Netflix Goes For Broke

SpamSandwichSpamSandwich
Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
Netflix is pulling out all the stops anticipating Apple's announcement of it's move into movie rentals at MacWorld tomorrow. Although Netflix offers no Mac compatibility, it's a tempting proposition.



http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13515_1-9...tag=nefd.pulse

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    banchobancho Posts: 1,517member
    I honestly have to say that Netflix has handled themselves well with their competition with Blockbuster and now preemptively with Apple. I've personally never had a bad experience with them yet. I think this move is a smart one on their part to be honest. Their catalog of movies you can watch online is a bit lean at the present though.



    Anyway, this is good for Apple in the long run. It'll force them to develop a better experience if they want to take this market and run with it. As you can see, Apple's plans have already forced Netflix to sweeten their deal for customers. Isn't this how it's supposed to work?
  • Reply 2 of 10
    alfiejralfiejr Posts: 1,524member
    what is the picture quality of the Netflix streaming movies? hi-def or what? they never say in their PR.
  • Reply 3 of 10
    alfiejralfiejr Posts: 1,524member
    Ok, i stopped being lazy and Googled my own question. answer from Netflix is officially "near DVD quality." which means, not as good. the streams are 1-3 MBPS depending on content. that's ok for a window on your PC or iPod, or a small TV, but would never be acceptable for home theater. for comparison, AT&T's U-Verse service streams hi-def content at 8 MBPS - and its PQ is generally considered inferior to CATV hi-def which is streamed at up to 12MPS or so.



    in both the NetFlix and U-Verse cases, the video file has to be compressed significantly more than the H264 standard Apple uses, hence the lesser PQ. CATV of course uses the older MPEG2.



    so why do all the write ups about Netflix fail to note the service is, at best, standard definition picture quality? maybe because they don't know beans ...



    so of course NetFlix is offering the service real cheap, bundled in the regular subscription price. who would pay extra per movie for PQ that looks like analog cable?



    the 2007 AppleTV offers 720p H264 video quality, if you can find content (so far, movie trailers and podcasts from iTunes or your own rips and HD DVR recordings), because it doesn't use streaming, caching downloads first instead to avoid bandwith constraints.



    we will see tomorrow what the 2008 AppleTV will do, what quality the movie rentals will be at what price. i'd think they have to be less expensive than CATV on-demand in order to compete well. so like $3 for 720p hi-def, which matches CATV PQ. 1080p would beat it.



    and then we will see "later this year" what Netflix/LG knock-off box can handle. don't hold your breath, it might be a little delayed ...
  • Reply 4 of 10
    banchobancho Posts: 1,517member
    At 3.99 and 4.99 for HD rentals I think my Netflix account is quite safe. I have no problem planning my movie viewing ahead (by two days at most) and at 13.99 per month 4 movies from Apple would blow through what I'm paying for Netflix.



    I'm glad they're making it better. I'm sure there are people that will like what the aTV offers. Not me, but I had a feeling that would be the case anyhow.
  • Reply 5 of 10
    soul_survivorsoul_survivor Posts: 34member
    I'm still upset that Netflix doesn't have the brains to offer Mac compatability.



    In addition, the selection of "download" movies is rather dreary. I never even bother watching my "allotment" of the movies.



    I've also become irritated at the high rate of bad DVDs I've received. All I get is apologies... and that's rather inadequate.
  • Reply 6 of 10
    docpregodocprego Posts: 54member
    They have publically said that they are all Mac lovers and working on the Mac side of things. There are DRM issues that they have to deal with on the Mac, read this: http://blog.spout.com/2008/01/10/the...-apples-fault/
  • Reply 7 of 10
    areseearesee Posts: 776member
    All this says is that Netflix is lazy. They went with a vendor that has chosen not to support non-windows machines. And instead of creating their own DRM that works with all platforms they blame the makers of these non-windows machines for not doing their work for them. If they really meant what they said in that blog they would create their own DRM.
  • Reply 8 of 10
    banchobancho Posts: 1,517member
    For the price they're charging, I can forgive the shortcomings in their online delivery mechanism. I've got Parallels running on my machine for work related programs anyway.
  • Reply 9 of 10
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aresee View Post


    All this says is that Netflix is lazy. They went with a vendor that has chosen not to support non-windows machines. And instead of creating their own DRM that works with all platforms they blame the makers of these non-windows machines for not doing their work for them. If they really meant what they said in that blog they would create their own DRM.



    Lazy? No, it's expensive. Netflix is in the warehousing and distribution business, not the digital content delivery business. The ramp-up for such a transition will be lengthy for them. I think they still have a 5 to 8 year window to make this transition work.
  • Reply 10 of 10
    areseearesee Posts: 776member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post


    Lazy? No, it's expensive. Netflix is in the warehousing and distribution business, not the digital content delivery business. The ramp-up for such a transition will be lengthy for them. I think they still have a 5 to 8 year window to make this transition work.



    I still say lazy though disingenuous might have been better. While I agree that it would be expensive and time consuming for Netflix to create their own DRM, they choose a vendor that explicitly locks out specific platforms and blame the other platforms for the incompatibility. They could have found a better DRM vendor but didn't. That is being lazy.



    My 'laziness' ire is not directed solely at Netflix. It is directed at all the vendors out there who say that the reason that something doesn't work on a general purpose computer is that the maker of that computer, or even someone else, didn't write the required software for them. Garmin comes to mind. At one time they said that the reason their GPS units didn't work on the Mac was because Apple didn't write their drivers for them. And someone else (Real?) said that the reason their DRM didn't work with the Mac was that Apple refused to open up the OS to them. Maybe they wanted deep root access. In both cases the vendors were being lazy. One wants to live off of the work of others and the second didn't think it was worth the effort. (As a Mac user I will always say it is worth the effort, but I can see how for Real and Netflix it may not be. If it is really not worth the effort, I say be honest and let me go on and find a solution that works for me.)
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