grip. It wasn’t pretty.
“Amazon.com launches Amazon Unbox” is a secret Knights Templar code.
Here for the first time is the answer:
“Sexual con man on a macho moan buzz.”
Jeff Bezos could not be reached for comment.
To emax:
Here’s the email I sent in repsonse to their email to me parroting the “it’s Apple’s fault” nonsense:
<quote>Your statement
“Unfortunately, Apple Computer Inc. has exclusive rights to the hardware and software that would make it possible for Amazon.com to provide Amazon Unbox for these devices. Because of these restrictions, we are unable to make Amazon Unbox compatible with these products.”
is disingenuous at best. Apple in no way precludes you from writing software that is Macintosh compatible. It is your choice of the limited utility system, Microsoft’s proprietary Windows Media DRM, that is restricting usage on non-Windows computers.
I stand by my earlier statement: I do not patronize vendors who only serve clients that use Windows.
</quote>