This weekend Amazon Unbox has two deals on offer. First, there is a deal on ‘Classic Flicks’ for $0.99. That deal includes six titles: The Great Escape, In Cold Blood, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Brian’s Song, Lilies of the Field, and The Miracle Worker.

And secondly there is a ‘Rent a Hit for $1.99′ deal with three titles: Jumper, Fool’s Gold, and Rambo.

I mentioned Amazon’s planned video streaming service earlier this morning in my post about YouTube on TiVo, and now I see that, coincidentally, Amazon is releasing it to “a limited number of invited Amazon.com customers” starting today, according to The New York Times.

The new streaming service will apparently be called Amazon Video on Demand, and it will be distinct from Amazon Unbox, Amazon’s purchase and rental download service. The Times reports Amazon will have 40,000 titles available for instant streaming. I don’t see the new service as a replacement for Amazon Unbox, but rather a compliment. After all, you will need an active Internet connection to stream video on the new service. Unbox allows you to download video to watch later, off-line - such as on your laptop while on a plane, or on a PMP while traveling. And it is a fairly open secret that Amazon intends to offer HD content through Unbox, and true HD content does not lend itself to streaming on today’s networks. Streaming vs. downloads vs. physical media (DVD/BD) really lay along a convenience vs. quality curve, as a generalization. Streaming is instant gratification, but the lowest quality. Downloads take longer, but will generally offer higher bit rates and hence higher quality. And physical media, in the form of DVD, offers yet higher bit rates. As well as extras, often times audio formats not found on downloads or streams (5.1 Dolby Digital or DTS), additional languages, subtitles, etc. But with the inconvenience of a wait to receive the media. And Blu-ray is at the end of the scale with the highest bit rates, full 1080p HD, often 7.1 lossless audio, etc. All of these options compliment each other and will appeal to different users, or under different circumstances to the same user. (I myself buy a number of Blu-ray discs and love the quality. I also still buy some DVDs, though less now with BD. But I also use Amazon Unbox through my TiVo to check out movies I don’t have as strong an interest in, or impulse rentals due to sales, etc.)

Currently, aside from a PC, Amazon has a deal with Sony to make the streaming content available via Sony Bravia HDTVs. Today that requires the Sony Bravia Internet Video link, which is a $300 add-on. But in the future Sony is expected to build the Internet connectivity directly into new models in the Bravia line. Amazon says they’ll pursue relationships with other TV and Internet device vendors. Which, of course, begs the obvious question - what about their current flagship CE partner, TiVo?

While TiVo isn’t mentioned in the article, I really have to believe this is in the works. TiVo releases H.264 and video streaming support, and they just happen to do so on the same day Amazon makes their streaming service available to the first users? TiVo and Amazon already have a relationship with Unbox, an apparently very successful one, so you know they had to discuss the streaming service early on. With the infrastructure in place with 9.4, TiVo could throw the switch at any time just by updating the HME application that is used for all of the broadband video options. No further software update would be required in the field. I think it is a safe bet that we’ll see Amazon Video on Demand on the Series3 & TiVo HD in the future, perhaps the near future.

Picked up via EngadgetHD.

UPDATE: I went looking around Amazon to see if there was any information on the streaming trial, and on the Amazon Unbox page there was a link in the upper right to sign up for the beta. It says space is limited, so I’d jump on it, don’t procrastinate.

And just to fully confirm that Unbox downloads are not going anywhere:

The goal of this Beta is to test our new instant streaming feature. Don’t want to wait for your video to download? Want to avoid downloading additional software? Want to watch Unbox videos on a Mac? Amazon Video On Demand is the solution to these common customer requests. Purchase or rent a video and you will have instant streaming access to your video from any PC or Mac. All of the existing Unbox functionality remains. You can continue to download your videos for offline playback on a PC or TiVo.

This time Amazon Unbox offers six films for $0.99 rental: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Anatomy Of A Murder, The Magnificent Seven, On The Waterfront, Lawman, and Birdman of Alcatraz.

Those are some great films, Dr. Strangelove is one of my all-time favorites. And while I prefer the original Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven is a great adaptation.

Due to the July 4th holiday, Amazon Unbox is starting their weekend promotions a day early. And they have a fair bit to offer this week.

First up, they have a few titles up for $.99 rental: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, West Side Story, Man of La Mancha, The Awful Truth, From Here to Eternity, and It Happened One Night.

But that’s not the only rental sale running, there is also a $1.99 July 4th special featuring 10,000 B.C., Rambo, and Untraceable.

And there’s still more - the $5.99 Summer Movie Sale is still running. This time featuring: The Pursuit of Happyness, Men in Black, Bad Boys II, The Patriot, Big Fish, Hitch, Men in Black II, Black Hawk Down, As Good As It Gets, The Karate Kid, Groundhog Day, Bad Boys, Charlie’s Angels Full Throttle, Charlie’s Angels, Can’t Hardly Wait, Donnie Brasco, In the Line of Fire, Ghostbusters, S.W.A.T., Roxanne, Sleepless In Seattle, Air Force One, 50 First Dates, Stuart Little, A Knight’s Tale, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Special Edition), Spider-Man 2,
Annie, Revenge, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Karate Kid Part II, Stir Crazy, Anger Management, Something’s Gotta Give, Ali, Spider-Man, Are We There Yet?, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Godzilla, Bewitched, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Zathura, Daddy Day Care, The End of the Affair, The Grudge, Maid in Manhattan, The Forgotten, La Bamba, Jakob the Liar, Casualties of War, And Justice For All, The Missing, The Deep End of the Ocean, Random Hearts, and Suspect.

That’s quite a line-up this week.

Ninety-nine cent rentals are back at Amazon Unbox this week. This time they’re offering Wedding Daze, A Guy Thing, Kiss the Bride, Dr. Goldfoot And The Bikini Machine, Beach Blanket Bingo, and Muscle Beach Party - each just $.99.

Wow, Dr. Goldfoot And The Bikini Machine, that’s some classic cheese right there. (And inspiration, along with the sequel Dr. Goldfoot And The Girl Bombs, for the line “Goldfoot’s machine creates another fiend so beautiful they make you kill” from the Rob Zombie song “Living Dead Girl” off Hellbilly Deluxe. Though I prefer the remix off American Made Music to Strip By.)

But that’s not all, the $5.99 Summer Movie Sale which started last week is still running, with a little title shuffling - some titles are gone, some new titles have been added. This week the lineup includes Hitch, The Pursuit of Happyness, A League Of Their Own, Men in Black, Real Genius, Bad Boys, Bad Boys II, Big Fish, Richard Pryor: Here and Now, Not Another Teen Movie, Punch-Drunk Love, Men in Black II, Mo’ Money, Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip, The New Guy, 50 First Dates, You Got Served, School Daze, Saving Silverman, Big Daddy, Bottoms Up, Stir Crazy, Beverly Hills Ninja, The End of the Affair, Stealing Harvard, High School High, and Ali.

You’d almost think Will Smith had a big movie coming out soon and they wanted to get people prepped for the release. (If you’ve been living under a rock, Will Smith has a big movie, Hancock, coming out July 4th weekend.)

And one other thing, the Amazon has an exclusive on the classic film Kiss of the Spider Woman. The DVD is only pre-order, but you can purchase it for download it now for $9.99 or a $2.99 rental.

This weekend Amazon Unbox is having a summer rental sale. They’re offering Diamond Dogs and First Sunday, both for $2.49. As well as Jerry Maguire, Groundhog Day, Ghostbusters, Men in Black, The Karate Kid, and Dogtown and Z-Boys all for $1.99 each.

There’s also a Sony Pictures Summer Movie Sale with 20 films each just $5.99 - to purchase. The sale includes: Real Genius, Richard Pryor: Here and Now, A League Of Their Own, The End of the Affair, Big Daddy, Punch-Drunk Love, Saving Silverman, 50 First Dates, School Daze, Not Another Teen Movie, Stealing Harvard, Big Fish, The New Guy, Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip, You Got Served, High School High, Stir Crazy, Beverly Hills Ninja, Mo’ Money, and Bottoms Up.

In celebration of Father’s Day, Amazon Unbox is once again offering $.99 rental deals. This week they’re offering Ronin, Walking Tall, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, and Robocop, all just $.99 each.

They are also offering a number of downloads for purchase at $5.99. Note, that’s purchase, not rental. The titles are Groundhog Day, Snatch, Memento, XXX, Bad Boys, Men in Black, Spider-Man 2, Black Hawk Down, Godzilla, Anger Management, Look Who’s Talking, Guess Who, A Knight’s Tale, Charlie’s Angels Full Throttle, Ghostbusters, Real Genius, The Legend of Zorro, Wild Things, Spider-Man, The Mask of Zorro, Are We There Yet?, Charlie’s Angels, Stir Crazy, The Mothman Prophecies, Daddy Day Care, Big Daddy, Multiplicity, and Casualties of War.

Amazon and the Tribeca Film Institute have partnered to digitize rare films, launching ReframeCollection.org. According to The Hollywood Reporter:

Launching Monday at ReframeCollection.org, the site will provide free digital copies of video and “at-cost” conversion of films to content owners, then rent or sell the digital download or DVD versions on a nonexclusive basis. Reframe will use Amazon’s DVD on Demand service for physical copies and its Unbox service for digital downloads to rent or sell.

The site is launching with 500 titles, which should expand to 1,500 over the next few months, with a goal of 10,000 within the next year. This could add some interesting rare content to Amazon Unbox, and hopefully it will be available via Amazon Unbox on TiVo.