Amazon has unboxed its video download service, Unbox. Movies are available from Warner Bros., NBC Universal, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, and others. The movies are supposed to cost $7.99 to $14.99 to buy and $3.99 to rent. Television shows are available as well, for $1.99 per episode . The service requires a piece of software and will only work on Windows. Portability is limited to players using Windows Media Player and DVDs played only on the computer that originally received the movie download.

The Unbox Video Service will allow consumers to both rent or buy digital videos including movies, TV shows, sports events, which will then be transferred to their computers.� In the case of buying, they will be able to keep the videos. In the case of renting, the videos will expire after a certain amount of time. You must download the videos within 24 hours of purchasing them.� It is believed that the software will automatically delete expired movies. Also it will be interesting to see if Amazon sets the trend for online movie rental distribution. Its already a crowded market . I am pretty sure that Netflix and Blockbuster will be watching this new development very closely.