Netflix and Tivo
For a while now, one of the oddities of modern life has been that the most popular, most transformative digital movie distribution mechanism has integrally involved sending small physical objects back and forth through the US Postal Service. The “net” is right there in the same of the service, but it’s actually a phenomenally un-webby thing. Recently, though, Netflix has started unveiling some video streaming services and now comes the announcement that dual Tivo-Netflix subscribers (like me) will be able to get videos through our Tivo boxes. Still, it seems that the physical discs aren’t quite obsolete yet:
Separately, CNET has confirmed that Netflix’s nascent HD streaming capability will soon be coming to all Netflix-compatible devices, not just the Xbox 360. However, the Netflix HD library will be starting with a very small selection (just 300 titles), and will require significantly higher bandwidth than the standard-def streaming that’s currently available.
Since I recently shelled out for a Blu-Ray player (trying to do my part to stimulate the economy) I guess I’m sort of glad to see that widespread high-definition movies on demand haven’t rendered the technology useless yet. But it can’t be long.
50 Responses to “Netflix and Tivo”
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October 31st, 2008 at 11:35 am
What Blu-Ray player did you get?
October 31st, 2008 at 11:37 am
“trying to do my part to stimulate the economy”
and i’m sure they’re grateful!
October 31st, 2008 at 11:44 am
It’s still going to be a while yet before broadband penetration is large enough to make the physical media obsolete, but ultimately it seems obvious “On Demand” HD will crush Blu-Ray in the long run.
October 31st, 2008 at 11:44 am
At least 2 new Blu-Ray players, from LG and Samsung, if connected to the InterToobz will have Netflix available and can download both standard definition and Blu-Ray HD movies for the price of your Netflix membership (there will soon be an additional yearly charge for Blu-Ray rentals).
October 31st, 2008 at 11:48 am
A postal truck full of DVDs or Blu-Rays has a hell of a lot of bandwidth.
And taking into account the fact that our 20th century infrastructure (roads), though falling apart, is still so much better than our 21st century infrastructure, I guess I don’t see why it should be so surprising that Netflix is around.
Oh and add in the fact that movie studios seem much more comfortable with sending hard copies of their data around rather than files, though this is changing.
October 31st, 2008 at 11:53 am
Once again, this is not odd. There are real technical limitations behind delivering high-quality video over the Internets at today’s bandwidth speeds. It’s cheaper to do it through the postal service.
In addition, only 20% of the country or even has broadband. Why ignore four-fifths of your potential customer base?
October 31st, 2008 at 11:59 am
Ken at 11:48 beat me to it: there is an old saying in computer operations that goes “don’t underestimate the bandwidth of a stationwagon full of tapes”. While available data transmission capacity has increased since that saying was coined around 1970 the amount of data that people desire to transmit has grown even faster and a stationwagon (more likely a minvan today) full of DVDs carries a heck of a lot of data.
Something people who are only on the edge of technology have a hard time accepting is that “new and/or shinier” is not necessary the same thing as “better”.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:01 pm
We canceled Netflix temporarily because we had Time Warner on demand. Big mistake and we ended up rejoining. TW had mucher fewer movies to choose from than promised, and the quality not near as good as Blu-Ray. We use a PS3 for Blu-Ray player.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:12 pm
I also use a PS3 as a blu ray player, but the other day I rented an HD movie from their on-line store and it took 6 hours for the thing to download! Unless you plan well enough in advance (though I suppose not so well in advance as ordering blu-ray movies through Netflix) it is a bit of a hassle and the bitrate was not nearly what it usually is with a movie on disc.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:19 pm
What everyone else on the thread said. The viability of streaming movies vs. rented DVDs seems to hinge on broadband connection speeds becoming significantly faster than it presently is. Whether it will or not seems an open question to me.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:20 pm
There is also a tiny $100 device that will connect to your Internet and TV to stream Netflix called Roku. I have one, it’s pretty cool. Also, XBox Live is going to start streaming Netflix. Three different devices, all streaming the content so we don’t have to keep moving these discs around. Not to mention how many times a disc has arrived too scratched to play…
I love living in the future!
October 31st, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Well Nicholas Beaudrot, Netflix certainly thinks its future is in streaming internet movies and not mail trucks. I’m guessing they know better than you.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:38 pm
The problem with streaming HD video is the tremendous amount of bandwidth it takes; transferring a 15-30 GB video file is no small task. Until we seriously upgrade our network infrastructure, I don’t think streaming video will supplant Blu-Ray
October 31st, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Enjoy the bandwidth cap that your ISP has (or soon will) put into place.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:53 pm
People assume Blu-Ray “won” because HD-DVD is dead. But it’s not a binary. Blu-Ray, too, is on the road to death. Discs are reaching obsolescence, and in the meantime, people are perfectly happy with up-converting DVD players.
October 31st, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Please tell me you bought a PS3 and not a standalone Blu-Ray player. That would have been a big waste of money.
October 31st, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Ginger Yellow Says, on October 31st, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Exactly how long does a player have to be of use for the purchase to be “not a waste of money”.
Someone who watches two movies a week … that’d be 200 over two years. I see players on Amazon in the $200-$250 range. So counting $1.50 per disk for the player would pay off the player in under two years.
Surely broadband streaming of HD movies is not going to experience such explosive growth that a disc player will be obsolete in under two years?
October 31st, 2008 at 1:33 pm
A standard DVD (and they are just fine) is 5 Gigs, which can be downloaded on a 20Mbps connection in less than an hour – so delivering the content online is really not a problem. Were there’s a will, there’s a way.
October 31st, 2008 at 1:43 pm
It seems like only yesterday that “Keep Circulating the Tapes” was a battle cry of sorts.
October 31st, 2008 at 2:06 pm
> A standard DVD (and they are just fine) is
> 5 Gigs, which can be downloaded on a 20Mbps connection in
> less than an hour – so delivering the content online is
> really not a problem. Were there’s a will, there’s a way.
As long as only a small fraction of the population does that, sure. There are physical limits to both the backbone and local loop. Try watching the World Series via Internet on a Saturday; note what happens when all you neighbors try the same and bandwidth limiting kicks in. The number of disks rented per week vastly exceeds the available bandwidth in the network.
October 31st, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Demand will exceed bandwidth until 99% of us die from The Plague. Then, there will be a month long window of excess bandwidth while the living mourn.
Roads breed cars. Bandwidth breeds applications. Same principle.
October 31st, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Usually the downloaded media are not full Blu-Ray spec, but compressed formats like MPEG4 etc (and the return of DivX, like DivX HD). Probably most won’t disclose the actual file sizes so as not to highlight that they are more compressed than the actual Blu-Ray discs.
Blu-Ray discs will likely remain the highest information format around for a while (given all the points made previously), but I never thought HD discs would catch on beyond a (decent-sized) niche, unlike DVD’s.
Even now DirecTV’s DVRs offers on-demand downloads of movies & programs in HDTV, as long as you connect to a broadband internet connections, and if you’re ordering them in 1080P format, good luck waiting, even at a compressed size.
October 31st, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Sunk cost, dude.
October 31st, 2008 at 2:54 pm
“Since I recently shelled out for a Blu-Ray player (trying to do my part to stimulate the economy)”
The Port of LA stevedores, Teamsters, and the commissioned sales clerk thank you.
October 31st, 2008 at 3:01 pm
“But it can’t be long.”
Video On Demand has been “just around the corner” since the early 80’s.
Believe it when you see it, and not much before.
October 31st, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I have a selfish interest in America upgrading its existing broadband network because I work in the storage industry. Also, I have a friend that is writing the O/S for a new set top box that is supposed to rival Motorola for cable and will require NO internal storage. They are banking on infrastructure upgrades. Its really cool technology. There is something to be said for the snail mail though. Its one of the reasons that tape is still a preferred backup medium. They are really, really dense and have long storage lives. You have fill many, many terabytes in the back of an Iron Mountain truck.
October 31st, 2008 at 4:11 pm
The basic Netflix service is still a better value overall than the direct download market on the whole. I am one of the (lucky? idiotic?) few that has Apple TV and has been renting movies occasionally from there. For the record, I got it as a gift but based on my experience, I’d say its certainly a good example of how to approach this the right way. Needs work but they all do.
The problem here is less about bandwidth and more about selection. Over time, all of these delivery services will figure out better, faster lossless compression methods. Apple has an advantage here in Quicktime, specifically the amazing H.264 codec, which is partly why I can begin watching “HD” content within a few minutes of selection. To date, I have never had an issue with either video or audio quality and its a simple platform that gets improved regularly through software updates.
On the content side, the studios and distributors are seriously picky about how well this market gets seeded with the argument being that they need to protect their DVD cash cow. Even though the market is growing, its a niche that will take a while to build up. Put up against Netflix DVD-delivery, the download market can’t hold its own. Its slightly more expensive per view but the selection is way less expansive. Lots of recent releases aren’t rentable (purchase only) for some cockamamie reason. Of course, if I look for the same movie on Netflix, I can get it no problemo.
The real loser is the cable and satellite “On Demand” video delivery services, against which Apple, Amazon and ultimately Netflix are positioned. After years of suffering through Comcast and DirectTV, I can get a vastly improved product without paying the service penalty. I might also add here that quite a number of these movies are attached to “premium” level channels (HBO, Starz, etc) so its most definitely pay-to-play.
One last thing to consider is the end user device combo. If you’ve got a Blue-Ray player and a non-HiDef TV, its a waste. Likewise, if you plug in an Apple TV to a 50″+ 1080i set, chances are you’ll be underwhelmed. I find it funny that most folks like to bitch about these limitations as if they have no control over them. As a consumer, your ability to choose is only limited by what you’re willing or able to spend for the experience you want. I’ve had folks over plenty of times for movie nights run off of Apple TV and not once did I hear anything negative.
In my opinion, Blue-Ray is still a great technology to invest in but it all depends on how you want to do things. Over a fairly short time frame, the resolution will increase to match up and we can only hope that the studios will respond in kind by releasing vaults of content to wallow in.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:03 pm
The number of disks rented per week vastly exceeds the available bandwidth in the network.
It seems to be the same with physical rental, though. Friends of mine subscribe to a service called Lovefilm that is the UK version of Netflix, if I’m not mistaken. They tell me that there are quite long waiting periods for popular/rare films.
That’s why I just buy my DVDs: you walk to the store (Amazon next day will do too), take it home and watch it, put it on the shelf, watch it again sometime – and eventually you have a nice library, just like with books.
As for HD and Blu-Ray, I think it is worthwhile to note that a standard definition DVD roughly matches the actual resolution of a 35mm projection in the cinema. There are obvious limits to such comparisons and HD will become more important as the number of feature films shot digitally increases, but for the time being I’m really not all that bothered, as people have watched films at comparatively low resolutions in cinemas for decades.
Also, there are aesthetic considerations to be taken into account, namely that an overly sharp and detailed picture might not even be desirable, because it makes guiding the viewers eye more difficult and people could literally get lost in all that visual splendor.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Just wait for cable and phone monopolies to start whining about bandwidth saturation on their over-contended consumer networks, and threatening hard caps on people’s monthly usage.
Since we’re talking about Netflix here, there’s something of an advantage to having physical, offline warehousing: think of the hundreds of obscurish DVDs for which Netflix really only needs to stock a few dozen copies, which may be preferable to online storage, even in compressed form.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Tivo in my opinion is a waste. Do you really need to watch that much TV?
We tried Netflix for awhile, but recently cancelled our account.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:48 pm
The future of video distribution clearly belongs to streaming/downloading services, but Blu-ray probably has five years or more of good sales ahead.
Video On Demand has been “just around the corner” since the early 80’s.
You’re behind the times. It’s already here. There are now many video on demand services, from both cable and internet-based providers.
Since we’re talking about Netflix here, there’s something of an advantage to having physical, offline warehousing: think of the hundreds of obscurish DVDs for which Netflix really only needs to stock a few dozen copies, which may be preferable to online storage, even in compressed form.
Highly unlikely. The marginal cost of maintaining and delivering the few gigabytes of additional online storage needed for those movies is almost certainly lower than the marginal cost of maintaining and delivering the physical discs.
October 31st, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Beaudrot: “only 20% of the country or even has broadband”
The figure has been north of 60% for some time now, perhaps greater – I haven’t checked recently.
The issue is the overall bandwidth for the Net. Bob Cringeley has been posting columns on this for some time. There is still some monkeying around to be done, but basically it’s inevitable that streaming and downloaded video will take the place of broadcast television. It may be another five or even ten years, but what’s that?
I don’t have a TV. I get my Terminator episodes (in standard def, however) from download sites or Bittorrent. And I just have 1.5Mb DSL. And once I get my new faster machine, I’ll be watching a lot of TV on Hulu (and recording the streams).
December 14th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
The New Xbox Experience is now live for download. Once you boot up your Xbox 360 the update should start. I’m excited to see how these new features work and if it will be better than what Microsoft previously offered. A bit of bad news,
December 15th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
I’m stuck at work, so I can’t verify this personally, but a friend of mine is at home and is trying unsuccessfully to activate his Netflix account on Xbox LIVE. He tells me via IM that he was told to go to Netflix’s Web
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