Ian Landsman is Starting From Scratch, January 16, 2007:
Netflix Offers Downloads, Who Cares
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Netflix attempts to fight BlockBusters Total Access with online downloads. Unfortunately this is not going to help them one bit. Nobody but the largest dorks are interested in watching movies on their computers. Hooking your computer up to a TV is also a non-starter. No ones computers are next to the TV, nobody wants to crawl behind the TV and hook them together (nor do they know how). Sure this is the future at some point, but the future isn’t now.
Once the cable companies put this in the set top boxes in a complete manner (not the bogus integration and offerings they have now) then it will work. I still think they’d be much better off bolstering their DVD offerings and somehow making them more appealing than BlockBuster.
Discussion
If Netflix develops an MCE add-in for all of those new Vista-based DVR's, the future won't seem to be that far away after all, I think.
Created by Grim on 01.16.2007 2:09 pm
I enjoy my Netflix subscription and I haven't heard about the downloads. But I have heard of Apple TV, since I'm a Mac user. You should look it up. It transmits photos, audio and video content to your television wirelessly from your computer. With that kind of technology, seeems like downloading rentals isn't such a bad idea.
Created by Scott on 01.16.2007 10:38 pm
You say that people don't watch movies on their PCs. Then, how do you explain the huge increase in the piracy of movies and TV shows that happened in the last few years since high quality video compression (DivX, XviD) and peer to peer filesharing (Bittorrent, DC++, Kazaa) became available?
All these people watch the movies on the PC, mostly. It doesn't matter whether they're "dorks" or not - they have money and many of them are willing to pay for legally downloading movies, IF such an option is available.
Also, most of the good DVD players now (made by Panasonic, Sony, E-Boda, etc) can also play DivX and XviD files stored on recordable DVD disks. So, a person who downloads a movie can easily burn it and see it on TV. In fact, such a DVD usually contains 4 movies or so at almost the same quality as the standard .
So there are large advantages for downloading movies online. And yes, I have a subscription to such a service - it is in it's infancy for now, but this kind of thing will have a HUGE future in 2-3 years.
It is simply way, way better than going to a DVD rentals store, waiting for DVDs in the mail and then having to return them.
Also, for someone wanting to build a movie collection, the DivX or XviD format is hugely superior to the plain old DVD format.
Why is this?
100 movies in DVD format = 100 disks
100 movies in DivX format = 25 disks
So, using the DivX format removes a lot of the physical clutter involved in having a movie collection - things are a lot more manageable.
Created by Software man on 01.17.2007 11:25 am
I'm not saying literally nobody does. But think about all the people in your life. Out of everyone you know how many would regularly watch movies on their computers? 1 or 2 maybe. How do you site down with your family and watch a movie in front of your 17" monitor?
You're also leaving out the fact that the Netflix option will certainly not allow you to burn DVD's like the pirated movies do. You have to use the Netflix player and I'm sure there's no burn option in there.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be download services, I would use one myself. I can't wait for iTV, but I'm not the majority. Just look at BlockBusters stock. Up since the Netflix announcement.
Created by Ian on 01.17.2007 11:32 am