The New York Times is reporting that Amazon is scrapping its Unbox service in favor of a new online TV and movie store called Amazon Video on Demand. Unlike iTunes and Unbox, Amazon's new digital store-front will stream any of 40,000 movies and television programs to customers. According to Bill Carr, Amazon's VP for digital media, "Our goal is to create an immersive experience where people can't help but get caught up in how exciting it is to simply watch a movie right from Amazon.com with a click of the button." In this regard, the first 2 minutes of every video will begin to play when customers visit the video's product page. Movies can be purchased and downloaded to your hard drive or stored in an Amazon video library allowing you to stream the content to other (any?) Internet connected devices. Films and TV shows from "almost all the major studios and television networks" will be available for sale or rental in the US at undisclosed prices -- only Disney and its ABC subsidiary are holding out for uh, obvious reasons (Steve Jobs is Disney's largest individual shareholder).

Amazon also plans to bring the service directly to the living room through a deal with Sony (and others) which will ultimately embed store access into future Bravia TVs. For now, Amazon's VoD store will be available through Sony's $300 Bravia Internet Video Link device. The store goes beta-hot today for a limited number of "invited" US Amazon.com customers before going a live later this summer.

With a report emerging this week pegging Best Buy as the go-to location for Blu-ray Disc purchases, it stirred up some curiosity here at Engadget HQ. Personally, we prefer to snag our discs online; there's just something about receiving those corrugated boxes on our doorstep that does it for us. We're interested to see where you procure most of your own BD titles -- in a store (which one?), online (which e-tailer?) or out of the back of a white panel van? You can keep quiet if it's the latter.

Looks like all those specials are paying off for Amazon and Wal-mart, as surveys done last fall and this spring indicate they're narrowing the gap with "leading Blu-ray shopping destination" Best Buy. No nifty percentage numbers this time, but according to VideoBusiness, Amazon's own findings indicate its share of the Blu-ray retail market is 3.5 times bigger than its DVD slice. That seems to jibe with NPD's finding placing it number two, followed by Wal-mart (benefiting from enhanced Blu-ray displays and sales of its own), then Target and Blockbuster, respectively, having overtaken Circuit City in the period from fall to spring. Is there anything other than deep discounts and BOGOs that decides where you buy Blu?

It's always welcome news to us when we see an audio stalwart make the transition from audio-only to home theater; even better when they embrace the internet along the way. Word comes to us via press release that MartinLogan is now making the heart of its speaker lineup, the Design series, available on Amazon. That means that if you don't have a local dealer (including Magnolia) in your area or you just can't be bothered to leave your AV den, MartinLogan speakers are now just a mouse click away -- with Super Saver/Prime shipping, no less. We've got to admit, the logos look pretty good together in a doodle kind of way. Included in Amazon's sampling are: Purity and Source uprights; Matinee and Vignette center channels; Ticket, Presage, Voyage and Helos 100 in-walls; and Abyss and Dynamo subs. Certainly enough to fill out your speaker needs; just be sure you remember to report the (cough) sales tax (cough)! Full press release after the break.

Hardly a day goes by without some form of Blu-ray price slashing on Amazon, but it being the onset of the weekend and all, we figured we'd share the e-tailer's latest scheme to get these discs a-movin'. Rather than offering up Blu-ray titles in some sort of BOGO fashion, the outfit is now packaging three flicks together primarily based on genre and hacking "45-percent" from the price. Truth be told, the $20-per-title that this averages out to isn't the most stellar of deals, but it's not too shabby if you're particularly fond of a certain trio. Check the read link to see if any catch your eye.

We had a pretty good feeling this would go down eventually, but we certainly didn't see a confirmation (of sorts, anyway) coming this soon. Jim Denney, VP of product marketing at TiVo, has been quoted as saying that although the current version of Amazon Unbox can't process high-definition content, TiVo and Amazon will jointly announce HD capabilities "in the not too distant future." Granted, the content -- whenever it does actually arrive -- will only be accessible by "cable subscribers" with adequate bandwidth, but it's not like that's any sort of surprise. Sadly, details beyond what you've seen here were left out, but at least you can sleep soundly tonight knowing that high-def Unbox material is most certainly on the horizon.

[Via Zatz Not Funny]

Make no mistake, we're huge fans of sales. But Amazon's latest "deal" has us scratching our noggins and laughing heartily all at the same time. Touted as a "limited-time offer," the e-tailer is giving away two HD DVDs (read: free, gratis, on the house, etc.) -- all you have to do is buy two Blu-ray titles... and a $450 Samsung BD-UP5000 combo player. Truthfully, we can't figure out what Amazon's trying to pull here, or why it chose to market this special in this manner. Sure, we can see sparking up a sale in order to clear out HD DVD inventory, and we can even understand hacking the price of the soon-to-be-discontinued UP5000, but this? Check out the read link and have a chuckle, won't you?

[Thanks, John]

There's nothing like a random question on a marketing survey to get the old rumor juices flowing, but we wouldn't be at all surprised to find that Amazon is working on HD Unbox rentals, as hinted by the latest survey sent to customers. Respondents were asked to prioritize several interesting potential features, including HD downloads, instant streaming of DVDs ordered from Amazon, ad-supported free streaming, and the ability to browse your entire Unbox purchase history from a TiVo. Actually, several questions focused on the TiVo and other media streamers -- it looks like Amazon's at least considering developing the TiVo as its answer to the Apple TV and Xbox 360. Of course, if that's the case then HD downloads need to happen yesterday, since Unbox already way behind iTunes and Xbox Live Video Marketplace in that regard -- and with the possibility of Netflix coming to the 360 and PS3, it stands to fall even farther back. We'll see how this plays out -- hopefully the high-def download scene is about to blow up.

Way back when Paramount dropped Blu-ray for HD DVD, we saw something very odd happen as some titles were snatched from shelves and within a few months Paramount Blu-ray titles were going for a premium via 2nd hand services like Amazon and eBay. Now just as quickly as they disappeared about half of the 32 titles are back in stock on Amazon.com. No one really knows what the deal is, but we'd bet that these discs have been in a warehouse all along -- just in case. If this is in fact how it went down, Paramount certainly did play its cards right on this one.

No surprises here, but apparently Amazon is staying on top of the format war happenings in an attempt to clarify the issue for potential HDM customers. According to a recent blog posting on the site, Blu-ray is dubbed "the remaining high-definition disc format," and it also noted that consumers that have "been waiting to jump into high-def have a clear path to follow." According to Peter Faricy, vice president of movies and music at Amazon, the firm is now "recommending Blu-ray as the preferred digital format," and it fully expects to update its High-Def 101 page accordingly over the next few days.

[Via Blu-ray, thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Amazon, everyone's favorite place to find discounted high-definition titles of late, has pulled out (almost) all of the stops in its latest offer. A full 150 HD DVD flicks are now available at 50-percent off, and there doesn't seem to be any major limits / restrictions, either. So, what's it to you? Stocking up, or staying away?

[Thanks, MikeUF]

And here you thought $199 $179 $129 was a good deal for Microsoft's Xbox 360 HD DVD drive. Amazon is now selling it for $79.99 with free shipping and 6 free HD DVDs. Now that's what we call Wow Microsoft.

Update: Nice, you broke Amazon -- they're sold out.

[Thanks, Fantastic1_]

Just over two weeks after Amazon offered up a whole heap of Blu-ray Discs at 53-percent off, the e-tailer is catering to the red camp by bestowing upon it the same deal. Granted, this may or may not be quite as good as the BOGO offer seen late last month, but there's an awful lot of good flicks up there for below $16. Go on, HD DVD'ers, stock up without (completely) breaking the bank.

[Thanks, Michael S.]

Update: Sure enough, Amazon is running the same deal with Blu-ray flicks as well. Check it out here.

As has become quite the norm for Amazon, it seems that the trio of flicks it proudly listed as Blu-ray titles just two days back were in fact listed erroneously. A new report over at Heise -- and a quick click back over to the exact same Amazon links -- shows that the films are indeed HD DVDs. So yeah, we wouldn't take any of Amazon's listings from here on out as a sign of the format war getting even crazier, but who knows, try clicking back tomorrow and see if they're scheduled to debut on HD VMD.

[Via FormatWarCentral, thanks Blake]

In what could just as easily be an honest mistake but is causing lots of discussion among Blu-ray fans -- Amazon.co.uk has three Paramount titles available for pre-order. All three titles have a expected ship date of March 10th and all those hopeful for a single format to get behind, want to believe this is another slip by our friends at Amazon that would confirm the rumor that Paramount is using its exit clause to go Blu. We're sure if we asked Paramount it'd be denied 'til the cows come home, but even though these titles were previously available on Blu-ray, we'd still put our money on this being just like the third generation HD DVD player situation.

[Via FormatWarCentral]

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