Online Video Service Buyers Guide 2009 Discussion

By Jay Garmon

Netflix or Hulu? Amazon or iTunes? Which online video service offers the best combination of video quality, selection and price to command your loyalty for (legally) watching movies and television shows on your computer? We break it down in this buyers guide.

Read the full content of this Article: Online Video Service Buyers Guide 2009

Related Articles:

• Hulu Online Video Service Review
• iTunes 9 Video Service Review
• Amazon Video On Demand Review
• Netflix Watch Instantly Streaming Video Review

 

Great read Jay! Thanks.

So iTunes is the best, great. I am a fan of iTunes and I really like how it handles my music. Although I have never tried the video, I had heard good things about it, and this confirms it.

BTW, does this help Amazon score higher? Just got an email about it... http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000454101

 

It's kind of unfair to declare Hulu the price winner without mentioning how they keep it free -- unlike the other services mentioned, Hulu makes you sit through commercials!

Also, the system requirements on paper aren't always that accurate -- they should be tested on real-world systems. For example, my computer handles Amazon's HD video ok, but with iTunes I have to use SD because it doesn't handle the iTunes HD smoothly.

I haven't tried Netflix, but I have a couple things to mention about the others:

Amazon:
- They have HD TV shows, and SD movies... but no HD movies yet, unfortunately.
- If you don't like the Unbox playback interface, you can wait for Unbox to download it and then actually play it back in WMP11. (Although that adds yet another program to deal with in the process.)

iTunes:
- Another nice thing for some people is compatibility with iPhone, Apple TV, and newer iPods.
- A drawback is that they require their bloated iTunes program. However, this is also kind of a plus too, since you can purchase, download, and play the movie all in one program.

Anyway, I tend to agree that iTunes is the overall winner at the moment based on selection and interface, and having a reasonable selection of HD movies (even though they don't play right on my computer).

For those who have trouble playing back iTunes HD movies, you may want to check out Zune Marketplace -- which is worth mentioning only because unlike iTunes, the HD video plays back well on my computer, and unlike Amazon, it actually has some HD movies available (not just TV shows, but movies). The downsides are that it has a weird payment system (Microsoft points) and you need the Zune software (free download for Windows) to buy/rent/download the movies. Also, Zune's playback interface lacks a true full-screen mode (!), but fortunately once the movie's downloaded, you can play it back in WMP11 instead.

 

@System Requirements: in constrast to all other contenders, Hulu runs on Linux. There's even a native Hulu Desktop client for Linux. Kinda surprises me that NBR completely ignores this given the fact that many netbooks run Linux.

@Playback quality: you can still do Amazon Unbox, Amazon's picture quality is stunning then, particularly on their HD offerings.

General comment about iTunes: you have to install a bunch of bloatware to your computer to use it--your whole system is more-or-less Apple-infected after that (Apple Application Support, Apple Software Update, Bonjour, the bloated Quicktime, the bloated iTunes, etc., etc.). All others work without installing anything on your computer (apart from the obviously needed Flash or Silverlight). And even if you go for the optional local installation (Amazon Unbox, Hulu Desktop) you aren't nearly putting as much **** on your computer as with iTunes.