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 On Thursday, September 7th, Amazon launched its video download service, Amazon Unbox. Amazon Unbox lets customers buy TV programs (generally $1.99) and movies ($8 - $15), or rent movies ($1.99 to $3.99). Our review of the Unbox experience comes complete with numerous DRM headaches, 5.1 that only comes out of two speakers, hidden phone-home software, and an overall service that doesn't make the grade. And no, Mac users, this isn't Showtime. Without substantial changes, we can't recommend Unbox.
Read on for our detailed experience with the new service.
Movie Download Background Amazon is not the first company to provide a video download service. MovieLink, CinemaNow, Guba, Vongo, and others have movie download services. I've tried them all with less-than-satisfactory results for home theater use. The bottom-line on all of these download services is that a DVD provides superior audio and video results. Period. That said, these services are handy if you want to take several rented movies on a trip, but short of that I found nothing compelling about using these services, especially at home. The download movie files are generally between 600MB and 1GB, although all of them provided limited options for 'HD' (not really high definition, it's closer to DVD-quality and essentially doubled the size of their standard format). None of them provided standard AC-3 5.1 sound (the standard we're all used to on DVDs for Dolby Digital and DTS audio); just stereo.
Unbox is clearly targeting home theater, although many homes still don't have setups that will support it. The movie sizes are larger than 2GB (obviously they want us to watch this on bigger screens) and while they claim that some movies have 5.1 sound, my initial search only found three: The Matrix, Disclosure and Swordfish.
To nail the home theater experience, video download services should have the following capabilities:
Home Theater Video Download Must Haves
- Anamorphic DVD video quality: like watching an enhanced DVD on an HDTV connected with either a component video connection or DVI/HDMI (theatrical aspect ratio and progressive scan video)
- Audio that is 5.1 AC-3-compatible (Dolby Digital and possibly DTS)
- Videos can be stored on a network drive
- Videos can be stored on a data DVD or other removable media
- Videos can be played on more than one computer and portable media by moving the movies across a home network; all without having to re-download the video for each computer
- DRM (digital rights management copy protection) and player must not be so intrusive. While we all know it's there, it shouldn't smack us in the face.
- Rentals must allow unlimited plays over at least a 24-hour period
- Purchased videos can be burned on a video-formatted DVD (as opposed to data DVD) and are playable in a standard DVD player (with the right service and hardware device support, this could be a 'nice to have')
Home Theater Video Download Nice to Haves
- Video playback can begin before the full video is downloaded
- Videos can be pushed to another location (an example of this is buying a movie from work and begin downloading at home immediately)
- Rentals can be played an unlimited number of times on multiple machines over a one week period
- Playable on portable devices
My Unbox Experience -- Overall, DRM in your face
Amazon Unbox can be found at unbox.com. After logging into my Amazon account (the same account used for purchases), I started by renting a movie: The Matrix. The rental process was straightforward and the movie was added to the Your Unbox Videos area. I then purchased a movie: Swordfish. I chose both because they had 5.1 audio and I had both movies available on DVD for comparison.
I chose to install the Unbox software on a Media Center PC directly connected to a 61" DLP projector via DVI. During the Amazon Unbox client installation (their proprietary software is required), I pointed the movie storage location to a network drive where I have a lot of storage space. This was my first mistake. While Unbox allowed me to do this, when I tried to download The Matrix, the Unbox software said there was no space available. In reality was there was 700GB available. I changed the settings to point to my local drive, however it was too late. The rental was queued and the location couldn't be changed. In my first support call to Amazon (using their web-to-phone call-back system), I found out that Unbox will not save to a network drive. Yet, their installation program didn't prohibit it. Once a download is started, the location cannot be changed. Next, I had to uninstall the software (this requires a network connection to let Unbox know that specific PC is no longer active) and then re-install the software from scratch. In doing so, I let Unbox decide where to store the videos. It chosea directory on my C-drive. The customer service representative was nice enough to issue a credit on the rental for my troubles. Unfortunately, that credit will cause future problems... more on that later.
After that experience, I decided to download the purchased copy of Swordfish to the same computer. The download took a bit longer than expected. There appears to be a throttled limit of about 200KB per second. My cable connection peaks between 500KB and 800KB depending on Internet connection location and traffic. It's unclear whether throttling is occurring at Amazon or at my ISP (Comcast Cable), so I won't point the finger at Amazon yet. I was able to begin playing the movie before the download was complete, however, not as fast as advertised. It was about 2 hours into the download before I could begin playing. The overall download took about 3 hours and 45 minutes for both the high-res computer format (about 2.2GB) and the mobile format (about 475MB).
Amazon Unbox Player  To compare quality, I did some specific side-by-side comparisons with an Oppo Digital upscaling DVD player and found that the video from Unbox, while very close and more than good enough for the first version of a video download service, tended to have a few more compression artifacts and color shifts when compared with the DVD. Overall, I'd rate the video quality acceptable and was pleasantly surprised. The Unbox copy of Swordfish is supposed to be a a 5.1 audio movie. However, on my Media Center PC which is connected optically to a 5.1-capable home theater receiver, I could only get 2-channel audio. Normally, I have no trouble watching media on my Media Center PC with 5.1 audio. Again, I contact customer support, however, they didn't know which 5.1 audio they supported and referred me to Amazon Media Relations. I did not receive a call back before my deadline. Given my experience, I suspect they were quite busy fielding questions and running interference. I suspect it's a DirectX-based 5.1 channel audio, but I didn't bother digging deeper. If it's not standard, what's the point, most users can't support it and I wouldn't recommend it. The Unbox player is very basic, and other than play/pause does not respond to a Windows Media Center remote. Despite using Microsoft digital rights management (DRM), Unbox videos will only play in the Unbox player. Other services like MovieLink and CinemaNow allow playback in the Windows Media Player in addition to their own branded player. I then moved on to download The Matrix rental. I began the download and immediately received a message stating that The Matrix was 'Unavailable to Download'. Once again, I initiated a support call to determine how to resolve the problem. Remember the credit that was issued for my troubles? Well, turns out that once they issue a credit, the video is marked as unavailable. The short of it, Unbox is unable to issue a credit on a video and still let you watch that video. The customer service person stated they would have a Leadership Member (a what?) contact me when they got this resolved. Who knows when that will happen, however at this point I suspect I can rent The Matrix from Netflix and receive it before Amazon can resolve it.
So, not yet totally defeated, I tried another feature of the Amazon Unbox service: watching a movie on a second computer. Rather than spend the time re-downloading the movie, I tried to just copy the movie files from one computer to another using the Import feature in the Unbox player. Apparently, the DRM setup isn't sophisticated enough to allow you to simply move the movie and play the movie while maintaining DRM protections for the movie studios. The ability to move DRM files while still maintaining DRM maximum limits is something we're all used to with the Apple iTunes DRM -- we'll have to see how Apple implements it for their much-speculated upcoming movie service. With Unbox, you must download the movie from the service individually to each computer. When downloads are 2GB+, that's an unacceptable limitation.
A negative feature of Amazon's first client software is that you can't control whether the Unbox Client launches at Windows startup unless you specifically use the technical software called MSConfig to turn it off. In addition, even after you exit (from the System tray) the Unbox client, Amazon still has a background service that 'phones home' to the Unbox service – I discovered through a notice from a personal firewall. While I assume that Amazon's intent is not nefarious, this is an unacceptable practice that many would consider spyware - regardless of the intent. Amazon is unmistakably new to client software development.
MS Config Startup Tab 
MS Config Session Tab  At this point, the service was unsatisfactory enough that I decided not to even try the mobile device compatibility of the service. If the home theater feature-set is this weak, who cares how the mobile offering works! Pros - Acceptable video quality is thus far the best I've experienced of the download services. Only some minor artifacts and color shifting. Near-upscaled DVD quality.
- Can push downloads from a remote location
- Can begin watching before download is complete
- Downloads can be paused and re-prioritized
Cons
- Overall, the DRM gets in the way more than it should
- Can't save movies to a network drive
- Can't burn movies to a DVD for playback in a DVD player
- No 5.1 audio when connected to a home theater receiver
- Unbox client software is required to playback movies and is a very weak piece of software
- Downloads take longer than they should (may or may not be an Amazon throttling issue)
- For each of the “up-to-2 computers” on which you want to watch the video, you must download to that computer. So for two computers, count on 8 hours of downloading per movie.
- Unbox client launches at start-up with no built-in options to turn this feature off
- Regardless of whether Unbox is running, Amazon has hidden processes that are active
Conclusion
In three words: DON'T DO IT! Unbox is not ready for home theater use. While video quality is pretty good, the overall experience, especially with the invasive DRM, non-standard (and sparse) 5.1 audio, client bugginess and beta nature (although Amazon does not claim it's in beta) makes it a service we cannot recommend. The Unbox implementation of Microsoft's DRM is quite invasive on purchased movies, but it's especially in-your-face on rentals. MovieLink's experience for a similar service is much better. At these prices, Unbox is priced and positioned to compete against DVDs. At this point: DVDs 1, Amazon 0.
It appears Amazon timed the launch to trump Apple's announcement which is expected today. One can only assume the offering was rushed out before it was ready. From my first look at the Amazon service, timing may be Amazon's only trump. In an upcoming review of Apple's offering we'll compare the two. | Review Category | Score | | Features | 2 | | Performance | 4
| | Ease of Use | 4 | | Installation/Setup | 2 | | Build Quality/Reliability | 4 | | Customer Support | 6 | | Price | 6 | | Total | 3.7/10
| Grade: Not Recommended
http://www.unbox.com/
Requirements (from Unbox.com)
Minimum System Requirements
OPERATING SYSTEM: The Unbox Video player application is compatible only 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 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 compliant 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, 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. Amazon has tested the following Plays for Sure devices:
- Creative Zen Vision: M
- Creative Zen Vision
- Toshiba Gigabeat S
- Archos AV 500
- Archos AV 700
- iRiver PMC (Portable Media Center)
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