Since Amazon released its video on demand service earlier today, I’ve pored over each and every section of the site to determine if it has what it takes to supplant Hulu as the best online video service providing professional network content. And after doing just that, I’ve quickly realized that it doesn’t.
Amazon has done all it can to solidify its stance in the online video market. First, it launched its Unbox service to compete with film streaming and now it has tried to compete in on-demand streaming of TV shows and movies. And by making TV shows and movies available online to be streamed directly to your computer, it’s quickly becoming apparent that Amazon is not necessarily focusing all its attention on iTunes, but on what it perceives to be the next frontier in video: online streaming.
Selection
Amazon is quick to point out that the videos it offers on its new service don’t have ads breaking into the flow of the shows. But that is because you have to pay $1.99 for each TV episode. Granted, Amazon’s VOD service does have some free shows — I watched 30 Rock a few times — but the list of free shows is laughable, compared to the sheer number of paid shows.
So is it even fair to compare a paid service to a free one? Sure it is. Right now, for instance, Hulu is offering five episodes of The Office for free on its site with just a handful of commercials in each. I tried playing those same shows on Amazon to see if I could stream them for free on its service and was presented with a banner telling me I needed to buy the show after just 2 minutes of viewing.
If you’re fine with paying for TV shows, you’ll be happy to know that Amazon’s offering has quite a few — it claims it has over 40,000 movies and TV shows available. In fact, practically every episode from each season of every show in Amazon’s VOD service is available for purchase. I was pleased to see that I could choose from a slew of networks like TV Land and NBC. So Amazon lives up to its name in terms of breadth of selection. But there was something frustrating about the fact that so few shows had a free stream available, given all the free TV to be found on the Web.
Experience
Overall, the Amazon VOD experience is quite similar to Hulu: you pick a network from the links on the left column, choose your show, and find your episode. The picture quality of the videos I watched were highly-detailed and I was pleasantly surprised by Amazon’s decision to offer such a large display instead of the somewhat smaller screens found on Hulu.
That said, the actual video playback was suspect at times and the video streams would skip too often. That may be the result of all the attention Amazon’s VOD is receiving today, but so far, I haven’t seen any improvements. I also didn’t like that the video playback screens were too cluttered with extras. The pages feature all the episodes below the video. And Amazon’s ubiquitous recommendation engine picks underneath only muddies an otherwise clean screen.
Are no commercials worth it?
The main selling points of Amazon’s Video On Demand service are that it doesn’t have commercials, it has a slew of shows available and the picture quality is superb.But the streaming is choppy, the site layout is suspect, and some of the same content is available elsewhere for free.
Even though Hulu commercials can annoy me when I’m excited to see what happens next on The Office, I’ve never realized until now just how much I prefer them to shelling outcash for what is often a hit-or-miss experience. I don’t mind paying for a show I enjoy, but $1.99 seems a bit steep for one episode and if it’s being played for free on Hulu, I’m not sure why I would even consider using Amazon’s service.
I haven’t checked out Amazon videos, but I am really impressed with Hulu. I agree with you about the annoying commercials, so I wouldn’t mind spending a little.
I’m still looking for a way to get Hulu in my living room. I’m considering hacking an AppleTV to do the job.
Amazon can apparently stream into Sony TVs, but I’m not convinced it’s worth spending $ I don’t have when Hulu is free.
check out http://www.zeevee.com
Check out PlayOn. It streams to PS3, Xbox 360, maybe Wii someday…
Amazon doesn’t just work with Sony BRAVIA. It also works with TiVo (downloads). If you download to a networked Windows PC with Amazon’s software you can also stream to an Xbox 360 or connect a Windows PC directly to your TV. Connecting a PC or Mac directly to your TV will work with Hulu or Amazon for streaming video.Annoying to have a PC in your living room perhaps–but increasingly worth it I think.
TV shows may be a bit pricey on Amazon (the same as iTunes) but the movie rentals are a pretty good deal. And once you get used to no commercials, it’s pretty addictive.
buy a refurb mac mini – 419.00 from apple, that’s what we did. cancelled our 100+ a month cable.
The average web user knows Amazon well and visits it often. Not true with Hulu. Name recognition gives Amazon the edge even considering all the ways Hulu is better.
I don’t mind the commercials on Hulu one bit, they are often only 15 seconds. Between Hulu and Netflix Watch Now, my TV/Movie lust is sated so I cannot imagine using Amazon VOD.
I’m quite fine paying for TV shows. The amount I will pay is about 50c. $2? No thanks, it’s easy enough to catch it on broadcast/PVR, rent the DVDs or simply torrent it.
I never get the complaints about commercials. This is not like watching a 30 second commercial for a 3 minute MSNBC video, it’s completley reasonable to watch a couple of commercials for a hour/30 minute program. Especially on the computer where you can always switch browsers and look at something else during the commercials. Paying for (broadcast) tv shows is throwing away money.
Hey, can you offer the screenshots a little bigger, because “Krauts” are not allowed at Amazon’s VOD
Thanks!
Marcel Fahle
At what point will cable subs start cancelling their digital video packages and start getting internet only from their cable operators? I realize that the internet w/out the TV packages gets jacked up by about $10 bucks a month ($64 a month, internet only here in san diego). Is it the quality of the stream when connected to a TV? Clearly, there is enough content out there between Hulu, SouthParkStudios, Joost, TheWB, etc…. but, what’s it going to take before people start dropping their video packages? Come on, it was 5-10 years when it seemed unthinkable that people woudn’t have a landline telephone in their house…why shouldn’t it happen to cable tv?
As someone outside of the US, this seems rather a moot comparison to me. When are people going to realize that non-Americans like media, too?
Well neither can truly stream HD content but then again none of the cable companies can either. Yet people will continue to be hyping online streaming as a means to deliver video content. Hollywood does not think it will really displace DVD’s as the main distribution channel.
It is like everyone knows that in maybe 20-25 years we shall have Hydrogen powered cars but for now hybrids are there but not necessarily taking up more than 2-5% of the total revenues of the auto companies and will grow to possibly 25% in the next 10 years. Similarly we all know the Internet will become the distribution model for digital video content eventually but for the foreseeable future it will be at most a niche and a place holder for the big guys in town.
additional perspective on the Hulu experience.
I cut off cable due to the TYPES of commercials shown on mainstream TV. I simply got sick and tired of watching pointless ads that had no relevance to my lifestyle. At my apt complex I had trouble hooking up Tivo, so left with no way to skip ads I just left Cable completely behind.
Initially I moved to Joost, but fortunately Hulu launched with content that was actually fun to watch.
I understand the ad supported model of web content very well. Web ads have always been more interesting to me than mainstream Brand ads because they are generally from smaller companies for products that I may never have heard of before. My curiosity creates the interest in the ads.
I’m not saying that I enjoy ads. I generally don’t. But if I must watch ads in order to access the content then at the very least I want the ads to be interesting.
Hulu is now following the path set by mainstream TV regarding Brand ads. This is a bad sign in my opinion. On the web there is no Tivo solution (yet) and being forced to watch some stupid ad for a kitchen mop, or laundry detergent is drastically reducing the positive aspects of the Hulu experience.
I’m ok with the bargain I make with Hulu. Watch free content, but be forced to watch ads. But I would far prefer to tell Hulu what types of ads I’m interested in seeing than sit through the short, but completely mind numbing ads they are currently showing.
Hulu is a pretty great alternative to the paid subscriptions… just recently discovered it. Cool find!
“I’m still looking for a way to get Hulu in my living room.”
It’s easy. All you need is a $20 cable. Just Google “Zipityzap”
Mike, it’s not the type of post TC is known and loved for.
Too long, too smart, too detailed, too boring.
More like RWW or CNET, but not as good as it used to be here.
has anyone checked out tidaltv.com? what do they think of that?
I think everyone here has missed the point. Stop thinking Hulu, and start thinking about this as a smart alternative to DVDs. I can buy Mythbusters Season 1 DVD for $20 at Amazon. I can purchase the 13 episodes online and have them downloaded to my PC (or hopefully one day a Myth box, very appropriate for Mythbusters don’t you think… some joke you just do for your own amusement folks) for $26. Why does anyone expect to get ala carte cheaper than the value meal? I completely understand the market, the concept, and the model. Now, if they can make it competitive and bring value, and compete in this growing market remains to be seen, but Amazon has a good track record in this arena.
If Amazon really wanted to make this thing fly well, here is what I would recommend to them…
Build a multi-media PC, maybe based on Linux and Myth. Open source could really be your friend here. Next, extend it with subscription services similar to Tivo, only instead of capturing broadcast TV, it automatically downloads all shows from a season, without commercials, to your media box. Make the video store a service like iTunes and the AppStore are a service on the iPhone.
What would I have?
A box that would allow me to completely disengage from cable TV all together. No commercials, and stored locally because I purchased them like I would have a DVD. I bet my costs would be quite similar to digital cable over a TV season, and I can watch shows when I wanted to.
This could, if done right, change TV from a ratings model that does not work, to a direct pay model without advertisements. Show popularity could be directly identified from sales figures, instead of inferred from statistics based upon a few monitoring boxes in peoples homes. New shows could also bypass the major networks (who knows maybe next Olympics will stream better content over the net when the commercials are gone). The first rew shows in a season could be free to entice new viewers.
Just my $0.02, but I think you people are looking at this all wrong
Hulu is great but it seems like they’re having trouble selling the inventory. I can count on one hand the number of advertisers I’ve seen on there, and they run a LOT of house ads for hulu.com/advertising
My guess is that the market isn’t bearing the price that Hulu needs to charge in order to give Fox/NBC the same revenue per show viewed as they get from purchases at Amazon or iTunes.
It’s interesting to read that Amazon regards the next frontier in video to be online streaming. I am also impressed by Hulu. Competition traditionally leads to the enhancement of technologies and innovation, thus, I view Amazon’s attempts as noteworthy.
Alvira Khan
Florida Atlantic University
FAU Alumni