Netflix to Offer Movie Downloads 205
kev0153 writes "Over at CNN Money they are reporting on a story about Netflix offering a video on demand over the web service in '05. They are also eyeing the multibillion-dollar video game market. "We're playing it a little defensively, because if we lose the digital download market, you'll soon be hearing about the rise and fall of Netflix," said Netflix CEO Reed Hastings."
They must be... (Score:5, Funny)
They must be eyeing it with both eyes.
Re:They must be... (Score:2)
Re:They must be... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it's really refreshing to see a CEO doing more than spouting positive press for their stock holders. NetFlix isn't scared to say it like it is: "Yeah, we've got this market covered; but competition is heating up, and we need to expand or things could get rocky!" Way to go, NetFlix.
'Course, I'm a big NetFlix fan. Love seeing those red envelopes in the mail.
Re:They must be... (Score:2)
That's where I get my Final Fantasy/Metriod/Zelda/etc. fix...
Re:That's just a bug (Score:5, Funny)
They're still developing their Video-On-Demand system. That probably should read:
They are also eyeing the multibillion-dollar bufferring...bufferring... video game market.
No matter how flexible the DRM (Score:4, Informative)
Re:No matter how flexible the DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No matter how flexible the DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, I hear what you're saying, but there's a difference between voting with your wallet and a company making a product that works properly from the get-go. It doesn't make sense to me that a coporation would make something closed and spend billions of dollars defending their product from crackers, anti-trust lawsuits, and constant requirements for upgrades. The way it works today is any closed proprietary format _will_ be broken and made available to the public. Why fight it? Just create something that works for everyone and you'll save yourself a lot of hassle and dollars in the long run. And you'll look good to the hacker community and the public, to boot. Then again, I'm not a corporate vice president of legal affairs/development/marketing/etc., so I have zero badges to wear that will allow me to crow about this with any credibility.
Re:No matter how flexible the DRM (Score:2)
Sure, till all you have is "trusted hardware". Then it will be much more difficult to crack, I imagine.
Re:No matter how flexible the DRM (Score:2, Insightful)
take my XBox for example...
um, nevermind...gotta go!
Re:No matter how flexible the DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
Video-on-demand, eh? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Video-on-demand, eh? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Video-on-demand, eh? (Score:5, Interesting)
They will once they look at the numbers. Porn is one of the best selling things ever, and nobody would want to lose an opportunity that large. Except, possibly, some religious or morally incensed people, but greed should rule those out.
Re:Video-on-demand, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
They will once they look at the numbers. Porn is one of the best selling things ever, and nobody would want to lose an opportunity that large. Except, possibly, some religious or morally incensed people, but greed should rule those out.
I seriously doubt they will rent porn just because it is a big market. Blockbuster doesn't and I wouldn't categorize them as religious or morally incensed.
They are merely image concious. That is to say, they are not willing to give up the family market just to grab the extra sales in the porn market. And being new at this (movie downloads) makes them very visible and extra sensitive to their image.
Re:Video-on-demand, eh? (Score:2)
Does anyone know why this is? They have such a large selection of movies that it's hard to imagine carrying some porn movies hasn't occurred to them. So it must be a conscious choice not to carry any. This doesn't seem like a good business decision on the face of it, but they must have their reasons. What are they?
Re:Video-on-demand, eh? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Video-on-demand, eh? (Score:2, Interesting)
Hehehe... (Score:2)
(What? It was in the context of the joke.)
Re:Video-on-demand, eh? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Video-on-demand, eh? (Score:5, Funny)
Recursion? (Score:4, Funny)
They are also eyeing the multibillion-dollar video game market video game market.
Hmmm - so they are going to market video games inside video games? Wow - that's like, so cool!
Re:Recursion? (Score:2)
Hmmm - so they are going to market video games inside video games? Wow - that's like, so cool!
Those crazy a$s Sims players!
I don't know about you, (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't know about you, (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't know about you, (Score:2)
Re:I don't know about you, (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure they mean renting the actual disc, like they do for movies. I doubt that games would be downloadable, at least for the current generation of consoles.
Sony seems to be pretty interested in it as a future distribution method, so I wouldn't be surprised to see it in a couple of years. The story-driven, linear RPGs popular in Japan could work, if you are able to download the content as you go. Each night download the next few levels, and unless you run through a lot of the game in one sitting it wouldn't be a problem.
Re:I don't know about you, (Score:4, Funny)
Or the rocket-driven (but also linear) RPGs popular in Soviet Russia...
Re:I don't know about you, (Score:2)
Re:I don't know about you, (Score:2)
It wouldn't work that way. They'd send the data down as needed. I beta tested a PC game service like that a while back. It wasn't bad. I have a 3 megabit connection, though.
Re:I don't know about you, (Score:3, Informative)
Rumor has it [cough] that PS2 mod chips work very, very well. And from what I've heard [ahem], you can get a good chip + installation + shipping for about $100. Of course, this is just heresay...
Bandwidth? (Score:4, Interesting)
Cool idea, but some questions should be answered first
Re:Bandwidth? (Score:2)
Re:Bandwidth? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bandwidth? (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of us do have the notion that that is stealing, and actually do make an effort to pay for what we watch and play.
Actually I think if the music/film industry had treated people well, instead of treating everyone like a thief just because some are thieves, then there would be little need for DRM and people would play nice. (The vast majority of people are fundamentally honest).
Re:Bandwidth? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I support the RIAA or their actions, but it is important to remember that things WERE all rosy and DRM free at one time and it got abused.
Re:Bandwidth? (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps, then, you could explain Macrovision to us, in light of this "rosy" world of the past?
Or why DAT uses 48KHz, while CDs use 44.1KHz?
Or why Jack Valenti uttered his now-famous quote, "The VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman alone"?
Sorry, but that mythical rosy world simply does not,
Re:Bandwidth? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you will find that all the DRM nonsense did exist on DAT long before Napster/Kazaa. The RIAA had long signalled that they believed all customers were thieves. Look at blank "Music" CDs vs "Data" CDs, the taxes on blank tapes and attempts at other media in order to recover money from "pirating". The only reason there was no "protection" on audio CDs was because they couldn't think of a way to do it without breaking compatibility with standard players. Even that hasn't
Re:Bandwidth? (Score:3, Insightful)
if I can download it off bit torrent, why would I want to pay for it?
Because the movies on a lot of the torrent sites (when you can FIND what you are looking for) can be low quality, mislabeled, and a lot of mainstream users aren't up for looking around to download and install the right codec. And that's assuming the tracker and seeder is up long enough to download it.
A lot of the same reasons people use iTunes.
Re:Bandwidth? (Score:2, Insightful)
Download Speed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Download Speed (Score:2)
Re:Download Speed (Score:3, Insightful)
Technology improvements, actually. First there's the fact that even DSL bandwidth is too little for a real movie.
Second is the fact that the market for watching a movie on a computer screen is really, really small. People want to watch TV in their home theater, not their office. Even movies-on-laptops is, in my experience, a thing to
Re:Download Speed (Score:2)
I'm not so sure about that. There aren't any real limitations with the DSL technology as far as bandwidth is concerned. If you click here, you will see that people in other countries have 45 mbps DSL for approximately $40 US
LINK [altavista.com]
Download speeds... (Score:5, Funny)
Is there a rental timeframe? Wouldn't it suck if your download didn't finish before the period was up?
"Just 5K more to go! Just -- "
"Sorry. Your rental period for 'My Pipes Need Cleaning' has expired. Thank you and please come again."
On second thought... (Score:2)
Re:Download speeds... (Score:2, Informative)
Three at a time? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah... how are they gonna restrict you to three downloads at a time? Good luck with that, my friend! As we've seen just today, no protection scheme will ever be anywhere close to secure.
Re:Three at a time? (Score:2)
Competitor (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Competitor (Score:5, Funny)
I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Absolutely no idea at all...
*whistles*
DVD Writers (Score:5, Insightful)
Not likely to work... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not likely to work... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not likely to work... (Score:5, Insightful)
Satellite companies just do not have the bandwidth to do movies on demand like the cable companies do.
Re:Not likely to work... (Score:3, Interesting)
Their biggest advantage is that it's out today. I would assume not in all areas, but in Portland it is. I've already watched a few movies on it. Not too bad at all. They just stream the
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The same way Apple does it: Akamai. (Score:2)
Amazingly, I have found something that is faster.
Gamespot- yes, Gamespot, downloads at almost 5MB/sec. This is with the 'Gamespot Complete' membership. It's really nice when downloading a 200+MB file takes less than a minute. And I *always* get that speed from them.
Makes me wonder where the bottleneck is though- I should lo
first step in playing defensivly (Score:5, Insightful)
Case in point: Apple suprising everyone with iTMS - and than not getting a windows version out until all the other win music stores were released.
Re:first step in playing defensivly (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:first step in playing defensivly (Score:2)
Video games...VERY smart (Score:5, Informative)
In the meantime, Gamefly [gamefly.com] is an excellent video game rental service. The pricing and service are almost identical to Netflix.
Re:Video games...VERY smart (Score:2)
Re:Video games...VERY smart (Score:2)
If the movie streams to my cache can I keep it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Or will these guys have some kind of no-cache proxy in place?
I hope they do game rentals (Score:5, Funny)
Getting ready for the day when everyones dead, except me. And the power is still on. Oh yeah, and my girlfriend will be there too.
Yea for piracy. I love piracy. It feels like I'm making money!
Re:I hope they do game rentals (Score:2)
What's the point? How many of those movies are you going to watch more than once in the next year? Seems like a huge waste of time to me. If I really want a movie, I'm $15 and a 5 minute drive away. Renting the movie from Netflix, and waiting for it to arrive in the mail.. well how much are you really saving?
Maybe you're just joking, I dunno. But I can tell you that you're putting way too much energy into being a pirate.
Won't be easy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, it's great to see some innovation left in the dot-coms of the world....
Re:Won't be easy... (Score:2)
That wouldn't be such a big deal. they have to pay $20 a month for the service anyway, right? Well they have to keep paying that until they get their game back. If it cannot be returned, then Netflix should just charge them a fee to recoup the costs.
Re:Won't be easy... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Won't be easy... (Score:2)
Re:Won't be easy... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Won't be easy... (Score:2)
In the end, I don't think it's significantly different enough from their current business to be worth worrying about.
Does downloading games require a mod chip? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Does downloading games require a mod chip? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Does downloading games require a mod chip? (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a relatively simple way, well simple if Microsoft lends a hand. XBOX's have a network port. Connect that to broadband. Then, create a disc that alters things on the XBOX a bit, where the data that should be coming through the optical drive is instead pulled in from the network connection. So, in essence, the data is pulled down from the net in real time as if the disc is in the drive. There are obvious issues here, but I've seen a variant of this technique done on the PC before. It'd require broadband and a special disc.
i don't understand (Score:5, Funny)
will they be starting abm.netflix? or maybe #netflix on some dcc friendly irc network??
Greencine already does this (Score:3, Informative)
Worry about the important things first. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Worry about the important things first. (Score:2)
Are you in a rural area? I notice that the delivery address on returns is local, that's how they can offer such quick service
-Spyky
We tried VOD at Enron Broadband with Blockbuster (Score:2, Interesting)
Other services already do this (Score:3, Informative)
To be honest, I can't see movies being so much quicker to license these rights to Netflix, even if it is larger than Greencine.
CinemaNow's hard to beat. (Score:5, Interesting)
otoh, Netflix's CEO has been predicting his entry into the VOD market for the past few years, and they did trails with sample footage for most DVDs.
Competition's always beneficial to the consumer.
Great for games, wonder about quality. (Score:2, Insightful)
Legal/history question ... (Score:3, Interesting)
How did the MPAA not managed to shove similar legislation down our throats?
Has the video industry just not been successful at squashing Netflix via "senators-in-the-pocket", or are they actually embracing these rentals?
This isn't new... (Score:2, Informative)
There was also a company that was forced out of business by the MPAA so they could push their own services. I forget its name.
Then there's Movielink, also being heavily promoted on college campuses right now. I believe it was started by one of the major companies.
Of course, I can remember Yahoo! Movies trying to
It's about f**king time! (Score:2, Insightful)
DVD REVolution (Score:4, Interesting)
They deliver DVDs and games to your door in under an hour. Order your movies or games online or by phone and they'll be at your door before a pizza would.
Their trick is they have vans driving around with all of their inventory inside. Talk about bandwidth!
Re:DVD REVolution (Score:4, Funny)
Re:DVD REVolution (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, I'd say it's the past.
I know I can go and pickup a movie quicker than that, and I'm sure a LOT cheaper as well. The reasons Netflix is popular are not applicable to this service. They are not cheaper, they do not have infinite rental times, unlimited number of rentals.
Besides all that, downloading movies is almost certainly the future. Bandwidth is cheap, and it won't be long before many homes have pipes fast enough to download a 2 hour movie in le
Netflix Are SPAMMERS (Score:4, Interesting)
greencine... (Score:3, Informative)
greencine > netflix [greencine.com]
Seems like an obvious Tivo feature to me. (Score:3, Insightful)
multibillion-dollar video game market (Score:2, Interesting)
Sony is also looking to get in the downloading act: "Crucially Reeves [A Sony Big Boss] also mentioned Sony's 'ultimate goal' for PlayStation 3: 'To get into electronic broadband distribution'. By 2006, when Reeves anticipates that all of Sony's currently in-development hardware products should be available, Sony hopes users will have always available online access along with viable broadband distribution....This massive statement has huge p
Re:Netflix? (Score:5, Informative)
It's an online DVD rental system -- you pick out DVDs to rent, they mail them to you. You can keep them as long as you want, no late fees -- but you can only have three checked out at a time. $20/month, they pay for shipping both ways (USPS first class). Huge selection, lots of hard to find movies, in ~20 warehouses around the U.S.
Netflix? (yes. that's a valid question.) (Score:2)
Re:Netflix? (yes. that's a valid question.) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Netflix? (yes. that's a valid question.) (Score:2)
Re:Netflix? (yes. that's a valid question.) (Score:2)
Re:Netflix? (yes. that's a valid question.) (Score:2)
http://www.moviesforme.ca/
http://www.dvd-rent
http://www.relayrentals.com/