Amazon unleashes it’s Hulu / AppleTV streaming competitior
I was browsing through Amazon a few minutes ago and I apparently stumbled upon something new and quite awesome. Apparently Amazon’s new streaming video service has gone live, now called “Amazon Video on Demand”, and I have to say it really is fantastic. It’s flash-based and compatible with Macs and PCs (possibly Linux as well, but I have not yet been able to test it in a Linux environment). The quality seems to be a bit higher than Hulu, and the selection is already quite good with many new television and recently released movies available for instant streaming. My quick look through the library revealed recently released movies like “Vantage Point”, “21″, “Jumper”, and “The Bucket List” available for rental for $3.99. The television library is just as good with many episodes running for $1.99, and some even streaming for free. Here is a screenshot of my playing a free episode of the hit show “Heroes”
All movies and television shows allow you to watch 1-2 minutes of the content before paying, letting you decide what looks good, and what does not. According to some quick research on the topic, Amazon has an instantly available library of over 40,000 movies and television shows ready to go.
Here’s hoping that like Netflix, Amazon will soon bring this service to set top boxes like the Xbox 360, and Roku’s Netflix box. This is way more convenient than Apple’s AppleTV and with much better selection than free sources like Hulu.
Give it a try, I think you’ll really like it.