Amazon.com has opened up the second round of the beta phase for its unbox instand video streaming service called “watch now”. The unbox service enables you to rent and buy movies and TV shows from amazon through a download to your PC without the need to get the DVD shipped to you, or going to a DVD rental store. The amazon-unbox watch now feature is an additional way from amazon-unbox to make the service more attractive, allowing you to start watching instantly (the video gets streamed to your computer). You will need at least a 0.5Mbps DSL (down stream) connection to be able to use the service.
As of this morning they are still alowing new sign ups, but space is limited. Just go to the Amazon.com unbox page and on the upper, right hand side you’ll find the link (picture to the left) to sign up for the test.
I’ll be testing the service and will post an update on my findings.I am very curious to see how it will work on PC AND (!) Mac, as it was PC, Tivo, Xbox only before. You need the latest Flash version (v9) for your computer to be able to use the new watch now feature. The good news is that you also be able to continue to download movies (e.g. after buying them, not only renting them for a day…) and store them locally on your harddrive (this remains a PC & Tivo only feature).
Check out the new amazon unbox service and watch now
Have you been using the Amazon unbox service before, in the incarnation of a video download service?