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Leaked Screenshots Show Netflix Downloads
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Tue Jul 12, 2005 08:46 AM
from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.
from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.
Mike1024 writes "US DVDs-by-post company Netflix appears to be planning a service that will let users download movies over the internet. Hackingnetflix.com has some accidentally-revealed screenshots, and the Netflix jobs page includes a product manager position, saying "The Electronic Delivery Service (EDS) will augment Netflix's current DVD delivery model with high quality movies delivered to consumers' home TVs through the Internet, on a subscription basis". Apple's iTunes demonstrated many people are willing to live with some DRM and hardware/vendor lock-in."
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Netflix Now Offers Instant Online Movie Streaming 247 comments
An anonymous reader writes "If you're the owner of a video rental store, it may be time to start thinking about getting into a different business, according to ZDNet. Netflix, the online movie rental service, is offering a new feature that allows its subscribers to instantly view movies and TV shows on their PC. From the article: 'Following a one-time, under-60-second installation of a simple browser applet, most subscribers' movie selections will begin playing in their Web browser in as little as 10 to 15 seconds. Movies can be paused and a position bar gives viewers the ability to immediately jump to any point in the movie. In all, the instant watching feature requires only Internet connectivity with a minimum of one megabit per second of bandwidth.' These movies are in addition to the standard DVDs you can have at home, it should be pointed out. You can see a demonstration of the service at the Hacking Netflix blog." Only a small percentage of customers have it available at the moment, but they hope to roll it out to everyone within six months.
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Goodluck... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully not overzealous (Score:5, Interesting)
What is interesting is that they are claiming internet downloads to be watched on TV - which is quite different than internet downloads to be watched on a computer.
Parent
Not necessarily (Score:4, Informative)
The most recent effort I saw for this was a service where you could download a movie file for a fee but could only play it within 30 days and once played it would only remain playable for like 24 hours. That's problematic. In this case though, I should think the downloads would be consistent with the NetFlix style of movie watching where you can have so many movies available at a time but for an unlimited time. If that's the case it will be far more viable.
My ideal would be if I could take a netflix downloaded rental and play it on my TiVo. If I have to hook up a computer to my TV, it's a bit more of a hassle. I haven't been a NetFlix member for a while now because I got tired of discs piling up that I never got around to watching, but if I can download a movie in a few hours I may resubscribe.
Parent
Re:Goodluck... (Score:4, Funny)
Uuh, last I checked, the blockbuster "human" you talk to after hours has a slot for entering your credit card, and another, larger one for spitting out VHS tapes or DVDs.
As for real humans behind the counter during working hours, well, if you like talking to pimply teenagers...
Parent
Re:Goodluck... (Score:3, Funny)
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\--> Life happens here.
Re:Goodluck... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Goodluck... (Score:5, Insightful)
There do still exist people in North America for whom the drive to a decent, well-stocked video store is much, much more than 5 minutes...and many of them do have access to broadband. Entire towns full of such people exist, all across the midwest and mountain west.
Not everybody lives in metro areas...even small metro areas.
Parent
Re:Goodluck... (Score:4, Informative)
Even in more metropolitan areas it's often hard to find smaller run films. Most people I know resort to buying everything because there is just no other way to rent them.
(There's nothing like going into Blockbuster, asking for Brazil, and being directed to the travel section.)
Parent
Re:Goodluck... (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to have terrible times in a video store if I didn't know what I wanted to see before I went in. I would start browsing for something interesting, fail, keep browsing and browsing and browsing -- after a while nothing looks good at all. An hour later I'd leave with something picked out of frustration rather than desire. Netflix solved that problem for me -- I'll just load up my queue every now and then. It doesn't fix the problem
Re:Like Blockbuster (Score:3, Informative)
If the movie didn't come out in the last year, they probably don't have it. This is odd, since about ten years ago they used to have just about everything.
Ten years ago, they didn't have to try to stock all thier movies in two different formats. I was assistant manager of a store while they went through this transition, and trust me, hard decisions are made. Generally, the only movies we'd get rid of were either t
Re:Goodluck... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Goodluck... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Goodluck... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even Blockbuster with its "Guaranteed In-store" policy is occasionally out of a movie I'd like to see. A downloaded version won't have the problem of being "out". Plus your selection on downloaded movies will be much greater.
At the end of the day, this is about the same thing as pay-per-view on demand, only with a much wider selection, and possibly a more consumer friendly pricing model.
Parent
Wow. (Score:4, Funny)
Seriously. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Wow. (Score:2)
I like the part which says "By clicking the Save button, you acknowledge that you have read and agree to the Terms of Use". It's quite cool since that button doesn't even appear in the image
Re:Wow. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
anyone surprised? (Score:5, Informative)
That's a Lot Of Bits (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if consumers will be happy waiting for hours while their movie is delivered? Especially if the Blockbuster is just around the corner. Of course, it beats going out, but at what price? Something about the business model just doesn't add up to me.
Night Of The Living Parrots [whattofix.com]
Re:That's a Lot Of Bits (Score:5, Insightful)
And no, I don't use Netflix because I'm lazy (it's really more of a hassle than going to Blockbuster). I use Netflix because they have a HUGE selection of movies. Their buisness model provides for a much larger selection of movies than a brick and morter store. And going to a "movies on demand" format can only help to increase their selection, it sounds great to me (since I don't tend to watch the normal summer blockbuster style movies and instead watch more obscure stuff)..
Parent
Re:That's a Lot Of Bits (Score:5, Interesting)
I've noticed that different Blockbusters will stock different titles based upon the neighborhood they're in. In my general area, there are three Blockbusters, one in each socioeconomic area: one in the upper class area, one in the middle class area and one in the lower class area. Having been to all three, it was very evident to me that the quality of selections slides downhill as you go down the economic ladder.
The "good" store has tons and tons of indie films, as well as all the popular and standard catalog titles. Large foreign, special interest and anime sections. Virtually all titles are DVD and widescreen-only. Only a small handful of VHS titles for much older and obscure films.
The "middle" store has a smaller selection of indie films. There are some foreign titles intermingled among the catalog stuff by genre (how it really should be, IMO). There is a greater emphasis on new release, pop culture titles and there are both widescreen (16:9) and full screen (4:3) DVDs. Most titles are on DVD only, but there is a visible amount of stuff on VHS still.
The "bottom" store has a significant focus on new release pop titles, with very little in the way of independent films. Good luck finding foreign films, regardless of quality or genre. Most of the older catalog titles are VHS, whereas the same titles are on DVD at the better stores.
The question is, does Blockbuster cater to the demands of the neighborhood they're in, or do they simply follow socioeconomic demographics (ie stereotypes) when they stock a store with videos?
BTW, the "middle" store recently shut its doors for good, which signals to me the widening gap between rich and poor in this country, but that's another discussion
Parent
Re:That's a Lot Of Bits (Score:3, Insightful)
If, however, there was an option to stream movies using WMP9's last codecs or some Divx technology, something really high, like a 1Mb/s stream that looked good in a box, and that would start
Re:That's a Lot Of Bits (Score:5, Informative)
The average download speed I'm seeing on residential cable is now 6megabit. google says:
(4 gigabytes) / (6 (megabit / second)) = 1.51703704 hours
Or, roughly a little longer than it takes to watch it. Buffer for 30 minutes or so and you could stream the rest.
With FIOS and other closer to true broadband internet connections becoming much more common, it makes even more sense(FIOS's common package is 15/2):
(4 gigabytes) / (15 (megabit / second)) = 36.4088889 minutes
Most good codecs can squeeze a movie down to 1.4 gigs or so, so downloading is entirely an option. Streaming VOD as yous uggest would work just as well, but theres no reason you couldnt keep a copy.
Parent
Re:That's a Lot Of Bits (Score:5, Interesting)
Besides, basic broadband packages in the UK usually have monthly download limits in the ~3Gb range. So it's not the 24-hour wait for the download, it's the 30-day wait until your ISP will let you have the next one.
Parent
Re:That's a Lot Of Bits (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That's a Lot Of Bits (Score:3, Informative)
I unsubscribed because they didn't have anything that I wanted to watch...but it was close to acceptable as far as d/l speed goes.
Re:That's a Lot Of Bits (Score:2, Insightful)
Funny, Netflix seems to doing just fine with the "be happy waiting a few days" business model. Why do you think a few hours is a worse one?
Re:That's a Lot Of Bits (Score:5, Informative)
I use Netflix, and the thing is they send you more than one movie at a time (depending on your subscription). I can set up the list of movies I want to watch, and I almost always have one on hand when I want to watch something. The other great thing is no more wandering around a movie store looking for something to catch my eye. Currently I've got over 100 movies in my queue - I'll probably never see them all.
I imagine any kind of download service will be the same way - I can download multiple movies, so I always have something available. After I delete the last movie I watched the next one in my queue will be downloaded. Probably a lot like their current service, just faster.
Parent
Re:That's a Lot Of Bits (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think there's a problem with bandwidth. What does your computer do all day with the bandwidth? Nothing. Most everyone has plenty of bandwidth to spare.
As another poster mentioned, Netflix is in cahoots with Tivo. As such, I'd expect TV and movie delivery over the 'net. I'm intrigued to see how they'll price it out. I'm not sure how much I'd be willing to pay to rent a show or movie via this mechanism. I would, however, be interested in purchasing movies and TV shows.O/T Addendum: it just occurred to me that the Xscale processor would be more than able to handle video playback on a PSP-like device. Could this be further impetus for Apple's IBM -> Intel switch? i.e. a forth coming "Apple PSP", if you will, with ensuing iTMS service for movies/TV/games?
Parent
Re:That's a Lot Of Bits (Score:5, Insightful)
I think your ISP may disagree when half their customers start saturating their pipes 24 hours a day so that they can watch a new movie each night.
Parent
Re:That's a Lot Of Bits (Score:5, Interesting)
The sweet spot will likely be right around 1.5Mbps broadband and under 1GB movie size. Delivery would take less time than watching the movie, and so you order the movie, let it buffer for 10-15 minutes while you pop popcorn, etc, then start streaming the movie.
Delivery isn't a concern as long as the bit rate of the movie is about half your download rate, and a 300Kbps bit rate is bearable, a 768Kbps stream is about what you expect for ok cable TV.
While they won't be delivering at great quality, they will be getting consumers by the ability to get content on demand, for low cost, with a huge selection. Even home theater buffs will use the service simply because it's more convenient than waiting for the disc in the mail or leaving the house to pick it up - especially if the local video store is out of copies. Further, it'll probably be similar to the current system, but limited somewhat since the mailing delay is not built in. Pay $17.99/mo to get 12 movies per month (about 3/week). You can only have up to three movies on your player at a time, and can watch them at any time until you fill the slot with another movie.
What would be really nice is if one could select the quality and trade off downlaod time for quality, as well as queuing up movies so they are available on the player at the time of release (new movies are released on tuesday - download starts at high quality monday afternoon and unlocks at midnight).
And if they get large enough to push at the movie studios they may even be able to get movies before video store release dates, and possibly simultaneous with theater release. But these are very unlikely, due to the huge video store market.
But the biggest change for NetFlix will be that they can (if they work out licensing correctly) get around the limitation of their current list system. Right now you won't necessarily get the movies you want in the order you prioritized them. With downloads there's no limit - you can get the movie you want, when you want it.
-Adam
Parent
Re:That's a Lot Of Bits (Score:3, Interesting)
Back to the topic, if Netflix did this, pretty much as you described, I'd actually stay with them. I joined up with them when I got four months free as an xmas gift last year. I've been enjoying working through a list of movies I've wanted to see, but once that's done I plan to cancel; I'm not a big movie watcher and hardly rented more than 3-4 movies a year before Netflix. I watch more with Netflix, but because of the slight delay, I find that upon receipt of a new disc I'm usu
very realistic (Score:4, Insightful)
If Netflix and TiVO work this out correctly, this is going to jam a sharp stick in the eye of pay-per-view AND Blockbuster. It may not seem convenient to you at a quick glance, but I'm guessing you haven't re-organized your TV usage through a Tivo or Netflix subscription. I'm not criticizing you, but pointing out that this makes sense to people who have.
Sure, downloading a movie is annoying to satisfy an immediate whim craving for a film. That's where the local video store cannot be beat. The TiVO-Netflix partnership trounces the local video store in new releases, however. Blockbuster may carry 100 copies of Batman when it's eventually released on DVD and make a big promise about availability. But Blockbuster doesn't do this for the smaller movies that you and every other film nerd in your neighborhood want to see. It'll stock two copies that'll be perpetually checked out.
Online Netflix means that you'll be able to create wish lists prior to the release of movies on DVD so that you'll be assured of getting them the day of their release. When you turn on your TiVO, you'll be greeted with a list of movies that have already downloaded, so it's not some deal where you have to actively select an online movie and wait for it to be transmitted. Besides, with Fiber-to-the-home looming in the future as well as IP-over-electric lines, our bandwidth future will speed up the download process for that scenario.
Seth
Parent
Re:That's a Lot Of Bits (Score:3, Interesting)
You should probably find a better video rental store. Our local stores (NOT a nationwide chain) do a *great* job keeping their DVD's in good shape, and giving refunds when any of it is fucked up. So, I don't know how big of a problem it is, or how difficult it is for a store to work around, but we have a local chain that handles it just fine.
Being cracked (Score:2)
Unintentinal "publishing" ala Harry Potter? (Score:3, Interesting)
How is the unintentional "leaking" of information via a website any different? Can Netflix say they haven't "published" anything yet, and then have the DOJ beat you down for Copyright violations?
Finally (Score:2)
DRM thoughts (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:DRM thoughts (Score:4, Insightful)
DRM isn't something that a lot of consumers care about too much. Interesting as a lot of slashdotters seem to feel the opposite.
DRM also isn't something most people understand at all, unlike most slashdotters. When someone tries to put a song they bought from the itunes music store onto their Sony brand mp3 player and can't get it to work, 9 times out of 10 they will blame the sony player. When a song bought from Napster 2 can't be transferred to an ipod, customers often blame the ipod. They don't understand that the behavior is intentional and if you explain to them that it is most people think it should illegal. Once someone understands DRM they dislike it, but very few people ever get to that point because it is a hard concept to grasp and as most americans know... thinking is hard.
Parent
Well, yeah. (Score:5, Insightful)
People don't mind this as long as the DRM allows the consumer to do what they want with the media. As long as I can listen to my music when and where I want it's no problem. When the DRM is used to limit where and when I use what I purchased, that's when people get upset.
It will be interesting if netflix learned this. If I pay a fee and can only watch the movies when, where, and on what netflix decides, they won't get my money. We'll see.
Re:Well, yeah. (Score:3, Insightful)
What vendor lock-in? People are willing to put up with Itune's DRM because it's simple to "break" (merely convert it to another format, it's something even I would be able to do, and I know very little about computers), therefore there is no vendor lock-in.
Unless Netflix's DRM is as simple, I doubt very much it will take off as Itunes has (even if it is as simple to break, I still doubt it will take o
Re:Well, yeah. (Score:5, Insightful)
I see these sorts of comments on
Parent
CSS and Macrovision DRM (Score:2, Insightful)
They won't allow the viewing public to use the 1080i resolution unless they can lock in down as much as they can. However ethically repugnant and offensive it may be to someone informed.
Because its convienent, becausee its easy.
pretty cool (Score:2)
ideally i'd like to get movies through itunes, pay something reasonable like $4.99 for _just_ the movie no special stuff. IMO that would be as good a deal as the
Re:pretty cool (Score:3, Interesting)
ideally i'd like to get movies through itunes, pay something reasonable like $4.99 for _just_ the movie no special stuff. IMO that would be as good a deal as the .99 per song thing.
So you think it is OK to pay $4.99 to download a 130 minute movie that you can then watch as often as you want? Weird.
I would expect a different pricing model, similar to the iTMS "books-on-tape", where the cost appears to be a function of the length of the book.
Greencine doing this already? (Score:3, Interesting)
"IF YOU OWNED A DivX® Certified DVD PLAYER, YOU COULD HAVE WATCHED THIS MOVIE YESTERDAY!
"Download, burn, and enjoy GreenCine movies in hours with DivX VOD.
"FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT VOD.DIVX.COM/HOW [divx.com]"
Of course, when I try to go to that URL, it times out, so who knows?
The Economist also has info about this (Score:3, Informative)
I hope it is not exclusive to Tivo. (Score:3, Interesting)
I reluctantly dropped Tivo a month ago to switch to the cable company's offering. My new DVR can record two HDTV channels simultaneously, while the Tivo hadn't seen significant updates since 2001. (Besides their HEAVILY DRMed copy to PC. You need to enter in a password everytime you watch a show.)
Hopefully someone will provide an inexpensive way to show these movies. Perhaps a small set-top device provided by netflix in exchange for a service contract that can download a movie or two for later viewing.
Movielink? (Score:3, Informative)
Could be good for Netflix customers... (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I want to be able to download certain shows and get the rest in standard DVD format. For example, if I rent an MST3K show then I don't care where I watch it - computer or TV - chances are good that I will only watch it once. A movie like Million Dollar Baby I want to watch on the large screen TV with the whole audio setup.
If they let me specify what shows to download vs. mailed DVDs then I will be very happy with the service. Otherwise I'll just stick to mailed DVDs that I can watch wherever I want.