Arstechnica discusses the possibility that Amazon will be getting into “Buy a DVD and download/stream the movie while you wait for the mailman to come.” This is funny, because I was just looking at my Netflix queue this morning and wishing that I could watch about half the movies in it right then, via download. Granted, there is a difference between renting on Netflix, and buying the movie outright on Amazon, but the “get it now and later” idea is close to how I use both iTunes video and Netflix, and the (rumored) Amazon model is a hybrid of the two that I really like.

As many of you know, I really love to download video off of iTunes, but I’ve often wondered, as I look at the MASSIVE amount video content in my iTunes folders - 1.5 Seasons of Battlestar Galactica, Season 2 of Lost and the first five episodes of Surface - how long I’d keep them, either in my iPod or my laptop. Right now I’d hazard a guess and say that within the next few months, I’ll decide which series I will purchase on DVD, and which ones I’ll delete for good (to make room for all those new downloads I haven’t thought about yet).

I use Netflix similarly – I rent DVDs (mostly TV shows on DVD) and either send them back with a “Gee, glad I didn’t get THAT” or I run out and buy the DVD shortly after I’ve returned the disc. Using Amazon’s (rumored) method won’t save me from buying something crummy, but if they (or others) could adapt to the “try and buy” method, I would be right there with them.

At the same time, the “buy and download while you wait for the mail” method gets over another hurdle I have with downloadable video – which is sometimes, its nice to have the DVD right there in your house. Until we have a fully converged media-web-home system (on which you can get the same entertainment you can get on DVDs now), I, at least, will want the option for both.