Posts Tagged ‘video’

Amazon launches video streaming service

Thursday, July 17th, 2008

Amazon will soon be launching their new video streaming service named ‘Amazon Video on Demand’ (VOD). The service allows Amazon customers to browse and stream Movies and TV shows directly in their browsers, very similar to Netflix’s ‘Instant Queue’.

The Amazon VOD service aims to essentially upgrade the existing Unbox service, which requires painful download times – to instant streaming. Rentals must be streamed, whereas purchases are stored in your Amazon account, and can be downloaded.

What gives Amazon VOD the edge over other services such as Netflix isntant Queue is that VOD is cross-platform and cross-browser compatible. The only requirement is that the user have Adobe Flash 9.

This service is currently in Beta, and is no longer accepting testers.

YouTube now on TiVo

Thursday, July 17th, 2008

TiVo users can stream the Internet’s viral classics straight from their home TVs. Part of TiVo’s major 9.4 summer update, H.264 (type of video compression) YouTube videos will be playable today on Series 3 and HD TiVo boxes. Series 2 boxes get the update but will not be able to play YouTube videos.

Currently YouTube users cannot log in to their accounts on TiVo, but a small update in 2 months will fix this.