Comments on: Is Amazon Rethinking Its Movie Download Service?

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 23:19:36 +0000

Unbox sounds like a great download free dvd movies service.

By: alana kelly

alana kelly — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 10:24:54 +0000

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By: Amazon To Debut Streaming Movie/TV Service Today

Amazon To Debut Streaming Movie/TV Service Today — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:05:14 +0000

[...] has clearly been rethinking the Unbox business lately, and let some details slip about this new service in May. The main difference seems to be that the [...]

By: Amazon Ready To Unbox Video Streaming For Digital Movies

Amazon Ready To Unbox Video Streaming For Digital Movies — Wed, 28 May 2008 17:00:43 +0000

[...] to add streaming as an option to Amazon’s existing pay-per-download Unbox service. As we noted last March, Unbox has not been doing so well and Amazon sent out a survey to users to try to figure out what [...]

By: Inetgate

Inetgate — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 17:31:23 +0000

I think ADVWindowsClientService.exe, which is installed with unbox, is evil.
So, the first thing that Amazon rethink is to eliminate this module evilness.

By: w3boy’s blog » Blog Archive » Amazon considers HD downloads, video subscriptions

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 09:59:20 +0000

[...] TechCrunch reports that the Amazon survey asks the question, “Which potential improvement is the most likely to increase your use of the Amazon Unbox service?” Among the choices: [...]

By: born4thesurf

born4thesurf — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 09:56:46 +0000

I have heard that the choice at present is not great. I have a PS3 and am wondering what services will be available in the coming months

By: JPack

JPack — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 07:54:03 +0000

@Barry, I see what you are talking about. That is pretty misleading and I agree if the movie is not available for download then do not even bother displaying the ‘rental’ and ‘purchase’ options. If it’s not there, don’t show it.

As for other options offered, I guess to each their own. I personally like the fact that Amazon shows similar matches in other categories. I have found some interesting things that I would not have found otherwise if it was not for Amazon suggestions. Normally the suggestions are too interesting, so I ignore them and proceed with my search. I would probably complain more if Amazon offered me nothing after a search, and just said ‘no results found’. All search engines offer other solutions, even if it is not exactly what you are looking for, just hear it does tend to feel like they are just trying to get you to buy something else.

Me personally, I would love to see Amazon not even bother with other features (other than debugging the software for everyone else) and just work on increasing its catalog of movies. It would be nice to have the same selection as Netflix for download through Unbox. The selection is too limited and needs to increase before this would ever be a viable alternative to Netflix or Blockbuster.

By: Paul King

Paul King — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 05:50:07 +0000

before reading this I had deleted my unbox just hours ago… why? because it took over my system… I did everything to not have that damn thing load in my system tray… or just plain load period. I turned it off everytime (which was a pain in the ass, prompt window and all), I re-did the settings, everything short of going to the registry … finally I gave up and got rid of it when it loaded ONCE AGAIN after I rebooted. worthless piece of crap software that takes over your system… kindof reminds me of hotmail… and aol… worthless as well. could’ve been great.

By: John C. McClore

John C. McClore — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:55:33 +0000

As has been stated, the only problem I have with Unbox is that the last several movies I’ve wanted to watch have not been available.

By: AnonTroll

AnonTroll — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:50:07 +0000

Headline should be:
Amazon does user polling to improve their products
or
Schonfeld is paid by the post
or
Schonfeld phones it in

By: Barry Welch

Barry Welch — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:35:11 +0000

@Tom – thanks for corroborating my story.

@JPack

If I search Unbox video for ‘Vendetta’, I get lots of results. See here:

http://www.amaz...ywords=Vendetta

The search box says “Search Unbox Video Downloads”, so if I find what I am looking for in the resultset of my query (#17 is the result I want), you’ve set expectations. At this point, I believe I am about to download the movie, so I click through to the rental page. Then, DOWNLOAD UNAVAILABLE. No explanation why. It might be temporarily unavailable, but I don’t know that.

At this point, you’ve wasted my time. I don’t trust the search results anymore. If you don’t have the movie, don’t show it in the results.

“Underneath it does show other options which could be to buy it on DVD. But I cannot believe you would complain about that.”

Believe it. User experience counts.

I feel that am a discerning consumer and if I wanted to buy the DVD I’d search Amazon propper. I’m here to rent movies, not to be distracted by other objects that look like they may be movie rentals, when they are in fact advertisements for other boxed items. Amazon, and not Yahoo, is the anti-Google.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 22:13:23 +0000

On “Movie Unavailable” I had that problem too. When I first tried Unbox (the day it was opened to the public) I downloaded the movie “City Slickers” (I love that movie) and it worked fine. When I came back months later I could no longer watch it.

If you search unbox for it you’ll find it but where the download link normally is it says “This item is currently not available.”

I don’t know how they lost the rights to certain items but that seems to be the reason for the “unavailable” message.

By: Dallas J Clark

Dallas J Clark — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:44:08 +0000

Number one barrier for me and the majority of Australians is lack of Internet Speeds, number two barrier is lack of download limits from our Internet Service Providers.

We’re so far behind in Internet Speeds it’s not funny!

By: JPack

JPack — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:52:40 +0000

@Barry Welch, I am confused… are you talking about searching for Unbox videos directly from a Tivo? I don’t use tivo and only search through the web, and it is very clear when the video is not available. It tells ‘your search did not match any products in Unbox video.’ Underneath it does show other options which could be to buy it on DVD. But I cannot believe you would complain about that. I would assume Amazon would try to offer me other means of obtaining a video I was searching for… Would a ‘404 error’ be better? How are you inconvenienced, just because they don’t have it for download? No video download service offers 100% of all movies ever made… it would be nice, but come on be realistic.

Example of an unbox video not available:
http://www.amaz...amp;x=0&y=0

By: Technology For The Masses

Technology For The Masses — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:35:40 +0000

For < $25, you can setup your computer / laptop to play your movie on your TV using s-video cable. I wrote a post on how to do it.
http://technolo...top-on-your-tv/

By: TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » アマゾンの動画ダウンロードサービスUnboxに足りないものは何なのか？

TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » アマゾンの動画ダウンロードサービスUnboxに足りないものは何なのか？ — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:32:34 +0000

[...] [原文へ] [...]

By: Barry Welch

Barry Welch — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:32:13 +0000

For me, what’s bad is finding a title only to see ‘Download Unavailable’. What’s the point? If I can’t download it, I shouldn’t be able to search for it on Unbox… of course, you can always buy the DVD, and that’s entirely the point. Amazon thinks its okay to inconvenience me a little because they get another chance to sell me the boxed DVD. The inconvenience adds up over time and I’m wearied by unsuccessful searches for downloadable content. FAIL.

By: JG

JG — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:15:33 +0000

They need a different deal with the content owners. They need a larger selection of movies to compete with NetFlix & Blockbuster and to fulfill their tagline of “Earth’s Biggest Selection,” and they *NEED* to get past the 30 day / 24 hour timelimits on rental. I’ve largely stopped using Unbox because I’ve been burned by starting a movie and having it disappear before I could finish watching it.

By: bu

bu — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:02:25 +0000

Two things:
1. lower prices.
2. Have an option to play subtitles or captions.

By: Dmitry

Dmitry — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:39:43 +0000

I have a Tivo and I would’ve loved to use the service more often. The only reason I don’t is that their movie selection SUCKS. I’ve pretty much has seen every interesting movie in the library, but they haven’t added much new stuff in at least a half a year (I mean new movie that arn’t B). Neither do they have many options for new TV shows.

They had their chance during the writers’ strike. Having combed the library for every intersting movie, I had to resubscribe to Netflix. Oh, well, they blew it, so what else is new…

By: Rod

Rod — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:31:55 +0000

I tried it because of the Tivo link which worked very well. But the selection for Tivo was terrible. There were hardly any good movies to watch.

By: JPack

JPack — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:28:23 +0000

@Tom, hmm interesting, no issues here. At least they confirm it, but I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing… but at least they are aware. I guess I am lucky and will continue to profit from it. I am glad I don’t have issues because I usually get a movie or two every weekend through Unbox and don’t know what I would do if it did not work. I guess I will stick to playing them through Media Center, and keep my fingers crossed. I had issues with other MS DRM services in the past, but so far so good here.

By: Yakov

Yakov — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:27:03 +0000

It may be because a user experience is not that good

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:21:08 +0000

@JPack – their answer as that these were known issues and that they had no fix for them at this time. They did, in fairness to them, offer a refund for the videos that locked up the PC but since I could easily watch them in Media Player I declined.

Ironically, since you watch your videos through Media Center you could very well have the same problems I have and just not realize it. (though I’m interested in people who haven’t had problems with Unbox because I know about 15 people who switched to get episodes of the Office and they all have had problems so I thought it was universal)