Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Amazon to Compete With Netflix?

Word is that Amazon is planning to offer a subscription streaming service which will compete with Netflix and other providers.

Amazon currently offers streaming with a rental fee charged for each individual movie or program.

The thing that really caught my attention is that Amazon plans to include the streaming subscription as part of its $79-a-year Amazon Prime membership. A year of two-day shipping and access to streaming all for one price?!

It will be interesting to see what sorts of film libraries Amazon is able to obtain for its streaming service.

Incidentally, I've mentioned a couple of times that we've been streaming from Netflix using a Roku which was a family Christmas present. Glenn Reynolds rounds up a few Roku reviews today at Instapundit.

We've been extremely happy with the Roku. One of the things we like is that the Roku box is very easily portable, and we move it around to different TV sets in the house as circumstances arise. My kids also recently began using it to listen to Pandora. The picture quality of movies streamed from Netflix is outstanding. This was a terrific, relatively affordable, problem-free purchase which is being enjoyed by everyone in our family. Thumbs up.

February 22 Update: Amazon has launched its new streaming service today.

4 Comments:

Blogger Browniesmoke said...

Hmmmmm......wouldn't it be lovely if you get the free Amazon streaming with the free Amazon Student prime??

4:03 PM  
Blogger Laura said...

Now there's a nice thought! :) I wonder...

Best wishes,
Laura

4:32 PM  
Blogger Carrie said...

The USB port on the Roku is quite handy. I started ripping DVDs to a video file, download that file to a USB drive, then plug into Roku and watch the movie sans DVD player. Helps if you have multiple TVs around the house but only one DVD player (or don't want to unconnect it).

5:10 PM  
Blogger Laura said...

Very interesting tip, Carrie! Thanks much.

Best wishes,
Laura

5:19 PM  

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