Netflix BD disc rental discussion thread - Page 249

If their deal with Dreamworks is a sign of how much streaming will cost (and that will be passed on to the customers), holy cow, I'll bet on BDs. Discs are a proven business model; low risk. Netflix is gambling on a high risk future with a lot of their fate being controlled by the studios. Quikster may be the ugly stepchild, but it has the content and quality I want.

Well only a few days until Qwikster is live. I just dropped down to the two out plan with BD and streaming. With the new TV season on, I will be watching fewer movies now.

Tell me something I don't know .. or actually read what I wrote ..

Why don't you read what I wrote!

Did I disagree with what you said?

Is there a go-live date scheduled? The only thing I've heard is it's coming and they'll notify us when it's ready (at least that's what Hasting's email said).

Also thinking of dropping down from 3 discs to 2 (because of the new TV season and nothing to do with the NF changes). Of course, the new series I picked up will probably be cancelled in a few weeks, and my tv watching will be back to normal levels.

Hmmm... is this on NF streaming?

I really like the concept of streaming, however, the problem with Netflix is the quality. If everything was available in HD with 5.1 sound then I would definitely be happy with the service. I ended up canceling my subscription as most things were of low quality.

Yeah. I want to see this alleged "Anal Forum."

Actually, on second thought, I'd rather not...

Doug

my point exactly. i want quality pq and aq which streaming will never be able to provide due to broadband bandwith limitations.

It's because you lack the vision necessary to overcome an obstacle. I can see a kiosk with a burner cooking up new discs on demand.

Who would want to wait around for that? It takes a long time to burn to disc. Especially when you have people parking their cars on the firelane to return a disc and get a new one from the Kiosk. I would think most people would not want to wait for that.

I'm guessing the studios will love that idea ..

Sorry, but I think iamaian is closer to the truth. I don't picture burnable discs, but more like a reusable flash drive that you just load up with a movie (considering most players and TVs now have USB drives, it would just need an app). Of course, there would be DRM issues that would have to be sorted out or a rental window (similar to how DIVX **shudder** was).

The point is, kiosks are currently limited because of discs eating up physical space. There are some technical hurdles of course with being able to burn/copy a movie to reusable device as well, such as how to get the movie to the kiosk (download, which would be slow, or a very large HDD inside it). Or, forward thinking, it stores the popular new releases locally but other things you order online, and it downloads it so it's ready to be "picked up" by the time you get there.

Anything like that (if it would even happen) though is years away. Technology needs to be worked out and of course, large flash-drives (or similar) would have to come down in price. Of course, that's just conjecture and an idea, and you can rip apart my hypothetical situation that may never happen but I just pulled it out of my ass if it'll make you feel better. I personally think it won't happen as streaming will completely replace anything like this. Unless there would be a market for people without high-speed internet or the quality of kiosk-provided movies would be better or bandwidth caps become so restrictive that it kills it off (I also think the government will step in before that would happen since bandwidth caps also effect business and the economy).

But that's the great thing about technology. It's always moving forward and who knows where it will lead. Probably to terminators and all of us hiding in caves arguing about something else.

Why would you then need a kiosk .. ??

I edited my post above. There will still be a market for those without access to high-speed internet, or are under oppressive bandwidth caps, or perhaps kiosks will just be able to provide better quality for the purists. Or maybe just be more affordable.

Again, just pulling ideas out of the thin air. I was only pointing out that he originally said "burning discs" (which people jumped on) but there's the potential for other options to get around the physical-space limitation (and thus the limited selection) of the current kiosk market. Technology is just not there yet. Well, actually it is and could be done today. Just currently cost-prohibitive (a 50GB flash drive will run you about $200, although those will be $10 in about 2 years I'm sure ) and then of course studio buy-in would be a bottleneck, just like it is today.

As with a B&M, new releases drive the "churn" and thus the cash flow of the kiosk business .. the cash flow coming in from the oldest, older and even two month old content is limited and minimal .. so, does expansion thru downloadable content either by disk or thumb drive make any sense .. ?? Maybe in some cases, but likely not enough to have a huge profit impact .. the ability to get new content on actual release day, especially if you have a B&M in your area that does, has a much greater profit incentive ..

Things that could benefit would be entire TV series seasons, maybe boxed sets like Star Wars BD, etc ..

I don't know if ISP speed will be an issue .. maybe in rural areas .. ?? With a large percentage of the Country served by CATV / TELCO / ISP providers, in most cases, if you want high speed, you can get it .. granted, it may be a 3mbps feed, but that's "good enough" ..

On site disk burning ability is, IMO, fantasy .. remember the "Self Destruct" disks from years ago .. ?? Those really took off as well ..

The rage awhile back was CinemaNow and MOD Systems movies on flash or thumb drives. Have not heard much form them in the last year. IMO, just another solution trying to find a problem.

The same article in the Seattle Times yesterday about Netflix signing up Dreamworks also included a statement from an analyst who stated he thinks Netflix is positioning itself for purchase by Amazon. While this seems far fetched, apparently its a rumor that doesn't seem to want to die.

Unfortunately, I think that those that have limited bandwidth or are capped AND want high quality is a very very small percentage (of which I am a part).

People are just too willing to settle for convenience over quality.

Phase of the moon and the tide must have been right for me today .. Transformers : Dark of the Moon shipped to me today ..

Mine shipped too, but that is the norm for me. Although they did screw me on the Star wars BDs. But that was a first.

talk around here is netflix may have done itself in with these major changes
to their original biz model.

since the announced the price hike in july, their stock has dropped over 50%
and they have lost over a million subs.

lots of tech folks i know are really scratching their heads over the huge price hike and now qwickster.

Is this Movie Madness?

They were great when all the DVDs were in one section in alphabetical order. Once they mixed the DVDs with the hundreds of VHS tapes, every title was a store-wide search based on the nationality of the director, whether it won the Academy award for editing that year, and other important details you should have already researched before stepping through their door. If you didn't know the director was British, then you had to ask for help and were told exactly why you didn't find it mixed in with the American titles.

They're walking distance from me yet I haven't been in there for eight years.

Yeah, I am starting to watch their stock now however....

I dropped down to streaming + 1 DVD. I think it is mroe likely that I will drop streaming and go back to 3 DVD/Blu-Ray than the other way around. Quality of streaming, especially over 3G, is just too crummy. I mostly use it to watch TV shows that were origianlly SD or let my son watch something on a laptop when we are away from home (over 3G).

Bingo.

Convenience over quality? Just look at what mp3s did to the music industry. I fear that it is in the early stages for movies, but I hope that there are enough people with good HDTVs and BD players who will recognize high or low quality when they see it.

With AT&T capping my DSL at 150GB a month, even if I could stream movies at something close to BD quality, it would take me less than a week to hit that cap. Until then, long live the USPS and Qwikster.

Except for the inconvenient fact that a standalone Qwikster *is* the original business model which has done just fine for 10+ years. I'm cautiously excited about the possibilities of a return to focusing on discs, even if everyone else seems to think it is doomed to failure.

If and that's a big IF they place a greater focus on Blu ray, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna dump BB and go to Qwikster.

I've run into so many people that get some projector, and show the picture up on the wall or even a large screen LCD. And it's all I can do to keep from blowing chunks when I look at the picture. They think the picture looks so good. These people are not going to notice any difference with lower quality streaming. And then their audio system will typically be very low end as well.
And it's not like they don't have the money but they won't pay for a calibration or a decent sound system to put in the large house.

Stores like that deserve to go out of business.

Yet, they'd be quickest to wine that their business is being destroyed by big box stores, the internet or whatever the threat of the week is.

On the other hand, BB was driven out with their tails between their legs in my hometown which used to have an awesome local chain. Between Netflix and the Red Box that went in across the street, they finally called it a day a few years back. The stores were huge and full of all kinds of rare titles along with the new stuff. The rent just got to be too much for the profit margin.

At any rate, I dropped my disc plan down to one disc, no streaming and no BD access - at least while I try out my new BB plan. I have a store walking distance from me that finally got on board with the in store exchanges (they didn't participate before this year).

I'll use my Quickster plan just for TV shows, almost none of which are on BD. For those in my queue that are, I can pop those in my BB queue.

There are a few titles that I want to see that are streaming only, but not enough to warrant the extra $8.


I will say this: Netflix picked the worst time to do this price increase and service change. Not only is money tight for a lot of people, the Fall season is picking up steam, meaning people might feel more comfortable dropping or reducing a service like this. had they done this in June or July, it might not have been as much of an issue with the lack of TV and more excitement over upcoming big budget releases.

The fact is, Netflix made it clear with this move they really don't want me as a customer. BB seems to be making strides to come back and offer great service to those who want to rent discs. I have to give my money to BB and support that effort. So, Netflix loses me as a 3 out customer with BD access who only streamed a few hours a month and gains a 1 out no-frills DVD-only customer.