Home entertainment computer

I had a compelling, urgent need to watch the 1985 hit movie “Fletch” the other night. (Don’t ask.) No problem, I thought and headed off to fire up Amazon’s video rental service Unbox. My steel-trap memory had let slip the major plot points and pretty much everything else from the Chevy Chase classic. I’d also forgotten that I’d uninstalled Unbox. The Amazon program had installed itself in my startup folder and launched itself and wasted computer resources every time I turned on the PC.

So I reinstalled Unbox, found “Fletch” and clicked on “1-click rental.” Nothing happened. They didn’t have a 2-click option, so I clicked “1-click” again. And again. A little spinning thingee assured me that Unbox was working on my rental. In the interim, an email arrived from Amazon customer service. It said there was a problem verifying my credit card and provided a helpful link. I clicked and found the source of the problem. Instead of using my recently updated billing address — which they had — they used the address of my neice and nephew where eight years ago I’d shipped Christmas presents. The helpful link showed me the problem, but it was a dead end. There was no way for me to fix it.

I had to open another browser window, log in to Amazon, find my profile and kill out all the shipping addresses they’d clung to for no good reason. I activated the current address and went back to rent my movie. I ended up back at the screen with the useless spinning thingee. I shut down and then restarted my browser and ended up back at the screen with the useless spinning thingee. I fired off a profanity-laced email to customer support and rebooted the computer.

I didn’t start out to beat up on Amazon, although it’s been therapeutic. Unbox isn’t always that buggy. I really wanted to write about movie downloads, video on demand, now that Nintendo is rumored to be planning to expand its movie download system to North America.

Update:  1/14/09 — Nintendo and Netflix say they will offer streaming movies and TV through the Wii by this spring in an option will be available to U.S. Netflix subscribers who have a plan starting at $8.99 a month.

The concept, “press a button and rent a movie”, seems a surefire winner. But progress is so slow that you have to check the pulse every now and then to make sure it’s still alive. Cable companies, Netflix, and TiVo offer VOD services. Add in Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3  and seems like the dam is about to burst. But how many people actually use those services? Raise your hands if you’ve rented an on-demand movie. That’s what I thought. 

In the past, there were a number of road blocks. Internet connections were slow. There were few options and limited libraries available. The technology was clunky, particularly the part that delivered the movie from the PC to the TV. Most of those issues have faded. Windows Vista made it much easier to link the movie library on the PC hard drive to devices such as the Xbox 360. And you can skip that step entirely and rent movies directly from the 360 or PS3. 

If Nintendo does in fact join the fray, it could be a sign that the technology is going mainstream. Microsoft and Sony have deep pockets and both companies invest in areas where they expect growth, i.e. they buy  market share. Nintendo doesn’t give anything away. Microsoft and Sony lose money on their video game hardware systems in hopes of making it back on the sales of games. Nintendo makes money on the sales of its hardware and on the games. It’s a frugal company.

Nintendo was slow to embrace online gaming, but jumped in when the demand was strong. If they launch a download service it’s a pretty sure sign they have a briefcase full of market research saying it’s time. Nintendo’s Wii doesn’t support high definition so it would be interesting to see if that becomes a factor. Still, I watched “Fletch” at DVD quality. It looked pretty good on the big screen. I never did get a response from Amazon. I feel bad that I lost my temper and pulled out the truck driver vocabulary. But if the system’s broken and they can’t fix it, they aught to at least say they’re sorry.

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