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Movies Media

Netflix to Offer Movie Downloads 205

Posted by CmdrTaco from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.
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."
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Netflix to Offer Movie Downloads More

Netflix to Offer Movie Downloads

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  • They must be... (Score:5, Funny)

    by BarryJacobsen ( 526926 ) * on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:18PM (#8775911) Homepage
    They are also eyeing the multibillion-dollar video game market video game market.

    They must be eyeing it with both eyes.
    • Or just very drunken ones...

    • Re:They must be... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by gilrain ( 638808 )
      They certainly seem alert enough to be using both eyes!

      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. :)
    • Heh, you mean like ConsoleClassix [consoleclassix.com], which has been posted on here before?

      That's where I get my Final Fantasy/Metriod/Zelda/etc. fix... :]

  • No matter how flexible the DRM (Score:4, Informative)

    by TheKidWho ( 705796 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:18PM (#8775912)
    Someone will still be upset about the DRM and decide to crack it. Then again movies are harder to distribute then mp3s. At least high quality ones.

    • Re:No matter how flexible the DRM (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dr Reducto ( 665121 ) * on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:21PM (#8775938) Journal
      Someone will still be upset about the DRM and decide to crack it. Then again movies are harder to distribute then mp3s. At least high quality ones. ....And cue the people who say it HAS to work on every platform, be completely open, and so on, ad infinitum. If you don't like it, you can vote with your wallet, and not buy it.

      • Re:No matter how flexible the DRM (Score:5, Insightful)

        by maxbang ( 598632 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:59PM (#8776195) Journal

        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.

    • I don't think this will really be a problem. DVD's still are around, even though their encryption has been cracked. It is fairly easy to either rip or copy DVDs anymore. Distributing them is what is difficult. Someone who set up enough bandwith to distribute DVDs would not be able to stay under the radar of the MPAA...so it would limit illegal distribution. Of course there are those who will download lower quality pictures off of slow connections, but they are in the minority. Of course as bandwith ge

  • Video-on-demand, eh? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:18PM (#8775919) Homepage
    The servers with the porn titles better have some mighty good hardware.

  • Recursion? (Score:4, Funny)

    by spellraiser ( 764337 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:20PM (#8775928) Journal

    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!

    • 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)

    by Bobdoer ( 727516 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:20PM (#8775929) Homepage Journal
    but I don't want to download PS2 games on demand. They're freaking huge! I've only got 512 down, and it would take forever to download some of those four disk RPGs. But if I could make a backup copy...

    • Re:I don't know about you, (Score:4, Insightful)

      by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:21PM (#8775941)
      I agree. I think the U.S. market is trying to push too much through the bandwidth. This ain't exactly Japan where everyone lives 3 inches away from each other with 100baseT networks.

    • Well, just wait until they start selling copies of Final Fantasy 11. Granted, it's only 1 DVD-ROM, but its the game that keeps on giving (or downloading, if you prefer that euphemism...)

    • Re:I don't know about you, (Score:4, Insightful)

      by retto ( 668183 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:36PM (#8776032)

      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)

        by wronskyMan ( 676763 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:55PM (#8776171)
        The story-driven, linear RPGs popular in Japan could work,
        Or the rocket-driven (but also linear) RPGs popular in Soviet Russia...

      • 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 woul

    • "but I don't want to download PS2 games on demand. They're freaking huge! I've only got 512 down, and it would take forever to download some of those four disk RPGs."

      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.
    • But if I could make a backup copy...

      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)

    by agent dero ( 680753 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:21PM (#8775934) Homepage
    I really wonder how they ever expect to have this idea profit, while shooting GB's worth of files constantly down the pipes, and if I can download it off bit torrent, why would I want to pay for it?

    Cool idea, but some questions should be answered first
    • I really wonder how they ever expect to have this idea profit
      Seriously: when it's cheaper, faster, and more feasible to distribute movies using a grey-market P2P system, then you know the "industry" is in trouble. In fact, they's screwed! 'Cause what they want to do can't be commercialized!

    • Re:Bandwidth? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Bagels ( 676159 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:34PM (#8776025)
      The obvious answer is that they'll take a leaf out of BitTorrent's book and have people that are downloading/viewing the movie share with each other (maybe they could even give you a little discount if you provide enough bandwidth). Only, of course, it would be a closed, DRM-encumbered system...

    • Re:Bandwidth? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by grotgrot ( 451123 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:45PM (#8776107)
      and if I can download it off bit torrent, why would I want to pay for it?

      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)

        by athakur999 ( 44340 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:51AM (#8776861) Journal
        Technically, the music industry DID treat everyone as being honest. Until fairly recently, audio CDs had no protection on them whatsoever. That didn't stop Napster and Kazaa from booming as these "fundamentally honest" people began trading files in mass quantities.

        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)

          by pla ( 258480 )
          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.

          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)

          by grotgrot ( 451123 )

          WERE all rosy and DRM free

          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)

      by retto ( 668183 )

      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)

      by Deraj DeZine ( 726641 )
      Nice troll. Lotta bites today.

  • Download Speed (Score:5, Informative)

    by Luminari ( 689987 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:21PM (#8775939)
    Download speeds for files as large as full games and video are still too slow. Video download services are going to be a niche market until that can be improved. I hope netflix isn't staking their near term future on this.
    • I wouldn't be too worried, I'm pretty sure they're raking in the dough as it is. Everybody and their brother has a Netflix account these days, or at least it seems that way. I've had one for years.

    • Re:Download Speed (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jfengel ( 409917 )
      I doubt it. Reed Hastings seems to be a pretty smart guy. I think he's just hedging his bets against a technology improvement that would make his business model obsolete.

      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
      • Technology improvements, actually. First there's the fact that even DSL bandwidth is too little for a real movie.

        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)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:22PM (#8775944) Homepage
    Hastings expects that Internet VOD market is still relatively small, with relatively long download times for even those with cable or DSL Internet connections.

    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."
    • They could just set the period to begin after the download was complete... but by then, "My Pipes Need Cleaning: The New Rod" would be out.

    • Re:Download speeds... (Score:2, Informative)

      by MCherry ( 746460 )
      Just a bit of information about Netflix, but the whole point of it is that there are no rental times. Currently, one monthly fee (about $20 for three movies at a time) lets you hang on to a set number of DVDs for as long as you want. You get an online queue, and each disc you send back prompts the next one to be sent to you. No late fees, a vast collection (all of Star Trek, M*A*S*H, etc.), I haven't been to a Blockbuster etc. for a very long time.

  • Three at a time? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SnappleMaster ( 465729 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:23PM (#8775957)
    Variety said the VOD offering will expand that to allow for up to three physical DVD or digital downloads at a time.

    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.

  • Competitor (Score:5, Funny)

    by kilocomp ( 234607 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:24PM (#8775968)
    I guess they want to take on the currently established market leader....Kazza. I just hope Netflix edits out those annoying messages, the ones that say this is a screener copy only so call this number if you are not suppose to be watching this.

  • DVD Writers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:24PM (#8775969)
    DVD writers probably have something to do with this. With the release of personal dual layer DVD writers, the world of (DVD) movie rentals will change.

  • Not likely to work... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:25PM (#8775972)
    I don't think anybody can launch a Hollywood-movies-on-demand without having the cable companies on board. They can place servers closer to their users, and have the advantage of being able to allocate more bandwidth to themselves on their cable systems. They're going to have an advantage over any outside provider...

    • Re:Not likely to work... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Aero Leviathan ( 698882 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:36PM (#8776038) Journal
      And why would the cable companies want to help Netflix out? They've got their own video-on-demand services to push. Netflix is just more competition...
    • "I don't think anybody can launch a Hollywood-movies-on-demand without having the cable companies on board. They can place servers closer to their users, and have the advantage of being able to allocate more bandwidth to themselves on their cable systems. They're going to have an advantage over any outside provider..."

      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)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • first step in playing defensivly (Score:5, Insightful)

    by miradu2000 ( 196048 ) * on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:25PM (#8775975) Homepage
    Is not announcing your product an entire year ahead of launch - giving your competitors plenty of time to catch up.

    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.
    • Maybe it's a trick. Netflix could be making noises about getting into a market that they know is pointless to enter, causing other companies to waste time and energy trying to beat Netflix to market, when Netflix has no actual plans to go there. Mwa ha ha ha! And so forth.

  • Video games...VERY smart (Score:5, Informative)

    by TrentL ( 761772 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:29PM (#8775993) Homepage
    I read an article about 6 months ago where the Netflix guys said they weren't interested in the video game market. I'm glad they've wised up.

    In the meantime, Gamefly [gamefly.com] is an excellent video game rental service. The pricing and service are almost identical to Netflix.
    • Around here Blockbuster does the same thing for $20/month. No waiting times either, you just have to go down to the store and swap the games out. The selection isn't always the best though (especially for older games)

  • If the movie streams to my cache can I keep it? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by darthcamaro ( 735685 ) * on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:29PM (#8775995)
    So I get a video on demand over the internet - and I assume that it'll stream and make use of my cache (or some other temp file). If I keep the cache/temp file, does that mean I can keep/own the movie??
    Or will these guys have some kind of no-cache proxy in place?

  • I hope they do game rentals (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:32PM (#8776011)
    I'm already copying and burning DVDs from netflix as fast as I can get them. Game rentals will be awesome for my stock pile.

    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!
    • "I'm already copying and burning DVDs from netflix as fast as I can get them."

      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)

    by ccnull ( 607939 ) <null@@@filmcritic...com> on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:32PM (#8776014) Homepage
    It won't be easy to pull all of this off. VOD is going to require a wholly new infrastructure and business model for them. Renting video games might be a problem too, when people start "losing" the games. A DVD probably runs about $5 in bulk... a game will probably cost them $30 or more.

    Still, it's great to see some innovation left in the dot-coms of the world....
    • " Renting video games might be a problem too, when people start "losing" the games. A DVD probably runs about $5 in bulk... a game will probably cost them $30 or more."

      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)

        by ccnull ( 607939 )
        Netflix has a problem now with discs that are broken in the mail or otherwise go lost. When this happens, they apologize and send you another disc. Only rarely is the consumer blamed for this -- and when he is, there's no fine assessed, the account is simply closed. So Netflix is currently eating 100% of the cost of lost, broken, and stolen discs, which by some accounts has hit 1% of all shipments. Charging a fee is loaded with problems, since the US Mail service is probably responsible most of the time, a
        • Do you think the people are Netflix are really that dumb? The US Postal Service has insured mail. Netflix just insures that DVD that they paid $5 for at $10 and if it gets lost or stolen, Netflix profits! I am not sure how the USPO handles large scale mail order business, though I doubt the USPO would have Netflix (or any other mail order company) eat those costs, it probably just comes out of our taxes : )

          • Re:Won't be easy... (Score:3, Interesting)

            by ccnull ( 607939 )
            If that made any sense, why doesn't Netflix insure shipments already? The USPO would absolutely not give insurance to Netflix for free, that would be ludicrous. They may give a nice discount as they do with all bulk mail, but it won't be more than 30% or so... In any event, postal insurance costs (retail) $1.20 per shipment minimum -- and that would be $2.40 to ship both ways. Considering the current shipment cost to Netflix is about $.60 round trip, bumping that up to $3.00 per shipment would quickly kill
    • There's not that big of a difference between games and DVD's for rentals. NetFlix is NOT paying $5 for a DVD. In the old VHS rental days it was more like $50 (conservatively) for a movie with a commercial rental license. I'm not sure what the premium for rental games would be, but I'm sure it's pretty hefty as well.
      In the end, I don't think it's significantly different enough from their current business to be worth worrying about.
  • How can games be downloaded from netflix or any other place. For instance X-Box games have to ripped from the DVD and converted into a ISO using something like XISO [yursoft.com]. Then you have to burn it to a CD so that you can play it on your X-Box. Or you can FTP over to your X-Box which in either case require a mod-chip. Are they honestly expecting us to delete the game once we done "renting" it. I mean I'm not going to pay $0.75 for a DVD that I just burned a very good game, just to throw it away after a few days.
    • The article doesn't say that they are going to offer downloadable video games. It just says that they may enter the market for renting them.

    • Re:Does downloading games require a mod chip? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @11:04PM (#8776226) Homepage Journal
      "How can games be downloaded from netflix or any other place."

      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)

    by maxbang ( 598632 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:38PM (#8776056) Journal

    will they be starting abm.netflix? or maybe #netflix on some dcc friendly irc network??

  • Greencine already does this (Score:3, Informative)

    by CanSpice ( 300894 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:42PM (#8776079) Homepage
    Greencine [greencine.com] already does this for select films. They do WMP streaming for Video On Demand (FAQ here [greencine.com]). I can't say that I've tried it though, since I prefer watching movies on my TV than on my computer.

  • Worry about the important things first. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Infernon ( 460398 ) * <infernon@gmail. c o m> on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:43PM (#8776085)
    I can't say that I'm exactly super-pleased with Netflix. The past three DVD's that I've sent back haven't even arrived in time for the next weekend when they were mailed out on the previous Sunday and it's not even like I rent a ton of movies-- these three were over the course of 5 weeks!
    • Hmm, that's surprising, I've been a member for 2 months now and I'm astounded how quick they send movies. Delivery often takes a single day, turn-around is maybe 3 days if I have the disc out in time for the morning pickup.

      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
  • And it failed miserably. They're going to have a very hard time convincing the MPAA and the studios to allow them to stream the content without some serious consideration to DRM.

  • Other services already do this (Score:3, Informative)

    by kamapuaa ( 555446 ) on Monday April 05, 2004 @10:57PM (#8776181) Homepage
    Another DVD-by-mail service, Greencine [greencine.com] already does this, with WMA and DivX - I've only done the video preview, but it appears to work pretty well. The problem is that movies are apparently hard to license for online viewing - mostly just obscurish indie movies, and porn.

    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)

    by agslashdot ( 574098 ) <sundararaman DOT ... AT gmail DOT com> on Monday April 05, 2004 @11:12PM (#8776266)
    Lion's Gate (LGF ) [lionsgate.com] owns a majority stake in CinemaNow [cinemanow.com], the closest competition. LGF stock has been all over the place [yahoo.com] in the past few months due to Video-On-Demand deals with major studios. Unlike LGF, which grew from strength to strength after acquiring Artisan Films, is based in Hollywood, and has exclusive rights to several hundred movies as well as ties with the major players in the entertainment business, Netflix is more a rental mall for DVDs.
    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 news with the video games. Depending on how it will work, it could kill off gamefly. Why pay to just rent games when you can also get movies, right? I'm wondering what quality the ondemand will be. Some how I dont think it would look the same on my HD 61 inch screen with 5.1. If not, I would rather wait the day it takes them to mail me my movies.

  • Legal/history question ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cpu_fusion ( 705735 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:31AM (#8776713)
    If I recall correctly, at some point the music industry was able to successfully push through legislation that put music-rental stores out of business. In other words, there's a legal (not marketing) reason why you can't go and rent a CD for a few bucks like you can rent a DVD/VHS.

    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)

    by sailracer6 ( 262434 ) *
    I can think of three companies that are offering, or have offered, major movies-on-demand. My university (Duke) had a distribution deal, no longer in effect, with a company called Cflix last year.

    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)

    by Shafe ( 72598 )
    There are other attempts to provide movies on demand like Movielink or whatever, but I haven't heard great things about their qualities. How amazing would it be to have a pipeline of 3 to 4 movies downloading on your machine when you're at work, or hell, when you're at home preparing to watch one! And all for $20 per month. With high-speed broadband services, this is all possible. And this will all be arriving once I probably end up buying my first HDTV. I'll have a DVR, HDTV cable, and videos on deman

  • DVD REVolution (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Johnso ( 520335 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @01:40AM (#8777093)
    The future is services like DVD REVolution [dvdrev.com].

    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)

      by Alystair ( 617164 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @04:33AM (#8777690)
      Watch me go from zero to dvd collector in one swift car heist!

    • Re:DVD REVolution (Score:3, Interesting)

      by evilviper ( 135110 )

      The future is services like DVD REVolution.

      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)

    by Erbo ( 384 ) <amygalert@NOSPaM.gmail.com> on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @02:25AM (#8777283) Homepage Journal
    I decided not to do business with Netflix a while back, because they send spam [mojam.com]. (That's not my page, but the guy who posted it apparently got the same spam messages I did.) I encourage everybody to avoid doing business with them until they stop abusing our inboxes.

  • greencine... (Score:3, Informative)

    by yulek ( 202118 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @03:47AM (#8777556) Homepage Journal
    ...has been doing video on demand for several months now. and they have a much more interesting selection of movies.

    greencine > netflix [greencine.com]

  • Seems like an obvious Tivo feature to me. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Moderation abuser ( 184013 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @04:40AM (#8777708)
    Add an extra "on demand" shows menu which TiVo keeps updated with the latest and greatest. Start playing the video and it downloads and buffers the film as it plays. I'd have thought the cable companies would be dead keen. Course it'd only be feasable on something like DirecTivo, digital cable or fast ADSL.

  • They are also eyeing the multibillion-dollar video game market.

    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

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