Even though I previously described how to copy DVD movies to an iPod in a 3 part series, I understand that some people don’t mind paying for a movie a second time if it means they only have to point and click to get what they want easily on their iPod. If you’re one of those individuals, where can you turn to get the movie you want with the press of a button? The iTunes store is the obvious answer, but is there another option?

The alternative to the Apple iTunes store — Amazon Unbox

Amazon Unbox is the online movie rental and retailer section of the popular Amazon store. Unbox claims to offer thousands of movies and television shows for sale, or for rent. With a few simple clicks you can download a movie to view on your computer or on your television provided you already own a TiVo box (not a bad option if already use TiVo). If, however, you want to purchase a movie for your iPod, the process gets a little more complex.

I really do like Amazon. If I’m looking to buy something online, I often check Amazon first. Despite honestly liking Amazon, I have to admit — they have A LOT TO LEARN when it comes to ease of use and general user interface design. There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING, intuitive about the Amazon Unbox store. To demonstrate what I mean, here is what I recently went through to download a free episode of Battlestar Galactica.

Downloading a movie from Amazon Unbox — a personal experience

The first thing to note about Amazon Unbox is that they offer several free movie downloads so you can try it out before you commit to buying a single copy of anything. For my experiment I selected the free download: “Battlestar Galactica: The Story So Far”

Start with 1-Click Purchase:

I located the episode and clicked on the Buy Episode with 1-Click button. The one click option is a great time saver but be careful whenever you press this button. If you’ve already logged into your Amazon account previously, 1-click just might purchase something you didn’t want. Click with caution — you’ve been warned.

Install the Amazon Media Player (required if you don’t have TiVo):

I didn’t have the Amazon player or a registered TiVo device so, when I clicked the button, Amazon warned me about what I’m lacking. Based on the Amazon message it looked like I’m forced to install their special player. For most of the Amazon customers, installing a customer player makes sense; however, Amazon needs to provide a download option for tech savvy users like they do in their MP3 store (more about that store at some point in the not so distant future).

The Media Player Looks Like Windows Media Player:

I downloaded a 6.5 MB file to my desktop, and double clicked the icon to install the new player. I was taken through a standard Windows application installation and from what I can tell, the Amazon Unbox player is just Windows Media Player with a slightly different interface.

First Glimpse at Details for Movies on a Portable Video Device:

When the installation completed, I was faced with an inital setup screen. During this step I entered my Amazon account information, selected a destination for movie downloads, and had a chance to also download files for my portable media player. It’s important to note that despite Amazon claims that you can download movies to a portable video player, details about this option are sparse. It wasn’t until I saw this setup screen did I finally know how I was going to get copies of the movie for my portable media player — Amazon needs some serious help with better documentation or even some online video tutorials.

Portable Media Player File Format is Limited to WMA

I clicked through the final steps of the installation and setup and my download kicked off. If I wanted to watch my download immediately, I only had to wait a few minutes. The player lets you watch a movie that’s still downloading to your computer, which is a nice feature. Unfortunately, even after I received the entire movie, the portable media file format was WMA. That’s fine if all I want to do is watch it on my computer or on a device that supports WMA — the iPod is NOT one such device.

If I want to put this movie on my iPod, I’ll need to convert the WMA file to an MPEG 4 file. And while Conversion utilities do exist, the point of this article was to find an “easy to use” alternative to the iTunes store for iPod movie downloads. Technically speaking, Amazon Unbox is an alternative to iTunes; however, it’s not a turn-key alternative. Downloaded movies need conversion for iPod viewing, the documentation is poor documentation and absent of “how-to use” tutorials, coupled those shortcomings with a unintuitive shopping experience and Amazon Unbox is an unrealistic alternative for those looking for a similar iTunes turn-key experience.

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