RENZAmusings » Rent Movies on your TiVo

Rent Movies on your TiVo

April 30th, 2007

With two little kids, we don’t go out to the movies much. It seems we don’t even get to watch TV that much either. Our TiVo has helped manage our TV watching, but even with the “Silver” cable package, there are very few good movies available to watch–unless you like “Mindhunters” as it has been on at least eight times a day for the last few months.

Like many people, we grew tired of the back and forth transporting of movies to the video store, and although I always thought NetFlix was a good idea, I never brought myself around to joining.

Amazon has partnered with TiVo to offer a pretty good service called “Amazon Unbox.” Quite simply, you buy, or rent, videos at Amazon.com, and instead of waiting for a DVD, you can download the movie to your computer or directly to your TiVo DVR, and you can start watching almost as soon as you start the download.

I rented “Borat,” (I like) placing the order at work, and the movie was fully downloaded when I got home. It’s kind of like on-demand NetFlix.

When you buy a movie (around $14.99), you own it and can watch it as much as you like. Even if you remove it from your TiVo (presumably for space issues), you can re-download it from your Amazon library. If you rent a movie (around $3.99) as I did, you have thirty days to start watching it before it is removed. After you start watching, you can watch it as much as you like within 24 hours. After that, it is deleted.

The video quality was very good, probably equivalent to the “best” resolution on TiVo, and overall, the viewing was a good experience. I can’t be sure, but it didn’t seem that there were any DVD extras available, which is one of my favorite things about DVDs.

The ease of use and integrating digital media into the living room makes this service a potential hit. The Apple TV is attempting to do this, but it seems a little like trying to shoehorn iTunes from your computer to your television.

If you have a TiVo, I would recommend giving Amazon Unbox a try.