Amazon.com is ready for its close-up.

Known more for books and merchandise, Amazon this week started offering movie and television downloads direct to subscribers' PCs and mobile devices. Amazon Unbox promises DVD-quality downloads of popular television shows, which can be viewed within minutes after ordering online. The company said the service delivers triple the video quality of competing commercial Internet video services by using an encoding technique that delivers content at a zippy 2,500 kilobits per second. Videos can also be ordered on one PC and shown later on another for those who like to browse selections at work and then watch the latest flick at home.