LG High-Def TVs To Stream Netflix Videos

DJAdapt writes to tell us that LG has launched a new line of high definition TVs that will be capable of streaming Netflix videos with no additional hardware. This is just another in a long line of expansions from the once DVD rental service, which has expanded to the Roku set top box, Xbox 360, PC, Mac, and Linux platforms recently. "Piping movies directly to TV sets is the natural evolution of the video streaming service, said Reed Hastings, the chief executive of Netflix. "The TV symbolizes the ultimate destination," he said. That idea -- shared by Sony Corp., which already streams feature films and TV shows directly to its Bravia televisions -- is still in its early stages. Netflix's streaming service taps a library of 12,000 titles, while the company's DVD menu numbers more than 100,000 titles. Hastings expects that gap will "definitely narrow" over time, but he noted that DVDs maintain an advantage over streaming, which is that "they are very profitable" for film studios."

Comments

A good idea

[Dadamh]

Though it seems a bit silly to integrate this feature into the TV itself, streaming movies is a good idea. Even aside from the ease of use and general appeal to a fairly large portion of the populace, it's a step towards abolishing some of the older business models that exist.

Integrating into the TV also helps sign on those folks who just aren't savvy enough to hook up DVD players or other external devices.

DVDs

[iluvcapra]

but he noted that DVDs maintain an advantage over streaming, which is that "they are very profitable" for film studios

And you can hold them and touch them, resell them, and duplicate them for safekeeping, and you can play them a thousand times without having to engage a "service." They are property. How is this latest innovation any different from the old Divx?

Re:DVDs

[badasscat]

And you can hold them and touch them, resell them, and duplicate them for safekeeping, and you can play them a thousand times without having to engage a "service." They are property. How is this latest innovation any different from the old Divx?

Uh, what? You realize we're talking about a rental service here, right? And one that's been fairly successful? (And by that I mean actually profitable?)

Re:DVDs

[Hodar]

I use this service, and I love it.

I subscribe to the cheapest program they have, I get 1 DVD at a time - which with several Redbox units nearby, is really not that big of a deal.

However, I can que up 50 or so movies from my account that I 'might' want to watch on my XBox. Like, seasons 1-4 of The Office. I watch each episode when I want, no rental, no return, no hassles. The quality was about the same as watching a VHS tape player when I had 4 Mbps internet service, and improved remarkabaly when I upgraded to 6Mbsp cable.

Is it blue ray? Nope. Is it as good as DVD? Depends - some yes, most no. Typically, it's about the same quality as over the air programming - but it's a listing of what I care to watch, when I care to watch it.

If it weren't for this feature, I'd drop Netflix. Streaming movies is so much more convenient than adding movies to my already obscene collection. Some movies you may want to watch 1 or 2x and are not worth buying - this fits this niche perfectly.

Re:DVDs

[mr_matticus]

How is this latest innovation any different from the old Divx?

Because there is no waste--no physical medium, no risk of damage before being able to watch. There is also no time limit. You can stream any title as long as it is available.

And you can hold them and touch them, resell them, and duplicate them for safekeeping, and you can play them a thousand times without having to engage a "service."

There are drawbacks to everything. Yes, you can hold and touch DVDs, which means you can lose and break them (and even with backups, you still have to be able to prove legitimate possession). You can resell them, yes, but you also have to pay a one-time fixed amount for production and higher distribution cost, as well as wait for them to arrive (or leave your home to acquire them), and buy them individually at the same price, whether you want to watch it twice or two hundred times. You can play them until you damage, sell, or lose them--but you also need a player that will break down or become obsolete.

On the other hand, with digital subscription services, you can watch a huge library of titles at any time on any compatible player (which Netflix is expanding). Sure, they also save quite a bit of money and the enjoyment of the service is dependent on the existence of both the service and Internet connectivity. Connections are insufficient to match BD quality. The library of tiles kind of sucks (much like BD!). But many of the big drawbacks are a result of newness.

Yes, streaming systems will likely always have some kind of DRM to prevent reproduction, and will require an ongoing account. But if you can play any one of tens of thousands of films on screens small and large, there's no actual need to "own" any slice of the content.

Selling limited-rights copies was a compromise to get people to pay for productions that cost more than theater sales could recoup, and where customers wanted to see films after the theater run. The studios need to run a business, the artists need money to produce their works, and consumers want to be entertained. In the 20th century, there was no real way for consumers to get value except by owning a limited-rights copy (essentially derived from a regular shareholder investment scheme, where the profit is entertainment instead of monetary profit). In the 21st century, there's no longer a need for a physical object to achieve this, and since consumers never owned any of the intellectual rights to begin with, there's no longer anything left worth "owning" for the consumer.

You're paying to bring the theater home. For the price of a DVD a month, you get access to thousands of films. You get quite a bit more, but there's no free lunch. Something's gotta give, and in this case, that's persistence of ownership. Some other system has to be created for true fair use (e.g. an online service available at public libraries that allows you to export clips of films to DRM-free digital files) and personal use (e.g. iTunes-style CD burning for mixes and syncing to portable devices).

No thank you

[Hatta]

These integrated devices are never a good idea. Go all the way back to VCR/TV combos. What do you do when the VCR breaks? Throw the whole thing out and get a new one. What do you do with this thing when you cancel netflix and get service from another provider? At the very least you'll have to get a new set top box, which you should have done at first anyway. This is just one more complex and expensive component on an already expensive and complex piece of technology.

AV components should be like UNIX tools. Do one thing and do it well. My TV should display video and that's it. If I want to stream video to it, I'll get a device that can do so. XBMC, AppleTV, whatever PVR my cable company has, etc.

Re:No thank you

[MBCook]

On the surface I agree. I think we've all used those combo devices where one part of the combo was failed.

However if my TV already has all the necessary power to do the job and all it needs is a little software, I'm all for it.

Take my TiVo Series 3. It does Amazon Unbox and Netflix streaming. It already has all the hardware it needs due to it's other purpose (DVR). There is no reason not to include the feature if people want it and the device is capable of it. If it's only an extra $50 on this TV, I'd be in (if I didn't already have my S3).

Also, don't forget, that the problem with the devices you mentioned is usually hardware going bad (like the tape mechanism). In these cases where it's all CPU and RAM they shouldn't have much of a failure rate at all, and it's not effected by use (where VCRs are more likely to fail the more they are used).

Re:No thank you

[Ross D Anderson]

If the VCR breaks and you throw the whole thing out then you're an idiot. Whats stopping you from buying an extra external VCR? Similarly here, you could buy an extra set top box, there's nothing stopping you from doing that. Personally I think this is neat. This is for people like me who want stuff integrated. We'll pay the extra for doohickies with these features and you can pay less for those without.
I really don't get what you're bitching about.

Re:No thank you

[redxxx]

Of course, then when a new protocol comes out and the TV doesn't support it, you buy a new TV. ugh.

Codex packaging is already standardized, unless i'm totally mistaken, so there isn't anything preventing them from allowing users from installing their own. They can host some signed ones themselves, and allow users(probably after checking a 'I'm not a clueless retarded' box) to install their own. If they made it simple to reset back to only signed ones, tech support wouldn't be too rough.

Of course, there's a risk of getting malware on your TV, I suppose. Unfriendly codexs exist to some extent, and with each tv being set up identically(and holding sensitive info, eg netflix login) it could make an attractive target.

I wouldn't want it if I was locked into netflix and particular codexs. Of course, i don't really want a locked down media center with security and such I don't control either, so I can't imagine any form of this that would be for me.

Re:Oh no, not again.

[kannibal_klown]

Yet another bad idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas.

Why not add in a DivX player too while you're at it?

Now...if the $300 bought me a built in open source DVR and the Netflix gateway was included, I'd be interested.

Explain to me why this is a bad idea.

Netflix is about RENTING movies.

They (currently) offer their OnDemand service for as a free bonus to your rental subscription. It's better than the free OnDemand services your cable provider offers.

Until recently, their OnDemand service was only available on PCs using Silverlight. Little-by-little set-top boxes are being released to allow viewing on the TV.

From the article

[internerdj]

"Tim Alessi, director of product development for LG Electronics USA, said the broadband TVs will sell for roughly $200 to $300 more than a regular HDTV set."
So let me get this straight. I can get a Roku for $99 that I can move between TV sets, offers more than just netflix for $100-200 less than this? I guess not having another box on my entertainment center would make my wife happy, but really what is having another box, especially as small as the Roku?

Re:...and TiVo HD

[causality]

About 'Instant Queue', it's a security feature. They want you to queue your movies by logging into your account, because they assume you might attach your neighbor's TiVo to the service, but not share your NetFlix account details with them.

This makes me think of security in general (not just this example of how NetFlix protects their own interests) and how it will apply to this arrangement.

This is the second paragraph of the fine article:

In a partnership to be announced Monday, LG Electronics will start selling high-definition TV sets that stream Netflix videos directly from the Internet, without an additional device. The deal marks the first time Netflix's streaming service will be embedded in a television.

A TV that has a network connection and can use TCP/IP to stream video from NetFlix can also be attacked over the network. The article is extremely light on any sort of technical details. That makes me wonder how "smart" these TVs will be, how much processing power they have, whether they will make use of an embedded general-purpose OS like Windows CE that could be made to do many things (like participating in a botnet) once a compromise has occurred.

Maybe right now that's not a likely scenario, but wait until this becomes cheaper and more widespread. When everyone or nearly everyone has network-connected appliances we're going to start seeing attacks against them. Those attacks will be largely successful, enough to ensure that malware actively thrives "in the wild", if security is an afterthought. Virus scanners and other removal tools are after-the-compromise damage control only and so they cannot decisively prevent this scenario, no matter how well implemented. This is a chance to learn from the mistakes made with both the culture and implementation of Windows security (I was going to say "PC security" and reconsidered) and avoid the endless "malware vs. antimalware" arms race and the cottage industry that perpetuates it. The only way to do that is to start thinking about this now, from the beginning, and design it that way from the start. That's why it bothers me a bit that I'm not hearing anything about this from the vendors. Anyone who thinks this is absurd or unlikely needs only to look at how quickly digital picture frames were compromised and used to attack other systems.

I'm not saying that the goal is to have perfectly secure systems. I'm aware that this is a fantasy. What I believe is attainable, though, is to make compromise difficult enough that automated malware cannot thrive in the wild. Building a real security model from the ground up, not as an afterthought now that something's happened, is a good way to do this. Avoiding a monoculture where a single exploit can target tens of millions of machines is another. I think it really would be inexcusable to repeat the mistakes of the past and cause that much grief for that many people when these are no longer new problems that we are facing.

Re:Video buffer anyone?

[dangerz]

Someone probably owns a patent for it and they dont want to pay.

Re:...and TiVo HD

[mattack2]

Seems like using a few of your DVD slots for the next couple DVDs of the series would help alleviate that.

Re:Buffer space?

[Locke2005]

Luckily, we don't have a problem with waiting while fast forwarding DVDs, because the #*%! pieces of $%&* won't let you fast-forward past the crap they forcibly subject you to before the movie! You would think technology would evolve in the direction of more convenience to the user, not less...