I commented on Unbox (Amazon's new video service) yesterday - today, I see that there's a pretty good summary on the problems available at Uninnovate:

Even though downloaded movies cost just as much as regular dvds, Amazon won’t let you watch the movies on your DVD player. Unbox allows you to back-up downloaded movies on blank DVDs, but the backups are encypted to prevent you from doing anything useful with them. Amazon has taken what was potentially the most compelling feature of Unbox and removed it from the service. This is classic uninnovation.

And how does Amazon want you to watch your expensive downloaded movies on your new HDTV? Amazon’s only suggestion is to buy a clumsy Windows Media Center PC and use an antequated s-video cable to connect it to your television. Welcome to picture quality circa 1995.

The bigger problem is that most PC's are nowhere near the TV, so running an S-Video cable is kind of pointless to begin with. Things get even worse - the license agreement they ship has some pretty egregious clauses - for instance, you have to agree to apply any and all patches Amazon ships for Unbox. Amazon also reserves the right to delete all your downloads if you uninstall Unbox (and uninstallation is no picnic - see Tom Merrit for that mess). To cap it all off, they can change your terms of service at any time. So, I can pay the same amount that a DVD costs me down at Target, only the DVD from Target will play on any device I own. This is one of the most stupidly crippled things I've ever heard of. Somewhere in the bowels of Amazon, there's a smart guy who made that point at a meeting 12 months ago - maybe if he or she is lucky, they'll have a chance to say "I told you so".

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