4 ms·

It's amusing to watch various media companies horsetrading the rights to stream a particular show or movie on a given month, worrying about getting one week ahe

It's amusing to watch various media companies horsetrading the rights to stream a particular show or movie on a given month, worrying about getting one week ahead or one month behind or whatever. Meanwhile, millions of consumers look at the confusing availability of media and unpredictable technical quality of streaming, shrug their shoulders, and just download high-quality versions of whatever they want to watch at their leisure, thanks to torrents. iTunes succeeds with a pay model in a world of piracy because it delivers predictable quality, widespread availability, and downloadable content instead of streaming. That's how they beat the subscription music services, how they beat piracy, and what the movie studios need to learn from.

lukev 16y ago
Video is a few years behind music. I see no reason to expect it won't follow the same path, though.
icefox 16y ago
I regularly see a movie I would be interested in seeing in the theaters and it to my netflix que. Just a few months later it appears at my door (or removed from my que when reviews turn out it was bad). At least for me they overestimate the value of seeing most everything 'right now'. While I could go see the hot new movie, I just got in the mail the movie that came out 3-6 months ago to keep me busy this evening. As for piracy, just like iTunes between always having a plenty of items from my que for streaming and getting a new disk every few days it is easier for me to use netflix than pirate. That is when I knew they had a model that was going to be very successful.
- icefox 16y ago
  On the downside I just saw inception last night, but that is the exception and not the rule.
sammyo 16y ago
There's some ad where the announcer states "available 28 days before netflix". I mean Netflix should be paying for such good advertising.
- nhangen 16y ago
  It's a Blockbuster ad, and that's why I pay for blockbuster online.
potatolicious 16y ago
It's a bit different. It takes iTunes all of 10 seconds to download an average song, that's why I use it. It takes BitTorrent a couple of hours at least to download a movie. With Netflix streaming I'm watching in under 30 seconds. There's a lot of value proposition left in Netflix's services.
- tsotha 16y ago
  That's the way I see it. I don't want movies littering my hard drive. I just want to be able to watch movies. Netflix lets me do that without pissing off my ISP or forcing me to buy external drives or wait hours for the torrent to finish.
  - nlawalker 16y ago
    It may not be you individually that's pissing off your ISP, but your ISP is almost certainly not happy with Netflix streaming: http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2010/11/comcast-level-3-in-dispute-over-traffic-netflix-streaming-costs-to-increase-.html http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2010/11/comcast-level-3-in-dis...
    - tsotha 16y ago
      There's a big difference between torrenting an HD movie and watching a relatively low resolution streaming movie. I don't have the numbers at my fingertips, but I'd be surprised if the HD movie doesn't use 10x the bandwidth.
      - chc 16y ago
        Netflix streams HD when possible, and most people I know prefer to download non-HD versions to reduce the wait time. I don't know how Netflix's compression is, though, so it might work out not to be that much more even when it's HD.
        potatolicious 16y ago

lukev 16y ago

Video is a few years behind music. I see no reason to expect it won't follow the same path, though.

icefox 16y ago

I regularly see a movie I would be interested in seeing in the theaters and it to my netflix que. Just a few months later it appears at my door (or removed from my que when reviews turn out it was bad). At least for me they overestimate the value of seeing most everything 'right now'. While I could go see the hot new movie, I just got in the mail the movie that came out 3-6 months ago to keep me busy this evening. As for piracy, just like iTunes between always having a plenty of items from my que for streaming and getting a new disk every few days it is easier for me to use netflix than pirate. That is when I knew they had a model that was going to be very successful.

icefox 16y ago
On the downside I just saw inception last night, but that is the exception and not the rule.

sammyo 16y ago

There's some ad where the announcer states "available 28 days before netflix". I mean Netflix should be paying for such good advertising.

nhangen 16y ago
It's a Blockbuster ad, and that's why I pay for blockbuster online.

potatolicious 16y ago

It's a bit different. It takes iTunes all of 10 seconds to download an average song, that's why I use it. It takes BitTorrent a couple of hours at least to download a movie. With Netflix streaming I'm watching in under 30 seconds. There's a lot of value proposition left in Netflix's services.

tsotha 16y ago
That's the way I see it. I don't want movies littering my hard drive. I just want to be able to watch movies. Netflix lets me do that without pissing off my ISP or forcing me to buy external drives or wait hours for the torrent to finish.
- nlawalker 16y ago
  It may not be you individually that's pissing off your ISP, but your ISP is almost certainly not happy with Netflix streaming: http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2010/11/comcast-level-3-in-dispute-over-traffic-netflix-streaming-costs-to-increase-.html http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2010/11/comcast-level-3-in-dis...
  - tsotha 16y ago
    There's a big difference between torrenting an HD movie and watching a relatively low resolution streaming movie. I don't have the numbers at my fingertips, but I'd be surprised if the HD movie doesn't use 10x the bandwidth.
    - chc 16y ago
      Netflix streams HD when possible, and most people I know prefer to download non-HD versions to reduce the wait time. I don't know how Netflix's compression is, though, so it might work out not to be that much more even when it's HD.
      - potatolicious 16y ago