New TiVo feature

[Ghoulish Delight]

We've just received notice of, and signed up for, a new service through our TiVo. Partnering with Amazon, you can now rent or buy movies which are downloaded to your TiVo to watch any time.

If you rent it, you have 30 days to watch it. Looks like rentals are going to cost ~$4 (don't know if they'll offer cheaper older released rentals).

If you purchase a movie, you can have it sent to your TiVo to watch. But in addition, your purchase history is kept, so you don't have to keep it on your TiVo or burn it to disc (not sure if you can burn it or not). Any time you want to watch it you just go back to Amazon and tell it to send it to your TiVo again. Purchases are being listed right now from ~$8-$15 depending on the title.

For signing up, they gave us $15 to play with. I think we'll do some test runs. One great benefit is that I can sit here at work, select a movie, and when I get home it will be downloaded waiting for me.

[Alex]

If you purchase and then let your TiVo membership lapse I assume you lose access to the movie? In other words you're leasing access, not actually buying the movie.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

If you purchase and then let your TiVo membership lapse I assume you lose access to the movie? In other words you're leasing access, not actually buying the movie.

Good question, I will read the fine print and experiment. Among other things, I can transfer stuff from my TiVo onto my computer, so it can be stored that way. If they can be burned to DVD, that's an even better solution to keeping it permanently.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Okay, I've learned a couple new things. Firstly, this isn't a TiVo-exclusive thing. It's through Amazon, TiVo has just partnered with them to allow the downloads to go to your TiVo. There is a player available from Amazon (called "Unbox") that allows you to download the movies to your computer and watch them through the player. So all you need is a free Amazon account, no need to remain subscribed to TiVo.

Secondly, you CAN burn them to DVDs, but they aren't in a DVD-playable format. You'd have to play them on a computer with the Unbox player. I've seen mention of "authorized computer", so I'd imagine, similar to Apple and iTunes, there is a limit to the number of computers you can link to your account and be allowed to play your purchased videos on.

[Matterhorn Fan]

So how much does an "Unbox" cost? And what kind of name is that?

[Ghoulish Delight]

It's free to register and free to download the player. The only cost is to rent or buy a movie to download.

A terrible name.

[Matterhorn Fan]

OH! So from Amazon you'd only be able to watch the movies on your computer? Pffft.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Correct, unless you connect your computer to your TV.

Here's the FAQ, btw.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Well, we tried it for the first time tonight. We rented Jackass Number 2.

Overall, I gotta say I'm impressed. Dunno if I'm $4 impressed, especially since we already have Netflix, but it performed as advertised. We ordered the movie around 7, it started downloading to the TiVo within 15 minutes, and it was done downloading less than 2 hours later. Not blazing fast, but had I ordered it earlier (say, from work or right when I got home) that's certainly pretty quick.

It played without issue, and gave excellent on-screen info about how long we can keep it and how long it will stick around. Basically, you have 30 days from the time of download to begin watching it. Once you start watching it, you have 24 hours, and then you can't watch it any more. That does mean you better be sure you've got time to watch it once you start, but at least you can sit on it until you have the time.

I don't know if they're considering this still in beta, but there were a couple things that I'd characterize as beta-level in the ordering process. First off, we were given a $15 credit when we signed up. While the page before we clicked order very clearly stated that, once we clicked order, no mention of the $15 credit was made through the ordering process. They had us pick a credit card and a billing address, no where to say, "I'm using my credit" or enter a code. As it turns out, it's taken care of automatically behind the scenes, but it definitely feels like a bit of a bodge job, wedging a new system of payment into their old billing system.

Secondly, and following from that, the confirmation email was...lacking. It did not include the info about downloading and viewing the movie, and it linked to the standard "my account" page which actually has no links to any "Unbox" account info. If you want to see things like your download history, you have to go through the "Unbox" page which isn't linked from the email.

Other than that, while I'm not really a likely heavy user of this, it is fairly well executed for anyone who might be interested.

Oh, and Jackass was hilarious. It delivered what it promises, I still hurt from laughing an hour and a half later.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

I was a bit disappointed by the long download time...though we did order early enough in the evening that we were able to watch it the same night. I'd say this takes as much planning ahead as seeing a movie in the theater ("When is it playing? Ok, we have to eat dinner first..."), which isn't bad. When we did get it going it did feel like instant gratification, especially since it was perfect DVD quality. You only get the movie itself, so if you're into DVD extras, this isn't for you.

My wallet says to stay with Netflix though.