Netflix Now Offers Instant Online Movie Streaming

An anonymous reader writes "If you're the owner of a video rental store, it may be time to start thinking about getting into a different business, according to ZDNet. Netflix, the online movie rental service, is offering a new feature that allows its subscribers to instantly view movies and TV shows on their PC. From the article: 'Following a one-time, under-60-second installation of a simple browser applet, most subscribers' movie selections will begin playing in their Web browser in as little as 10 to 15 seconds. Movies can be paused and a position bar gives viewers the ability to immediately jump to any point in the movie. In all, the instant watching feature requires only Internet connectivity with a minimum of one megabit per second of bandwidth.' These movies are in addition to the standard DVDs you can have at home, it should be pointed out. You can see a demonstration of the service at the Hacking Netflix blog." Only a small percentage of customers have it available at the moment, but they hope to roll it out to everyone within six months.

Comments

Say goodbye to the Internet you knew

[Shaman]

This is the kind of thing that is going to strain the Internet's fabric at the seams. Up until now, your typical 1337 torrent freak was pretty uncommon among the general public, so the Internet has coped for the most part. But when the general public starts downloading several gigabytes of video every night, the whole equation will change.

I strongly suspect you will see bit capacities on all ISPs very shortly if they don't have them already. I know Sympatico in Canada was "unlimited" right up until last month when all their DSL circuits went to 5Mbps, and they claimed they would grandfather existing customers with unlimited service - which they turned on within the month.

So... I don't know whether this is a positive or a negative change, but I'm guessing for a lot of peering points and a lot of overloaded switch fabrics, this is a deal breaker.

Re:Say goodbye to the Internet you knew

[Rob T Firefly]

Up until now, your typical 1337 torrent freak was pretty uncommon among the general public

Nonono, that's just what we want the **AA to think!

Actually, people were saying the same things about MMOs, and before that Usenet binaries, and before the integration of images into webpages. As long as people expect a certain level of service, the industry will grow to provide it, which in turn will make people expect a certain level of service. It's a cycle, you can never "top out" on infrastructure.

Re:Say goodbye to the Internet you knew

[Shaman]

It's a cycle, you can never "top out" on infrastructure.

This is simply not true. Take a read through various articles re: BGP tables and route/switch fabric limitations facing us today. The very largest switches in a BGP environment (all the Internet backbone systems) have very finite amounts of performance and no path in sight for improving that anytime soon. The best way to deal with it is put the content closer to the customer, but something tells me that it's not going to work out that way in the short term and likely not in the long term.

We are definitely *not* going to see a doubling of performance for switch fabric in the near future. We definitely *could* see a doubling of Internet traffic as a result of IPTV.

Re:Say goodbye to the Internet you knew

[Rob T Firefly]

We are definitely *not* going to see a doubling of performance for switch fabric in the near future. We definitely *could* see a doubling of Internet traffic as a result of IPTV.

We weren't going to see a doubling of performance on the speed of a modem connected to POTS lines either, once that topped out. Instead of trying to break laws of physics with century-old copper wire, they replaced it with broadband.

Of course working on the backbone is much different than swapping your 56K modem for cable or fiber or what have you, and I'm not saying any of this will happen overnight, or even anytime soon. However, it is pretty much a guarantee that something will eventually come along to upgrade what's in use now. And if broadband video and/or other goodies the customers want choke out the current system, the providers will have to either set up something new, or lose their clientele to someone who does.

Remember AOL apologizing in their TV ads for service interruptions and busy signals during the Internet boom? Nobody in the industry wants to do that again, and they'll throw all the cash they can at avoiding it.

Re:weak feature

[phrenq]

To be fair, the 1 megabit/second speed they want is fast enough to stream DVD quality video, so I don't think compression is going to be an issue. Of course, that just exacerbates the bandwidth issue, but this isn't exactly targeted at the 56k modem user.

Re:We already have it..

[horatio]

B) Can't put it on your TV easily (again)

A couple of years ago there was much talk about Netflix partnering with TiVo -- but I haven't read anything about it recently. Anyone know what happened to that?

Internet Not Ready

[organgtool]

In all, the instant watching feature requires only Internet connectivity with a minimum of one megabit per second of bandwidth

ONLY one megabit per second of bandwidth? I live in a well populated area and my ONLY option is 768Kbps DSL or a 6Mbps cable connection that is saturated with other users in the neighborhood. Verizon's FIOS is still a few years away from being installed in my neighborhood, so this service is useless to me.

Hopefully this service will get people to see the benefit of higher speed connections and spark a bigger demand for more speed.

Re:We already have it..

[EXMSFT]

Pshaw... YouTube is the Wal-Mart of video. Tons of garbage nobody wants to watch, a couple of actual gems worth finding, and everything is encoded in Flash, the worlds most efficient, yet hardest to bear watching, video technology.

Does everyone wants a fugly PC in the living room?

[brokeninside]

I don't know of many people that want an ugly workstation permanently plugged into their TV or that are willing to plug their laptop in every time they want to stream a film. There is no real danger to the bricks and mortar rental places until TVs (or set top boxes) that can accept the streaming become ubiquitous. IMO, the killer appliance would be a DVR priced less than 500 USD with a DVD drive and a network interface capable of pulling movies from all the PCs in the house as well as services such as this.

Also, as I mentioned in a different post, there is the closed captioning issue. I suspect, but I'm not positive, that Netflick's player app is not CC aware. Heck, Apple's Quicktime isn't going to be CC aware until the next release.

And then there is the issue of being able to stuff a physical disk into your bag and take it to work, school, a friend's house ...

Dumb overreaching in first sentence

[dpbsmith]

I think virtually all rhetoric about device B being a "device-A-killer," or one technology quickly displacing other, is dumb... and in many cases is promotion by supporters of the new device or technology, hoping to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In 2000, when dedicated eBook devices were introduced, one could have imagined people saying "If you're the owner of a bookstore, it may be time to start thinking about getting into a different business."

In 1950, and early adopters were inviting their friends to come over and watch Milton Berle, one could have imagined people saying "If you're the owner of a movie theatre, it may be time to start thinking about getting into a different business."

All businessmen need to be watching their back, and video rental store owners are well advised to be vigilant... the times, they certainly are a' changin'. Going out to the movies and buying overpriced boxes of Nonpareils is a different product and a different experience from watching "The Wizard of Oz" on a television set. The latter model may ultimately displace the former, but it's not at all obvious just how it will happen or at what speed or when

Similarly, downloading a movie and watching it on your PC is going to feel very different from renting a DVD. And speaking of Milton Berle on a 5" diameter round Dumont picture tube... a) who wants to watch movies "on their PCs?" b) Do you have your PC in the living room connected to a big screen? Does anybody you know? Yesyesyes I know all about the technology and Steve Job's "Apple TV" and "convergence," the big buzzword since 1990. I just don't see it actually happening yet. All these companies are selling a solution to something my son-in-law doesn't see as a big problem.

If Netflix would let you burn that movie to a DVD and carry it over to the big-screen TV set that a lot of people I know do have, then, yes, the video stores should worry a bit more. But at the moment the movie industry seems to be adamantly opposed to concepts like "permanent" and "own" and "bought it."

Re:Hold on now...

[rlp]

> S-Video cables are that difficult to use? Every computer I've owned in the past 5 years has had an S-Video TV-out on it.

My (low-end LCD) TV has several S-Video inputs. It also has a VGA input - that's the one my PC is plugged into. I've had to use WiFi on the PC, since my wife objected to my throwing a CAT6 cable over the loft railing into the living room. I've found a decent remote (bluetooth) presentation mouse. Just wish there was a DECENT wireless keyboard available (I've already got several crappy wireless keyboards).

Re:Great to Evaluate Movies

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I will not watch a full movie on my PC. That's what I have a home theater setup for.

A lot of us have a PC as a component of our home theater setups. It is cheaper and easier to use than most mp3 player components. It is about the only easy way to play random YouTube videos on the big screen. Since it can also do duty as a CD player, DVD player, slideshow viewer, DVR, etc. it is a rather vital component in my mind.

*HOW* is the transfer implemented?

[Sloppy]

Ok, it's time to deal with this before it gets too big.

If the movies are transferred to the user via a good old fashioned protocol like http or ftp, then that means ISPs can cache it. 10000 Comcast users buy the movie, and those gigabytes get transferred from Netflix to Comcast once, and then 10000 times from Comcast's hard drive to the users (assuming those users aren't sharing any "more local" caches).

If they are using some stupid streaming protocol, then it gets transferred once for each sale. That is really, really stupid. It doesn't just harm Comcast (who, let's face it, is going to pass the cost on to their customers) but it also costs Netflix (oh wait, they will just pass the cost on, too). It also costs everyone in between, pisses off ISPs since they don't like to pass extra costs to the customers ("if we're going to charge customers more, then that extra charge should go into our pocket, dammit!") and that means we get more lobbyist in Washington to get rid of "net neutrality" which not only sucks, but will probably have numerous other distasteful riders attached.

That means it is you guys -- the customers -- who need to make sure this is done right. If Netflix's approach doesn't work with caches (e.g. Squid) then BOYCOTT IT. Anything that is a technological step backwards from the web, is a disgrace.