All I can say is, duh! Finally, Amazon and Tivo give us what they should have offered when they first unveiled Amazon Unbox on TiVo: The ability to rent or purchase shows directly from your Tivo rather than having to go to your computer.

In order to activate this, you need to provide a five digit PIN at Amazon.com which you’ll need to enter when you order Unbox video from your Tivo. I haven’t tried this yet,

I did try the old Unbox on Tivo and found it to be working well. But I haven’t rented another movie since I first tried out the service 2 months ago. I’ve chosen NetFlix and On-Demand video from Comcast, my cable provider, when I want to watch movies.

I think my biggest problem with Unbox on Tivo is not remembering it exists. It’s not compelling on its own and  it’s not the first thing I think of when I sit down with my Tivo.

The other problem is content–it’s really hard to find stuff you want to watch. What about the long tail content theory? When will Unbox have more content available?

Because I’m an avid watcher of 24, I didn’t see the entire first season of Heroes. So I tried searching for it on Amazon Unbox and had trouble finding anything useful in the search results. First, it was confusing because I didn’t realize I had to select Unbox Video Downloads in the search drop down. So my search found everything with the word “Heroes” in it. Not very useful.

Next, I typed in “Heroes Unbox” in the search box and got closer. I found TV shows like Spiderman and Greatest American Hero. Oh well. Apparently I can’t get Heroes via Unbox.  Performing a broader search, I discovered that season 1 of Heroes won’t be out on DVD until August 28th.

But why can’t NBC offer it online first? I tried watching the first episode of Heroes on NBC.com, but I really don’t have the patience to go there and watch it while it streams to my computer. Plus I’d rather watch it on my TV.

Unbox seems convenient but it’s pretty complicated to find Unbox content on Tivo. You need to go to TiVo Central then select “Find Programs” and “Download TV & Movies” before you get to the “Amazon Unbox” option. Overall, I found that Unbox on Tivo seems like it’s crudely bandaged into the Tivo interface rather than eloquently integrated.

Maybe they should offer some kind of subscription service, where I can download certain genres, all new releases or movies with certain artists. Having shows ready to watch and appearing in my Now Playing folder, for example, would definitely motivate me to try it out. What do you think?