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Netflix and iTunes Rentals Aiming At Different Crowds
Engadget notes an article in the New York Times discussing the substantially different markets that Netflix and Apple's movie rentals are aiming for. The site views the loosening of Netflix streaming restrictions as a reaction motivated entirely by the iTunes movie rental announcement, but beyond that the two services seem to have little connection. From Engadget's observations: "After speaking with Netflix's Reed Hastings, it was found that the vast majority of its streamable content was 'older,' and considering that users of this service can never look forward to brand new releases being available, the cost (i.e. free to most mail-in subscribers) makes sense. As for Apple, it's able to focus on crowds who are looking for a more robust, generally fresher selection, but of course, you'll pay the premium each time you indulge. Furthermore, Netflix has yet to make transferring video to any display / device other than your monitor easy, and while an LG set top box is indeed on the horizon, the differences in content selection are still likely to lure separate eyes."
The problem with AppleTV and this revolutionary new service is that, for some time, I've already had a device that lets me rent new movies via the internet (even *gasp* HD movies) and watch them on my TV. It's called an "Xbox 360." It even comes with the bonus features of letting me play videogames and chat with my friends.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Netflix did an excellent job of separating themselves from Apple. They didn't punish their current subscribers by charging them extra for this service (as Apple did for iPod touch owners with the new apps).
Netflix for movies (ripped & streamed to Apple TV). iTunes for video podcasts & TV shows (which I'm more impulsive about). Although I'll probably try out some HD movies from iTunes, since I'm not ready to commit to BluRay or HDDVD at this point.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
As I've said before, the Netflix service isn't too great for new movies (as this article points out), but it is wonderful for older TV shows (and some newer ones). Now that they've lifted the time limits, I'll be sitting down and watching tons of old shows. Full seasons of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Amazing Stories (well, the first season at least), and tons and tons of BBC stuff (Doctor Who and Red Dwarf, anyone?). I saw that they recently added Dexter Season 1. Hopefully they'll be putting up Season 2 of that soon, too. Perfect timing, too, since it's the middle of Winter and there's nothing new on TV due to the writers strike.
This guy's the limit!
They aren't aiming at my crowd, the Windows 2000 SP4 user. "Try again from a computer with Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista." Try again? What is this, a scratch-off ticket? At least support Ubuntu since it will work on my laptop (which won't run 2000, or even XP without using Hacking 101 skills on it because of driver drama caused by ______, where blank is no good reason at all) and will probably become my OS for the future. A pity, I would like to stream movies for my personal interests (I.E., Futurama, SF B films) and use the mail service for family-friendly (comedy and action) films.
Some of the most attractive offerings on Netflix's streaming service are television shows. There are lots of seasons and even complete series available through the service. I was able to watch the entire run of the British show "Coupling," the UK's raunchier version of Friends. They also have every Law and Order known to man, short-run series like "Dead Like Me," and even modern shows like Heroes and 3rd Rock.
I always wonder why these sort of discussions leave out public libraries. Our local library has an amazing DVD selection (much of it purchased from a failed video store). Sure, the new stuff is often hard to get (Hot Fuzz had 66 holds on it, last I checked), but there's tons of classics, Anime, and other things I missed in the theater.
It's become a weekly tradition for me to head out to the library after Saturday breakfast and return with my booty of media. Like Santa, I open my sack and hand out books and movies to my kids and occasionally my wife (depending on whether or not she's on the naughty list).
Dogs and cats are not the same.
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
I used Netflix for a few years but the problem was my spreadsheet. I kept track of when I sent back movies and the time when I received new ones and I noticed that they began to increase the length of time it took for me to receive my next DVD, thereby negating the value of their allegedly "unlimited" monthly service. They lost a class action suit on that precise point years later. I have more faith in Apple to not screw me just because they can.
The biggest difference between the two markets is that Netflix Watch Now runs on XP/Vista(?), and Apple iTunes runs on Apple h/w. It's the Grand Canyon of all divides.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I know this is mostly regarding the streamable Netflix movies, but I'd like to point out that their Que is worth the price.
I haven't seen anything like that on Apple's service, but I may be mistaken.
One other thing that Netflix has over Apple, is no 30 day wait after a new release. Sure, there may be a few days wait in some cases, but it's not 30.
(Piratebay also has no such restrictions. The movie studios probably wanted to strike a good deal with those jolly rogers. Great move studios, nothing like waiting 30 days after a region-encrusted release...)
On the other side, Apple has a convenient way to transfer movies to my iPod touch, which is excellent.
I'm a Netflix subscriber, and I'm pretty sure I'll stay with them, but I think Apple may get some of my money here and there too.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Are they ever going to offer anything besides b-movies? I'm fine with whatever delivery method but offer new releases and movies people actually want to see.
I think that $3 for a movie "rental" is way too expensive, which is the very reason I dropped Blockbuster for Netflix in the first place. I don't care if it is a new release, recent T.V. episode, or whatever--three dollars is half the cost of a matinée on the big screen.
We don't have cable or satellite T.V. and I can't see spending money on the antenna we'd need for broadcast digital--five hundred channels of nothing is still nothing. So we have Netflix. While I don't watch much, my wife watches about one episode of a T.V. series each day. Perhaps every other week we get a movie, and occasionally we'll watch episodes some old series together. So we run through maybe 10-15 DVDs worth of content each month. That type of viewing pattern would be significantly more than the $18 a month we currently pay Netflix, say around $45 if you had to get all the TV episodes as individual "rentals"
It will be interesting to see if Apple can do to video viewing what it did to music (make the music player ubiquitous, or nearly so). The main issues I see are cost (per video) and cost (for a device to play the content).
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
If anything, the iTunes rental store will attack Blockbusters more than Netflix. The iTunes rental system is for the impulsive 'I want a rental now, and I probably only want to watch something that's been released in the last 2 months'. Rather than peruse the New Releases aisles of Blockbuster for 45 minutes, you can just peruse iTunes and have it in a few minutes.
"I think that $3 for a movie "rental" is way too expensive"
"Way" too expensive!? Rest assured, Apple is not interested in you anyway.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
1. Broadcast digital uses the same antenna that your wife is using right now to pick up analog TV.
2. Next year you're at least going to have to buy a converter box (government subsidized, though) in order to keep doing that. But your same antenna should still work.
3. Broadcast digital is probably the same selection of content as analog for you. In some places, there are broadcasters offering multiplexed streams, but not many, and the alternate streams are often nothing more than weather or traffic or whatnot. So if you're in a big city it's probably 15 channels instead of 10, 3 of which are redundant.
The big difference between the two is that Apple is making a genuine try at starting a business: they've revamped the Apple TV after the first attempt didn't get a great reaction, they've cut deals with all the movie studios, they let people do the obvious thing with movies, namely watch them on the TV.
NetFlix, on the other hand, may be smart enough to realise that internet access to movies is inevitable, but only came up with some shitty "on your computer only" service, with bandwidth restrictions. It's a little experiment without serious backing. My bet is that whoever within NetFlix has responsibility for the online service has little power within the company, and is probably seen as competition to the main DVDs-by-post business. Apple's announcement probably gave that person a rare bit of clout to argue to the rest of the company that unless the NetFlix streaming service improves, it will simply become a laughing stock.
All that said - if they deliver on easy access via the TV, their model of "classic" and hard-to-find material plus their que idea is a great one. Hope the online person now gets the respect and funding they deserve. They've got to prepare for the future where the postal service just ain't necessary for their business model.
I agree. With Apple's movie rentals at a multiple of what you pay to BUY a song from the same service, their pricing doesn't make sense within their own world. When you then compare it to the price of Netflix, waiting for the next DVD in the mail doesn't seem that bad. The streaming isn't even significant in the comparison. $4.99 for two movies a month which is about all we seem to find time to watch seems pretty good to me.
And don't even get me started on the extra $1 for HD. I refuse to pay the cable company $8/month for HD and I am not interested in paying extra when I rent a movie online or through the mail.
THREE dollars is too expensive for a movie?! This blows my mind! What, in your opinion, is a movie worth? Movie rentals at Blockbuster in the 80s were $3 and it amazes me that now, you can get movies without leaving home for the same price. We're talking about half an hour of work at minimum wage. This plan may not make sense for someone like you but if you think 3 bucks for a movie rental is "way" out of line for this service, I believe the market would disagree with you there.
I use Netflix/snail mail to catch up on older popular movies and indie movies. The problems with Netflix/streaming are:
1) Doesn't work on my Mac unless I boot into Windows.
2) Doesn't display on my HDTV unless I drag out the big HDMI cable and audio cable and tether down my laptop.
3) With only 6,000 titles, classic and indie movies are unavailable. Apparently so are recent blockbusters.
I have Comcast On Demand but the selection is miniscule and the interface is slow and inefficient. So I'm tempted to try something like Amazon Unbox through an X-Box or iTunes rentals through an AppleTV (neither of which I own yet). Does the Playstation 3 do movie downloads too? A Blu-Ray player would be nice.
I also have some videos that I download to my laptop, like podcasts, and would like to watch them conveniently on my TV. It sounds like AppleTV would work smoothly. Are any of the other systems good for that? Is there any other source of indie movies besides Netflix/snail mail? (Brick & mortar video rentals used to be an option, but all the ones in my neighborhood went out of business.)
And another question: How do video stores and now Netflix get their business cleared with the publishers? Do they just buy one disc at retail price and rent it to a hundred people? Or do they have to pay a royalty for each rental? Could a business do the same thing with music through the mail? Netunes?
The Red Box just a 5 minute walk away is only $1/day.
WHat I can't understand is why Apple still doesn't put any DVR in AppleTV. I have two Tivos with a total a 3 tuners. I can download movies and TV shows from Amazon and should I desire have both Music Videos and Rhapsody music service streamed into them. I can also watch audio and select video Podcasts. That said I would have bought an AppleTV at the new price point if they had just added the ability to record TV. I just don't get it.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
Three dollars is half the cost of a matinee on the big screen for one person. Have a bunch of friends over? That three dollars amortizes pretty quickly. The other factor is convenience. If you know you want to watch movie X two or three days in advance and you remember to put it at the top of your queue, yeah, Netflix is better. But, and this is where I see myself using it, if you have a spontaneous gathering over (or even if you don't) and you don't like the options you have on hand, getting a widescreen HD movie for $4 or $5 beats getting everyone down to Blockbuster or Hollywood. That, I think, is where iTunes Movie Rentals is going to capture territory. it's worth money for me not having to make time in my errand schedule to go _back_ and return the damn thing.
--Humpty Dumpty was pushed!
Did you re-read his post? He does not watch broadcast television; I read it as any antenna he utilizes would be a _new_ antenna. Any television his wife watches (one a day) is via Netflix.
In that case, he should stick with netflix. Hell, I am personally thinking of dumping cable, getting the cheapest high speed inter-tubes I can find and just going with that; using netflix for everything else. My wife is a Law and Order addict and I love the Simpsons. That works.
How much is a movie rental worth?
Lets ask the free market (even if calling it free is a joke in a market where every product is granted a government enforced monoploy):
Blockbuster online and Netflix subscriptions put the per-disc rental cost in the $1-$2 range.
So, that's how much a movie rental is worth.
I might be willing to pay a little more for the convenience and low latency of an online system, but not double or more what a discs-in-the-mail subscription would cost me for the same content.
This isn't even Apple's fault, everyone else doing online delivery has similar drawbacks, it's the movie industry trying to raise prices and tighten controls as people shift from physical media to online delivery. They want to make all online delivery conform to the terms of old fashioned pay-per-view or on-demand cable: lousy selection because titles are only available in a limited window (from a month after DVD release until they find a cable or TV network willing to pay for an exclusive airing, and then maybe again later once the movie is a catalog title), high prices to capitalize on convenience and milk early adopters and those with money to spend, restrictive terms because the industry has individual control of every viewing rather than just the first sale of the disc (you have to finish watching within 24 hours of starting, you can only have the movie on one device at a time, etc), etc...
The thing is, in the end, I expect Apple to be pretty successful selling video and video devices despite all of this; they're damn good at selling users that extra little bit of convenience and simplicity. In the long run, it's the movie industry itself that's going to suffer for their efforts to keep the customer from getting what they want (convenient access to high quality video, immediately available anywhere and any time, for no more than they're paying now), when physical media sales start falling off, and online sales don't pick up quickly enough to make up the difference (much like they did in the music industry, for similar reasons).
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
Some day, a Chinese or Indian company will buy storage in monstrous quantities, convert all media available so far to digital, set up an all-you-can-watch non-DRMed service, and ask $5/month for it. It will be able to authenticate over a browser or a device. It will stream in the highest possible quality for everyone. Lack of bandwidth is a technical problem with the technical solution of "More Fiber" or "Mesh Network For Everyone", so that won't be an issue by the time someone with the money and balls to deliver ALL MEDIA UNRESTRICTED TO EVERYONE does Just That. It's impossible to set up as long as copyright exists, thus copyright will disappear. Because WE ALL WANT ALL MEDIA ALL FREE. At LEAST all media whose right holders either are dead or have been repaid their investment several times over.
Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.
My concern with Netflix and iTunes rental is closed captioning.
I contacted both and it seems the movies are not captioned and they do not know if it'll be in the near future.
Arghhh.. back to the drawing board.
As a NetFlix customer I have to say I love the Dvd-By-Mail thing it's great and is saving me tons of money over rentals.
However, I won't be using streaming because my girlfriend has a Mac and I have Linux(Ubuntu). Until we can get movies on those Operating Systems and on FireFox we won't be using it. It really makes me kinda of sad...
Thanks for punishing your customers for their choices. Especially when those choices have nothing to do with movies.
Anyone out there checked out Redbox? It is is not bad. Buck a night. You can get the new releases the same day they come out on Tuesdays. They even offer free rentals fairly often. I just run down to the local Walgreens and return it the next night.
Don't know how I let the previous article slip by me. But I had predicted this maybe a year or so ago. I'm curious whether I can put rented movies on my iPod video. I sometimes buy movies for this purpose just so I can watch them on a long flight or at a hotel. I think it would be substantially better if I could rent them.
NetFlix, on the other hand, may be smart enough to realise that internet access to movies is inevitable, but only came up with some shitty "on your computer only" service, with bandwidth restrictions.
Your computer monitor isn't the biggest screen you own?
Your geek card must be returned to the issuing agency by the end of the week.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
A $300 product that only works with one vendor is a stupid idea. If I'm paying $300 for a box, I better be able to rent from anyone on the internet, not just Apple.
Apple offers the following
1) no subsciption fee, it's pay as you go
2) HD movies
3) Works with any TV not just the LG
4) works with your music collection too
5) But the big one is that apple could turn this into a peer to peer distribution model. The central point of distribution model works for a while but eventually it's going to saturate delivery (all those shared cable connections) and require massive server rooms. Peer to peer can work around the edges.
People were dissapointed with mac world cause the "air" seems kinda of a specialized offering for bussiness travelers with multiple computers. (no ethernet? just wi fi?) But the stealth big news was that appleTV which gained 1) HD 2) stand alone access to the Itunes store, 3) (soon) thousands of new releases available quickly. 4) priced less than tivo 5) as good as HBO/showtime/movie on demand but with no subscription fee.
Right now appleTV seems like "Less space than a nomad, LAme" like they said about the ipod, but a year from now people will be saying wow apple did it again my cracking a market that had stumped everyone with the right combination of hardware, software, and simplification. The only glitch I forsee is the studios may try to ask too high of a prices fearing an apple monopoly.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
If I were Apple, I'd create free Wi-Fi APs at the gates in major airports that did something like "jail" the session to a advertisement page for their download service, on the first page load, then function as a free wifi point.
When the users buy items from the iTMS, music and items would be downloaded from the Internet, but have a local-cache in the airport of large movie files that are commonly downloaded (new releases, popular TV series) so the download speeds would be do-able in a normal layover. iTunes would notify them of the ETA for the download to make sure they can swing it before takeoff (based on server load, 802.11x standard used), using the local-cache so it is highly predictable.
Apple could do a push to the local-caches at the Airport from the central iTMS on DVD Tuesday or something like that.
I think the service would be a great source of free advertising, with notices by the gate "Free WiFi provided by Apple" and the landing page like they have at Panera bread would drive them to impulse buys during a long layover.
I mean, you can already buy an iPod at the airport out of a vending machine, having a link to the iTMS at the gate seems highly logical especially since they could get buyers who wouldn't normally use the service.
iPhones already can access the iTMS, but it is the Free WiFi provided by Apple to get the first advertisement for people that don't know, or never thought about it, and the local-cache that would make the downloads feasible are the lynchpins for a successful service.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
It's pretty clear to me that Netflix is primarily digitizing their less-demanded (WKRP in Cincinatti, Peter Davison Dr. Who episodes, etc) titles so as to clear the physical media of those titles out of inventory. That way they can focus their labor and capital on acquiring ,maintaining and distributing the titles that are in much higher demand (transformers, pirates of the carribean, eccleston Dr. Who episodes, etc). Regardless, if they can come out with a $100-150 streaming set top box, I'll be the first in line to get it.
What makes them think Apple's new release movie rentals are going to compete with Netflix's older, free, streaming service?
Netflix is likely to lose the same business as Blockbuster, which just happens to be the services they charge for.
What are they thinking? Apple needs to give away an Apple TV for FREE as a subscription service for iTunes (with 2-year commitment). If NetFlix was smart they'd be looking pretty hard for a good set-top box to bundle with a 2-year commitment as well. Does anyone have a redbox in their neighborhood? movie rentals for a buck... you just can't beat that!
Also, all of my hopes and dreams surround DLNA... imagine a device that attaches to your home network instead of a single TV. Now imagine TVs with built in DLNA support. Cable companies could price devices that can stream 1, 2, or more channels over your home network. Satellite companies... same thing. IPTV such as u-verse... already done. Movie rentals from ANY service provider (NetFlix, iTunes, Amazon, Blockbuster)... OK... now I'm just dreaming.
programming myself into obsolescence
I used this setup for months at my apartment when Target wanted to charge me 30 dollars for an antenna (amazed my roomate too...."dude..there's no way thats gonna work.....holy shiat! is that anchorman in full HD!?"). The only reason i finally bought one (5 bucks at fry's) was my homemade one looked ghetto.
If you don't have any ethernet cable.....coax works too....its a lot harder to strip (unless you have the tools for it)...but I've done that before too.
Enjoy your free HD
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This is kinda off-topic, but is there a way to determine which titles are available for streaming from Netflix without being a member?
your definitely a quick ripper, to get 5 movies on Wed, and mail them back on Wed.
Local PO opens 9a to 4:30p (at least to get out that day.) So you have 7.5 hours to watch 10 hours of movies.
And no netflix on Saturday, so Tuesday will be the earliest received for the second week.
10 movies a week is reasonable from 5 at a time. 15 would be *possible* every other non holiday week. Unless you have figured out how to hand deliver the movies to netflix yourself. I have been curious to drive by the return address to see the possibility.
I do get 6/week out of 3 at a time, just over 50% of the time. Thats watching every Monday night, Tuesday mail out. Then you have Thurs to Sat for the second block.
Rather than your high pressure marathon ripping 3* a week, 2 daily trips to the post-office technique, you could get the same # of movies at a more relaxed, take a day or two rate. On a 7 at a time plan, your only saving $3 a week over keeping them for a entire day and a half before returning.
http://www.netflix.com/BrowseSelection?sgid=gev
Ignore my other reply: I didn't read your post well enough. Anyway... Any television his wife watches (one a day) is via Netflix. If that's what he meant, then you're right. Although I know it can be done, it still seems non-standard to me to have one's first exposure to a particular TV show be on DVD.
I hope that this doesn't lead to Apple getting on the DRM-protection treadmill with the Apple TV the way they have with the iPhone.
I thought Steve Jobs was smarter than that.
RTFWP.
go to www.netflx.com, click on browse selection, click on browse our instant watching section -- though that looks like it only has one tiny page showing a few.. looks like you can browse through the DVDs a lot more.
Wow. Thanks for taking the time to respond. I've been to TFWP. I was trying to figure this out earlier today, but I couldn't find an answer so I figured I'd ask here after I saw this story.
As you seem to have noticed, that browse instant watching section is useless. And, as far as I can tell, the search box on that page just ties into the full database. Nothing in a movie or show listing seems to indicate if it is available for streaming.
To be honest, that's how I was exposed to shows like Northern Exposure, and other shows that were on when I was a child, but I didn't really have a chance to catch on a regular basis. (I was a kid that played outside.)
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
At least when you're logged in, you'll see a "Play" button under the "Add" button if an individual title is available for instant streaming. At the moment, the page isn't loading for me, so I can't tell if there's any indication when you're just browsing.