netflix

In Episode 24 of the Digital City, we discuss what happened at the recent Game Developer's Conference, the jump in Netflix's Blu-ray surcharge, and how VIA plans to take on the Intel Atom with its Nano CPU for Netbooks.

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On Monday, Netflix announced that the privilege to rent Blu-ray titles would be going up in price, beginning April 26. Citing the significant increase in the number of titles releasing on Blu-ray and the high cost of the discs over traditional DVDs, that comes out to a raise of anywhere from $1 to an additional $8 over what users were previously paying, for a total of $9 a month extra for its heavy renters.

According to the Official Netflix blog, it amounts to about an extra dollar per tier of the plan you're on, as opposed to the previous system, which simply tacked on an extra dollar. That amounts to:

1 DVD out at-a-time (2 DVDs a month) Monthly plan cost: $4.99 Additional monthly charge for Blu-ray access on this plan: $1 Monthly plan cost with Blu-ray access: $5.99

1 DVD out at-a-time (Unlimited) Monthly plan cost: $8.99 Additional monthly charge for Blu-ray access on this plan: $2 Monthly plan cost with Blu-ray access: $10.99

2 DVDs out at-a-time (Unlimited) Monthly plan cost: $13.99 Additional monthly charge for Blu-ray access on this plan: $3 Monthly plan cost with Blu-ray access: $16.99

3 DVDs out at-a-time (Unlimited) Monthly plan cost: $16.99 Additional monthly charge for Blu-ray access on this plan: $4 Monthly plan cost with Blu-ray access: $20.99… Read more

Blockbuster and TiVo announced a deal Wednesday that will make between 5,000 and 10,000 films available to TiVo users. Customers will be able to rent ($4) or buy ($20) films, including current major titles. It's about time: Netflix and Amazon's on-demand services are already available on TiVo. Netflix offers approximately 12,000 older and less compelling titles on the box, but Netflix users don't need to pay anything beyond their monthly fee to access movies on the DVR. Those who want to use Amazon's service, which already offers most of the films Blockbuster will stream, pay about the same rental fees as Blockbuster will charge.

I've called Blockbuster to task on its late release of contemporary technology, but I wanted to give the company a chance to respond, so I discussed what I consider Blockbuster's shortcomings with its newly installed senior vice president of digital entertainment, Kevin Lewis.

Lewis contends that his company is more than just a movie rental chain. He says Blockbuster is an entertainment retailer, which is why it wanted to make its service available to TiVo users.

"We are the only entertainment retailer with the ability to serve you a movie where you want, when you want it, how you want," Lewis said. "Whether it's at one of our stores, through virtual kiosks, or via downloads on a box like the TiVo, we can provide you with the most robust service." He told me that unlike Netflix, Amazon, and any other competitor, Blockbuster has the opportunity to service its customers across multiple channels, making its deal with TiVo all the more compelling.

"We recognize that our consumers don't act the same way every time because their needs are different," Lewis said. "Because of that, we plan to go wherever the consumer goes. And although Netflix and Amazon are already on the TiVo box, when we get there, users will know that we're the only company of the three that can offer them a movie no matter how they want it. Our competitors don't have that multi-channel capability. It's our special sauce."… Read more

In recent days, rumors have been percolating about the PlayStation 3 getting Netflix streaming video support. Most of the rumors revolve around a survey that Netflix has out gauging user interest in adding its service to Sony's game console for a fee. No one seems to know whether Netflix or Sony commissioned the survey, but either way, it's certainly raised hopes with PS3 owners that they would get something that Xbox 360 owners have had for a while. (For what it's worth, nearly identical rumors of Netflix on the Wii have also been making the rounds.)

Interestingly, … Read more

In recent days, rumors have been percolating about the PlayStation 3 getting Netflix streaming video support. Most of the rumors revolve around a survey that Netflix has out gauging user interest in adding its service to Sony's game console for a fee. No one seems to know whether Netflix or Sony commissioned the survey, but either way, it's certainly raised hopes with PS3 owners that they would get something that Xbox 360 owners have had for a while. (For what it's worth, nearly identical rumors of Netflix on the Wii have also been making the rounds.)

Interestingly, as the rumors make their way around the blogosphere, Sony's been trying to promote how robust its Playstation Network Service (PSN) is and how great a media extender the PS3 is. A few weeks ago, a few of us from CNET spent some time visiting with Sony PR and marketing reps in a hotel suite going over what PSN had to offer, including Home, Sony's online virtual community that's hit 5 million registered users. And just yesterday, I got a voice mail from a PR rep encouraging me to do a story on what a great media extender the PS3 is.

I said I'd do a story--but only in context of the Netflix rumors.

"Why doesn't Sony just add Netflix?" I asked.

Of course, I knew it wasn't as simple as that.… Read more

Blockbuster will become the latest Internet video-on-demand service to appear on TiVo DVRs.

The two companies announced late Tuesday that they are working to make Blockbuster's service available on all TiVo Series2 and Series3 DVRs (including the HD and HD XL models) in the second half of 2009.

The announcement marks the first non-PC device to support both Blockbuster OnDemand and its archrival, Netflix. TiVo DVRs also support Amazon Video On Demand, YouTube, Jaman, and some Disney movies via CinemaNow.

In addition to Blockbuster's online video service being available on TiVo, Blockbuster will sell TiVo hardware at its … Read more

There are dozens of movie recommendation engines on the Web. Some require little or no input before they give you titles, while others want to find out exactly what your interests are. I've been using 10 movie recommendation engines on both sides of the equation. They're all different, but some are definitely better than others.

10. Netflix Netflix asks you to rate movies to determine which films you'll want to see next. And although it does make it easy to rate movies and it does return huge lists, there's too much duplication in … Read more

Jinni, a semantic search engine for movies, now works with Netflix. If you're a Netflix subscriber, you can link up your account and get custom-tailored search results and recommendations based on what you've watched and rated on the DVD rental service.

I've been giving it a spin over the past day and it's downright cool. If you've used Netflix's own search tool (which I find highly underpowered), you'll appreciate that Jinni gives you many more ways to sort out and hone the results.

Jinni organizes search results in a cloud with varying sizes … Read more

Netflix said on Wednesday that the next version of Silverlight shows some promise in helping ease recent issues that some users have had while trying to stream videos on lower-end computers.

"There are test configurations in our lab where we are seeing an improvement," said Kevin McEntee, vice president of Web development for Netflix. McEntee told CNET News that the company went out and bought computers such as an Asus Netbook that users had said were causing problems. In some cases, the low-end machines weren't able to keep up with the video and were dropping frames, McEntee … Read more