Downloading music is now legal, next up: Movies

Netflix fans can look forward to downloading their movies (3 at a time/$20 a month) starting in 2005.  Maybe even renting videogames too!

http://money.cnn.com/2004/04/05/news/midcaps/netflix_downloads/index.htm

Great news, with so many h4x0rz downloading their movies it\'s great a company decided to ride the wave and make a buck off it rather than writing [internet + movies] off as piracy.  I love Netflix, but the wait time for snail mail and the lack of availability for new releases has me about to quit the service.

If they do go videogames as well I wonder how gamefly.com will compete.

So what happens to the poor saps who have had lawsuits filed against them and they had to pay up?

Most of those lawsuits were brought on by the RIAA, who focus on music.  Not sure if they were watching people distributing movies as well.  The defendants in this case were providing music and/or movies to the public for free, which is illegal so nothing changes for them.

The gamefly.com thing is cool; but I would have a problem waiting for my game after I picked it. Plus if the game sucks you have to wait to send it back and get another one.

Blockbuster has a similar program(which I signed up for) called the Game Pass. Its $20 a month and it has the same unlimited usage thing. The only thing is that it is only for one game and if you want two games at a time it goes up to $35 a month. Still when you consider that you can drive to a blockbuster, switch your game, and walk right out in five minutes it beats waiting a couple days for a package to be delivered.

I\'ll stick to kazaa and my friends\' ftp servers.

[Living-In-Clip]

Hate to b reak it to you, but there are already other companies out there doing the online rental service. Ifilms.com, pops to mind and there is others. You have to accept a few things though, for the most part, unless something special happens, the quality is going to be less than DVD quality, you\'re watching it on your PC, you will either have to download it - making it useless for narrowband users and boring for broadband users, or stream it like some of the current services now.

Downloading movies is already being done and it won\'t catch on any time. Unlike downloading mp3s, downloading movies suffers from all the problems I mentioned above.

Downloading movies < DVD < HD DVD < Theatrical Screening

As far as I can tell, the chain of quality described above is never going to change.  Even as DVDs are upgraded to higher definition, the theatrical presentation is improving also, with advancements in digital projection and so forth.

I have ZERO interest in downloaded movies because of the crappy image quality.  I won\'t even watch DVDs on my PC because I don\'t like the seating position, and the sound is inferior to my home theater in the other room.  Thus I don\'t understand how anyone can expect this type of business model to succeed.

Are there really so many stupid people who will watch a movie in a shitty overcompressed format just to save $6.00?  I don\'t get it.

I wouldn\'t say never. There are internet technologies that are already connecting at 10 Gbps and with the emergence of broadband capable set top boxes I think we will see hi-quality downloadable movies that we can watch in the living room within ten years.

[GmanJoe]

Yep. Only a few years ago, 1.44 kb per second was "blazing speed".

My point is that even as internet-distributed movies improve in quality, the other distribution channels higher on the food chain will improve also.  Therefore, it\'s likely to always be the inferior, though more convenient option.

It\'s the way of the future, this is just the beginning steps.  I think those who have Home theater PCs and college students with no big systems will benefit the most from this.  I imagine the cable companies tapping into this somehow since they already provide services like HBO On Demand, where you can watch an episode of the Sopranos, Sex & the City, etc.. from any season whenever you want.

iFilm seems more dedicated to short films and the low resolution (maybe even streaming) movies they provide won\'t be the qulaity of a Netflix download.

And echoing blacksam, the internet is only getting faster.  I remember someone posted an article here that college professors were able to send data the size of a full DVD from coast to coast in less than an hour.  Some new technology called 56k V.90.

[Living-In-Clip]

If you want, I can find the exact article off of TechTV.com, where they done reviews of services that do exactly what you are praising NetFlix.com for taking on.

The problem is simple, video quality will never be on par with a regular DVD and it limits the users to much. What about narrowband users? Remember, a large portion of the US is still not wired for true broadband and when I say that, I am counting out crap services such as DirecPC or other sattelite based "broadband" internet services..  Then there is the other problems, such as what about extra features? You won\'t be downloading them - thus you will miss out on a lot of content.

For the price that NetFlix is going to charge you, twenty dollars for three movie\'s , plus your download time, you could drive to your local Blockbuster video, rent three movie\'s for less than twenty dollars, grab a Mcdonald\'s cheeseburger , drive home and watch the movie in it\'s true video form / audio form and enjoy the extra features.

the internet is only getting faster

The new advances we have help. Yes, things are getting faster all around, not just with the internet. The problem is the fact that around 60 percent of US citzen\'s can\'t take advantages of simple advancements such as broadband, not to even mention the new high-tech stuff that is always being developed.

^^^True, but that other 40% still makes up tens of millions of people.

Most US citizens don\'t own DVD players, watch cable, have computers or play video games, that doesn\'t mean those industries are struggling financially.

[Living-In-Clip]

Actually, recent surveys show most American
s do have DVD players / game systems.



My whole point is that downloading movie\'s has to many problems to be a true success.

For the price that NetFlix is going to charge you, twenty dollars for three movie\'s , plus your download time, you could drive to your local Blockbuster video, rent three movie\'s for less than twenty dollars, grab a Mcdonald\'s cheeseburger , drive home and watch the movie in it\'s true video form / audio form and enjoy the extra features.

Invalid argument since $20 is for a whole month.  You can download one movie a night and spend less than $1 per movie if you wish.  Also DVD is what I wouldn\'t like to call a movie\'s "true form" since it\'s blocky low res mpeg-2.  I don\'t think Netflix would re-encode the DVDs (hope not anyway).  WM9 can do 1080p at around 8mbps which is why I am pulling for that.

Could you please link me up the TechTV article?  I did a search but couldn\'t find it.  I\'m curious to know what\'s out there and what does & doesn\'t work.

My whole point is that downloading movie\'s has to many problems to be a true success.

Don\'t get me wrong, but for some reason I think I\'ll be pulling up that quote in a couple of years just to break yer ballz.  If not feel free to resurface this thread if Netflix tanks.