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79 Comments
- resolva, on 11/03/2009, -1/+25Video on demand is huge already illegally online.. publishers are going to have to do something!
- jquipp, on 11/03/2009, -2/+25Of course it is, unless of course theatres with far superior sound and visual quality can be built.
- Ziriux, on 11/03/2009, -2/+20Good to hear, i have Netflix on my xbox 360 and love it, I just hope they would add all the stuff and actually all the BRAND new stuff as well.
- peestandingup, on 11/03/2009, -0/+13You mean I will no longer have the pleasure of traveling to the theater that uses outdated technology, paying $10 for one showing, sit behind some loud mouth & get ass raped at the concession stand?? Awww.
- Jektal, on 11/03/2009, -0/+12The guy "attacking" Netflix here is an idiot.
Who streams Netflix movies to their phone on the bus? I've had a Netflix subscription for years, but have only used the streaming a few times. From my experience, their caching and such has gotten FAR better over time. - Jektal, on 11/03/2009, -0/+9Which is -exactly- why the Telecoms in the US (Time Warner, Comcast, Cox, etc) are keeping the network speeds down, charging extra for internet if you cancel cable TV, and setting bandwidth caps.
If our internet access was modern, we wouldn't need their TV offerings anymore. - perrycarter, on 11/03/2009, -2/+11My breath smells like cat food
- kernowjourno, on 11/03/2009, -2/+11With poor broadband speeds and limits on downloads the UK will be slow to embrace it.
- WhiskeyLemur, on 11/03/2009, -0/+8MacHarborGuy - You can determine what is normal for "modern" Internet speeds by simply looking at what other developed countries are offering. A quickie Google search reveals the following:
http://www.jamaipanese.com/top-30-countries-ranked ...
That's what "modern" "technology" can provide (not sure why we're putting those words in quotation marks, but I assume you have a compelling reason, so I'll go with it). Obviously Japan has a much smaller landmass and higher population density than the US, but surely we can do better than what we have now. - MikeFromAmerica, on 11/03/2009, -0/+7I heard your dad went into a restaurant and ate everything in the restaurant and they had to close the restaurant.
- IneffablePolk, on 11/03/2009, -0/+7The prosecution guy is retarded. His arguments basically boil down to "Dude, watching movies on anything smaller than a large HDTV sucks!" and "Dude, we don't all have billion mega-bit connections that you need to stream high-def stuff!"
I call baloney on both counts. He himself admits that there are tons of ways to get the movies onto a TV, so I'm not really sure why he spent three paragraphs ranting on the first point. As for his second point, I don't use Netflix so I don't know how it works, but if it's like what he claims, I have a simple solution. Imagine the following is happening on your TV:
**ANALYZING INTERNET CONNECTION**
You have the following options to watch "From Justin to Kelly"
To stream standard definition press here.
To stream medium quality (720p, stereo sound) press here
To download full quality (1080p, 7.1 sound) press here. Aprox. wait time: 45 min.
There. Problem solved. Can we have an on demand service that's actually better than piracy now? - mckirkus, on 11/03/2009, -0/+7For the life of me I can't figure out why new releases aren't available on demand. I have Netflix, XBox 360, and Amazon VOD services all hooked up to my TV and I still have to go to blockbuster to get new releases when I don't want to wait for the mail man.
I would pay good money so I don't have to get off my couch. They apparently don't want my good money. - PakoBedejo, on 11/03/2009, -0/+6Answer: Yes, whether they like it or not.
- theOster, on 11/03/2009, -0/+6even legal on-demand is pretty big - hulu, fox on demand, netflix. its what users want.
- Rudymoman, on 11/03/2009, -1/+7It better be.
- videographer, on 11/03/2009, -0/+6I'm severely conflicted on this point. I have the Netflix streaming service thru a Roku box (and, soon, it'll be on the Nintendo Wii as well.) My experiences with a measly 3Mb DSL connection prove the "anti" guy wrong by a mile - once the buffer is full, the movies (or TV episodes) stream smooth as buttah. Yes, there isn't surround sound. Boo-f'in-hoo. Maye this is a situation where "cinema geeks" shouldn't apply. But...
...about a decade ago, a colleague that was a consultant in Hollywood predicted just this happening. He said...
"Hollywood hates DVDs. They want you to pay for *every viewing* of a program. No longer will you 'own' a film, you will pay a license fee every time you want to watch it."
Now I do realize that this is not where Netflix is right now, but it could easily be converted to that. Amazon's streaming service is also resident on the Roku box, and that is *exactly* what it is - a virtual DVD rental service that - once you cough up your $4 - you get 24 hours to watch that title. That strikes me as kinda spendy. Or you can "buy" a movie to "own" forever, even though you have no physical media of it. As a test, I bought "Idiocracy." But if Amazon dies, or discontinues the service, or the pipes go down, what have I bought? Nuthin'.
Like I said: Severely conflicted. - WhiskeyLemur, on 11/03/2009, -0/+6Dude, do your own damn research. I specifically mentioned that it was a quickie Google search, and I posted it because it happened to corroborate data I've seen before from more reliable sources (also because I'm at work, which means my free Internet is too sporadic to do any in-depth digging for a stupid comment). The same goes for your "I'd love to see" chart - there are dozens of the damned things around, and if you'd actually "love to see" them, then go and find the info - it's all out there.
- DevilToo, on 11/03/2009, -3/+8Netflix certainly is the bee's knees.
- slimjimworm, on 11/03/2009, -1/+6Is it just me or was this an absolute waste of an article? Maybe the headline should have been Netflix and the future of their business.
This article is all about 1 tiny cog in the On-demand market and does not talk about anything else. - inagoodcause, on 11/03/2009, -0/+4Seeing the present stats, it sure looks like video-on demand may be the future of film industry
- lambda, on 11/03/2009, -0/+4I think you'd need at least 60mbit/s connection to stream at Blu-Ray quality, per video.. Some of the blu rays have bursts where the bitrate gets around 50mbit/sec, avg video is 25mbit/sec and audio is around 10-12mbit for the lossless codecs. So if you have a house and you want to watch 4 movies simultaneously (roommates, kids), a 250mbit connection or better is ideal.
- CrazedLeper, on 11/03/2009, -1/+5It only sounds like a good idea until you see how they implement it. You'll get a little bit for free and a low price for the rest and then, gradually, the prices will climb for the paid stuff as the free stuff dwindles to nothing. It will be the same as with the advent of the ATM. They, basically, have you buying your own money now.
- Jektal, on 11/03/2009, -0/+4MacParrot - The entire US does not have a lower population density than Japan/Korea. By your logic, all of the major US cities should have the same sort of internet access that cities in those countries enjoy. China is -not- a good comparison, and I'd sure hope we could do better on average than China can
- MacParrot, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3Look at the rate that online speeds have increased over just a 15-year period. At that time you were lucky if you had a decent 56k connection and now speeds of 10Mbps or more is the norm. Consider compression rates as well. 15 years ago if you could even play a video online it was going to be at best a 320 x 240 window with at best 10-15FPS.
Two things are happening at the same time. Online speed is going up and compression is making even huge video files sizes smaller. There will be a convergence soon that will allow for hi-def videos to stream or download very quickly with little loss in quality as compared to optical disks.
This is why the fight between BluRay and HD was pointless. The future is online. BluRay will never have the adoption rate that VHS or even DVDs enjoyed. - CarStan, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3of course it is, but only if you can have a sort of monthly Flat-Rate, as opposed to a per-per-movie model.
- WhiskeyLemur, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3MacParrot - that's definitely a valid point, and I've made it myself in the past. However, even in urban areas in the US (and I work in NYC, which is as urban as it gets) so-called "high-speed" Internet access is pitiful compared to the speeds seen in some Asian countries. I don't see any way that Middle-of-Nowhere, Arkansas will see the same speeds as Tokyo any time soon, but why don't New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles have speeds comparable to Japan?
- wolfing, on 11/03/2009, -2/+5VoD doesn't work for me. I have a 50" TV with a home theater, I don't want a crappy standard Def video with maybe stereo sound. I also like features like closed caption. VoD so far doesn't provide any of that. Sure it may be ok for a TV episode of American Idol, but no way I'm going to watch Lord of the Rings or V in there, too much is lost. Maybe in the future when quality and features of VoD are comparable with DVD/Bluray.
- crichton101, on 11/03/2009, -1/+4I think VOD is the future of home viewing, but not the film industry. I love going to the movie theater to watch movies. There is nothing like seeing a good movie on the big screen. Sure, it isn't cheap, and the food is over priced, but it's the same way at stadium events like concerts and sports games.. There is an energy and a vibe to watching a movie in a packed theater house you can not and will not ever get from watching at home, even with friends over. There will be a lot of people who prefer watching at home, or on their handheld device, just like there are those that prefer watching the "big game" on their tv at home, but there will still be a lot of people who want can't get enough of the experience.
- dalittle, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3Netflix is popular as you pay once and get to watch what ever you want in a month whether it be streaming or a DVD/blueray in the mail. Why would you pay $4 to watch one movie in degraded streaming when you can pay a couple dollars more and watch as many as you want?
- UselessTrivia, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3Yep. TV too.
- phogasmic, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3The prosecution guys arguments are weak. Most of them are technical and will be overcome as bandwidth improves. His argument that you should only watch movies on the big screen sounds like someone whom has never watched a movie in bed on his IPhone. I think it is a much more immersive experience then sitting in the theater and more often then not I prefer it.
- dimebagtwenty, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3I bent my Wookie...
- flarn2006, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3The thing that bugs me the most (and frankly, I don't understand why) is that most of the video-on-demand services you most likely already have (Hulu, cable on-demand service, etc.) only have small selections of the episodes of any given series at a time. Why can't they just have the whole series at once?
- mikebritton, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3"A streaming film will nearly always pause, stutter, skip and, worse case scenario, crash."
Increasing the buffer time allows you to compensate for a poor connection. Smart software can control this, and you'll be able to control it from your remote.
Streaming content can also be recorded onto a CDN, and deleted after a certain period of time. So the term "streaming" is kind of ambiguous; more likely it will be a "system that delivers content that may or may not be truly streaming based on your connection". - robbob, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2Hey little man, how does it feel to be the last one to know its raining?
- Mnementh2230, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2"They, basically, have you buying your own money now."
You must have a ***** bank. I get all my ATM transactions free, if I use my Bank's ATM, or other partner ATMs overseas. - sexybobo, on 11/03/2009, -3/+5What if the ISP' become the content provider. There is very little restriction on bandwidth in the last mile
if isp's would start hosting netflix type servers in house they could have full hd movies with out tapping into the speed problems or download limits. - 07dcolem, on 11/03/2009, -2/+4My Comcast High Speed Internet with Blast gives me a 16 Mbit connection which bursts to 32 Mbit, and I almost never get pauses in my videos, including watching hours of HD.
- rushnerd, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2I know it, people talk about on-demand all day, but then forget of the amazing quality of blu-ray movies and the fact that streaming something of that bit-rate just won't be happening anytime even remotely soon.
If you actually care about quality and experience of your movies your still stuck with physical media, maybe it will be this way for a long time? - phogasmic, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2I don't mind the pay once/watch once system. My DVD case is full of DVD's I have only watched once. Though there are a few that I have watched more then once. I think the ITunes models is a good compromise because you can rent a movie or buy it, I wish they would extend that model to the TV shows.
- bobburn1, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2At least they have new HD TV shows each week :).
- ohreilly, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2I notice you live in Cornwall, but presumably you don't live in one of the major population centres. Then you can get Sky (or UKOnline) LLU and get truly unlimited downloads.
I speak as someone who lives 5 miles away from the largest town in Cornwall and only has the choice of expensive BT-based stuff.
Personally I can put up satellite TV (apart from the rip-off that is the Sky Movies mix) - MacParrot, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2Not necessarily. The difference may be that since studios will be competing for the same dollars for entertainment at home that some self-regulating will occur. Make the price too high and fewer will buy it and find other methods for consumption that will net studios nothing.
iTunes/Amazon MP3 store/Zune Marketplace and others pretty much have all the new stuff (if available as singles) priced between .89 and 1.29 US. They've tried to entice people to start buying whole albums again by making more popular songs only available with album purchases and have found it doesn't work that well.
The market eventually decides the future of entertainment and those that don't follow the path of that market eventually fade away like the dinosaurs they are. However it's still too soon to make assumptions based on current trends. - 000dnj, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2A cheap and convenient alternative would end wide-scale piracy. Cheap streaming services like Netflix would give them inherent control over content and also make less money. They're not going to do it until they have to.
- Howtobefreaky, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2Netflix would be great for viewing movies I haven't seen (I'll never buy a movie I haven't seen) but if it's a movie I know I'll see time after time, I'm going to buy it on DVD or Blu-Ray simply because I want to OWN it. The thought that in the future, everyone will go to a subscription based service for all their movie viewing needs is pretty ubsurd. I don't see why the two systems can't live side by side, because in my mind, they have different means to watching movies.
- Nelagster, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2Yes.
- FarrahForever, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2I think Netflix is perfect for sometimesy film fans like me who would rather not invest their hard-earned dollars in a movie unless at the theater enjoying the complete theater experience- Twizzlers and all!
- maccagrabme, on 11/04/2009, -0/+1Depends on the price. A film should be no more than £1 to stream.
- Cyborg326, on 11/04/2009, -0/+1All the author did in this article was complain about Netflix. I'm not an audio/videophile so I can't comment on the quality other than to say that while it could be better, it is adequate for me. I've also had zero problems streaming movies on Netflix on a 2.5Mbps DSL line, so the claim of connection issues being a barrier seem totally exaggerated. My biggest problems with Netflix's watch instantly serice are that: a) the selection is limited which is annoying for older stuff and b) you can't just purchase that service exclusively.
I don't watch a ton of movies or TV shows but I'd love a subscription service that lets you watch almost any movie/TV show you want instantly at a decent quality (say 720p) for $15-20/mo depending on the quality.
Yes I realize how easy it is to torrent stuff but it's time consuming and too dependent on the connections of your peers. Honestly the only incentive I have to do so is that I don't have to deal with physical media and like others said if there was a movie I REALLY liked then I'd probably get a copy so I could "own" it. For most movies I just watch them once and then move on to something else. I'd gladly pay a fee each month to watch whatever I wanted without the hassle of bittorrent and I'm sure I'm not alone. When will someone figure this out? - nmanguy, on 11/04/2009, -0/+1I love my current Netflix online. Maybe add some more TV shows and movies. And closed captioning. That would be awesome.
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