Digital Home Thoughts: Amazon.com Launching Online TV and Movie Streaming Service

"Amazon announced today that it plans to launch its online store for movies and TV show rentals and purchases. Amazon also says that the films will require no downloading to watch and will be stored on a special page for the customer at the Amazon.com website. This will do two things for Amazon's service. First since the films never reach the consumer's hard drive thanks to no need for download, issues with security for the movie publisher are lessened. Second, the customer can begin watching their movie immediately without having to wait for the download to complete like you do with Apple TV rented movies from iTunes."

Amazon continues their full-press assault on iTunes with the addition of this video streaming service, and seeing some serious competition is a great thing - although it seems like Amazon.com won't have any device-side story if this only works in a browser. They do mention a partnership with Sony's Bravia Internet Video Link - but I think they'll need to include the Xbox 360, and other hardware devices, if they want to make any traction in this market.