I noticed Amazon had a $0.99 sale on a couple of new movies I had been wanting to see (Ghost Rider, 300, Shooter) so I decided to give it a try - after all, no shipping, no tax, means you can’t beat the price. My setup is Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit and an Xbox 360 with wireless adapter (I stream the movies to the HDTV via the 360). My initial impressions:
The Good
Install and movie purchase was quick and simple overall (however, it is a tiny bit less simple for 64-bit users…more on that later). It was dead simple to stream to the 360 - if you already have the media center connection setup, then you’re ready to go. The quality is on par with DVD - it’s certainly not HD, but I was watching on a 56″ HDTV and it looked as good as any DVD I have.
The Bad
When I first installed the software, I got a message saying something was wrong with my computer’s DRM configuration. My only guess is that it has something to do with being on a 64-bit - but I really don’t know. The Unbox software offers to help troubleshoot - so I did that and it found a patch to automatically install…after that, everything went fine. The download speed is a bit slow - I rented 5 movies the first night (you can keep them for 30 days) at around 10pm. By 8am or so the next morning, 4 of the 5 movies were downloaded. The files are between 1.5GB - 3GB - so it’s certainly going to take a while to download them, but the speed could be just a tad better…but it’s not a huge issue - just realize that you’ll need to wait about an hour or so after you rent the movie before you can start playing it. The biggest issue I have with Amazon’s Unbox service is the lack of 5.1 channel audio - the audio quality is decent, but it’s certainly not on the same level as a DVD and there is no true surround sound.
Conclusion
There’s no question that Unbox is a great deal if you find a movie you’d like to see for $0.99 - it’s the way to go at that price. I’m not sure I’ll be using it for full price rentals though ($3.99) - for that price, I can get NetFlix or Blockbuster Online (and better sound quality). If Amazon can drop the price to $1.99 for a one day rental, I’d be doing a lot more Unboxing.
