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Uproar Over Netflix's New Instant Viewer

Posted by kdawson on from the one-way-beta dept.

almechist writes "Many Netflix customers are up in arms over the new instant-watch player powered by Microsoft's Silverlight. The official Netflix blog is full of complaints from users who decry not only the new player's quality but also the way it's being distributed, with many claiming they were deceived into downloading it. Once you opt for the new player, the old Windows Media based player won't function, not on any computer associated with the account. The new player is supposedly still beta, but NF members are strongly encouraged (some say tricked) by NF into the so-called 'upgrade,' which is permanent — there is no way to opt out. The marked decrease in video quality seen by those who have switched is perhaps not surprising, since the old player could utilize bit streams up to twice as fast as the new one, but this information is nowhere given out by NF. So far NF has been answering all complaints with variations on 'tough luck pal, you're stuck with it,' but many customers are so disgusted they're ready to cancel their NF membership. This could be a public relations disaster in the making for Netflix."

86 of 575 comments (clear)

  1. Frog, pot, increased heat by speedlaw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Really. No one wants DRM. The process of taking your computer from you is slow and incremental.

    1. Re:Frog, pot, increased heat by fyrie · · Score: 4, Informative

      The original player has DRM as well. It uses MS's COPP protection.

    2. Re:Frog, pot, increased heat by nine-times · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The thing is, this is one use of DRM that I think I might be able to live with: when you're renting content. Most of the things that I believe make DRM inherently unacceptable come from someone else trying to exercise control over something that I purchased and "own".

    3. Re:Frog, pot, increased heat by nEoN+nOoDlE · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The thing is, this is one use of DRM that I think I might be able to live with: when you're renting content.

      the problem with DRM is that it turns everything into rented content. Your music, your movies, your video games, and soon to be your applications and your OS. Everybody wants to switch over to a pay per use plan because that's how they figure they'd make the most money.

      --
      Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
    4. Re:Frog, pot, increased heat by Scrameustache · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The thing is, this is one use of DRM that I think I might be able to live with: when you're renting content. Most of the things that I believe make DRM inherently unacceptable come from someone else trying to exercise control over something that I purchased and "own".

      No one wants to lose to option to own. The process of taking your computer from you is slow and incremental.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    5. Re:Frog, pot, increased heat by UCSCTek · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Everybody wants to switch over to a pay per use plan because that's how they figure they'd make the most money.

      Which comes from similar logic used by RIAA lawyers when calculating lost revenue: that every unpaid for product in use is lost revenue equal to retail value. I'd hope anyone who thinks about that for a few seconds can realize how absurd it is.

      The idea of DRM is fine, there are probably cases where it is makes perfect sense. It is this misuse of it in an attempt to leverage customers out of more money that I think is the issue.

    6. Re:Frog, pot, increased heat by nine-times · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, I agree, that is the problem with DRM: it turns everything into rented content. But that's not such a big problem when you're explicitly renting it.

      For example, iTunes has the option to rent movies for $4 (giving you 24 hours to watch it) or to buy movies that you keep for $15. The rentals are effectively the same as my cable company's pay-per-view service, and it doesn't bother me on any practical or ideological level. Without that DRM, they probably wouldn't offer that option of "renting" digital downloads, whereas I find those rentals useful.

      However, I won't "buy" iTunes DRMed video. If I'm supposed to be "buying" it for keeps, and I'm paying a price that's commensurate with a purchase, then DRM is unacceptable. I'll buy movies and TV series, but not unless it's in a high-quality format that I can rip/transcode if I really want to.

    7. Re:Frog, pot, increased heat by prockcore · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm having trouble figuring out how you're using hulu without a flash plugin.

    8. Re:Frog, pot, increased heat by TheLongshot · · Score: 5, Informative

      Which doesn't work with my monitor, since I have an older flat panel that isn't HDCP compliant. It makes the service completely useless to me.

    9. Re:Frog, pot, increased heat by EdIII · · Score: 3, Informative

      DRM has nothing to do with this. I am not a proponent of DRM, but this particular situation is not affected either positively or negatively by the existence of DRM. I don't mean from the point of view of the customer, I just mean the situation itself and how to resolve it.

      The issue is that the performance and quality of the new player has been reduced dramatically to the point the service is not worth the same. It's like being sold Blu-Ray, but then one firmware update later losing the HDMI output and only being able to use S-Video or Coax.

      not on any computer associated with the account.

      THAT is what is causing the problem. Once you have started to use the new system, you cannot use the old one, and that has nothing to do with what computer you are using or what DRM is installed. It's a server side issue. Well, that's a simple database transaction over at Netflix. They just need to modify their damn CRM to allow customer service reps to either put people back on the old system, or issue trouble tickets to the IT staff to do it for them.

      Even better yet, just get rid of the WHOLE policy on their systems that disallows connections from older clients based on whether or not they upgraded to the new system.

      This whole problem can be solved in less than 24 hours over at Netflix with practically no involvement of the customer. Just issue an email with an apology and a rebate and don't make the mistake of changing the expected quality of a service unexpectedly, especially for the same price.

      P.S - I suspect they can fix the problem in 1 second. The ability to distinguish between older clients and newer clients is most likely a single field in their databases. A simple SQL statement could probably fix it faster than anything else.

    10. Re:Frog, pot, increased heat by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not really.

      I spend >$10 on a DVD that usually only watch once or twice.

      I spend ?$13 on Netflix per month and watch 5 or 6 streaming movies. Or for $10 I could watch 3-4 Movies on XBox marketplace.

      Do I spend more on pay per view? Yes. I usually rent more than I buy. But largely because I pirate less. It's supporting the content providers and they're offering me an affordable, reasonable service.

      I don't see the problem. They're offering me a better experience than the previous model (buying DVDs) at a discounted price. How many movies do you own that actually were cheaper than $2 per viewing?

      Pay Per View should cut piracy because the entry cost is lower. $2 for a possibly mediocre movie vs $18. If you aren't willing to spend $2 on a movie then you don't really deserve to watch it, it's almost impossible to not get your money's worth at $2.

    11. Re:Frog, pot, increased heat by berend+botje · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The difference might be that DVD's do not stop working when the publisher shuts off a license server.

    12. Re:Frog, pot, increased heat by penix1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The idea of DRM is fine, there are probably cases where it is makes perfect sense.

      No it isn't. The whole reason for copyright isn't to make money forever no matter how the publishing corporations want to spin it. It is to enhance the public domain which doesn't happen with DRM. If you want to DRM content, then it shouldn't be covered by copyright since you violated the very reason for copyright.

      --
      This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
    13. Re:Frog, pot, increased heat by hey! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is an important point. It leads an irony worth considering, based on the well known principle that local optimizations don't lead to global optimization.

      Suppose Alice has content that Bob wants. Very few people would feel that Alice ought to be compelled to provide Bob that content just be cause he wants it. So Bob has to offer Alice some incentive. Alice names a fancy price, which Bob declines to pay. So instead Bob and Alice come to a somewhat more complex arrangement. Bob agrees to pay Alice a smaller price, but restrict his uses to those he is most willing to pay for. From a libertarian viewpoint, this seems innocuous. Alice and Bob are happy, so that should be the end of that.

      But Alice and Bob are happy only with respect to the direct effects of this transaction on their interests. They are not necessarily happy about the net effect of information being encumbered this way throughout society. For example, many software licenses forbid publishing benchmarks or reviews without approval. Is the world a better place when people only have a vendor's word for what a piece of software is capable of doing? Are buyers better off?

      The rental thing sounds innocuous, but it has important consequences as well. Alice can probably maximize her revenue for her existing content by adopting a rental model. But culture depends on free re-use of ideas, both subtle reuses that don't fall within the scope of copyright law, and obvious reuses.

      Disney, for example comes down hard on people who would reuse images from its version Pinnochio, even though that work is by now sixty-four years old. However, their 1940 movie makes free use of the original story by Carlo Collodi that, because it was published in 1883, was only fifty seven years old at the time. Disney would argue, correctly, that at the time their usage was legal whereas their movie is still protected by current copyright. But they can't make a utilitarian argument that in this case protection is for the greater common good. Nor can they reasonably say it represents morally necessary protection of a fundamental right of creators to perpetual intelletual property protection.

      The important thing is that when information is controlled solely by private agreements, the net effect of all these local optimizations across society is not globally optimal for the parties living in that society. We can take a lesson from the popular music industry, which is creatively moribund and therefore financially vulnerable. They can blame "piracy" if they like, but if they were producing what consumers considered a good value they would be much better off. Yes, it is possible to download files of unknown quality and provenance for free, but when consumers have access to a good selection through convenient distribution at a fair price, they prefer it. The iTunes store proves this.

      But even something like the iTunes store is not a long term solution. As Pablo Picasso said, "Bad artists copy. Great artists steal." Art and culture depend on artists making old works their own.

      The progress of useful arts and sciences can't be left entirely to contractual or licensing arrangements between private individuals, as practically useful and even indispensable as those might be. Given the power of technology to restrict information, the law that makes those arrangements possible must also promote the continuing enrichment of the general intellectual welfare, if we are not to suffer dire long term consequences. Unfortunately, we live in a country where politicians aren't very interested in culture, or any aspect of the life of the mind. I was shocked to hear one politician last week mock the idea that studying the spread of venereal disease was a worthwhile use of money. I believe that this anti-intellectualism comes from being so rich for so long that we've come to believe that we can live by managing the prior accumulated wealth of generations of intellectual achievement.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    14. Re:Frog, pot, increased heat by dfn_deux · · Score: 4, Informative

      There are a few "hdmi repeaters" on the market which do a decent job of stripping hdcp, however they do not advertise this feature widely for fear of having their hdcp keys revoked. The repeater functionality defined by the hdcp standard requires that repeaters decrypt and then encrypt the output stream. Some devices just skip the whole re-encryption part of the spec though. Poke around on AVS forums or similar hometheater websites for reviews which may indicate if a particular device is usable for this purpose.

      --
      -*The above statement is printed entirely on recycled electrons*-
    15. Re:Frog, pot, increased heat by Cowmonaut · · Score: 3, Informative

      You are missing the point. With a business model like Netflix's where you do NOT actually own the content, you are only renting it from Netflix, it makes PERFECT sense to have a DRM scheme (so long as it doesn't actually hinder people from viewing what they actually are paying to rent). Just like you should not be allowed to burn copies of movies you rent from blockbuster/hollywood video you shouldn't be able to record or copy the movies you rent from netflix.

      It is when they do silly things like put DRM on video games you OWN, or music you OWN, and so forth that DRM becomes unacceptable.

      Oh, and given each country has separate laws people need to stop bitching how Hulu doesn't work outside the US. There is no global copyright system. Stuff gets registered multiple times in different countries and the folks at Hulu don't want to pay several hundred times for you to be able to watch Robot Holocaust once.

  2. I see comments in the thread linked to... by JoshuaZ · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I see comments in the thread linked to by the original post. But I don't see any information saying there's really widespread unhappiness. There are 483 comments in the thread, most negative but I have no idea how large or how representative a sample that is. I can't tell how much of this is the standard negative reaction to any major upgrade. Does anyone have any data on complaint levels for prior Netflix upgrades?

    1. Re:I see comments in the thread linked to... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      it's also, if you notice, not exactly a NEW problem.
      And if you look deeper, you'll see that the quality has been increased quite a bit over the past few months.

      add in that the compression used in the new streams is much better than the old one, allowing for better quality over lower bandwidth.

      but then, why use facts at all.

      why do i feel that this is more of a post by some disgruntled linux user who "can't get teh fee service that i pay nothing extra for to work on my selected OS" than any real news....

      oh wait, it's because that's what this is and it's on /. for a reason.

      fuck off freetard.

    2. Re:I see comments in the thread linked to... by jackchance · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I am a mac user, so i only saw the silverlight version. But the video quality is way better than youtube. It is not DVD quality, but it is close. I haven't used it in a few weeks. It is totally possible that the increased popularity of the service has choked their bandwidth.

      I just logged in to check, and the quality is fine. About as good as standard TV.

      I think it is sort of funny that netflix gave this service to existing customers for free. and now people are bitching about the quality of this service that i see as basically icing on my dvd subscription cake.

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    3. Re:I see comments in the thread linked to... by anagama · · Score: 4, Funny

      You need to upgrade your "sense of entitlement" -- you're falling way behind the current population.

      --
      What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
    4. Re:I see comments in the thread linked to... by jackchance · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, how DARE customers expect a quality product....Imagine the GALL of a customer expecting to be treated with respect by people they give money to.

      Note, in my OP i specified existing customers. If i recently became a subscriber because of watch instantly, i would be annoyed if the service declined (which i have not seen any evidence of personally - although i have had A/V sync issue specifically with animated content which i contacted netflix about with no reply).

      As for respect? I have had pretty good experiences with netflix in the past. It does seem totally ridiculous that people can't 'back out' of the silverlight upgrade. I think perhaps netflix underestimated how quickly watch instantly would be adopted.

      Let me just add, 95% of the shit we all bitch about (myself included) on slashdot is evidence of entitlement. We aren't complaining about not having food, or being jailed or executed for voicing our opinions online. We are bitching about not being able to play our movies or music everywhere we want or crappy software. Sure, if you pay for a product, you should get what you pay for. But remember that we are lucky to have access to the technologies that we have.

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    5. Re:I see comments in the thread linked to... by jackchance · · Score: 3, Informative
      I just checked out youtube HD, and it seems about the same. The netflix looked better to me... but i couldn't do an apples to apples comparison (ie. find the exact same video).

      but speaking of youtube, i find that many many videos are "no longer available". It's become way way less useful. Also, if the videos are no longer available, why don't they remove the links so you don't try to watch the video?!? epic fail.

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  3. Re:Uninstall Reinstall? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    I mean, no one RTFA, but not even the summary?!

    Once you opt for the new player, the old Windows Media based player won't function, not on any computer associated with the account.

    It looks like a flag is set for the account when you "upgrade."

  4. so just quit by groslyunderpaid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    no, really. cancel your membership. now. everyone. then they will change. consumer whining does nothing. comsumers taking their money elsewhere does everything.

    1. Re:so just quit by fyrie · · Score: 5, Informative

      Netflix has responded to complaints in the past. At one point they were going to ditch multiple profiles/queues per account, but they decided to keep them after the uproar.

    2. Re:so just quit by collywally · · Score: 5, Funny

      I tried that with my car purchase but the government just subsidized them anyway.

    3. Re:so just quit by djupedal · · Score: 5, Interesting

      >"This could be a public relations disaster in the making for Netflix."

      >"...consumers taking their money elsewhere does everything."

      I'm sure there are 'investments' in place by MS that will ease any pain in the short term.

      Reed Hastings, Netflix founder and CEO, holds a seat on Microsoft's board. Microsoft purchased, (purely for investment reasons) 1% of Netflix stocks. Netflix will do what MS wants.

    4. Re:so just quit by E+IS+mC(Square) · · Score: 5, Interesting

      We are talking about Netflix. Yes, they are a company looking for making profit, but they are also one of the few companies who have a solid record of listening to their customers. I have nothing but positive experience with Netflix. Give them a chance - let's see how they will react to this.

    5. Re:so just quit by fyrie · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's odd since I currently have three queues on my account.

    6. Re:so just quit by houstonbofh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I tried that with my car purchase but the government just subsidized them anyway.

      +5 Funny? God I WISH it was a joke!

    7. Re:so just quit by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I have a hard time believing there are those who were duped into downloading software that ended up hosing their system.

      Well, you're a lucky person never to have dealt with Microsoft then.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
    8. Re:so just quit by RMingin · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Got just one on mine, and when I asked about it, I was told it was history.

      Perhaps the decision to keep them was limited to grandfathered cases, new enrolls don't get the option.

      --
      The preceding comment is my own, and in no way construes an opinon of the Emperor of Mankind.
    9. Re:so just quit by mail2345 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Because of the possibility of the score going over 65535.

    10. Re:so just quit by JackieBrown · · Score: 4, Insightful

      1% is not exactly a controlling share.

    11. Re:so just quit by Kinetix303 · · Score: 4, Funny

      There's a potential Donkey Kong kill screen coming up, if anyone is interested.

      --
      Urban Detail
    12. Re:so just quit by cmacb · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They respond to complaints when they are accompanied by lawsuits.

      I canceled mine over the secret throttling issue, so I can't join the protest this time around.

      I've since gotten my apology letter from Netflix promising me a whole goddamn month of one extra DVD if I ever sign up again. The lawyers probably got the rest (and I bet they still do throttling).

      Go screw yourselves Netflix. I'll just wait for full online view-on-demand or do without.

      Hey people learn to do without. Your going to have to do a lot of that in the future anyway, might as well make a protest out of it while it can do some good.

    13. Re:so just quit by hansamurai · · Score: 5, Informative

      I just signed up two months ago and my wife and I each have their own queue. Sign in and go to this page and add a profile.

      https://www.netflix.com/ViewProfiles

      --
      Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
  5. Viewer Quality by Roxton · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I was one of the early adopters. Within a week of the release of NetFlix streaming on the XBox, my PC feed became useless. It would keep stopping to buffer, and eventually stop indefinitely. When I called NetFlix to complain, they suggested I try the Silverlight player. The quality was roughly on par with YouTube, but the buffering problems went away, so I went with it.

    I'm wondering if the problem is not so much poor software quality as it is a bottleneck in the feed itself. Perhaps the servers can't take the load, or perhaps they simply don't have enough well-placed bandwidth. Their instant viewing subscriber base has been climbing tremendously.

    1. Re:Viewer Quality by shaitand · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Quality on par with Youtube? Where do you get that?

      The old scheme had video that was extremely blurry at even the highest available bitrates. The new video is clear even at low bitrates with no buffering, no blurring, it compares favorably to SD cable and good divx/xvid rips on my 50" hdtv. If they can get that incredible increase in video quality at a lower bitrate then I say more power to them. Maybe they'll actually add some content.

      Not to mention the fact that it works in Firefox, I had to use IE Tab to get the old crapware working.

      Only complaint I have is the lack of content. There is no justification for the new releases not ALL being available for instant viewing the moment they are available for mailing.

  6. Re:Uninstall Reinstall? by powerspike · · Score: 4, Insightful

    well from the summary, it sounds like it's server side, because other computers on the same account can't use the old player anymore either, so a simple uninstall and reinstall wouldn't work.

  7. they did tell you ahead of time by Vorpix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    when i first saw the silverlight player i considered trying it out. but when i looked into it, netflix made it clear that this would make silverlight your only option. i didn't really want to go full-on with silverlight so I just passed up on it.

    it's not like netflix hid the fact that you couldn't use the WMP version. it wasn't discreetly placed in the fine print.. it was pretty clear.

    now, i don't really understand why they are forcing it to be an all-or-nothing decision.. but don't blame them for something they told you ahead of time about, and you had to opt into.

    --
    frog blast the vent core
  8. Bigger disaster for Microsoft? by slashkitty · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Even though they were running both players... This situation certainly associates silverlight with poor quality.

    --
    -- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
    1. Re:Bigger disaster for Microsoft? by moosesocks · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Really?

      The old Netflix Instant Viewer required you to download a bunch of crap as well.

      The new one is the exact same way, and provides better video quality to every user I've talked to. What exactly is the issue here? It honestly sounds like a paranoid anti-MS rant. I suppose there might be some bugs, though anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that the Silverlight-based system is more stable.

      The angry comments on the blog come primarily from users who have PPC macs -- users who weren't supported under the old system either. Although this comes down to being Microsoft's fault, the VC-1 codec is currently the only DRM'd solution that the movie studios see as being viable. Like it or not, DRM is going to be the reality for streaming video for some time to come.

      Unfortunately, Microsoft have chosen not to support PPC machines with the codec, primarily because there are very few PPC machines powerful enough to decode VC-1 video in real-time. It sucks for PPC Mac users, but you should be able to see their logic.

      --
      -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
  9. kdawson by Drive42 · · Score: 5, Informative

    =FUD. I have never seen an article penned by him (or her) that does not over-exaggerate the facts of the matter. The silverlight player has been out for a few months now. To have 480-odd complaints in that time, considering the size of Netflix's user base, while not great, is not that significant.

    The implementation of silverlight is still an important problem because of the DRM and the possible incompatibilities and bugs, but it is nowhere a "disaster".

    kdawson does nothing positive for slashdot. He should be removed. His entries sound like the worst kind of hellraising politics.

    1. Re:kdawson by massysett · · Score: 4, Informative

      kdawson does nothing positive for slashdot. He should be removed. His entries sound like the worst kind of hellraising politics.

      Please, please mod this up. kdawson always, always posts absolute garbage. I didn't even look at Slashdot for months due to all the total garbage posted by kdawson. Now I have come back, and I have no idea why.

      I understand users posting dumb comments, and I can even understand dumb comments getting modded up...but dumb summaries of total crap articles? I might as well read Digg for that. Maybe I'll start ignoring Slashdot for a few months again, or until they get rid of this absolute garbage that kdawson always posts.

      --
      Penny - plain text accounting
  10. OS X Support by georgevulov · · Score: 5, Informative

    Personally, I am very happy with the new Silverlight-based movie player. The Windows Media Player-based solution offered no OS X support and I was forced to use VirtualBox to watch NF movies.

    Also, in my experience the new player loads much faster and fast forwarding and rewinding works much better. I have not noticed a decrease in quality, probably because my Internet connection wasn't fast enough in the first place to get the highest-quality streams.

    --
    TerraIM - my pet AIM client project.
    1. Re:OS X Support by Draconix · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seconding this. I've been using the Silverlight-based player, and it's been ace on OS X. The quality isn't stellar, but it's not bad enough to bother me either. It's a lot better than say, Youtube, but not as good as Quicktime streaming. It's maybe a little worse than DVD for me, which is perfectly fine by my standards.

      Only problems I've had with it were occasional movies with audio out of sync, but it's a rare problem. (I've had it happen two or three times out of at least 50)

      The DRM doesn't really bother me in this case. I'm renting these movies, not buying them. The DRM isn't depriving me of anything. (I'm really anti-DRM for things one owns, but seriously, for rental services, DRM makes perfect sense to me.)

      --
      By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
  11. PR disaster? by Jade+E.+2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    This could be a public relations disaster in the making for Netflix.

    Nah, they'll be fine, as long as it doesn't make Slashdot.

  12. Re:Let them fry! by SydShamino · · Score: 4, Informative

    Anyone remember being able to have multiple queues on your (shared) account with someone? Thrown out, in the name of "efficiency" to much booing.

    They reverted that decision after the public outcry. We still have multiple queues on our account.

    --
    It doesn't hurt to be nice.
  13. Secret reason for this change! by gravos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The real reason for this change is that there are tools that rip the old Windows Media stream and let you save the instant movies on your computer. So far I haven't seen a similar tool for the Silverlight streams.

    --
    This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
    1. Re:Secret reason for this change! by cos(0) · · Score: 3, Informative

      It doesn't work in Moonlight.

    2. Re:Secret reason for this change! by Anthony_Cargile · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I tinkered with Silverlight some back when it first came out (before it was even .NET integrated), and I wonder if someone using a utility such as wget could simply retrieve the Silverlight XAML file, view the source and then retrieve the video file from the URL shown in the source. Unless the newer silverlight is compiled or something, it theoretically should work since, unlike trying this with PHP or ASP.NET code, it is up to the browser/plugin to interpret the XAML not unlike regular JavaScript.

      And if the Silverlight app is embedded within another (binary) app for display or some other means of obfuscating the location of the XAML file, couldn't Ethereal/Wireshark simply reveal the location of it granted the traffic is not encrypted? Anything can theoretically be cracked.

    3. Re:Secret reason for this change! by ectotherm · · Score: 5, Funny

      See, I KNEW we should never have stopped using VHS... ;-)

      --
      "Nature bats last..."
    4. Re:Secret reason for this change! by mail2345 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If Alice and Eve are the same person.

    5. Re:Secret reason for this change! by Anthony_Cargile · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nevermind, it seems that the lovable DRM within the raw video file ties the video to the player. Oh well, on to other solutions...

    6. Re:Secret reason for this change! by HeadlessNotAHorseman · · Score: 5, Funny

      The real reason for this change is that there are tools that rip the old Windows Media stream and let you save the instant movies on your computer. So far I haven't seen a similar tool for the Silverlight streams.

      Check again in about 10 minutes...

      --
      I like my coffee the way I like my women - roasted and ground up into little tiny pieces.
    7. Re:Secret reason for this change! by cjb658 · · Score: 3, Informative

      I've been very successful at getting embedded WMV to play on Linux, but, as of now, don't know of any such tools for Silverlight.

      Microsoft made a really good container/codec combination with WMV, but as was the case with Vista, they just couldn't leave good enough alone.

    8. Re:Secret reason for this change! by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 3, Informative

      Which supports Silverlight 1.0 or 1.1 - Basically all sites (including Netflix) use 2.0 now. Also, I don't believe Moonlight supports DRM yet.

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      retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
    9. Re:Secret reason for this change! by zerocool6900 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually I've been using Netflix for over a year and they haven't tried to throttle me. I get 3 to 4 movies each week.

      --
      Some people never learn...no matter how many times something happens to them.
    10. Re:Secret reason for this change! by houstonbofh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nevermind, it seems that the lovable DRM within the raw video file ties the video to the player. Oh well, on to other solutions...

      So I'm assuming the $9/month is too expensive for you? Ask you mom if to raise your allowance the next time you ask permission to use the computer.

      Netflix: Low selection. Skips and jumps. Low definition. Tied to one player. Not cross platform Pirate Bay: Giant selection. Plays smooth. Up to 1080p. Plays on most players. Cross platform. Yep, it's all about the money... Until people realize that this is just not true, they will never fix the real problem.

  14. It's the encoder, stupid. by Silverlancer · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are pretty much three choices for streaming video right now:

    1. Crappy encoder, low bitrate. This is what Youtube went with originally--they used FLV1 (Sorenson H.263) video, which at the time was the only real option (other than VP6, which wasn't much better). They went with 350kbps video. The result was pretty awful, but it worked for Youtube videos. It's free, so people will tolerate it. But for a paid service, such quality is absurd.

    2. Crappy encoder, high bitrate. This is what Stage6 did; they used DivX, which, while better than FLV1, wasn't too much better. But what they did was allow absurdly high bitrates; I saw bitrates over 12 megabits per second for standard definition video! Of course, we all know what happened to Stage6; upon realizing the sheer amount of money that such bitrates cost, they went out of business, sort of like Wile. E. Coyote falling to the ground only after realizing that he was standing on air.

    3. Good encoder, low bitrate. Facebook does ~600kbps standard definition video, and it looks great. Vudu does 1080p video on demand at 2.8mbps. Youtube now does 720p HD at 2 megabits. What do they have in common? They use x264 for encoding.

    NetFlix chose to use VC-1 instead, and as a result they have 1.5 megabit standard definition streams that look like crap. And they don't even have an excuse anymore, because Silverlight supports H.264. Which is rather odd, actually, as Microsoft has been pushing for years to try to replace H.264 in the marketplace with their vastly inferior VC-1. Maybe they've given up because their campaign just isn't working.

    1. Re:It's the encoder, stupid. by evilviper · · Score: 5, Insightful

      NetFlix chose to use VC-1 instead, and as a result they have 1.5 megabit standard definition streams that look like crap.

      The codec-standard being used doesn't have a huge amount to do with video quality. The implementation matters a lot more than the codec.

      For very high quality encoding, you really can't even theoretically do much better than MPEG-2 already has. All newer codecs can really do, that old ones couldn't, is to do a better job of masking digital artifacts, when using bitrates so low that they can't be avoided (1.5MBps should be high enough not to require it).

      You can certainly find commercial H.264 video encoders that produce horrible results.

      WMV3 (aka WMV9, VC-1, etc.) suffers from the fact that practically nobody but Microsoft chooses to make an encoder for the format, and Microsoft isn't interested in the endless testing a tweaking that it takes to really squeeze the maximum quality out of it.

      What x264 has going for it, are the same things Xvid and Lavc (ffmpeg/mplayer) have going for them... Lots of people spending lots of time, dedicated to improving the encoder, for everyone's benefit. Whether you love or hate open source, perceptual coding is really the canonical example where proprietary software just can't compete. Actually LAME, Musepack, et al, fall into this category as well, on the audio side of the spectrum.

      Of course, the most prominent counter-example would be Theora, which has turned into a bottomless pit of embarrassment, but several-dozen to one isn't bad odds at all.

      But I digress.

      Netflix does a lousy job at video encoding. They could do a much better job, while sticking with VC-1, but they instead chose not to invest the slightest effort into it. Switching to x264 would help a lot, but switching to Xvid, or Lavc MPEG-2 would do almost as much, really.

      In conclusion, where'd my bottle of whiskey go?...

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    2. Re:It's the encoder, stupid. by atamido · · Score: 4, Interesting

      For very high quality encoding, you really can't even theoretically do much better than MPEG-2 already has. All newer codecs can really do, that old ones couldn't, is to do a better job of masking digital artifacts, when using bitrates so low that they can't be avoided (1.5MBps should be high enough not to require it).

      This is simply not true for any practical application. If you pump up the bitrate high enough, MPEG-2 and h.264 will both produce just I-frames encoded pretty similarly. But at those bitrates people will be using something like MJPEG, or a lossless codec.

      H.264 has a significantly better motion vector system at practical bitrates that will produce a far superior image than MPEG-2. When Blu-Ray was first came out, all of it's movies were in MPEG-2 for some reason, while HD-DVD was in H.264, and the HD-DVD movies had significantly higher quality. It wasn't until Blu-Ray producers switched to using H.264 that they were able to make movies with excellent quality. (This despite more than a decade of development on MPEG-2 codecs.)

      WMV3 (aka WMV9, VC-1, etc.) suffers from the fact that practically nobody but Microsoft chooses to make an encoder for the format, and Microsoft isn't interested in the endless testing a tweaking that it takes to really squeeze the maximum quality out of it.

      VC-1 actually has pretty good quality. (I have no idea if further development could improve it much though.) VC-1 is almost as good as H.264 for quality at a given bitrate. Where it shines though is that it takes significantly less CPU power to decode. It's not uncommon for a PC to be able to decode a VC-1 1080p stream, but not an H.264 one.

      Still, Netflix is the only major system that I know of that uses VC-1 heavily. Blu-Ray CAN use it, but most producers seem to use H.264 instead. I suppose they figure that they might as well get the extra quality as they know hardware players will be able to play either back fine.

  15. I'm still waiting for a Linux player. by Trelane · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At least they've got a player to whine about....

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    --
    Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
  16. Re:Uninstall Reinstall? by pla · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It looks like a flag is set for the account when you "upgrade."

    So just cancel your account and sign up for a new one. Not like you get any special deals for your long-term loyalty.

  17. Third time's the charm? by undertow3886 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Don't know if this has been mentioned yet but this post is from last October.

    MLB.tv did something similar a year or so ago where they switched from something that is actually meant to play video (WMP) to something that I can't really tell what it's meant to do (Silverlight). They had a similar deal where once you opted in you couldn't change back to WMP. They had (have?) all the same kinds of problems with it not working for people or just being worse quality.

    Now this has happened a second time with a completely separate content provider and I don't know what to think other than that Silverlight is synonymous with crummy picture quality and choppy playback.

    --
    Sick of people knocking on Gentoo's greatness in completely unrelated .sigs? Me too!
  18. They reversed course on the single queue downgrade by sottitron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Back in June of 2008 Netflix was going to shutdown the feature for managing separate queues. They sent an email and I canceled my account that day. Not sure how many of us there were, but they reversed course quickly. If you're pissed about the silverlight player. Close your account and email them a note to say why you did it. Maybe this will be a non-issue in the morning... Here is a link to the original plan on Ars Technica: Netflix killing extra queues

  19. Re:Let them fry! by SensitiveMale · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Here's what really happened:

    Nope.

    Here is what really happened:

    Microsoft called Netflix and said "We'll pay you a ton of cash if you use our software"

  20. Re:Let them fry! by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... or they could just conform to open standards.

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  21. Re:Uninstall Reinstall? by Firethorn · · Score: 5, Informative

    except that new accounts get no choice.

    I recently signed up and never new about anything other than the silverlight player.

    --
    I don't read AC A human right
  22. Say What? by secretplans · · Score: 5, Insightful

    .torrent + utorrent + VLC = WTF is NetFlix?

  23. Re:so just quit - or don't start by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If I could watch the instant content in Linux, I would already be a customer.

    For now though, my torrents provide me the latest content, DRM-free, and they usually arrive faster than the mailed DVDs.

  24. If I had to do it all over again by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I would open another Netflix account and sell my old-school-player account on Ebay. New accounts now are Silverlight-only and the ability to use the old player has market value.

  25. Re:Let them fry! by girlintraining · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... or they could just conform to open standards.

    "open"... "standards"... Two words that should really only see each other every now and then, and always with court-ordered supervision. -_-

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
  26. Re:You can't rent content by TheSpoom · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You can rent a physical good, like a disk or a cartridge, but you can't rent information.

    At least, not until they have brain implants put into all their customers that delete the memories after the rental period is over. I'd give it 15 years or so.

    --
    It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
    - E. Debs
  27. Re:Uninstall Reinstall? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Same here. Signed up last week. I've been using the silverlight player and I've been really enjoying the Netflix service on my laptop and on my XBox. Video quality looks pretty good to me. I don't really understand the complaint.

  28. new player is great by falcon5768 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Seriously I think it works excellently. And to complain about DRM on a RENTAL is insane especially when the original had DRM too. Sorry Im sure Netflix will take being able to offer films to Mac users and soon linux users with moonlight, over a few people bitching any day.

    --

    "Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."

  29. whine...whine by Danathar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    OH puleeze...it's their service. They don't even have to HAVE streaming. If you don't like it then drop it.

  30. I'm baffled here by shaitand · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The new player works in both Firefox and IE and is a MAJOR quality improvement over the previous player. It starts faster, the picture is dramatically better. The previous version never had blockiness but at ANY quality setting it looked like it had a blur effect applied. Their hacked together scripts NEVER detected the correct bitrate for me, requiring me to manually set the bitrate. Except of course that sometimes the appropriate bitrates didn't even appear as an option when I used the key sequence to change it manually.

    The new player has no issues, it auto scales to available bandwidth and recalculates on the fly every 6 seconds with no video interruption. Unlike the old version, you can jump around in the video timeline fairly quickly. With the old version it required 2mins plus of buffering.

    For the people talking about ripping streams, the rippers don't work with the current version of media player and the DRM refuses to work without it.

  31. Re:Uninstall Reinstall? by mR.bRiGhTsId3 · · Score: 5, Funny

    You clearly are new here. As a subscriber to a technology that has both DRM and Microsoft attached to it, you are mandated to be (at a minimum) morally outraged.

  32. Not a problem for me.... by Anachragnome · · Score: 4, Informative

    I use Netflix, both the delivery by mail system, and the Instant View.

    I "upgraded" to Silverlight when the service required me to do so.

    The video quality is better. It is not interrupted nearly as often by network congestion as the old player was, and the "backwards/Forward" slider actually works without rebuffering the entire movie again. It also remembers where I left off when I close the IE. I can come back a week later and pick up right where I left off. The "free" service works better, by far.

    But what about Windows Media player being borked? Until I read the summary, IT DIDN'T MATTER. Why?

    Quite simple. I don't use Windows Media Player for ANYTHING BUT NETFLIX! Matter of fact, I don't use Internet Explorer for anything but Netflix as well!

    As a matter of fact, Netflix is the only reason either of them are even installed on my machine. So, in essence, there was a net effect of ZERO, other then the above-mentioned benefits.

  33. Never bored with same show over and over? by TheLink · · Score: 5, Funny

    Amazing? It's called Alzheimer's disease you insensitive clod!

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  34. Not offtopic you ignoramuses by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Jesus fucking christ the moderators have become shockingly bad lately.. for the uninitiated, Alice is the intended recipient (ie. the netflix viewer) and Eve is the eavesdropper. If they are the same person as in this case, the protection can be cracked.

  35. Handy Secret Commands! by graphicsguy · · Score: 4, Informative

    I just tried it yesterday. It seems to work fine. No fast-forward/reverse, but forward/backward selection from an image preview stack works well enough for me (for now). It does seem like the default auto-bitrate tends to set things on the low side. Try control-shift-alt-b to manually select from the three available bitrates, and control-shift-alt-m for a menu of other interesting stuff.

  36. I disagree.... by UttBuggly · · Score: 4, Informative

    Coincidentally, I just dropped the Cox Cable DVR (SciAtl 8300HD) in favor of TiVo HD and...NetFlix!

    I don't "see" the issues reported, at all. What I do see is that most users...Windows or not...don't have an optimal network setup, and THAT will impact any player, SilverLight included.

    We've gone crazy on the "Instant" stuff, both with the Video On Demand feature of TiVo and the "Instant To Your PC" on the NetFlix site.

    So far, only ONE movie has had issues and those traced back to my DSL router and ISP. Here's a good example of network "gotcha", by the way. My TiVO Desktop machine is a new build and the MTU was defaulted to 1500. That's cool UNLESS you're on a DSL link using PPPoE that supports 1492 as a max MTU. A video stream running in that setup is in packet fragmentation hell. Setting a correct MTU made NetFlix fly. End of problem.

    Plus, I would NOT trade the MUCH better experience with TiVO/NetFlix compared to Cox. If nothing else, the equipment is better. The video scaler in the TiVO box is markedly better than the cheap chips in the SciAtl 8300HD. With component or HDMI, the TiVo provides a cleaner picture. HD is great, but the real test are OTA and basic cable analog signals; TiVO kicks ass. MUCH less noise and not as soft as the SciAtl box.

    Oh, and another thing...MCards do exist and do work. I had Cox tell me they would be bringing 2 SCards for my TiVo HD. I insisted they bring ONE MCard, which they said "Tech Support has never heard of". The tech showed up with both, the MCard worked fine...after a 2nd poke from the Cox network...and it's great. I went back to the local Cox store and told the 2 CSRs there I had indeed received and installed the "non-existent" MCard.

    In short, SilverLight works fine; most consumers...and their networks...do not.

    --
    I am my own gestalt.
  37. I believe netflix just lowered the stream bitrates by DragonTHC · · Score: 3, Informative

    I just tried watching a movie and the quality is much lower than it should be. Something is definitely not right about it.

    I saw the menu. The bitrates avaialble to me were 500,1000, and 1500. 1500 was selected, but the quality was still much lower than I expected. loads of blockies. too many for 1500bps.

    Netflix just changed something I'm sure of it. I will be contacting them for certain about it.

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    They're using their grammar skills there.