TGM

http://www.hitbliss.com/

OK, so it's not perfect, but it's pretty cool.

You basically watch ads, and accrue money that you can use to rent movies, or buy TV episodes. They recently added the ability to cash out and buy 1 month Pandora Plus subscriptions.

The selection isn't that great, but they have the entire Spartacus, the new Battlestar Galactica, Party Down, DaVinci's Demons, Eureka, Friday Night Lights series, Magic City and a bunch more.

They had some relatively new movies to rent too, Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained, The Lords of Salem, Scary Movie 5...

Down side: You have to download the HitBliss desktop program, and you can currently only watch your videos through that, but rumors are they are working on the ability to watch elsewhere (ie ipads, Roku's, etc).

RoyalTea

When I first saw that monthly Pandora One subscriptions were available, I assumed that it would only work within the HitBliss client.

The fact that I can take just a few minutes watching ads on my computer and get a free month of Pandora One on all my devices is awesome.

Now they need Spotify.

TGM

they seemingly partnered up with Amazon, you can now use your HitBliss earnings to rent/buy videos on Amazon Instant Video.

TheBigDave

How long does it take to earn $10 in Amazon Instant Video credit?

Is there a daily limit, or can you watch ads all day long?

Trevor

iOS support coming soon. I never use my PC, so I'll be waiting for that.

TGM

you can only accumulate $6 before they make you spend it.

There is a limit, but I think you can earn about $6 a day, although I'm not sure.

TheBigDave

Thanks for the info. About how long does it take to earn that?

TGM

You probably have to watch like 20 commercials at 30-45 seconds a piece to accumulate that. I think. I'm honestly not sure, I usually do it while watching TV with the volume down, so I haven't paid much attention.

TheBigDave

How do you redeem your earnings for Amazon Instant Video? I racked up $6 in credit. But I can't find anything about redeeming it for Amazon videos.

RoyalTea

Depends on how much information you're willing to share. Enter some demographic information and commercials are worth a little bit more. Give them your browser history and commercials are worth a lot more.

TGM

So, my bad, I guess I'm part of some beta test panel, since I've been using HitBliss for awhile. You may not have access, but it is coming, an it is pretty good.

You rent movies, or you can buy TV episodes. You will get charged tax on the "bought" TV episodes, if your state collects sales tax.

TheBigDave

I was able to get in the Amazon beta by contacting the HitBliss customer service. By adding Amazon, they've made a huge improvement to the service. The original HitBliss store had a lousy selection of titles. And I had no interest in watching movies on my computer using the Hitbliss software. Now with Amazon, they have a great selection of new release movies and current TV shows. Plus, I can watch them on my TV and mobile devices.

There are a few complaints. First, I wish you could use your credits towards buying movies. Currently, movies are only available for rental. TV episodes are owned, so I'm spending all my credit on those.

Second, and most importantly, everything is only available in SD. I don't like watching SD. So that rules out most of the store's offerings. I've been buying older Simpsons Treehouse Of Horror episodes which are SD anyways.

If I could buy movies, and there was an HD option, I'd be using the service every day.

mike1977

Columbia House (no more blu-ray enrollment)
Redbox Instant (I cancelled when it first came out because it was DVD credits and not Blu-ray)
and now Hitbliss with SD

They need to get with the times! Nothing but cheapskates for not having HD!

TGM

just a bump re: this great service. I think the Amazon affiliation is no longer in beta testing.

GatorDeb

Tested it out. Going to use to cover the Pandora sub I already had. Also rented my first movie, The Armstrong Lie. It's not by day, it's by six bucks. I accumulated six bucks, used four, accumulated 4 more, used 4, now I have two, all in the same day.

GatorDeb

They have all eight season of House, MD!!!!

Bought six episodes so far. Thinking of doing 3 episodes a day. There's 177 episodes of House. 3 episodes per fill-up. I timed it and it took me 20 minutes to fill up. I do other stuff while it runs (still next to the computer to press the button, I have yet to miss a hit, and I didn't realize right away you could just hit enter instead of having to use the mouse even though the circle tells you you can do both ). Not HD but still, House MD in SD the complete series for free.

20 minutes a day for 59 days

GatorDeb

Well, I hit a snag. Max of 4 purchases a week. Well, that sucks. I guess those 177 eps are gonna take me 45 weeks That only applies to Amazon shows/movies (max 4 per week), you can still get Hitbliss shows and movies.

Trevor

So I decided to go ahead and try this on my PC. In less than an hour of 'watching' ads while I jogged and did other things around the office, I earned enough credit to buy the third season of Sherlock in HD on Amazon. I don't do Pandora, and wish the limit of 4 purchases a week wasn't there, but this is a nice deal. Permanently owning up to $24 of Amazon content a week for no real effort at all? I'll take it as long as they offer it.

Didn't have to ask to get in on the Amazon beta, it was already there as I downloaded and installed the windows app.

TheBigDave

How did you buy HD? I thought they only offered SD versions. Is there a way to get HD movies/TV?

Trevor

Oh, maybe it wasn't HD.

Groucho

This service is the bomb, yo. It takes very little time to get up to the max balance ($6.00) and Amazon has a lot to rent. The biggest flaws are the limits and the SD-only catalog.

huskerbear

They need to partner with Ultraviolet and Vudu so we can build Vudu credit to purchase UV movies and TV and disc to digital.

MrSmearkase

/\ That would be nice, yes.

Groucho

Anybody else having problems purchasing Amazon videos? I'm getting the error message "unable to get rating code from page".

Cardsfan111

Just now tried to sign up. Looks like I've been waitlisted.