What to do! Find an old episode to watch.

Since the writer strike began, I really didn’t pay much attention, as it gets further into the New Year, I’m starting to understand why the general public is looking for a way to stream television shows of favorite episodes or shows that they hadn’t seen. Why! Because the re-runs on TV are too fresh, just been seen episodes.

I totally understand how people refuse to pay large amounts of money to download from iTunes or Unbox. One would think that if these companies set a monthly fee or a package deal on lets say per 10 episodes, credits lets say. Maybe more people would choose legal downloading over sharing systems.

I’m sure by now everyone’s Tivo needs a break; our wallets are starting to bleed. The TV re-runs are sending us into a coma! Its about time someone thinks that if you can get unlimited TV for a dollar amount with your cable company, maybe there needs to be a section on iTunes or Unbox that allows for controlled fresh content that we could pay a reasonable amount per month. If I watch 3 hours of TV a night on iTunes at approx $2 an hour, I’m looking at $6 a night $42 a week, excuse me… $168 a month (approx). I don’t pay that for cable…

Ok, so if I need a one off episode or movie, I might think about it!

                

Which One? Take Two Apple TV or UNBOX Amazon

Apple TV and Take Two

I like the idea of Take Two and its integration with the Apple TV appliance, but then again using Tivo to Unbox is also a nice feature. Since both movie download services are set to go head to head for consumer spending in 2008, we will have to see what shakes out.

Take 2 – Apples new movie download service will be shipped out as part of the new Apple TV units as well as a downloadable client for PC and Mac users. With promises of over 100 titles and more to be added quickly it could make the Apple TV the video appliance everyone wants to own. Again I think that it’s going to depend on what price points Apple, The Movie and TV industry try to set for a digital copy. It’s also been stated that if you only use the Apple TV appliance and not the PC or Mac program to download the media, your media files will be stuck on the Apple TV appliance.

Apple Take Two Media Encoding: MP4

Unbox – Now Unbox right now is limited to the United States, the user billing page doesn’t accept a postal code as instructed and the provinces are missing from the drop down. I’m sure that if it takes off and to compete with Take Two, Unbox will roll out to the rest of the Amazon locations by the end of the year if not sooner.

Unbox, uses the WMV(Windows Media Video) file format and comes with Tivo Support.

So, what do you use, I guess it depends on $$, which is cheaper. What devices you own.

You can always convert from mp4 to dvd or wmv to dvd with video converters.

Apple TV with Take 2, will stream the video from any PC or Mac Video source, so it does make it appealing. Maybe when my current stack of DVD-r and my DIVx player breaks, I’ll look into these two options further.

                

Unbox, Unfriendly to mac, ipod and iphones

Currently Unbox is using a WMV file format, and under it's license agreement to use it's service doesn't allow you to convert the video to the MP4 format. Apple products don't use a widespread codec package and are limited to using MP4 format, meaning that if you want to download movies that can be transfered to you're iphone,ipod touch or ipod family, you'll need to get a converter.

That being said, it seems that it might be cheaper in some cases to pickup the DVD at Best Buy, etc.. as Box prices seem to better than the streaming Unbox format.. and TV episode pricing is averaging 1.99, Or stick to iTunes, which we know will play correctly on you're device.

Amazon Unbox is falling into the pricing issues seen at other online movie companies, they can't seem to update there competitive pricing with box store pricing promo's.

If you're an Iphone user, sticking to iTunes or DVD boxed copies and converting them to play seems to be the best pricing option right now.

It's going to be interesting to see how Amazon Unbox shakes out. I truely believe that Legal Digital Media Stream will unfold as decent price points, maybe at lower quality video to maintain HD and DVD box sales. We've seen this lately with a Radiohead experiment. They posted a lower quality CD for sale on their website, only to move to iTunes to sell a better quality afterwards.

Maybe selling low resolution media files, playable only on lower resolution devices at a reduced price might actually get multiple sales! Meaning you might purchase the same movie twice, one for you're portable and a dvd or hd copy for you're collection.

If you're a Iphone user, stick to what you've already been doing! Amazon Unbox isn't the answer for you right now. Maybe in 2008.. ???

Since the Creative Zen player supports the WMV format and the DRM Unbox is using, Unbox video plays on the portable. WMV is the Window Media Player file format, and is the reason the Amazon Unbox Player is windows only. It seems to be based off of the media player code library. I could be wrong.. I'm only making an observation.

Unbox Compatiblile Devices