Millions might be overstating a bit. 10's of thousands more likely, but your general point is still valid. "Too expensive" doesn't apply to everyone just as you say.
I love the way people make arbitrary comments like this without justification. It may be too expensive FOR YOU, but that doesn't mean it's too expensive. A Ferrari is too expensive for me, but Ferrari customers are perfectly happy with it. Millions of people are paying it and are quite happy.
Millions might be overstating a bit. 10's of thousands more likely, but your general point is still valid. "Too expensive" doesn't apply to everyone just as you say.
Yep, that poster is "one of them". That poster has me on ignore by the way, or so they claim, because I am definitely "not of them", thank goodness for that.
That poster also gets upset whenever somebody mentions anything political in any thread. I guess their own rule applies to everybody except themselves.
And Fox News is a much better news channel than either CNN or MSNBC, which has their feces drenched noses firmly planted up Obama's butt. It is nauseating to watch those channels. No wonder why their ratings absolutely suck and CNN is currently suffering from their lowest ratings in decades. In North Korean death camps, MSNBC is probably what they have on in the background.
LOL ;-)
Quote:
Originally Posted by xxSampleXX
Consumers want content availability at a fixed price, like Pandora or Spotify or NetFlix. The al la carte model used by Apple is antiquated and not going to endure. Presumably, with the rumored Apple TV, we will see a new, less costly to consumer delivery model from them. I hope so at least. Since I've been turned onto Spotify, my musical purchases from Apple are virtually nil. Why would a rational consumer pay for something that is available at virtually no cost?
I don't. I can't trust any of those services to be around tomorrow. While Netflix is fantastic to help entertain the kids when it's raining outside, and truthfully it is convenient when its working, I prefer to own my content and have it stored locally. I may be in the minority but as time passes or if our family moves somewhere to where hi-speed internet isn't available, I'll have a nice library to keep me going. Hopefully there will be places still retailing physical media.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kozchris
I'm slowing replacing my DVDs with iTunes purchases. Great to finally have the ability from Apple to have my purchases in the cloud. I would think many other people are doing the same thing. Similar situation with all the noise about how people didn't want to own their music so iTunes would fail. See how that worked out.
I'm doing the opposite. I've been taking my DVD's and adding them to my iTunes library. I'm not paying twice for something I already own. If it were something that I didn't own I might consider using iTunes. Currently Ive been purchasing impossible things to find anywhere else such as classic hockey games, etc.
Because streaming is not profitable for them at present. Costs are too high still. The profitable portion of their business is their DVD delivery business, and they are hinting at getting away from that. Go figure. NO one can replicate their infrastructure to deliver high quality BluRay via mail or any other way, and they are abandoning it. <shaking my head here>
Netflix is also paying Amazon, which charges 5 times the amount for bandwidth than it would cost them if they just had their equipment at cheap edge nodes. If they borrowed a page from Youtube/Google's playbook all they have to do is put their own equipment inside ISP's data centers, and the bandwidth cost to deliver to end users is magically zero.
I don't know Netflix/Amazon's actual numbers, but the cheapest bandwidth you can get requires building your own datacenters, which is something netflix should be doing, and not simply using Amazon since Amazon is competing with them for exactly the same thing.
As for the big picture, it's actually meaningless. Netflix doesn't sell shows, Apple does. Most people either want one of two camps:
1. They want to pay a flat fee and watch anything, anytime, anywhere (with internet access.) You can't do this with Cable or Cable VOD.
2. They want to pay for content once, and watch it on anything they own, anywhere they have it. You get this from physical discs or digital downloads (which is what Apple does)
Cable company VOD, I can't honestly say I know anyone that uses it. The local cable company started competing with PVR's by putting all the shows available on the basic Standard Definition tier on the VOD so you can watch it anytime, but you have to watch it within 2 weeks otherwise it's gone. This problem doesn't exist for #1 and #2 above. I have watched stuff on it, but since it's not HD (unlike netflix or apple) it's completely useless to me. In fact I'd cancel the cable entirely if it would actually make a difference in the bill. But it doesn't make it worth it (unbundled and bundled with TV is like 5$ different.)
Did you really just say $5.99 is too expensive because stealing is free? Great ethics there.
The other options are price vs convenience tradeoffs. Get into your car, drive to the video store or kiosk, pick out a movie, find the one you really want is gone and you have to pick something else, bring it home to watch, watch it, then drive back the next day to return it to avoid late fees vs paying a couple of extra dollars to view the new movie you want to watch when you want to watch it.
Currently streaming movies is broken in that the selection isn't always there - this is a movie studio issue, not an apple issue. When the Avengers came out, I wanted to rent Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man 2 to watch before going to the movie. I couldn't do it. Blockbuster was out of stock of all 3, iTunes wouldn't rent them, but rather only sold them, they weren't on Netflix. I didn't want to buy them, I just wanted to watch them. I ended up not being able to watch them before we saw the Avengers despite driving around town and searching the various streaming rental sites. The movie industry lost money because of it.
Many people will steal something if they cannot afford to buy it (the music industry discovered this). iTunes succeeded because it sold music at a reasonable and affordable price... low enough to make piracy not worthwhile and high enough to keep record label executive in their ferraris. I'll go to a kiosk, library or video store. I'm not justifying piracy, but telling you it will happen without a reasonable alternative. I am also not talking about just buying one movie, I will buy iTunes movies from time to time. TV series more expensive than physical media... come on this is not reasonable
The model is too expensive and broken for more than casual use. It cannot at these prices replace cable tv. Explain to me if you can why I can rent physical media from a brick and mortar store cheaper than streaming through iTunes? Greed would seem to be the reason.
First, I "create substantial things" every day of the work week. Most of it is copyrighted, much of it video work. It's what I do for a living, I'm a creative professional. Do you even subscribe to Netflix? Just curious 'cause it sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about. The movies I'm talking about being released for down load on netflix are ALREADY AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX! It's just that they're only through mail order. Netflix, and their licensers would make MORE money on the digital download OF MOVIES THEY ALREADY HAVE in the netflix library, by streaming because there is no disc to duplicate or mailing fees with a download. So I ask you again genius, what's the difference to movie title owners who already offer their titles to subscription services like netflix between mailing it on a disc, or sending it by download? I mean besides it actually costing them less to offer the movie for download than it does to mail them on a disc.
Actually, no because the rate at which you can watch movies via DVD is gated by how fast discs move back and forth. For streaming...well one time I was sick I watched all the episodes of Dollhouse in a couple days. Plus, even though you're not supposed to, sometimes the kids and I watch different movies at the same time.
Netflix is pretty much a bad deal all around for studios...but I have no pity for them. If VOD/PPV and digital rental was $0.99 just like DVD rentals the economic model would be much better for them than the Netflix model. $5 for HD rental from iTunes? Forget it. I'll wait for it to show up on Netflix or buy the BluRay off Amazon. The $4 for SD rental on iTunes is even worse. Heck, the $20 they charge for HD purchase can often get me the same movie on BR with DVD and Digital Copy.
I've only ever purchased only 3-4 movies from iTunes and never rented.
I watch on a Roku, PS3, Xbox 360, iPhone (iOS) and Apple TV.
Most of the time it is on our Apple TV which is an iOS device...NOT that Apple seems to know this. Where are the apps? I am still waiting to be able to play Crunchyroll on my Apple TV, but right now I have to use my PC, iPhone 4, or Roku. Who else would love to have some control over their Apple TV? Who else would love to remove the sports channels that require a subscription? Mine just take up space on my screen!
Apple bit themselves in the butt by agreeing to the removal of TV rentals. Instead of adding TV purchases to the TV rentals Apple felt the need to remove the rental option completely. Sorry, but there are many shows that I might need to rent an episode if I miss it, but have NO intention or desire to own. So now, customers are FORCED to pay $1.99 (or more) versus the $.99 rental fees of a year ago. This is one of the reasons Apple has lost ground.
Many people will steal something if they cannot afford to buy it (the music industry discovered this).
I think there are a lot of people who only steal when they think something is over priced. That happened in the music industry and now it is happening with movies. I can rent a new release DVD for $5. Why should I pay $5 or more to stream the same movie when I know the costs for streaming are substantially less than for a physical disk?
I am not one of the ones who steal for the above reason but those that do will eventually force the industry to fairly price streaming content. That will be good for all consumbers.
Not for much longer. iTunes is getting a face lift!
{citation needed}
Needs it, sure, but there's no guarantee. I would be happy if they changed absolutely nothing but just added subcategories of subcategories in the Store search.
"Games" is not enough when you have 600,000 apps to search through. You need, for example, "Games/Grand Strategy/Real-time" at least to get this stuff right.
I think there are a lot of people who only steal when they think something is over priced. That happened in the music industry and now it is happening with movies. I can rent a new release DVD for $5. Why should I pay $5 or more to stream the same movie when I know the costs for streaming are substantially less than for a physical disk?
I don't know why YOU would do so, but lots of people apparently do. Apple rented 100 M movies as of Sept 2010 (IIRC). For some people, the convenience of not having to hop in your car, drive to the movie rental place, pick up the movie, watch it within the stated time frame, and then hop in your car and drive back to return the movie is well worth the extra $5.
You see, Apple doesn't have to make everyone happy, nor does their product have to be perfect for everyone. If they tried to price it at a level that NO ONE would say it was overpriced, it would have to be $0.01 - and no one would make any money. Apple simply has to offer a product/service that enough people will use to make it worthwhile.
Maybe your cable company is intentionally screwing with Netflix. Comcast had a very public spat with Netflix, IIRC.
The other possibility is that the nerdier group may be using a DNS server that isn't your ISPs, like google's DNS or OpenDNS. These often don't resolve to the right geographic location for Netflix, so they may be trying to stream data to you from a very distant server rather than the one closest to you.
DNS cruft can cause problems with Tivos as well. To optimize your DNS get Namebench and put the DNS numbers it finds into your router. It will even tell you how much faster the new number is over your current one.
I don't know why YOU would do so, but lots of people apparently do. Apple rented 100 M movies as of Sept 2010 (IIRC). For some people, the convenience of not having to hop in your car, drive to the movie rental place, pick up the movie, watch it within the stated time frame, and then hop in your car and drive back to return the movie is well worth the extra $5.
You see, Apple doesn't have to make everyone happy, nor does their product have to be perfect for everyone. If they tried to price it at a level that NO ONE would say it was overpriced, it would have to be $0.01 - and no one would make any money. Apple simply has to offer a product/service that enough people will use to make it worthwhile.
The fact that many people do is more a result of there being no other "legal" choice rather than accepting that it is a fair cost. I agree that the studios, actors etc etc need to get paid. What I do expect is that what I get charged, over and above production costs, for the distribution is somewhat reflect of the distribution costs. That is not the case right now. My impression is that this is due to the Studios licencing arrangements rather than the distributors taking excess profit.
The fact that many people do is more a result of there being no other "legal" choice rather than accepting that it is a fair cost. I agree that the studios, actors etc etc need to get paid. What I do expect is that what I get charged, over and above production costs, for the distribution is somewhat reflect of the distribution costs. That is not the case right now. My impression is that this is due to the Studios licencing arrangements rather than the distributors taking excess profit.
Maybe no one ever explained to you - consumers don't get to set the price. The provider sets the price and the consumer chooses to either spend that money or not. If they spend the money, then they obviously think it's worth spending.
And, btw, the amount Apple tacks on for distribution costs just about covers their costs - since they have reported that iTunes media is roughly break even. So where is the 'excess profits' argument coming from?
I think there are a lot of people who only steal when they think something is over priced. That happened in the music industry and now it is happening with movies. I can rent a new release DVD for $5. Why should I pay $5 or more to stream the same movie when I know the costs for streaming are substantially less than for a physical disk?
I am not one of the ones who steal for the above reason but those that do will eventually force the industry to fairly price streaming content. That will be good for all consumbers.
thinking something is overpriced is no excuse for stealing. That sort of thinking isn't acceptable for high priced items (like a sportscar), why should it be acceptable for low priced items (like a song, movie, software app)? Just because it item is digital doesn't mean it doesn't take work to create.
And how much difference is there really between printing a DVD to rent and streaming a digital file? The DVD costs pennies to make, the cost of those pennies are split between all of the people who rent it. renting involves the inconvenience of traveling to a video store twice, the inconvenience of titles being out of stock, let fees, etc. If people got that route to save a couple of dollars vs the convenience of streaming, that's an argument that streaming is overpriced for them. But if they decide to steal a stream of the same content, there's really no ethical way to justify it. There is no entitlement to take someone's work without compensation.
I suspect a significant portion of the Netflix catalog is not 1080p or Netflix may use lossy compression to improve streaming.
Just like DVDs, h.264, etc all use lossy compression, I'm sure Netflix uses lossy compression to deliver content to their users. Uncompressed 1080p would require a pipe of ~3Gbps, and even using lossy compression won't get you much lower than 1Gbps.
I think what you meant is that Netflix's compression algorithms compress the data too much resulting in blocking etc. However, I bet a lot of that could be the result of your ISP.
Comments
Thor & Captain America aren't available for streaming on Netflix in the USA. They are available in Canada. This explains the difference.
I don't think 'millions' is overstating a bit.
Way back in September of 2010, 100 million movies had been downloaded (and several times that number of TV episodes). That number is clearly much higher today.
http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/01/itunes-downloads-100-million-movies-35-million-books-11-7-billion-songs/
Undoubtedly, the "it's too expensive" whining is not universal.
I think he meant on the Ferrari comment. About 3 to 7 thousand Ferraris are made a year.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffDM
I think he meant on the Ferrari comment. About 3 to 7 thousand Ferraris are made a year.
Correct.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Apple ][
Yep, that poster is "one of them". That poster has me on ignore by the way, or so they claim, because I am definitely "not of them", thank goodness for that.
That poster also gets upset whenever somebody mentions anything political in any thread. I guess their own rule applies to everybody except themselves.
And Fox News is a much better news channel than either CNN or MSNBC, which has their feces drenched noses firmly planted up Obama's butt. It is nauseating to watch those channels. No wonder why their ratings absolutely suck and CNN is currently suffering from their lowest ratings in decades. In North Korean death camps, MSNBC is probably what they have on in the background.
LOL ;-)
Quote:
Originally Posted by xxSampleXX
Consumers want content availability at a fixed price, like Pandora or Spotify or NetFlix. The al la carte model used by Apple is antiquated and not going to endure. Presumably, with the rumored Apple TV, we will see a new, less costly to consumer delivery model from them. I hope so at least. Since I've been turned onto Spotify, my musical purchases from Apple are virtually nil. Why would a rational consumer pay for something that is available at virtually no cost?
I don't. I can't trust any of those services to be around tomorrow. While Netflix is fantastic to help entertain the kids when it's raining outside, and truthfully it is convenient when its working, I prefer to own my content and have it stored locally. I may be in the minority but as time passes or if our family moves somewhere to where hi-speed internet isn't available, I'll have a nice library to keep me going. Hopefully there will be places still retailing physical media.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kozchris
I'm slowing replacing my DVDs with iTunes purchases. Great to finally have the ability from Apple to have my purchases in the cloud. I would think many other people are doing the same thing. Similar situation with all the noise about how people didn't want to own their music so iTunes would fail. See how that worked out.
I'm doing the opposite. I've been taking my DVD's and adding them to my iTunes library. I'm not paying twice for something I already own. If it were something that I didn't own I might consider using iTunes. Currently Ive been purchasing impossible things to find anywhere else such as classic hockey games, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rkevwill
Because streaming is not profitable for them at present. Costs are too high still. The profitable portion of their business is their DVD delivery business, and they are hinting at getting away from that. Go figure. NO one can replicate their infrastructure to deliver high quality BluRay via mail or any other way, and they are abandoning it. <shaking my head here>
Netflix is also paying Amazon, which charges 5 times the amount for bandwidth than it would cost them if they just had their equipment at cheap edge nodes. If they borrowed a page from Youtube/Google's playbook all they have to do is put their own equipment inside ISP's data centers, and the bandwidth cost to deliver to end users is magically zero.
I don't know Netflix/Amazon's actual numbers, but the cheapest bandwidth you can get requires building your own datacenters, which is something netflix should be doing, and not simply using Amazon since Amazon is competing with them for exactly the same thing.
As for the big picture, it's actually meaningless. Netflix doesn't sell shows, Apple does. Most people either want one of two camps:
1. They want to pay a flat fee and watch anything, anytime, anywhere (with internet access.) You can't do this with Cable or Cable VOD.
2. They want to pay for content once, and watch it on anything they own, anywhere they have it. You get this from physical discs or digital downloads (which is what Apple does)
Cable company VOD, I can't honestly say I know anyone that uses it. The local cable company started competing with PVR's by putting all the shows available on the basic Standard Definition tier on the VOD so you can watch it anytime, but you have to watch it within 2 weeks otherwise it's gone. This problem doesn't exist for #1 and #2 above. I have watched stuff on it, but since it's not HD (unlike netflix or apple) it's completely useless to me. In fact I'd cancel the cable entirely if it would actually make a difference in the bill. But it doesn't make it worth it (unbundled and bundled with TV is like 5$ different.)
Did you really just say $5.99 is too expensive because stealing is free? Great ethics there.
The other options are price vs convenience tradeoffs. Get into your car, drive to the video store or kiosk, pick out a movie, find the one you really want is gone and you have to pick something else, bring it home to watch, watch it, then drive back the next day to return it to avoid late fees vs paying a couple of extra dollars to view the new movie you want to watch when you want to watch it.
Currently streaming movies is broken in that the selection isn't always there - this is a movie studio issue, not an apple issue. When the Avengers came out, I wanted to rent Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man 2 to watch before going to the movie. I couldn't do it. Blockbuster was out of stock of all 3, iTunes wouldn't rent them, but rather only sold them, they weren't on Netflix. I didn't want to buy them, I just wanted to watch them. I ended up not being able to watch them before we saw the Avengers despite driving around town and searching the various streaming rental sites. The movie industry lost money because of it.
Many people will steal something if they cannot afford to buy it (the music industry discovered this). iTunes succeeded because it sold music at a reasonable and affordable price... low enough to make piracy not worthwhile and high enough to keep record label executive in their ferraris. I'll go to a kiosk, library or video store. I'm not justifying piracy, but telling you it will happen without a reasonable alternative. I am also not talking about just buying one movie, I will buy iTunes movies from time to time. TV series more expensive than physical media... come on this is not reasonable
The model is too expensive and broken for more than casual use. It cannot at these prices replace cable tv. Explain to me if you can why I can rent physical media from a brick and mortar store cheaper than streaming through iTunes? Greed would seem to be the reason.deleted
Quote:
Originally Posted by GMHut
First, I "create substantial things" every day of the work week. Most of it is copyrighted, much of it video work. It's what I do for a living, I'm a creative professional. Do you even subscribe to Netflix? Just curious 'cause it sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about. The movies I'm talking about being released for down load on netflix are ALREADY AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX! It's just that they're only through mail order. Netflix, and their licensers would make MORE money on the digital download OF MOVIES THEY ALREADY HAVE in the netflix library, by streaming because there is no disc to duplicate or mailing fees with a download. So I ask you again genius, what's the difference to movie title owners who already offer their titles to subscription services like netflix between mailing it on a disc, or sending it by download? I mean besides it actually costing them less to offer the movie for download than it does to mail them on a disc.
Actually, no because the rate at which you can watch movies via DVD is gated by how fast discs move back and forth. For streaming...well one time I was sick I watched all the episodes of Dollhouse in a couple days. Plus, even though you're not supposed to, sometimes the kids and I watch different movies at the same time.
Netflix is pretty much a bad deal all around for studios...but I have no pity for them. If VOD/PPV and digital rental was $0.99 just like DVD rentals the economic model would be much better for them than the Netflix model. $5 for HD rental from iTunes? Forget it. I'll wait for it to show up on Netflix or buy the BluRay off Amazon. The $4 for SD rental on iTunes is even worse. Heck, the $20 they charge for HD purchase can often get me the same movie on BR with DVD and Digital Copy.
I've only ever purchased only 3-4 movies from iTunes and never rented.
I watch on a Roku, PS3, Xbox 360, iPhone (iOS) and Apple TV.
Most of the time it is on our Apple TV which is an iOS device...NOT that Apple seems to know this.
Apple bit themselves in the butt by agreeing to the removal of TV rentals. Instead of adding TV purchases to the TV rentals Apple felt the need to remove the rental option completely. Sorry, but there are many shows that I might need to rent an episode if I miss it, but have NO intention or desire to own. So now, customers are FORCED to pay $1.99 (or more) versus the $.99 rental fees of a year ago. This is one of the reasons Apple has lost ground.
Apple...bring back the cheaper rental option!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by samiam
Many people will steal something if they cannot afford to buy it (the music industry discovered this).
I think there are a lot of people who only steal when they think something is over priced. That happened in the music industry and now it is happening with movies. I can rent a new release DVD for $5. Why should I pay $5 or more to stream the same movie when I know the costs for streaming are substantially less than for a physical disk?
I am not one of the ones who steal for the above reason but those that do will eventually force the industry to fairly price streaming content. That will be good for all consumbers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacBook Pro
the issues with iTunes on an underpowered computer are virtually the only fact-based argument they have against Apple.
Not for much longer. iTunes is getting a face lift!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoolook
Not for much longer. iTunes is getting a face lift!
{citation needed}
Needs it, sure, but there's no guarantee. I would be happy if they changed absolutely nothing but just added subcategories of subcategories in the Store search.
"Games" is not enough when you have 600,000 apps to search through. You need, for example, "Games/Grand Strategy/Real-time" at least to get this stuff right.
I don't know why YOU would do so, but lots of people apparently do. Apple rented 100 M movies as of Sept 2010 (IIRC). For some people, the convenience of not having to hop in your car, drive to the movie rental place, pick up the movie, watch it within the stated time frame, and then hop in your car and drive back to return the movie is well worth the extra $5.
You see, Apple doesn't have to make everyone happy, nor does their product have to be perfect for everyone. If they tried to price it at a level that NO ONE would say it was overpriced, it would have to be $0.01 - and no one would make any money. Apple simply has to offer a product/service that enough people will use to make it worthwhile.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sessamoid
Maybe your cable company is intentionally screwing with Netflix. Comcast had a very public spat with Netflix, IIRC.
The other possibility is that the nerdier group may be using a DNS server that isn't your ISPs, like google's DNS or OpenDNS. These often don't resolve to the right geographic location for Netflix, so they may be trying to stream data to you from a very distant server rather than the one closest to you.
DNS cruft can cause problems with Tivos as well. To optimize your DNS get Namebench and put the DNS numbers it finds into your router. It will even tell you how much faster the new number is over your current one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
I don't know why YOU would do so, but lots of people apparently do. Apple rented 100 M movies as of Sept 2010 (IIRC). For some people, the convenience of not having to hop in your car, drive to the movie rental place, pick up the movie, watch it within the stated time frame, and then hop in your car and drive back to return the movie is well worth the extra $5.
You see, Apple doesn't have to make everyone happy, nor does their product have to be perfect for everyone. If they tried to price it at a level that NO ONE would say it was overpriced, it would have to be $0.01 - and no one would make any money. Apple simply has to offer a product/service that enough people will use to make it worthwhile.
The fact that many people do is more a result of there being no other "legal" choice rather than accepting that it is a fair cost. I agree that the studios, actors etc etc need to get paid. What I do expect is that what I get charged, over and above production costs, for the distribution is somewhat reflect of the distribution costs. That is not the case right now. My impression is that this is due to the Studios licencing arrangements rather than the distributors taking excess profit.
Maybe no one ever explained to you - consumers don't get to set the price. The provider sets the price and the consumer chooses to either spend that money or not. If they spend the money, then they obviously think it's worth spending.
And, btw, the amount Apple tacks on for distribution costs just about covers their costs - since they have reported that iTunes media is roughly break even. So where is the 'excess profits' argument coming from?
Quote:
Originally Posted by tjwal
I think there are a lot of people who only steal when they think something is over priced. That happened in the music industry and now it is happening with movies. I can rent a new release DVD for $5. Why should I pay $5 or more to stream the same movie when I know the costs for streaming are substantially less than for a physical disk?
I am not one of the ones who steal for the above reason but those that do will eventually force the industry to fairly price streaming content. That will be good for all consumbers.
thinking something is overpriced is no excuse for stealing. That sort of thinking isn't acceptable for high priced items (like a sportscar), why should it be acceptable for low priced items (like a song, movie, software app)? Just because it item is digital doesn't mean it doesn't take work to create.
And how much difference is there really between printing a DVD to rent and streaming a digital file? The DVD costs pennies to make, the cost of those pennies are split between all of the people who rent it. renting involves the inconvenience of traveling to a video store twice, the inconvenience of titles being out of stock, let fees, etc. If people got that route to save a couple of dollars vs the convenience of streaming, that's an argument that streaming is overpriced for them. But if they decide to steal a stream of the same content, there's really no ethical way to justify it. There is no entitlement to take someone's work without compensation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacBook Pro
I suspect a significant portion of the Netflix catalog is not 1080p or Netflix may use lossy compression to improve streaming.
Just like DVDs, h.264, etc all use lossy compression, I'm sure Netflix uses lossy compression to deliver content to their users. Uncompressed 1080p would require a pipe of ~3Gbps, and even using lossy compression won't get you much lower than 1Gbps.
I think what you meant is that Netflix's compression algorithms compress the data too much resulting in blocking etc. However, I bet a lot of that could be the result of your ISP.
Phil