Is it Amazon Instant Video, Prime Video or a combination of them both? Those who use the e-commerce company's streaming platform have probably gotten confused over what name to call the service.
Amazon customers may have noticed that the company's streaming service has been going by a new name as of late. What might trip people up even more is that there are actually two different names to distinguish the different tiers of service.
Formerly called "Prime Instant Video," the company dropped the "Instant" back in the fall of 2015. "Amazon Instant Video," also got a similar name change to now be known as just "Amazon Video." According to an Amazon spokesperson, the decision to remove the "Instant" was just to simplify the names of these services.
Now that we know what to probably call the streaming service, let's further break down the difference between Prime Video vs. Amazon Video.
Prime Video
Prime Video comes included with the Amazon Prime membership that costs $99 per year. Those with Prime Video get access to all the platform's original content, such as series Bosch, The New Yorker Presents, The Man in The High Castle and Mozart in the Jungle. This streaming service also allows members to watch tens of thousands of other TV series and movie titlies, including The Americans, Girls and Downton Abbey, as well as movies like Interstellar, Amy, Ex Machina and more. New titles are added each month.
Users also have the ability to pay for add-ons to get even more content, including titles provided by Showtime ($8.99 per month), Starz ($8.99 per month), Acorn TV ($4.99 per month), Comedy Central Stand-Up Plus ($3.99) and more.
Amazon Video
Amazon Video provides users with a library of all paid-for content. A subset of these titles are available for free streaming for Prime members, which will be noted when the user is browsing for a title. Just like Prime Video, new TV series and movies are added to Amazon Video each month. These can either be purchased or rented for a cheaper cost.
New titles that will be released throughout March include movies like Room, The Danish Girl, Spotlight, Brooklyn and TV series like Better Call Saul and Deadliest Catch, and episodes available the day after they broadcast, like from Awkward, Legend and Raised Human.
Check out the full list of new content in March here.
This is not the first time Amazon has changed its name for its streaming service. The video platform was first called Amazon Unbox when it launched in 2006, then become Amazon Video on Demand two years later. It was then changed to Amazon Instant Video in 2011.
