Uproar Over Netflix's New Instant Viewer 575
almechist writes "Many Netflix customers are up in arms over the new instant-watch player powered by Microsoft's Silverlight. The official Netflix blog is full of complaints from users who decry not only the new player's quality but also the way it's being distributed, with many claiming they were deceived into downloading it. Once you opt for the new player, the old Windows Media based player won't function, not on any computer associated with the account. The new player is supposedly still beta, but NF members are strongly encouraged (some say tricked) by NF into the so-called 'upgrade,' which is permanent — there is no way to opt out. The marked decrease in video quality seen by those who have switched is perhaps not surprising, since the old player could utilize bit streams up to twice as fast as the new one, but this information is nowhere given out by NF. So far NF has been answering all complaints with variations on 'tough luck pal, you're stuck with it,' but many customers are so disgusted they're ready to cancel their NF membership. This could be a public relations disaster in the making for Netflix."
Frog, pot, increased heat (Score:5, Insightful)
so just quit (Score:5, Insightful)
Viewer Quality (Score:5, Insightful)
I was one of the early adopters. Within a week of the release of NetFlix streaming on the XBox, my PC feed became useless. It would keep stopping to buffer, and eventually stop indefinitely. When I called NetFlix to complain, they suggested I try the Silverlight player. The quality was roughly on par with YouTube, but the buffering problems went away, so I went with it.
I'm wondering if the problem is not so much poor software quality as it is a bottleneck in the feed itself. Perhaps the servers can't take the load, or perhaps they simply don't have enough well-placed bandwidth. Their instant viewing subscriber base has been climbing tremendously.
Re:Uninstall Reinstall? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I see comments in the thread linked to... (Score:3, Insightful)
it's also, if you notice, not exactly a NEW problem.
And if you look deeper, you'll see that the quality has been increased quite a bit over the past few months.
add in that the compression used in the new streams is much better than the old one, allowing for better quality over lower bandwidth.
but then, why use facts at all.
why do i feel that this is more of a post by some disgruntled linux user who "can't get teh fee service that i pay nothing extra for to work on my selected OS" than any real news....
oh wait, it's because that's what this is and it's on /. for a reason.
fuck off freetard.
Let them fry! (Score:1, Insightful)
This isn't the first time Netflix has canned a popular feature in favor of an inferior solution for unfathomable reasons. Anyone remember being able to have multiple queues on your (shared) account with someone? Thrown out, in the name of "efficiency" to much booing. Now they're signing up with Microsoft to force Silverlight onto the world, reminding me of Medica's website -- which is completely inaccessible in anything but Internet Exploiter thanks to them deploying Sharepoint for everything. Ironic, for a company that's federally mandated to be accessible to the disabled. If your accessibility software isn't "Microsoft Compatible", I guess you're S.O.L. Sorry, a little off topic there... point is... Yeah, it's underhanded, but not intentionally so.
Here's what really happened:
1. Management got a phone call from Microsoft, or an MSCE Certified Bonehead, who said "Switch to Silverlight, they will wuv you 4ever!"
2. Management, knowing absolutely jack fricking crap about their tech infrastructure, says "We can't go wrong with Microsoft, make it so!"
3. The developers get the order From On High, and beg and plead with their supervisors... "please god, don't do it."
4. God (aka the department manager) says to the developers "So it is written, and so shall it be... for I like my job, and fear retribution."
5. The developers rolled out a crap implementation (beta) and it pleased Management, who decreed it shall become the Law of the Website.
6. The change was implemented half-arsed, rushed through testing, and the web developers and database people really didn't want to spend a lot of time revamping the entire
engine just to support the latest management whim, so the "undo" bit was left off. Minor oops!
7. The users came forth on the Anointed Day and screamed and flailed, and conspiracy and deceit was cried throughout the Thousand Forums.
8. Management... hears nothing.
9. The poor bastards making $10 an hour in Support do though, and several take up the habit of smoking (what? Well, whatever was convenient, of course).
Epilogue:
10. In about 4 weeks, enough meetings from stressed Support managers will percolate to the board room that "there's a problem of some kind."
11. Management will spend another two weeks in meetings, phone calls, emails, and putting their thumbs up their arse.
12. A decree will come down... "Fix it." It will be vague, badly-defined, and cause all who hoped for resolution to cringe.
13. In the end, a lone Developer will smote the demon upon the mountain-side, adding an "undo" feature... and probably getting fired later for not getting approval. But it will save thousands of complaints and hundreds of cancelled accounts.
Isn't Real Life fun?
Musings of a satisfied user (Score:1, Insightful)
So far I have not experienced any of these buffering problems and I hope they get fixed soon for the users experiencing them.
If anything I think users should be pressing netflix to be more aggressive in adding more movies to the instant watch service - I can only watch 30 rock so many times. Expanding the program's feature set by adding things such as subtitles or alternative language audio streams would also be welcome.
Re:OS X Support (Score:5, Insightful)
Seconding this. I've been using the Silverlight-based player, and it's been ace on OS X. The quality isn't stellar, but it's not bad enough to bother me either. It's a lot better than say, Youtube, but not as good as Quicktime streaming. It's maybe a little worse than DVD for me, which is perfectly fine by my standards.
Only problems I've had with it were occasional movies with audio out of sync, but it's a rare problem. (I've had it happen two or three times out of at least 50)
The DRM doesn't really bother me in this case. I'm renting these movies, not buying them. The DRM isn't depriving me of anything. (I'm really anti-DRM for things one owns, but seriously, for rental services, DRM makes perfect sense to me.)
Secret reason for this change! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:they did tell you ahead of time (Score:2, Insightful)
I read that part too and decided to leave well enough alone. People are trained to click on upgrade buttons.
I'm still waiting for a Linux player. (Score:5, Insightful)
Public Relations Disaster? I doubt it ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Since most Netflix members still use the service to watch DVD's I highly doubt it.
Re:Uninstall Reinstall? (Score:5, Insightful)
So just cancel your account and sign up for a new one. Not like you get any special deals for your long-term loyalty.
Re:Frog, pot, increased heat (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, this is one use of DRM that I think I might be able to live with: when you're renting content. Most of the things that I believe make DRM inherently unacceptable come from someone else trying to exercise control over something that I purchased and "own".
They reversed course on the single queue downgrade (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bigger disaster for Microsoft? (Score:4, Insightful)
Really?
The old Netflix Instant Viewer required you to download a bunch of crap as well.
The new one is the exact same way, and provides better video quality to every user I've talked to. What exactly is the issue here? It honestly sounds like a paranoid anti-MS rant. I suppose there might be some bugs, though anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that the Silverlight-based system is more stable.
The angry comments on the blog come primarily from users who have PPC macs -- users who weren't supported under the old system either. Although this comes down to being Microsoft's fault, the VC-1 codec is currently the only DRM'd solution that the movie studios see as being viable. Like it or not, DRM is going to be the reality for streaming video for some time to come.
Unfortunately, Microsoft have chosen not to support PPC machines with the codec, primarily because there are very few PPC machines powerful enough to decode VC-1 video in real-time. It sucks for PPC Mac users, but you should be able to see their logic.
Re:I see comments in the thread linked to... (Score:5, Insightful)
I just logged in to check, and the quality is fine. About as good as standard TV.
I think it is sort of funny that netflix gave this service to existing customers for free. and now people are bitching about the quality of this service that i see as basically icing on my dvd subscription cake.
Re:Let them fry! (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's what really happened:
Nope.
Here is what really happened:
Microsoft called Netflix and said "We'll pay you a ton of cash if you use our software"
Re:Let them fry! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:OS X Support (Score:3, Insightful)
How could the 'rewinding' be any worse? From what I've seen, wanting to rewind for even a second requires a complete buffer dump and redownload of the content (IE I get to wait for ~10 seconds minimum for it to buffer again).
I often get a 'wait one' moment and want to go back ~10 seconds or so and see something again, so it really annoys me.
Keeping ~10-30 second of buffer data even after playing would be useful.
As would a non-browser player program, I'd like to get rid of the frames and such and have a 'force on top'- basically a PiP on my computer.
I've also had a number of audio synch issues like Draconix.
This stuff gets really annoying; I want to pay, I really do. That's why I got the netflix membership. Couldn't they make my viewing at least as pleasurable as downloading the video from some torrent site?
Re:so just quit (Score:5, Insightful)
I tried that with my car purchase but the government just subsidized them anyway.
+5 Funny? God I WISH it was a joke!
Say What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:so just quit (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a hard time believing there are those who were duped into downloading software that ended up hosing their system.
Well, you're a lucky person never to have dealt with Microsoft then.
Re:so just quit - or don't start (Score:5, Insightful)
For now though, my torrents provide me the latest content, DRM-free, and they usually arrive faster than the mailed DVDs.
Re:so just quit (Score:2, Insightful)
I tried that with my music purchases and the RIAA just point at their profit loss and yell that it is because of piracy... They don't want to consider that they have pissed off their customers so much that they would stop purchasing their crap. And I mean crap. All we get now is teen pop good lookers who can passibly sing (with the help of some sophisticated pitch matching electronics). Where is the talent anymore? Where are the complex hard to play and sing stuff? Oh, that's right, that takes 10-15 years of training, but we don't want to look at someone older than 20....
Silverlight is rubbish (Score:1, Insightful)
I can't think of one good reason to support a company that forces something like that on people.
Re:so just quit (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Secret reason for this change! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let them fry! (Score:2, Insightful)
Uhh, citation needed? There's no evidence of a cash exchange in this decision. As much as I'd love to say Microsoft is doing so, there's no proof.
Re:Frog, pot, increased heat (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Frog, pot, increased heat (Score:5, Insightful)
the problem with DRM is that it turns everything into rented content. Your music, your movies, your video games, and soon to be your applications and your OS. Everybody wants to switch over to a pay per use plan because that's how they figure they'd make the most money.
Re:It's the encoder, stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
The codec-standard being used doesn't have a huge amount to do with video quality. The implementation matters a lot more than the codec.
For very high quality encoding, you really can't even theoretically do much better than MPEG-2 already has. All newer codecs can really do, that old ones couldn't, is to do a better job of masking digital artifacts, when using bitrates so low that they can't be avoided (1.5MBps should be high enough not to require it).
You can certainly find commercial H.264 video encoders that produce horrible results.
WMV3 (aka WMV9, VC-1, etc.) suffers from the fact that practically nobody but Microsoft chooses to make an encoder for the format, and Microsoft isn't interested in the endless testing a tweaking that it takes to really squeeze the maximum quality out of it.
What x264 has going for it, are the same things Xvid and Lavc (ffmpeg/mplayer) have going for them... Lots of people spending lots of time, dedicated to improving the encoder, for everyone's benefit. Whether you love or hate open source, perceptual coding is really the canonical example where proprietary software just can't compete. Actually LAME, Musepack, et al, fall into this category as well, on the audio side of the spectrum.
Of course, the most prominent counter-example would be Theora, which has turned into a bottomless pit of embarrassment, but several-dozen to one isn't bad odds at all.
But I digress.
Netflix does a lousy job at video encoding. They could do a much better job, while sticking with VC-1, but they instead chose not to invest the slightest effort into it. Switching to x264 would help a lot, but switching to Xvid, or Lavc MPEG-2 would do almost as much, really.
In conclusion, where'd my bottle of whiskey go?...
Re:I see comments in the thread linked to... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, how DARE customers expect a quality product.
It's like they think they should be valued for the fact that
they allow companies that take their money to continue to thrive.
Imagine the GALL of a customer expecting to be treated with
respect by people they give money to.
That's not "entitlement".
Re:You can't rent content (Score:5, Insightful)
You can rent a physical good, like a disk or a cartridge, but you can't rent information.
At least, not until they have brain implants put into all their customers that delete the memories after the rental period is over. I'd give it 15 years or so.
Re:Frog, pot, increased heat (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is, this is one use of DRM that I think I might be able to live with: when you're renting content. Most of the things that I believe make DRM inherently unacceptable come from someone else trying to exercise control over something that I purchased and "own".
No one wants to lose to option to own. The process of taking your computer from you [obsessable.com] is slow and incremental.
Re:I'm still waiting for a Linux player. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. It's called "moonlight". If you allow it to download the Microsoft codec pack, it can play back Windows Media files.
Well, not all Windows Media files. It doesn't do DRM, and the various movie studios have (according to Netflix reps I've talked to) mandated Windows Media with its DRM. So it won't help here.
Re:so just quit (Score:5, Insightful)
1% is not exactly a controlling share.
Re:I see comments in the thread linked to... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, how DARE customers expect a quality product....Imagine the GALL of a customer expecting to be treated with respect by people they give money to.
Note, in my OP i specified existing customers. If i recently became a subscriber because of watch instantly, i would be annoyed if the service declined (which i have not seen any evidence of personally - although i have had A/V sync issue specifically with animated content which i contacted netflix about with no reply).
As for respect? I have had pretty good experiences with netflix in the past. It does seem totally ridiculous that people can't 'back out' of the silverlight upgrade. I think perhaps netflix underestimated how quickly watch instantly would be adopted.
Let me just add, 95% of the shit we all bitch about (myself included) on slashdot is evidence of entitlement. We aren't complaining about not having food, or being jailed or executed for voicing our opinions online. We are bitching about not being able to play our movies or music everywhere we want or crappy software. Sure, if you pay for a product, you should get what you pay for. But remember that we are lucky to have access to the technologies that we have.
Re:so just quit (Score:5, Insightful)
They respond to complaints when they are accompanied by lawsuits.
I canceled mine over the secret throttling issue, so I can't join the protest this time around.
I've since gotten my apology letter from Netflix promising me a whole goddamn month of one extra DVD if I ever sign up again. The lawyers probably got the rest (and I bet they still do throttling).
Go screw yourselves Netflix. I'll just wait for full online view-on-demand or do without.
Hey people learn to do without. Your going to have to do a lot of that in the future anyway, might as well make a protest out of it while it can do some good.
whine...whine (Score:5, Insightful)
OH puleeze...it's their service. They don't even have to HAVE streaming. If you don't like it then drop it.
I'm baffled here (Score:4, Insightful)
The new player works in both Firefox and IE and is a MAJOR quality improvement over the previous player. It starts faster, the picture is dramatically better. The previous version never had blockiness but at ANY quality setting it looked like it had a blur effect applied. Their hacked together scripts NEVER detected the correct bitrate for me, requiring me to manually set the bitrate. Except of course that sometimes the appropriate bitrates didn't even appear as an option when I used the key sequence to change it manually.
The new player has no issues, it auto scales to available bandwidth and recalculates on the fly every 6 seconds with no video interruption. Unlike the old version, you can jump around in the video timeline fairly quickly. With the old version it required 2mins plus of buffering.
For the people talking about ripping streams, the rippers don't work with the current version of media player and the DRM refuses to work without it.
Re:Frog, pot, increased heat (Score:4, Insightful)
Everybody wants to switch over to a pay per use plan because that's how they figure they'd make the most money.
Which comes from similar logic used by RIAA lawyers when calculating lost revenue: that every unpaid for product in use is lost revenue equal to retail value. I'd hope anyone who thinks about that for a few seconds can realize how absurd it is.
The idea of DRM is fine, there are probably cases where it is makes perfect sense. It is this misuse of it in an attempt to leverage customers out of more money that I think is the issue.
Re:Let them fry! (Score:3, Insightful)
And I see you are a pompous bastard, who thinks that anyone with an opinion contrary to the current prevailing thinking should be publicly flogged, rather than thanked for trying to provide a very necessary discourse on such ideology. I recommend arguing a position other than what you favor for a couple years, minimum. Maybe it'll teach you some respect.
Re:Frog, pot, increased heat (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I agree, that is the problem with DRM: it turns everything into rented content. But that's not such a big problem when you're explicitly renting it.
For example, iTunes has the option to rent movies for $4 (giving you 24 hours to watch it) or to buy movies that you keep for $15. The rentals are effectively the same as my cable company's pay-per-view service, and it doesn't bother me on any practical or ideological level. Without that DRM, they probably wouldn't offer that option of "renting" digital downloads, whereas I find those rentals useful.
However, I won't "buy" iTunes DRMed video. If I'm supposed to be "buying" it for keeps, and I'm paying a price that's commensurate with a purchase, then DRM is unacceptable. I'll buy movies and TV series, but not unless it's in a high-quality format that I can rip/transcode if I really want to.
Re:Let them fry! (Score:2, Insightful)
If you are one of the many /. developers who have only ever worked in a coding vault and never see anyone else's cubicle, please take a walk sometime and learn what other people do for a living. Most, believe it or not, are only about as incompetent as you are.
For instance, item 12... 'a decree will come down to "Fix it".' What exactly do you really want the guy with the MBA from Harvard (or Ivy Tech) to tell you as the streaming media expert? Would you actually prefer the manager to come down as say "I want you to implement a UDP-based stream implementing an H.264 codec and using Oracle 11i cluster as a backend??". Maybe he read those words on /. or the last issue of Wired, so they most be a good solution. I'd bet then you'd complain about being boxed in by people who don't live and breathe streaming media like you do.
Non-technical managers should only send non-technical guidance. Then the technical manager level take the business guidance and translate that into a technical solution, which they should then discuss with the non-techs to ensure that their tech solution has no unintended side effects. It doesn't have to be broken and twisted along the way. The key is for everyone to listen and learn from each other.
So in this case, I see nothing wrong with the MBA coming down and saying "tech team, people aren't happy with the streaming... make this your #1 priority... Fix It and tell me what you need". It's his job to figure out where to spend the $$$, making this a priority probably meant one less superbowl ad Marketing could buy. Which one makes the most customer $? That's an MBA problem. Let them worry about that while you worry about what you know, how to 'fix it'.
Re:Secret reason for this change! (Score:1, Insightful)
Of course, I just rip every DVD they send me, so they aren't getting anywhere.
Re:Frog, pot, increased heat (Score:2, Insightful)
Adobe's proprietary Flash technology is what I would consider a "special viewer install".
That could just be me using my brain and not following the millions of sheep who think flash is an acceptable media delivery format, but meh.
Re:Viewer Quality (Score:5, Insightful)
Quality on par with Youtube? Where do you get that?
The old scheme had video that was extremely blurry at even the highest available bitrates. The new video is clear even at low bitrates with no buffering, no blurring, it compares favorably to SD cable and good divx/xvid rips on my 50" hdtv. If they can get that incredible increase in video quality at a lower bitrate then I say more power to them. Maybe they'll actually add some content.
Not to mention the fact that it works in Firefox, I had to use IE Tab to get the old crapware working.
Only complaint I have is the lack of content. There is no justification for the new releases not ALL being available for instant viewing the moment they are available for mailing.
Re:Uninstall Reinstall? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's a good thing. This is hype over a non-issue. The quality of the silverlight player is dramatically better than the old crap. The old crap only worked in IE with WMP and was blurry as shit.
Re:Frog, pot, increased heat (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Frog, pot, increased heat (Score:5, Insightful)
No it isn't. The whole reason for copyright isn't to make money forever no matter how the publishing corporations want to spin it. It is to enhance the public domain which doesn't happen with DRM. If you want to DRM content, then it shouldn't be covered by copyright since you violated the very reason for copyright.
Re:Frog, pot, increased heat (Score:3, Insightful)
What makes DRM unacceptable for purchased media tends to remain for rented media as well. Namely - the option to play that media in ways the content producer hadn't thought of.
You don't have fair use rights on a rental. Arguably you thus don't have format-shifting rights either.
When you purchase DRM-"protected" content you are being prevented from exercising legal rights (at least in the USA - yes, even here!) so you're being robbed. But when you rent it, you're only being prevented from things you don't necessarily have a legal right to do anyway. It's still a drawback, and I understand your argument for not paying for that, but it's still (I think) a defensible use.
I do believe that all DRM harms consumers, and that you should avoid spending money on media "protected" with it at all if you believe that. On the other hand, that actually precludes renting a DVD or a VHS with Macrovision encoding, which means that you won't be able to consume any mass media video. This is almost certainly a good thing for your brain, but it will be an unpopular choice.
Re:Frog, pot, increased heat (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an important point. It leads an irony worth considering, based on the well known principle that local optimizations don't lead to global optimization.
Suppose Alice has content that Bob wants. Very few people would feel that Alice ought to be compelled to provide Bob that content just be cause he wants it. So Bob has to offer Alice some incentive. Alice names a fancy price, which Bob declines to pay. So instead Bob and Alice come to a somewhat more complex arrangement. Bob agrees to pay Alice a smaller price, but restrict his uses to those he is most willing to pay for. From a libertarian viewpoint, this seems innocuous. Alice and Bob are happy, so that should be the end of that.
But Alice and Bob are happy only with respect to the direct effects of this transaction on their interests. They are not necessarily happy about the net effect of information being encumbered this way throughout society. For example, many software licenses forbid publishing benchmarks or reviews without approval. Is the world a better place when people only have a vendor's word for what a piece of software is capable of doing? Are buyers better off?
The rental thing sounds innocuous, but it has important consequences as well. Alice can probably maximize her revenue for her existing content by adopting a rental model. But culture depends on free re-use of ideas, both subtle reuses that don't fall within the scope of copyright law, and obvious reuses.
Disney, for example comes down hard on people who would reuse images from its version Pinnochio, even though that work is by now sixty-four years old. However, their 1940 movie makes free use of the original story by Carlo Collodi that, because it was published in 1883, was only fifty seven years old at the time. Disney would argue, correctly, that at the time their usage was legal whereas their movie is still protected by current copyright. But they can't make a utilitarian argument that in this case protection is for the greater common good. Nor can they reasonably say it represents morally necessary protection of a fundamental right of creators to perpetual intelletual property protection.
The important thing is that when information is controlled solely by private agreements, the net effect of all these local optimizations across society is not globally optimal for the parties living in that society. We can take a lesson from the popular music industry, which is creatively moribund and therefore financially vulnerable. They can blame "piracy" if they like, but if they were producing what consumers considered a good value they would be much better off. Yes, it is possible to download files of unknown quality and provenance for free, but when consumers have access to a good selection through convenient distribution at a fair price, they prefer it. The iTunes store proves this.
But even something like the iTunes store is not a long term solution. As Pablo Picasso said, "Bad artists copy. Great artists steal." Art and culture depend on artists making old works their own.
The progress of useful arts and sciences can't be left entirely to contractual or licensing arrangements between private individuals, as practically useful and even indispensable as those might be. Given the power of technology to restrict information, the law that makes those arrangements possible must also promote the continuing enrichment of the general intellectual welfare, if we are not to suffer dire long term consequences. Unfortunately, we live in a country where politicians aren't very interested in culture, or any aspect of the life of the mind. I was shocked to hear one politician last week mock the idea that studying the spread of venereal disease was a worthwhile use of money. I believe that this anti-intellectualism comes from being so rich for so long that we've come to believe that we can live by managing the prior accumulated wealth of generations of intellectual achievement.
Re:Frog, pot, increased heat (Score:3, Insightful)
Awwwww poor guys (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously folks -- how about some perspective here huh?
This is a service you pay for and guess what? You get to watch movies online, anytime you want! Yet you bitch and moan that some cog in the engine changed to make the service better!
Oh "I'm going to cancel my subscription, that'll show them" and "This is going to be a PR disaster" -- YEAH since all 19 of you neck bearded know it alls will rock Netflix Corporate and they'll be sending hand written notes with chocolates in them to your home address with a year's free subscription included.
Get off it. WIMP always sucked butt. Silverlight is better and at least runs on a Mac too. DRM, ShmeeRM -- if you want to avoid that well, make your own movie I guess or develop a work around like going to the library and checking out a book!
digital media (Score:3, Insightful)
Lucky for us, the necessity of physical media is quickly going the way of the Dinosaur. Why would we ever need a physical disk to insert into our digital players? It makes no sense.
Re:Frog, pot, increased heat (Score:3, Insightful)
But Disney wrote the law, so how can you ignore them?
Re:Secret reason for this change! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Secret reason for this change! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nevermind, it seems that the lovable DRM within the raw video file ties the video to the player. Oh well, on to other solutions... [thepiratebay.org]
So I'm assuming the $9/month is too expensive for you? Ask you mom if to raise your allowance the next time you ask permission to use the computer.
Netflix: Low selection. Skips and jumps. Low definition. Tied to one player. Not cross platform Pirate Bay: Giant selection. Plays smooth. Up to 1080p. Plays on most players. Cross platform. Yep, it's all about the money... Until people realize that this is just not true, they will never fix the real problem.
Re:Frog, pot, increased heat (Score:2, Insightful)
The difference is, nobody wanted to do this. There were no commonly available, consumer record 'writers'. And records were considered to be inferior to CDs (some people find they prefer the sound from records over CDs, but then they wouldn't copy the audio from a CD to a record, as the richness of the music or whatever would still be lost).
People do want to format shift DVDs to watch them on iPods. They do want to get them into a computer, so they don't have to dig out a specific DVD from their collection in order to watch it. And the technology to do this is readily possible, but big media is preventing their use via the licensing restrictions for the DVD and HD formats and the DMCA for those who don't license from big media.
So, most likely (as these fair use rights haven't been tested in court) it's legal for you, the individual, to rip the DVD and format shift, but only if you do all the work yourself. It's not legal for somebody to give/sell you something to help you do this.
Re:Secret reason for this change! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Frog, pot, increased heat (Score:2, Insightful)
Wrong.
The reason for copyright is to attach value to the creation of art. Specifically, if anyone is going to make money off of "Snowcrash", it should be Neal Stephenson or someone with his permission. Not a random publisher that decides to just print it and "save" money by not paying Neal a dime.
Copyright exists precisely to limit the public domain, not "enhance" it.
Uh, "wrong." Or more accurately, "staggeringly myopic." Yes, copyright is meant to provide artists with compensation for their work for a limited time in order to enhance the public domain. Copyright exists to make sure there's a reason to contribute to the public domain, and that reason is money. For a limited time. How you failed to take the next logical step in your argument is beyond me.
Re:Frog, pot, increased heat (Score:2, Insightful)
They folks who *are* paying for the content have to deal with headaches associated with DRM. Hmmm, get the movie for free in an unprotected copy off the web, or buy a video that may not play or can stop playing at anytime the content provider chooses. Tough choice here.