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Tivo and Amazon Partner to Deliver TV and Movie Downloads

Users Can Download TV Shows and Movies at Home

The buzz around the internet community lately has been about Internet video, or streaming video. TiVo and Amazon have recently announced a partnership to deliver digital video downloads to users at home. The new service is being called Unbox, and will allow TiVo customers to download video content from Amazon as long as they have a digital video recorder and a broadband connection. The Tivo Unbox will be available sometime later in 2007.

Last fall, Amazon launched its online video service, Unbox. Amazon’s Unbox offers thousands of movies and television programs. Users can purchase and download videos and watch them on the Amazon Unbox video player. Video content can be viewed on a computer, or on a television that has been properly connected to a PC or hand held device via an S-video connection.

A question many users have is how long it will take to download these large video files. Amazon claims that one hour of internet video is about 1 gigabyte. Users that have a high speed internet connection of 5 Mbps can download a movie in about 1 hour. Users with a slower connection of less than 1 Mbps can download a movie in up to 5 hours.

Unbox video on demand is priced right along with their competitors, including the television and movie pricing available from Apple's iTunes Store. Television episodes are available for $1.99 and movies will cost users between $9.99 and $14.99.

There are a handful of other players in this emerging streaming video technology. Walmart has 3,000 video downloads available. Most new movies are $14.88, and television episodes are also available from the store for just $1.96. Apple makes digital films available through iTunes and range in price from $9.99 to $14.99. There are also cheaper alternatives. For a monthly rate of $7.95 MovieFlix offers unlimited access to thousands of movies. CinemaNow offers Rentals for $2.99 to $3.99, and movie purchases from $10.00 to $20.00. Movies are available for rental or purchase depending on the licenses given by filmmakers and content companies to CinemaNow.

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