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Blu-ray booster Amazon adding HD downloads
March 24, 2009

Looks like Amazon.com is about to add HD movie and TV downloads to its Video On Demand service, following last week's move by Apple iTunes.

Several blogs found screen shots that show the company is testing HD TV and movie downloads through TiVo players. NewTeeVee found some  shots on Amazon.com offering HD TV episodes for $2.99, the same price iTunes charges. iTunes has offered HD TV downloads for awhile, but added HD movie sales last week. Vudu also sells HD downloads through its set-tops.

An Amazon.com spokeswoman wouldn’t comment on when the company will begin offering HD downloads, saying only “we said many months ago that we intend to bring HD titles to our catalogue in 2009 but we have no further details to announce at this time.”

Apple and Vudu have positioned HD downloads as a competitor to Blu-ray - my colleague Paul Sweeting speculates Apple may be planning to skip adding Blu-ray drives to its computers altogether. 

But Amazon has been one of the more aggressive Blu-ray retailers out there and has done well with it. Last year, their Blu-ray market share was 3 1/2 times bigger than their DVD market share, according to studio sources. It'll be interesting to see whether they position and market their HD downloads alongside Blu-ray listings and how those downloads do vs. Blu-ray when they compete side-by-side.

Not that Amazon's going to tell us or anything.

Posted by Jennifer Netherby on March 24, 2009 | Comments (0)