6 ms·

Why Arrested Development on Netflix could change everything

86 points by sandipc 14y ago

tomjen3 14y ago
It is certainly going to be interesting to see when the DRM is cracked and the shows are up on the various file sharing systems. My bet is that it won't take that long, a few weeks or a month at most.
- jrockway 14y ago
  You don't need to crack the DRM to upload these to file-sharing sites. Pretty much all TV rips (and even Blu-ray rips) are already double-compressed, so it's not particularly important to get at the raw bitstream. That means that all you need is a "malicious" video card or something to intercept the video-out signal from your computer. (And no, HDCP does not solve anything. It's already broken and anyone willing to pay $150 for a Spartan 6 dev board with HDMI ports on it can remove it.) Anyway, I'm pretty sure whoever made the decision to go ahead with this model knows that there's going to be piracy. You would have to be living under the world's largest rock to not consider that possibility.
  - jonursenbach 14y ago
    Or you can just fire up something like Fraps and record the show in the browser while you watch it.
    - icefox 14y ago
      Way over thinking it here, there will be _someone_ that sticks a (hopefully mounted) video camera in front of the screen and hit record.
      - jrockway 14y ago
        That's a lot of effort for a rip that will make the releasing group the laughingstock of "the scene". (I giggled the first time someone told me about this, but Wikipedia has an article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warez_scene http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warez_scene)
        ConstantineXVI 14y ago
        I was impressed the first time I ran across the scene's standards[0]. [0] http://scenerules.irc.gs/ http://scenerules.irc.gs/
    - achacha 14y ago
      Video capture cards can already do this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815100049 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815100...) or just pay $8/mo to Netflix and stream it. The only reason for ripping Netflix streams is to view them on Linux since their DRM barely works on Linux through Wine which is not always ideal. If they got that DRM thing working on Linux, I am not sure there is a legit reason to rip content from Netflix, the monthly fee is very reasonable.
- schrototo 14y ago
  Try a few hours... (And a good thing too, since once again there will probably be no way for this non-American to actually buy the damn thing...)
- surrealize 14y ago
  I'm sure it'll happen faster than that ...just like it does for every single other movie and TV show out there.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
mark_l_watson 14y ago
I am still 'negotiating' with my wife to drop Directv and just use Netflix streaming, Hulu+, and the occasional Redbox DVD for entertainment. This is all just my opinion, but in a digital world where there is way too much entertaining stuff to view, be it TV, movies, videos on Youtube, Reddit, online newspapers like the NYT, that something big has happened for me: there are no more "must have" TV shows, movies, or books. For example, if HBO won't let me watch a special on the web for a fair price I don't care if I miss it. Seriously, I will probably take 5 Coursera online classes this year, read 15 non-technical fiction books, 15 technical books, write several hundred pages in my own book projects, etc. Plenty of fun stuff to do. This is similar to travel: when we go to a foreign country I don't worry about "seeing everything", rather, I just want to enjoy myself and get a feel for the people and place. Same with digital entertainment: just graze a little. Netflix is the absolute best value for me in entertainment.
- pyoung 14y ago
  Also, you can get access to HBO shows via Netflix's DVDs. Of course you won't get the current season, and you have to order each disc one by one. But for an extra ~8 a month, I have gotten a good value out of it.
- seanalltogether 14y ago
  I'm going through that negotiation with my fiancee right now, I don't have cable she does. The only thing is, she really really likes watching tennis, and sports in general is seems to be the thing still holding her to a cable subscription.
  - shinratdr 14y ago
    There isn't a way past this yet unfortunately. If you're stuck with someone who wants sports access, you're stuck with some form of cable. The worst part is even if it's a high profile sport, and the league itself will accept some ridiculous amount of money for access, you're STILL at the beck and call of regional blackouts and restrictions.
- colmvp 14y ago
karlmdavis 14y ago
I've been thinking a bit lately about how web video content is beginning to become "legitimate." With series like Geek & Sundry's Tabletop [1], Penny Arcade's "reality show" [2], and hidden gems like YouTube's The Vault [3], I'm starting to reach a point where I could even cancel Netflix and just watch online web videos. My guess is, that five years from now, both Netflix and YouTube will look like networks or producers than just distributors. [1] http://tabletop.geekandsundry.com/episodes/ http://tabletop.geekandsundry.com/episodes/ [2] http://penny-arcade.com/patv/show/pa-the-series http://penny-arcade.com/patv/show/pa-the-series [3] http://www.youtube.com/user/VaultShow http://www.youtube.com/user/VaultShow
- TillE 14y ago
  > Geek & Sundry's Tabletop I'm not a big Wil Wheaton or Felicia Day fan, but I'm really enjoying Tabletop. Fun show with excellent production values. I just wish the episodes were a little longer (ie, fewer cuts) for some of the more complex games. Internet broadcasting just keeps getting better and better. It's probably not a great model for fiction where you have to pay writers and real actors, but for entertaining nonfiction it's perfect.
  - karlmdavis 14y ago
    > It's probably not a great model for fiction where you have to pay writers and real actors Check out "The Vault" that I linked to above. Very reminiscent of Lost and (so far) of excellent quality. I gather from some of what I've read that they've received outside funding for the show.
larrys 14y ago
If you are an Arrested Fan (although not highly rated on Netflix for some reason) the first season of "Children's Hospital" is hilarious.
- frontier 14y ago
  Thanks for the tip! I'd never heard of this show and the clip I just saw on YT was really-really funny!! :-D
aidos 14y ago
Oh wow. This is amazing news. When we got Netflix in the uk we randomly put on Arrested Development without knowing what it was. We watched it back to back and were a little depressed to get to the end of it. I'm so happy to hear that Netflix are bringing it back. It ushers in an interesting new era in tv.
- freehunter 14y ago
  Arrested Development is a very European-style show. There are few explicit jokes and no laugh track. They aim more for puns and other wordplay, along with explicit foreshadowing that sets up a joke with no obvious punchline until the hammer drops (Buster's hand is a good example of this). You're not spoon-fed the comedy and queued for laughter. There weren't many American shows like that when it aired, and that was one of the reasons it got canned. They even hinted at this in the script for the last season, along with the characters practically begging some other network to pick up the show.
neverm0re 14y ago
Television has already changed. If you look toward the UK, already there's low budget comedy shows like Mid-Morning Matters with Alan Partridge, which is a continuation of a rather famous comedy character spanning radio, multiple television series and soon to be film -- which was recently produced for peanuts with modest corporate sponsorship from Fosters, dumped online as web episodes -- and now is being picked up for broadcast television after the fact. Arrested Development may be news to some folks here, but the age of producing shows for internet distribution has been our path for quite some time. Not only are shows being produced in this fashion for the internet now, but we're increasingly recruiting new talent via the internet. Just look at the star of Community, Donald Glover. This is a brilliant comedic actor who first got his major break by producing a set of YouTube videos that went viral with the other comedians in the Derrick comedy group, a group which was later picked up by College Humor and several of which, including Donald, have been tapped by mainstream American television now. I could only see Arrested Development 'changing everything' if you weren't already aware that things have already changed.
- wyclif 14y ago
  I also thought of Jerry Seinfeld's "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" http://youtu.be/s1u7A3sEnPY http://youtu.be/s1u7A3sEnPY
goatforce5 14y ago
Note that it'll only be on Netflix US. Netflix Canada, UK, etc, subscribers will have to wait in hope: http://o.canada.com/2012/04/24/the-good-news-about-arrested-development-netflix-and-canada/ http://o.canada.com/2012/04/24/the-good-news-about-arrested-...
- lemond 14y ago
  Has anyone got an idea why it would still be geographically restricted even though presumably Netflix will own the rights? It seems like this would be an ideal chance to move away from media being released at different times in different countries.
noonespecial 14y ago
The other element is the fact that like Lilyhammer, all 10-13 episodes of the series will be released at once, setting fans up for epic marathon sessions. I think this is the beginning of an entirely new format. So far we've been restricted to the video equivalent of serials and short stories with TV shows and movies respectively. Its time for the rise of the video long-form novel. There are certain stories (like Firefly IMHO) that really need this format to work. They make terrible serials from a network execs POV (because if you miss an ep or two, it becomes really hard to get into it later) and movies that only a fan could love by jamming too much story into 2 hours.
expralitemonk 14y ago
We use a Roku with Netflix and currently have over 200 items in the queue, and some of the items are series with 100 episodes. Netflix doesn't have access to new Hollywood releases, but the Roku, through its Amazon link, does. Cable? We said goodbye to that years ago.
drblast 14y ago
Cable channels seem to be so short-sighted here that I think they're going to be blindsided by this model. Using the TV model, the maximum amount of shows I can provide are limited by the amount of prime-time hours in a week. I think this creates a very long tail of shows that many people would be interested in watching, but not enough that these shows compete for prime time space. These shows are usually cancelled, and nobody makes money. But with streaming video, Netflix is not limited at all by a viewing schedule, and they can sell as many shows as they want. Even if a show is only popular among a small audience it can still be profitable. Pay-per-on-demand-show is coming, and that will be the upset. The only demographic beholden to the TV station model are the baby-boomers who think this streaming stuff is weird.

86 points by sandipc 14y ago

It is certainly going to be interesting to see when the DRM is cracked and the shows are up on the various file sharing systems. My bet is that it won't take that long, a few weeks or a month at most.

jrockway 14y ago
You don't need to crack the DRM to upload these to file-sharing sites. Pretty much all TV rips (and even Blu-ray rips) are already double-compressed, so it's not particularly important to get at the raw bitstream. That means that all you need is a "malicious" video card or something to intercept the video-out signal from your computer. (And no, HDCP does not solve anything. It's already broken and anyone willing to pay $150 for a Spartan 6 dev board with HDMI ports on it can remove it.) Anyway, I'm pretty sure whoever made the decision to go ahead with this model knows that there's going to be piracy. You would have to be living under the world's largest rock to not consider that possibility.
- jonursenbach 14y ago
  Or you can just fire up something like Fraps and record the show in the browser while you watch it.
  - icefox 14y ago
    Way over thinking it here, there will be _someone_ that sticks a (hopefully mounted) video camera in front of the screen and hit record.
    - jrockway 14y ago
      That's a lot of effort for a rip that will make the releasing group the laughingstock of "the scene". (I giggled the first time someone told me about this, but Wikipedia has an article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warez_scene http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warez_scene)
      - ConstantineXVI 14y ago
        I was impressed the first time I ran across the scene's standards[0]. [0] http://scenerules.irc.gs/ http://scenerules.irc.gs/
  - achacha 14y ago
    Video capture cards can already do this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815100049 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815100...) or just pay $8/mo to Netflix and stream it. The only reason for ripping Netflix streams is to view them on Linux since their DRM barely works on Linux through Wine which is not always ideal. If they got that DRM thing working on Linux, I am not sure there is a legit reason to rip content from Netflix, the monthly fee is very reasonable.
schrototo 14y ago
Try a few hours... (And a good thing too, since once again there will probably be no way for this non-American to actually buy the damn thing...)
surrealize 14y ago
I'm sure it'll happen faster than that ...just like it does for every single other movie and TV show out there.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

mark_l_watson 14y ago

I am still 'negotiating' with my wife to drop Directv and just use Netflix streaming, Hulu+, and the occasional Redbox DVD for entertainment. This is all just my opinion, but in a digital world where there is way too much entertaining stuff to view, be it TV, movies, videos on Youtube, Reddit, online newspapers like the NYT, that something big has happened for me: there are no more "must have" TV shows, movies, or books. For example, if HBO won't let me watch a special on the web for a fair price I don't care if I miss it. Seriously, I will probably take 5 Coursera online classes this year, read 15 non-technical fiction books, 15 technical books, write several hundred pages in my own book projects, etc. Plenty of fun stuff to do. This is similar to travel: when we go to a foreign country I don't worry about "seeing everything", rather, I just want to enjoy myself and get a feel for the people and place. Same with digital entertainment: just graze a little. Netflix is the absolute best value for me in entertainment.

pyoung 14y ago
Also, you can get access to HBO shows via Netflix's DVDs. Of course you won't get the current season, and you have to order each disc one by one. But for an extra ~8 a month, I have gotten a good value out of it.
seanalltogether 14y ago
I'm going through that negotiation with my fiancee right now, I don't have cable she does. The only thing is, she really really likes watching tennis, and sports in general is seems to be the thing still holding her to a cable subscription.
- shinratdr 14y ago
  There isn't a way past this yet unfortunately. If you're stuck with someone who wants sports access, you're stuck with some form of cable. The worst part is even if it's a high profile sport, and the league itself will accept some ridiculous amount of money for access, you're STILL at the beck and call of regional blackouts and restrictions.
colmvp 14y ago

karlmdavis 14y ago

I've been thinking a bit lately about how web video content is beginning to become "legitimate." With series like Geek & Sundry's Tabletop [1], Penny Arcade's "reality show" [2], and hidden gems like YouTube's The Vault [3], I'm starting to reach a point where I could even cancel Netflix and just watch online web videos. My guess is, that five years from now, both Netflix and YouTube will look like networks or producers than just distributors. [1] http://tabletop.geekandsundry.com/episodes/ http://tabletop.geekandsundry.com/episodes/ [2] http://penny-arcade.com/patv/show/pa-the-series http://penny-arcade.com/patv/show/pa-the-series [3] http://www.youtube.com/user/VaultShow http://www.youtube.com/user/VaultShow

TillE 14y ago
> Geek & Sundry's Tabletop I'm not a big Wil Wheaton or Felicia Day fan, but I'm really enjoying Tabletop. Fun show with excellent production values. I just wish the episodes were a little longer (ie, fewer cuts) for some of the more complex games. Internet broadcasting just keeps getting better and better. It's probably not a great model for fiction where you have to pay writers and real actors, but for entertaining nonfiction it's perfect.
- karlmdavis 14y ago
  > It's probably not a great model for fiction where you have to pay writers and real actors Check out "The Vault" that I linked to above. Very reminiscent of Lost and (so far) of excellent quality. I gather from some of what I've read that they've received outside funding for the show.

larrys 14y ago

If you are an Arrested Fan (although not highly rated on Netflix for some reason) the first season of "Children's Hospital" is hilarious.

frontier 14y ago
Thanks for the tip! I'd never heard of this show and the clip I just saw on YT was really-really funny!! :-D

aidos 14y ago

Oh wow. This is amazing news. When we got Netflix in the uk we randomly put on Arrested Development without knowing what it was. We watched it back to back and were a little depressed to get to the end of it. I'm so happy to hear that Netflix are bringing it back. It ushers in an interesting new era in tv.

freehunter 14y ago
Arrested Development is a very European-style show. There are few explicit jokes and no laugh track. They aim more for puns and other wordplay, along with explicit foreshadowing that sets up a joke with no obvious punchline until the hammer drops (Buster's hand is a good example of this). You're not spoon-fed the comedy and queued for laughter. There weren't many American shows like that when it aired, and that was one of the reasons it got canned. They even hinted at this in the script for the last season, along with the characters practically begging some other network to pick up the show.

neverm0re 14y ago

Television has already changed. If you look toward the UK, already there's low budget comedy shows like Mid-Morning Matters with Alan Partridge, which is a continuation of a rather famous comedy character spanning radio, multiple television series and soon to be film -- which was recently produced for peanuts with modest corporate sponsorship from Fosters, dumped online as web episodes -- and now is being picked up for broadcast television after the fact. Arrested Development may be news to some folks here, but the age of producing shows for internet distribution has been our path for quite some time. Not only are shows being produced in this fashion for the internet now, but we're increasingly recruiting new talent via the internet. Just look at the star of Community, Donald Glover. This is a brilliant comedic actor who first got his major break by producing a set of YouTube videos that went viral with the other comedians in the Derrick comedy group, a group which was later picked up by College Humor and several of which, including Donald, have been tapped by mainstream American television now. I could only see Arrested Development 'changing everything' if you weren't already aware that things have already changed.

wyclif 14y ago
I also thought of Jerry Seinfeld's "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" http://youtu.be/s1u7A3sEnPY http://youtu.be/s1u7A3sEnPY

goatforce5 14y ago

Note that it'll only be on Netflix US. Netflix Canada, UK, etc, subscribers will have to wait in hope: http://o.canada.com/2012/04/24/the-good-news-about-arrested-development-netflix-and-canada/ http://o.canada.com/2012/04/24/the-good-news-about-arrested-...

lemond 14y ago
Has anyone got an idea why it would still be geographically restricted even though presumably Netflix will own the rights? It seems like this would be an ideal chance to move away from media being released at different times in different countries.

noonespecial 14y ago

The other element is the fact that like Lilyhammer, all 10-13 episodes of the series will be released at once, setting fans up for epic marathon sessions. I think this is the beginning of an entirely new format. So far we've been restricted to the video equivalent of serials and short stories with TV shows and movies respectively. Its time for the rise of the video long-form novel. There are certain stories (like Firefly IMHO) that really need this format to work. They make terrible serials from a network execs POV (because if you miss an ep or two, it becomes really hard to get into it later) and movies that only a fan could love by jamming too much story into 2 hours.

expralitemonk 14y ago

We use a Roku with Netflix and currently have over 200 items in the queue, and some of the items are series with 100 episodes. Netflix doesn't have access to new Hollywood releases, but the Roku, through its Amazon link, does. Cable? We said goodbye to that years ago.

drblast 14y ago

Cable channels seem to be so short-sighted here that I think they're going to be blindsided by this model. Using the TV model, the maximum amount of shows I can provide are limited by the amount of prime-time hours in a week. I think this creates a very long tail of shows that many people would be interested in watching, but not enough that these shows compete for prime time space. These shows are usually cancelled, and nobody makes money. But with streaming video, Netflix is not limited at all by a viewing schedule, and they can sell as many shows as they want. Even if a show is only popular among a small audience it can still be profitable. Pay-per-on-demand-show is coming, and that will be the upset. The only demographic beholden to the TV station model are the baby-boomers who think this streaming stuff is weird.