4. Amazon Unbox Video Downloads

http://www.amazon.com

(In the upper-left section of the Amazon home page, click Unbox Video Downloads)

Selection: Approximately 2000 titles for purchase and 650 titles for rent

Is there anything Amazon can't sell? Not if you can navigate the incredibly long and cluttered home page. It's still manageable, providing you with options on the left to browse by rent or purchase, genre, studio and TV station. A countless number of movie titles populate the center of the page, while top-10 lists continue down the right-hand side. Incredibly detailed movie info is available when you click on a title, including starring actors/actresses, a synopsis, ratings and file size details. Trailers and TV commercials are also available for some movies. These outline major plot points for those unfamiliar with a particular title.

This page is way too long and cluttered, definitely a negative for Amazon Unbox. Click on the image for a larger version.

The selection of movies is good with many major movie studios offering deals. The most impressive, however, is the selection of TV programs that are offered. There are many TV channels listed on the side of the page. Just click on one and you'll see a list of all the popular TV shows the channel offers. For most TV shows you'll be offered an opportunity to download the past few seasons of shows, but if the show has been running for a while, you won't be able to download them all. Sorry for all of you CSI fans out there.

Occasionally you'll only find selected episodes from a given series. I conducted a search for Mythbusters episodes from the Discovery Channel, but only found a handful of shows from the first season. Why they don't have the rest I don't know. Other station offerings have this flaw as well.

One thing to keep in mind is that once you register your information with Amazon, you can't pay for a movie until you enable Amazon's "One Click" payment function by going into your account preferences and specifically turning it on.

The cluttered look of the site is the only thing I'd like to see changed. Movies don't run more than $15 and TV episodes are $2 a piece.