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May 12, 2008 8:41 AM PDT

Amazon Unbox on TiVo getting HD content

by Matthew Moskovciak

TiVo users have been able to rent and buy movies from Amazon.com's Unbox service for over a year now, but lately the service has felt a little outdated compared with competitors like Vudu and Apple TV, which offer HD downloads. Well, thanks to a comment by TiVo's VP of product marketing, Jim Denney, it seems like that's going to change soon. In an article on TV Week, Denney claims TiVo and Amazon will announce HD capabilities "in the not too distant future."

While the upgrade from SD to HD would be nice for any service, it may seem like an even larger upgrade for Unbox on TiVo users, since our initial hands-on testing with the service revealed that movies were letterboxed, instead of true anamorphic widescreen. We'd also like to see HD movies get a bump from the standard stereo soundtrack to at least a 5.1 Dolby Digital/DTS--although Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio would be even better. And while Denney's comment only referred to HD content coming to the Unbox on TiVo service, we see no reason why HD movies shouldn't be available to PC users as well.

Via Zatz Not Funny

Covering home audio and video, Matthew Moskovciak helps CNET readers find the best sights and sounds for their home theaters. E-mail Matthew or follow him on Twitter @cnetmoskovciak.
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