It's official: Amazon Video on Demand goes HD

More than 500 HD movies and TV shows are (finally) available from Amazon, starting today, and you can watch then over select TiVo DVRs, the Roku Player, and Sony or Panasonic HDTVs.

Among the HD movies now available on Amazon: "Frost/Nixon," "Twilight," "Yes Man," "Casino Royale," "Milk," and "The Dark Knight." Also on tap: Episodes of "Californication," "The Tudors," "Fringe," "Smallville," and "Gossip Girl," for starters. The "vast majority" of titles will boast Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks, according to TiVo and Amazon.

Rental prices for HD movies will range from $3.99 to $4.99 (no HD purchases, at lest for now), while TV episodes will sell for $2.99 each.

One important note: You'll only be able to watch Amazon's HD movies on a TV (over your TiVo Series3/HD/HD XL DVR, Roku player, Sony Bravia Internet Video Link, or Panasonic Viera Cast-enabled HDTV), and not on Amazon's Web site. That said, HD TV episodes are viewable either over an HDTV or on the Web (yes, both PC and Mac are supported).

Rumors about Amazon offering HD videos have been swirling for many months now; most recently, eagle-eyed bloggers found "traces" of streaming HD Amazon videos in Google search results, while ZatzNotFunny.com found these leaked screenshots of HD menus from Amazon over TiVo DVRs. (The screenshot I've posted here are straight from TiVo.)

I haven't had a chance to try Amazon's streaming HD TV shows online, and (unfortunately) I don't have a TiVo or Roku at home for testing, so I'm relying on you for eyes-on testing. Let us know how everything looks right here.

Update: Finally had a chance to check out some test clips in HD, and wow—gorgeous. Plenty of eye-popping detail, with little or no judder or compression artifacts, or at least none that I could see. (I did my testing on a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro, using Safari; note that you'll need to have Adobe Flash 10 installed.) Now ... why can't we watch Amazon's HD movies on the Web, as well?