Amazon has officially launched a new Video on Demand service that offers no-hassle, cross-platform streaming movies and TV shows. The web site offers a clean and simple interface for easily streaming content to a PC or Mac. Amazon claims 40,000 movie and TV titles to choose from, both new and old content. With the new service, Amazon allows purchased content to be downloaded onto up to two PCs and two mobile devices at a time.
As with other video streaming services, Video on Demand is primarily a web-based service, all video is played through Flash. Rented content is available for viewing for 24 hours. Rented movies can be downloaded to a single PC or TiVo only, and are not available for portable devices currently.
Amazon’s Video on Demand offers competitive pricing options, with most movies costing $2.99-3.99 for rental, and $9.99-14.99 for purchases. TV shows are $1.99, with season options also being available. A subscription-based TV pass option is also available at a 5% discount, which makes current TV seasons available for purchase, with new episodes being available once they have aired. TV pass subscriptions can be canceled at any time, with access to the already purchased episodes being maintained.
This service sounds great!, I’m already a Netflix customer but having more competition like this should heat things up between the 2 companies. BlockBuster must be worried!