Amazon offering free movies and TV via IMDb.com

More and more and more streaming video! Amazon has announced that its subsidiary IMDb.com (The Internet Movie Database) is now offering for free viewing over 6,000 feature films and TV episodes. You can get an overview of what's available at http://www.imdb.com/features/video/, but you'll find even more offerings if you look for the "video" listings in the search results. (They're at the top right of the search result list.)

The Video Features page shows that there's a breadth of content available, including new TV shows, classic TV shows (from Have Gun Will Travel to Starsky and Hutch to Silver Spoons), classic movies (Some Like it Hot), independent films, and more current movies. There are also clips from shows like Saturday Night Live.

And then there's the really really new stuff. Amazon has announced that customers will be able to watch new and returning TV shows before they air on TV. Those offerings include Knight Rider (September 24), Lipstick Jungle (September 24), Chuck (September 29), Life (September 29), and 30 Rock (October 23).

Watching the videos doesn't require registration. I just navigated to the show screen and the video started automatically. 30-second ads played in front of all the videos I watched, but that wasn't a problem. What was slightly more annoying was the small ad at the bottom of the screen that popped up for a few seconds. If you're watching Opera Man clips from Saturday Night Live, this makes it hard to read the subtitles.

I found the offerings on the site both good and bad. It's fun to watch Saturday Night Live clips, but it's frustrating to see that the IMDb has over 1100 Simpsons videos -- but only 3 of them are complete episodes. Sometimes the video search results are a little misleading, as well. Have Gun Will Travel is noted in the search results as having 6 videos available, but if you look at the episode list for the series, you'll see that 39 full-length videos are available -- it looks like much of season 1 is online.

In announcing the new feature, a representative for Amazon said, "Our goal is to show our users every movie and TV show on the Internet for free on IMDb.com," so I'm sure the holes in coverage will be filled over time. Will I finally have the opportunity to watch the last season of Dynasty?