Yesterday, Wal-Mart made its official announcement that the megacorp is throwing its virtual hat into the ring of digital downloads, leaving the competition nervous. The retailer has launched a test version of its planned new service, which features more than 3,000 movies and television shows from 20th Century Fox, Disney, Lions Gate, MGM, MTV Networks, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Warner Brothers. The imprimatur of all these major Hollywood studios is the first such approval by any distributpr, and significantly alters the growing landscape of legal video downloading.

On the heels of this announcement is one from Amazon and TiVo, on their own efforts as of today to test-launch a system that allows users to watch videos rented or bought over the Internet directly on their televisions. Content downloaded from "Amazon Unbox on TiVo" will transfer to a customer's TiVo box from his/her home computers for playback on a television set.

Much of the current crop of illegal downloads come from programs and movies recorded on TiVo (or another DVR) and transferred to the computer for upload, so the technology is already in widespread use. This move will allow consumers to benefit from transfer in the other direction for a lower fee than an actual video or DVD purchase. The production companies associated with the new system include CBS, News Corp.'s Fox Entertainment Group, General Electric Co.-controlled Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Brothers Entertainment.

These two large companies are about to go head-to-head with their content and media. Wal-Mart is stronger out of the gate with the former, but Amazon and TiVo may win the race by providing content in a more familiar format, the long-beloved television screen.  For the time being, the winner is the dark horse candidate: the viewing public, who will have their entertainment needs met in any platform they choose, at least until the dust settles.