38 ms·

Netflix launches a tech blog

52 points by waterlesscloud 16y ago

bradgessler 16y ago
"We've been a software company since an accomplished engineer, Reed Hastings, co-founded the company in 1997." Note that success doesn't happen overnight. 1997 was 13 years ago.
- Tichy 16y ago
  They've been successful for a while, though :-)
- wefqwefqwe 16y ago
  that's just bullshit PR
cookiecaper 16y ago
Fingers crossed that one of their first posts is: "Moving away from PlaysForSure DRM so that we can provide support to Linux desktop users". If not, I expect this blog will be flooded with comments lamenting the lack of Linux support, as most of their other blogs were the last time I looked. I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been a stronger effort to crack PlaysForSure DRM considering the widespread appeal of Netflix. According to unofficial reports I read a while ago that I am too lazy to look back up and cite, Microsoft's main motivation for disallowing Linux desktop support is that they feel it will make it too easy to hack the protocol. And that makes it even more surprising that someone hasn't gone in and cracked it just out of spite for that position.
- wefqwefqwe 16y ago
  Because this is crappy technology. Netflix should be ashamed to use it anyway, or do are they paid by microsoft to use it ? And they call themselves a technology company, LOL
- nodata 16y ago
  Are they really using PlaysForSure? I thought that died after the Zune fiasco.
  - cookiecaper 16y ago
    Ah, it appears you're correct. They are using Microsoft's similarly-named "PlayReady" DRM, which also plays PlaysForSure content. See http://www.homemediamagazine.com/netflix/netflix-selects-new-microsoft-drm-19505 http://www.homemediamagazine.com/netflix/netflix-selects-new...; it seems that both PlayReady and PlaysForSure are derived from Windows Media DRM 10: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayReady http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayReady. Thanks for the correction, sorry for the error.
jallmann 16y ago
Here's to hoping for a post on why streaming subtitles are taking so damn long to get out.
mirkules 16y ago
I thoroughly enjoyed both following and participating in the Netflix challenge (even though I never really got anywhere in the competition). If this blog is in that same "advancing technology" spirit, I think it will be a success. Nitpick: the logo/header has some really nasty jpeg artifacting.
skorgu 16y ago
In case anyone else was surprised at the failure of feed discovery in google reader: http://techblog.netflix.com/rss.xml http://techblog.netflix.com/rss.xml is the feed URL.
ramidarigaz 16y ago
Oof. The JPEG logo looks awful.

"We've been a software company since an accomplished engineer, Reed Hastings, co-founded the company in 1997." Note that success doesn't happen overnight. 1997 was 13 years ago.

Tichy 16y ago
They've been successful for a while, though :-)
wefqwefqwe 16y ago
that's just bullshit PR

cookiecaper 16y ago

Fingers crossed that one of their first posts is: "Moving away from PlaysForSure DRM so that we can provide support to Linux desktop users". If not, I expect this blog will be flooded with comments lamenting the lack of Linux support, as most of their other blogs were the last time I looked. I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been a stronger effort to crack PlaysForSure DRM considering the widespread appeal of Netflix. According to unofficial reports I read a while ago that I am too lazy to look back up and cite, Microsoft's main motivation for disallowing Linux desktop support is that they feel it will make it too easy to hack the protocol. And that makes it even more surprising that someone hasn't gone in and cracked it just out of spite for that position.

wefqwefqwe 16y ago
Because this is crappy technology. Netflix should be ashamed to use it anyway, or do are they paid by microsoft to use it ? And they call themselves a technology company, LOL
nodata 16y ago
Are they really using PlaysForSure? I thought that died after the Zune fiasco.
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  Ah, it appears you're correct. They are using Microsoft's similarly-named "PlayReady" DRM, which also plays PlaysForSure content. See http://www.homemediamagazine.com/netflix/netflix-selects-new-microsoft-drm-19505 http://www.homemediamagazine.com/netflix/netflix-selects-new...; it seems that both PlayReady and PlaysForSure are derived from Windows Media DRM 10: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayReady http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayReady. Thanks for the correction, sorry for the error.

jallmann 16y ago

Here's to hoping for a post on why streaming subtitles are taking so damn long to get out.

mirkules 16y ago

I thoroughly enjoyed both following and participating in the Netflix challenge (even though I never really got anywhere in the competition). If this blog is in that same "advancing technology" spirit, I think it will be a success. Nitpick: the logo/header has some really nasty jpeg artifacting.

skorgu 16y ago

In case anyone else was surprised at the failure of feed discovery in google reader: http://techblog.netflix.com/rss.xml http://techblog.netflix.com/rss.xml is the feed URL.

ramidarigaz 16y ago

Oof. The JPEG logo looks awful.