Amazon may very well be presenting us with the future of entertainment media with its new “Buy Now, Watch Now” promotion.

Many experts are saying that the age of physical media is quickly coming to an end and that downloaded/streaming media will be the next big thing.  What if you could have the best of both worlds at the same time?

The Amazon “Buy Now, Watch Now” promotion is a program that included approximately 300 different titles on DVD that will allow you to download a digital version of the film to your PC or TiVo for instant viewing.  This allows you to have instant gratification, or if you are buying a DVD as a gift, hey, you get a copy of the movie also.

Before one of you smart people goes, “Well, I’ll just return the DVD and keep the digital copy for free!” Uh-uh.  Amazon anticipated that and you will be charged for a Video on Demand movie, but refunded for the DVD or Blu-ray copy.

This is apparently a limited time test, and the selection of movies is small, but you can just about guarantee that this is a test for something else down the road.  How big this might get, who knows, but it could be a heck of a way to help the lagging DVD sales the entertainment industry has been seeing as of late.

Seeing as the movies don’t cost anything extra, what’s the harm in giving it a try?