This is awesome. Check out this story.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23214808/
The biggest hint about a possible deal came last week, when a survey Netflix had distributed to its members started popping up on blogs. The headline of the survey read “Now you can watch movies from Netflix instantly by using your existing Xbox Live account.” And then, the question: “If, as part of your Netflix membership you could instantly watch movies and TV episodes on your TV with your Xbox 360, how likely would you/anyone in your household be to do that?”
Um, totally. This may be a big money maker for the two uber-conglomerates, but here's what it means to me.
Netflix. I've been a Netflix fan ever since the last time Blockbuster screwed me. It was the last time they screwed me. Blockbuster, finally learning their lesson after getting their ass totally kicked by Netflix decided to follow the Netflix model with the added bonus that you can just go to the store to return your movie and pick up your next one.
Too little too late guys. I'm done with Blockbuster permanently.
Netflix decides to one-up them and allows you to stream select movies directly off their site to your PC. I love it! While my video card may suck dead frogs, It does have an S-Video out plug on the back. A few months ago I bought a nice long S-Video cable and plugged it into the big TV. Guess what? Streaming Netflix directly to the big TV now. Other than what I would consider a poor selection of movies (until recently anyway) It's great. The picture is not the best, hardly takes advantage of what the TV can do, but I can now browse for a movie on Netflix, load it, pop some popcorn, plop my fat ass down in the ugly orange chair and watch Escape from New York the same night. Folks, this is where the movie rental business is going. Most video stores are gone now, for the most part only Blockbuster is left. The days of running to the video store are over. Cable has On Demand (a step in the right direction, but not enough) and now Netflix has On Demand. Good, but still not quite there. Enter XBox.
XBox 360. I love my XBox, even if it costs more money than my children. I vent about Microsoft's pricing, but altogether it's a pretty great entertainment system so far. I tried my hand at buying a movie off the XBox marketplace over the weekend. I rented Meet the Robinsons and Stardust, both in hi definition. Each one cost me somewhere in the range of $5, which is actually still cheaper than Blockbuster. The movies loaded, ran in 1080i, and just simply freakin looked great. The Bad: took forever to load, even with a cable connection. I bought the movie, and about 3 hours later it was ready to play, even though it wasn't done downloading. Kudos on streaming it, but the wait still sucks. Three hours of "can we watch the movie yet?" I suppose there's not much that can be done about that. Yet. More Bad: costs too much and the DRM is too restrictive. After you buy the movie, you have 14 days to watch it, then the DRM expires, or it expires 24 hours after you first press "play." After reading these restrictions, my first reaction was "why?" When video stores first became popular, they had to have the movie back within a certain number of days so that they had stock to rent to other customers. Three to five days seems pretty reasonable, and kids love to watch movies over and over again. They never get tired of watching the same thing. XBox movie rentals seem to be following this model somewhat, if not more restrictive. My problem with it is this. It's a digital transfer. There's no stock to be returned before they can rent it to another customer. Why the severe time restriction? 24 hours? If they're hoping I'll pay for the same movie more than once they're going to be disappointed. After renting it the third time I could have bought the DVD. What they're actually encouraging me to do is not use their service for movie rentals. It just costs too much. On the other hand, DRM expiration dates means no late fees. Then again, so does Netflix, and they don't charge any extra for streaming the movies. It wouldn't cost Microsoft any extra to let me keep the movie for a month, and it doesn't make them any more money to not let me keep it for that long. Making happy customers makes money though.... Pay attention Microsoft!
So to summarize:
Netflix: No (extra) rental fees, big movie selection for streaming, poor resolution.
XBox: Awesome resoution, XBox Live Gold gets you jack here. Rental period is too short, and the rates are too high.
Here's what I'm hoping this partnership means. Prepare for overly optimistic dreams that will soon be crushed by corporate greed like so many ants caught by little little Billy during recess when nobody plays with him so he decides to go torture the insects by the tree.
I get the best of both worlds. Log into Netflix through the XBox, find a decent movie, download in High Definition, pop some popcorn, flop down in the ugly orange chair and enjoy. No extra cost. I've already got a Netflix membership and and XBox Live account. Fingers crossed......
Good analysis.
ReplyDeleteIn conclusion: Microsoft will do anything to charge you more.
Netflix has an awesome selection of streaming TV series too. I don't need cable! No commercials either.
Anything I still want to see I just add to the queue and wait for the mail. I was so happy when they switched to 0 limit on streaming with membership.
The high definition thing might one day concern me, but first I'd need the money, the house, the wife, and kids. :D I watch most everything on my laptop.
Oh, yeah, and about Blockbuster- Crappiest video store EVER.
Netflix- if you rent it, get sent it, want a REALLY want a copy without paying any more- rip it, burn it, and there ya go. Downloading to the Xbox harddrive and paying for it to stick around for a very short time is baffling.
Netflix should sponsor your blog. ;)
@Celes:
ReplyDelete"Good analysis. "
Thank you :D
"In conclusion: Microsoft will do anything to charge you more."
Their pricing is definately too high and the DRM too restrictive, but it's not like they don't offer a good service. I'm hoping the Netflix partnership will alleviate that.
"Netflix has an awesome selection of streaming TV series too. I don't need cable! No commercials either."
I know :D I just finished watching the original Battlestar Galactica a couple of weeks ago. Last November when I moved, the screw up with the cable also caused me to miss several episodes of Heroes, which I was able to catch up on through Netflix. That's a pretty sweet feature.
"The high definition thing might one day concern me, but first I'd need the money, the house, the wife, and kids. :D "
You're gonna get a wife? I want pictures! Hi def didn't concern me too much before, and it doesn't all that much now. I'm just getting spoiled by the XBox. I've had this TV for 4 years and never saw anything in Hi Def on it until I got the XBox.
"Oh, yeah, and about Blockbuster- Crappiest video store EVER."
Amen, sista! They've lost my business for life. I hold grudges for exceptionally long periods of time.
"Downloading to the Xbox harddrive and paying for it to stick around for a very short time is baffling"
I was tempted to try it because I don't have an HDDVD or BluRay player, and I wanted to see how a movie looked in Hi Def. I'm not likely to rent very many more movies that way. I'm hoping the partnership will allow me to stream from my netflix membership to the XBox without costing extra so I get the best of both worlds. One can hope....
"Netflix should sponsor your blog. ;)"
I wish they would. Extra cash is always nice. The violin gigs aren't coming in like they used to...
"You're gonna get a wife? I want pictures!"
ReplyDeleteUm, it was a joke. Don't get all stereotypical male on me. I was just starting to like you. :p
"The violin gigs aren't coming in like they used to..."
Do you really play the violin, or is this a joke.
Jokes, sarcasm, all that humor stuff- can be so hard online. I try to use the :p and ;) indicators as often as I can, but my text would look like BBSing on a 2400 baud modem when you have call waiting and someone is trying to call you.
And as a socially stunted geek, taking cues from other people is hard work. As someone who doesn't have their psychic license yet, taking cues over the net is *very* hard.
Were you reading when that Blue person tweaked out on Neopoleon? She apparently thought everyone was yelling at her or something because a few of us readers expressed disagreement.
I reread and found that the Blue person was the only one using 'put downs'. Classic case of projection... Maybe. I'm not a psychiatrist. :)
Text can be very dangerous... but, then again, I like living dangerously. I figure this aspect of text weeds out the people who are easily offended and I'd rather not deal with anyways.
Oh, yeah, we were talking about movies.
About a couple years ago, I was invited to join a online forum that an old friend of mine was hosting. I got kicked off. Not for the humor and sarcasm, but because I'd wander off topic.
He'd move the offending posts to a "junk" folder.
He called my posts spam. He'd say 'stop spamming'. Weird definition of spam.
That was pretty offensive. I, with another member, started 'spamming' after that, talking about whatever in whatever section of the forum- Totally offending his ocd sensibilities.
I try not to get offended. I'd much rather prove a point and then take my words elsewhere. :D
Oh, so what were we talking about? Movies?
Yeah, Netflix streaming also lets you watch all the stuff you were never curious enough to actually rent, but curious enough to try it out for a few minutes.
I watched the first season of Dexter not too long ago. I loved it, and I probably never would have tried it out if all I had to do was click 'play now'.
Serial killer vigilante sounded dumb, but it was really good.
I said "I got kicked off. Not for the humor and sarcasm, but because I'd wander off topic."
ReplyDeleteI feel the need to amend that because I have this weird disease called honesty.
Not as if this omittion matters to anyone but me, but I may have been kicked off because of that, or it might have been that his current girlfriend was jealous because we dated when I was like 13 or something. :D
Who knows?
Truth is usually stranger than fiction.
@Celes
ReplyDelete"Um, it was a joke. Don't get all stereotypical male on me. I was just starting to like you. :p"
Also a joke, but I am a stereotypical male. I just don't try to hide it as much as some. No offense was intended, but among my friends we don't typically worry about political correctness very much. That tends to come through sometimes. Feel free to throw a few male jokes my way :D
"Do you really play the violin, or is this a joke."
That part was quite serious. Programming is actually my second career. Music didn't take off so well, but I was younger and stupider then. I still play in a local civic orchestra, and I'm trying to get some quartet gigs going for extra cash. If you're interested, www.kccivic.org (I didn't make the website, but I'm in the process of rewriting it. Don't judge me yet). I'm the principal second violin.
"And as a socially stunted geek, taking cues from other people is hard work."
Tell me about it :D
"Were you reading when that Blue person tweaked out on Neopoleon? "
Oddly I must have missed that, but I'm not always the most observant person.
"Not for the humor and sarcasm, but because I'd wander off topic."
I got bored with most online forums years ago because they were littered with "topic nazis" (pardon the reference if it offends). Several users were self appointed forum police who never posted anything except "stay on topic" messages. If anybody tried to point this out to them, the response was typically "that's off topic." Reminded me a bit of the Vogon that threw Arthur and Ford off the spaceship.
"I try not to get offended."
Good, cause I can be a bit offensive. If I ever piss you off, just let me know.
"Serial killer vigilante sounded dumb, but it was really good."
I've heard that, but I haven't watched it yet.
"Truth is usually stranger than fiction."
In my experience it's almost always stranger than fiction. It's even weirder when life imitates art. Did you see the latest episode of Torchwood (with the big walrus alien being cut up for food)? The day after I watched that the big meat recall happened. Creepy....
I"m not sure what the guys short circuit was, but you always have something interesting to say and seem rather well accepted on Neopoleon. Here too, but there's not as much community here yet :) You're always welcome to say whatever you want here. I don't censor.
"I don't censor."
ReplyDeleteThe fist time I ever talked to Rory outside of the Neopoleon comments I did so because I though he had censored me. I almost didn't send him an email about it. I was actually a bit upset and thought I'd never post on Neopoleon again.
Turns out he just accidentally hit delete. Silly me.
I constantly try to remind myself not to get offended easily because misunderstandings *do* just happen.
"No offense was intended, but among my friends we don't typically worry about political correctness very much."
My best of friends I am most comfortable with because I know if there was ANYTHING I did or said that they began to be offended by or misinterpreted, I'd be the first to know.
It's weird because we're also a deeply sensitive (artsy types- musicians, actors, writers, artists, etc) bunch of people and yet we joke pretty hardcore.
One of my best friends was living with a friend of ours who is from Japan. We were cooking dinner, joking around, and causing a ruckus when our Japanese friend comes in and tries to 'diffuse the situation'. She seriously thought we were fighting. :D
It's also weird because sometimes we change back to being serious and joking very fast- or embed truths in the joking- and it can become very confusing.
The Blueberry Pancake Witch comment thread is a good example.
I think the only way it works is that we know we can clarify at any time. Honesty does work.
"I am a stereotypical male."
Oh, yeah, next you'll try to tell me Rory is too, with his hair and clothes and fragrances. :)
You are your violin playing, you pansy.
"...forums years ago because they were littered with "topic Nazis"...Vogons..."
You are *so* right. It's why I don't post on many blogs/forums even though back in the BBSing days I would post *alot*.
Weird coincidence- I just joined a forum called Vogons. It's a place to figure out how to make old school games work with newer os's and hardware. Very cool.
"I"m not sure what the guys short circuit was..."
Me neither. We knew each other from back in the BBS days- so I really don't know why he thought my posting practices would have changed.
"I'm the principal second violin."
Wicked cool. I just saw a band called VAST live- they are a rock band but one of the reasons I love them is they mix music- there was a violin player. You should join a rock band. :)
"Torchwood"
There has been a buzz about this series. I will need to investigate.
"...there's not as much community here yet :)"
I'm sure there's at least one person reading and waiting for the right time to chime in. I read Neopoleon for a long time off and on before I ever posted a comment.
For now, this is part of the greater Neopoleon community- and that's cool enough that these artist/geek hybrids are sort of connecting.
It's so funny when there's a pissed off or passive aggressive Neopoleon comment about Rory not being geek enough! :) "Wow, it's nice to see a tech post finally blah blah".
Like he's supposed to be some robot with no other interests or ideas on his own web log.
There are more than enough tech blogs out there that all they do is talk about coding, software, and hardware and just review and link to stuff 24/7. I read some of those blogs, but I like diverse content by real people.
Robots are cool if they're like Data. "Data's Day" is one of my favorite Star Trek:TNG episodes!
@Celes:
ReplyDelete"Oh, yeah, next you'll try to tell me Rory is too, with his hair and clothes and fragrances. :)
You are your violin playing, you pansy. "
Okay, maybe not that stereotypical. I'm not much of a sports fan. I play violin. I watch geek TV. I don't drive a pickup truck. But I am a pig. Just not the male shovenist variety.
"Weird coincidence- I just joined a forum called Vogons"
Sounds cool, but the link seems to be broken.
"I'm sure there's at least one person reading and waiting for the right time to chime in. "
Could be. I added the map doohicky a while ago because I was curious if there was any traffic at all. The results are interesting. I've got four big dots so far (which means more than 10 hits from a single location). I'm pretty sure the upper left is Portland, which would probably be Rory. The Kansas City one is almost certainly me. I think you're the one on the east coast. I'm not sure who the one in England is though. Massif maybe?
I also noticed I finally got a South America hit. Hola, whoever you are :D. In fact, I have hits covering most of the United States and Europe, except France. Apparently the French don't like me very much. And you would think they would find an American referring to himself as an idiot amusing. After all, Jerry Lewis was.... Piss off, France. I don't need your hits anyway.
"they are a rock band but one of the reasons I love them is they mix music- there was a violin player. You should join a rock band. :)"
I was in a rock band once, but as the bass player/lead screamer. Every experience teaches you some kind of lesson, and the one I learned from that is: Drummers are problematic. I should have just bought a drum machine and been done with it.
My sister played in a rock band as a violinist in Las Vegas. They even made a promotional DVD. I swear, the lead singer was the reincarnation of Barry White. Looked like him, sounded like him, it was surreal. She stuck with it better than I did, and now plays in Spamalot in Las Vegas. It's a nice gig....
"For now, this is part of the greater Neopoleon community- and that's cool enough that these artist/geek hybrids are sort of connecting."
If people want to lump me in with Neopoleon, I'm okay with that. :D
"There are more than enough tech blogs out there that all they do is talk about coding, software, and hardware and just review and link to stuff 24/7. I read some of those blogs, but I like diverse content by real people."
I started this with the intention of it being a tech blog. I blew that with my very first post. In fact, tech posts have been pretty rare here. I found that if I wanted to show off a piece of code I thought was cool, it made more sense to post it on CodeProject. I suppose that, being slightly more diverse than the average geek, It's easier to talk about non techy stuff here since I talk techy stuff all day and don't really get to talk about non techy stuff much at work. I suppose it reminds me that there's more to me than a Code Monkey.
"Robots are cool if they're like Data. "Data's Day" is one of my favorite Star Trek:TNG episodes!"
I think it's a testament to Brent Spiner's acting talent that he was able to make us all love an emotionless android. He's really quite underrated. I could talk Star Trek all day. :D