Amazon Video on Demand

I've recently fell in love with The Office, not the one I work at, but the one on NBC every Thursday night at 9:00 PM E. Since I'm just now tuning in I wanted to catch up with some previous episodes. Buying the DVDs is costly, Season 1 costs $22.99 on Amazon.com, and only six episodes aired that season. I found a way around this, however.

Pepsi Points was my answer. I've never been a big Pepsi fan, I would choose Coke if given the option, but I never really cared which carbonated beverage was washing down my lunch. That was not until I saw the Amazon.com logo plastered on the Pepsi bottle (The amazon logo has since been removed) which piqued my interested. I decided to start buying Pepsi products from the vending machine at work and see what I could actually get with Pepsi Points (I had been collecting Coke caps, but the promotions were either a) lame, b) too expensive (read: I couldn't drink that much coke in my life) or c) drawings which I knew I could never win). I soon discovered that with 5 Pepsi Points (1 point per cap) I could download most any MP3 on the Amazon.com MP3 store (totally DRM Free by the way), or with 12 points I could download an episode of a TV show. Since then I have been continuously collecting Pepsi Caps (even to the extent of picking them up when in public) so that I could earn more music and TV shows.

The experience of the Amazon Video on Demand store (previously the Amazon Unbox store) is pretty seamless. It's not the best ever but it is better than most for what it does. First you have to download the software from Amazon.com. Then you go to Amazon's Video on Demand store and select the video(s) you want to download, choose your method of payment and to which PC you want to download them to. You can also choose to watch the videos online without downloading the software if you wish. Once the videos download to your computer you can watch them whenever you want on your computer or use a Windows Media Extender like the Xbox360 to view the videos. The videos do carry a heavy DRM lock unlike the Amazon MP3 experience. Some of the frustrating things for me about the expirience is that you can't just transfer the videos to another computer; you have to download them again (there is an option to import videos into your library, but you have to be connected to the internet because of the DRM restrictions). Another problem is that I can't watch the videos on my iPod Touch. There is a mobile transfer option and I thought that I could watch them on my Samsung a727 phone which wouldn't be optimal, but it would be an alternative. However, the videos wouldn't play on my phone for some unknown reason. Amazon does offer help on the mobile option and provides a list of Microsoft certified Play for Sure devices if you happen to have one of those.

All in all this service is great as I can watch my videos in a good resolution on my TV through the Xbox360 media extender, but I would like to be able to watch these on my iPod. I don't see that happening in the near future, though, because I can see how that would be a conflicting interest for Apple as they already offer these videos in their store.

DRM Wars

So I've been downloading music from iTunes for about two years now. I love the iTunes interface and streamlined aproach. When I buy something it's there, I don't have to import it and worry about if all my songs are there or not. Alot of people complain about the DRM (Digital Rights Management) that iTunes has to offer to keep the record industry happy. It really doesn't bother me, I don't have more than 5 computers and I only put the music on two portable devices so I'm well within my parameters there. I did run into one thing that has bugged me before and ir rared its ugly head again the other day, I can't play the DRM music on my Xbox 360 or through TVersity (AGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRR!). Not such a big deal 'cause I mainly wanted to watch podcasts on my tv, so I calmed down and realized I could handle it. Then I found out about Amazon.com MP3 downloads. Amazon is able to offer DRM free MP3s of about the same selection as the entire iTunes store, not just iTunes Plus THE WHOLE STORE! Why won't the entertainment companies let iTunes offer DRM free content? I decided I wouldn't spend money at the Amazon store and I would stay faithful to my friend iTunes. I have heard Apple express their feelings about DRM and how it is a pain for them and the user, the only reason they have DRM protection is because the recording labels make them use DRM protection or they won't let iTunes provide the content. Then I started collecting Pepsi bottle caps, which let you acrue points and buy MP3s from Amazon for 5 points per song, and downloaded a song yesterday. Amazon provides a program to download the MP3 and will automatically add it to the iTunes library. Now I have a complex, do I continue to be faithful to iTunes who have to use the limiting protection on their music or do I switch to Amazon who can offer the media without protection. It's not like I want to share music through peer to peer services, I just want to use what I've bought on all my devices. What really intrigues me is how the music labels can demand that iTunes sell their music with copy protection and then turn around to let Amazon and other services sell the music with no protection at all. Let me know what you think in the comments section for this post.