Is the Amazon Unbox Digital Movie/TV Download Service a Good Deal?

Let's cut right to the chase... is Amazon's Unbox Video service a good deal?

It is, and it isn't, depending on how you use it.

Unbox allows customers (those running Windows, at least), to either rent or purchase digital content, which is downloaded to their computer and watched on the computer, transfered to a variety of supported handheld video devices, or else (via some audio and video jacks), watched on television. There are currently a fairly decent number of movies available for purchase and rent. Purchasing a movie typically costs between $9.99 and $14.99, although some are more expensive, while renting a movie typically costs $3.99 or less.

There are also television shows available for purchase. Individual episodes generally cost $1.99, and entire seasons are available for purchase as well, with cost varying depending on the number of episodes.

How does Unbox work? First you'll need an Amazon.com account, and then you'll download the Unbox software, which acts as a downloader, player and a conduit into the store. Amazon wants to set you up with a One-Click account, so purchasing or renting a title is as simple as single-clicking, so if you see what you want you can purchase new content right from within the Unbox player.

Movie files are typically DVD quality, meaning the picture size is roughly 720 pixels across, while the height depends on whether the movie is widescreen (common) or pan-and-scan (uncommon). For those interested, the bitrate for the movie I downloaded ("Shooter," which was on sale... more on that in a moment), tended to hover around 2500 Kb/s, which means it's slightly less than a store-purchased DVD, but the more efficient WMV codec being used meant that I honestly couldn't tell the difference between the downloaded video and the DVD used for comparison.