If you didn’t already know, IMDB is owned by Amazon, and now the company is leveraging its ownership of the movie website to market and deliver video entertainment services through IMDB Freedive.
Unlike Amazon Prime, Freedive is more like ad-supported services such as Hulu and Vudu. Directly on IMDB, you can now watch movies like Memento, True Romance, and The Last Samurai, as well as TV shows such as Quantum Leap, Fringe, and Heroes free with commercial interruptions and no monthly subscription.
When I first heard about this I thought, How cool would it be to research a title: it’s director, cast, etc., and then be able to stream video right from links on the page. You can, sort of. There is a big blue button that says “Add to Watchlist.” But this saves it to your account preferences which you can access on the the Freedive sub-directory imdb.com/freedive.
After that, Amazon (or IMDB), determines which is the best method for viewing the content in your list. For example, when I added a Seinfeld episode and clicked “Watch Now” it brought me to Amazon Video. However, when clicking on an episode of Fringe (one of the licensed titles on Freedive), a different button appeared with the message “Watch for Free: On IMDB Freedive.”
You can then sign-in with an IMDB or Amazon account. Since the service is free, an email account associated with Amazon Prime shouldn’t matter. However, you might consider which account would be best to store viewing history, wish lists, etc. Or, you might just use the same email address for both services!
IMDB Freedive will also be available on Amazon Fire TV devices, and soon more widely available through the IMDB app, although Amazon didn’t say exactly which devices, apps or platforms would support the new feature.
