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Netflix and iTunes Rentals Aiming At Different Crowds
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:45 AM
from the i-like-the-part-where-i'm-not-paying-for-24-hours-of-use dept.
from the i-like-the-part-where-i'm-not-paying-for-24-hours-of-use dept.
Engadget notes an article in the New York Times discussing the substantially different markets that Netflix and Apple's movie rentals are aiming for. The site views the loosening of Netflix streaming restrictions as a reaction motivated entirely by the iTunes movie rental announcement, but beyond that the two services seem to have little connection. From Engadget's observations: "After speaking with Netflix's Reed Hastings, it was found that the vast majority of its streamable content was 'older,' and considering that users of this service can never look forward to brand new releases being available, the cost (i.e. free to most mail-in subscribers) makes sense. As for Apple, it's able to focus on crowds who are looking for a more robust, generally fresher selection, but of course, you'll pay the premium each time you indulge. Furthermore, Netflix has yet to make transferring video to any display / device other than your monitor easy, and while an LG set top box is indeed on the horizon, the differences in content selection are still likely to lure separate eyes."
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Apple and Fox Set to Announce Movie Rental Deal 192 comments
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Netflix To Lift Streaming Limits 249 comments
The AP has a story on Netflix's move to head off expected competition from Apple: the company will lift limits on streaming its movies for most subscribers. The story reports on rumors of an Apple movie-download service that may be announced by Steve Jobs on Tuesday. In the past Netflix has imposed limits on how long its subscribers could watch streamed movies; for example, those who paid $16.99/mo. could stream up to 17 hours per month. The limits will end on Monday for most subscribers (except for those paying $4.99 for two DVD rentals a month, said to be a small minority). The company has 6,000 movies available for streaming, compared to 90,000 that you can get delivered in the mail.
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NBC's Zucker Hints At Return to iTunes 68 comments
Bad corporate blood led to the collapse of the NBC/Apple business relationship in the fall of last year. Now, via the Engadget news feed, comes word that things may be thawing out between the two. A for-pay article in the Financial Times had words from NBC Universal's COE Jeff Zucker, saying: "'We've said all along that we admire Apple, that we want to be in business with Apple.' He then unexpectedly adds, 'We're great fans of Steve Jobs.' No telling what has caused the turnabout. Perhaps the writers strike gave both parties time to reflect on their mounting lost revenue." The site also notes that NBC signed a deal as part of the recent movie rental announcement, possibly contributing to the thaw. They link to a BusinessWeek article pointing out positive statements from Jobs reciprocating these 'feelings'.
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Exactly what is new about AppleTV? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Exactly what is new about AppleTV? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They should remove the AppleTV dependency (lock-in) on iTunes, and let me browse my network folder via alternate method. I know this will never happen, because most of Apple's products try to direct people to th
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Mount_a_Remote_Drive_via_NFS [awkwardtv.org]
http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wik [awkwardtv.org]
Re:Exactly what is new about AppleTV? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Exactly what is new about AppleTV? (Score:5, Informative)
-Your purchases get backed up to iTunes on your PC. It annoys me to no end that every other week or so I have to delete shows I've paid for because you can't back up programming to your computer.
-Your purchases are denominated in actual currency, not "Microsoft Points." Enough said on that point.
-Built-in video podcast browsing...once the software update hits Apple TV, of course. There is no straightforward way to watch these on Xbox 360. There is a lot of good, free, legal programming out there (Web Drifter, Diggnation, Stranger Things, NASA). With the 360, you need either the Zune software, Miro or iTunes to aggregate the podcasts. In the 2 latter cases, you then need a UPNP/DLNA server to serve the videos out to the 360.
-Better video support. The 360 plays H.264 videos (my DVD rips) just fine...however, Windows Media Player does not catalogue them into my library. I should not have to hack my registry to force it to do so. Importantly, I should not have to rely upon 3rd party software (TVersity) to serve out such videos. The other way to do it is to download Microsoft's Zune software, which natively catalogues H.264...one hell of a way to run a company, Microsoft, no consistency across the board and every step is taken to lock me in, which results in crippled hardware.
Netflix is different than Apple... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Netflix is different than Apple... (Score:4, Insightful)
What was not free was the additional apps (maps, stocks, weather, mail, etc.) Those are going to be included in future shipments for free, but current shipments they have to charge something because of accounting reasons...same reason they had to charge for the 802.11n in the macs that had the hardware but not the software to use the 802.11n standard.
iPhone and Apple TV get the software updates for free because they accounted the revenue for those devices differently than they do regular iPods and macs, so they are able to add additional features for free.
netflix didn't have to do this because netflix has no hardware (yet). They are just adding additional services to their subscription model in order to be more competitive.
Either way, it's not apple trying to screw customers out of money for updates...if they were, they would rather you bought a new iPod touch to get the additional features, rather than a moderately priced upgrade.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
TV shows (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm.. and who is getting a residual payment from your downloads of those older shows?
I'm uncertain about what might be better, but if the writers are going to stick with some form of deferred compensatio
More than just old movies (Score:5, Informative)
Public Libraries (Score:5, Informative)
It's become a weekly tradition for me to head out to the library after Saturday breakfast and return with my booty of media. Like Santa, I open my sack and hand out books and movies to my kids and occasionally my wife (depending on whether or not she's on the naughty list).
Re:Public Libraries (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Public Libraries (Score:4, Insightful)
Because most people's libraries weren't lucky enough to have a failed video store to acquire a collection from - Netflix's selection is so much wider than any public library (or video store, for that matter) i've ever been in or heard of, there's almost no point making a comparison.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Dude, have you even looked at Netflix pricing [netflix.com]? You can get unlimited rentals per month (2 movies at a time) for $13.99/month and you can EASILY get first run new releases. I used to be into the Blockbuster thing, but the newer titles were never in s
Next up in the New York Times . . . (Score:3, Funny)
A few things that Netflix still does better (Score:3, Informative)
I haven't seen anything like that on Apple's service, but I may be mistaken.
One other thing that Netflix has over Apple, is no 30 day wait after a new release. Sure, there may be a few days wait in some cases, but it's not 30.
(Piratebay also has no such restrictions. The movie studios probably wanted to strike a good deal with those jolly rogers. Great move studios, nothing like waiting 30 days after a region-encrusted release...)
On the other side, Apple has a convenient way to transfer movies to my iPod touch, which is excellent.
I'm a Netflix subscriber, and I'm pretty sure I'll stay with them, but I think Apple may get some of my money here and there too.
I'm definitely not Apple's target market, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't have cable or satellite T.V. and I can't see spending money on the antenna we'd need for broadcast digital--five hundred channels of nothing is still nothing. So we have Netflix. While I don't watch much, my wife watches about one episode of a T.V. series each day. Perhaps every other week we get a movie, and occasionally we'll watch episodes some old series together. So we run through maybe 10-15 DVDs worth of content each month. That type of viewing pattern would be significantly more than the $18 a month we currently pay Netflix, say around $45 if you had to get all the TV episodes as individual "rentals"
It will be interesting to see if Apple can do to video viewing what it did to music (make the music player ubiquitous, or nearly so). The main issues I see are cost (per video) and cost (for a device to play the content).
Re:I'm definitely not Apple's target market, but.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm definitely not Apple's target market, but.. (Score:3, Informative)
1. Broadcast digital uses the same antenna that your wife is using right now to pick up analog TV.
2. Next year you're at least going to have to buy a converter box (government subsidized, though) in order to keep doing that. But your s
Re:I'm definitely not Apple's target market, but.. (Score:3, Insightful)
NetFlix download isn't a serious business (Score:5, Interesting)
NetFlix, on the other hand, may be smart enough to realise that internet access to movies is inevitable, but only came up with some shitty "on your computer only" service, with bandwidth restrictions. It's a little experiment without serious backing. My bet is that whoever within NetFlix has responsibility for the online service has little power within the company, and is probably seen as competition to the main DVDs-by-post business. Apple's announcement probably gave that person a rare bit of clout to argue to the rest of the company that unless the NetFlix streaming service improves, it will simply become a laughing stock.
All that said - if they deliver on easy access via the TV, their model of "classic" and hard-to-find material plus their que idea is a great one. Hope the online person now gets the respect and funding they deserve. They've got to prepare for the future where the postal service just ain't necessary for their business model.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Netflix Is A RipOff (Score:4, Insightful)
You should rally have been looking at your post office as the culprit. Netflix has way to many people to be individually targeting people for delayed shipments. The only way that they could realistically get any benefit from it would be if they had a system to automatically flag accounts. There are way to many people like me that have spent years (over 5 for me) returning just about every single movie the day after they receive it for Netflix to have an automated system to throttle.