After playing around with Amazon’s disasterous DVD rental site, I decided to follow the links in the subscription email to “Unbox”. This is Amazon’s entry into the digital download market. You “rent” a TV show or movie, downlaod it and watch it. Understandable. Still unsure?

They have quite a selection of shows, and obviously a whole host of movies as well. Of course they also implement Digital Rights Management (DRM), wgich is restrictive software that cripples a digital copy of music or movies so you are limited by the publisher as to exactly how, where and when you can enjoy your purchesed content.

At least they offer one cool feature with regards to DRM: remote download. In other words I can sit at the office (if I had one) and order a movie that I can then download onto my home machine.

However, I have problem with Unbox which makes it an abomination: I am forced to download Amazon’s player software.
Why would I want to do that? Apple’s Frontrow is exquisite! It comes with a remote, and I have used my Apple instead of my brand new Sony DVD player on occasion as it’s just easier. Now Amazon is forcing me to watch their movies on a Windows machine? Oh, Amazon says it might work on an Apple running Windows, but they can’t guarantee it. Hell, you can’t guarantee anything with Windows. Except maybe frustrations and mass homicide.

Furthermore, even if I do decide to run out and buy a PC, the system requirements are ridiculous. From Amazon.com:

Minimum System Requirements

OPERATING SYSTEM: The Amazon Unbox video player application is only compatible with Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows XP Professional SP2, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP2, or Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Update Rollup 2. The Amazon Unbox video player is not compatible with Apple/Macintosh operating systems.

COMPUTER HARDWARE: A PC with a 1.5-gigahertz (GHz) processor or faster, at least 512MB of memory, and a DirectX 9.0 complaint Video (64 MB Memory) and Sound Card.

INTERNET CONNECTION: Broadband internet connection capable of 800 kbps sustained transfer speeds.

Recommended System Specifications

COMPUTER HARDWARE: A PC with a 2.4-gigahertz (GHz) processor or faster, at least 1024MB of memory, and a DirectX 9.0 compliant Video (128 MB Memory) and a Multi Channel 5.1 Capable Sound Card.

INTERNET CONNECTION: Broadband internet connection capable of 1.5+ mbps of sustained transfer speeds.

Now I’m so tired merely thinking about how bad this is, I don’t have the energy left to work out the true cost of a downloaded movie from Amazon.com. In countries like South Africa, it’s nearly impossible to afford a broadband connection with sustained speeds of 800 kbps, nevermind 1.5mbps. And a recommended machine with 2.4 processor and 1Gb of RAM? Discount moste laptops then, which means I can’t connect it easily to my TV. So I’m bound to my desktop again. Aaaarrrggghhh!

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 8th, 2006 at 14:33 @565 and is filed under Uncategorized, software, Apple, Media, Web, Broadband. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.