Guided tour of Netflix Watch Now service
Netflix has fleshed out some details of its newly announced movie download service. The Watch Now instant viewing service is scheduled to become available to all Netflix subscribers by June. It will launch with just 1,000 titles (movies and TV shows), but the selection will expand thereafter--slowly but surely--to encompass as many of the 70,000-plus titles in the Netflix database as possible. The online viewing feature will be a free addition to existing accounts, with subscribers getting a monthly allotment of online viewing time based on their subscription level. For instance, an $18-per-month plan (three DVDs out at once) garners 18 hours of online viewing time per month.
Movies are delivered directly to a Web browser using a customized plug-in. Further, they're streamed in near real time, not played back after downloading, so the experience should be as close to instant gratification as possible (your broadband bandwidth permitting, of course). For now, the service appears to be limited to Internet Explorer running on a Windows PC (according to an article in the New York Times). Speaking on CNBC's Squawk Box this morning, CEO Reed Hastings described the online viewing feature as being "as easy as YouTube" and "as good-looking as a DVD." The latter half of that statement will be the hard part to pull off: the service's advertised 3-megabit-per-second limitation, while impressive, is less than a third of that offered by DVD--though better compression algorithms and codecs could help negate that. No word on whether audio will be limited to stereo playback or if a DVD-like surround track will be available.
Of course, even (or especially) if the picture is pristine, a lot of folks will prefer to watch the movie on their big-screen TV instead of a PC monitor. Work-arounds exist (many PCs offer a TV output), but it appears Netflix is working on viewing solutions that don't require a PC: "Over the coming years we'll expand our selection of films, and we'll work to get to every Internet-connected screen, from cell phones to PCs to plasma screens. The PC screen is the best Internet-connected screen today, so we are starting there," Hastings says in the press release.
One thing's for sure: given the host of IPTV announcements at last week's CES (as well as Apple TV at Macworld), it appears that 2007 could finally be the breakthrough year for digitally delivered media.
Note: The video walk-through of the Netflix Watch Now service is courtesy of HackingNetflix.com.
John P. Falcone covers home theater and network entertainment products. He's been writing for CNET since 2002. 
The limitations are extensive. Netflix was already eating the extra cost of providing the new hi-def discs and now is eating the cost of the 1,000 older titles included in this new feature.
If, by some miracle, Netflix has continued strong subscriber growth, at a roll out rate of the new service to 250,000 subscribers a week (quoted from SF Gate), some subscribers won?t see this feature until August.
Regarding the acquisition of content for this streaming feature from Netflix:
The company, however, can only offer limited selections with its new service because most popular film titles are tied up in long-term electronic subscription distribution agreements between the major film studios and premium cable channels, like Time Warner's (TWX) HBO and Liberty Media's (LCAPA) Starz Entertainment Group.
"This is the next step of the evolution of Netflix's business, but acquiring content is going to be a long painful process for them," says Michael Goodman, analyst with The Yankee Group. "Distribution is going to be a huge roadblock for them for at least four or five years." URL: http://www.thestreet.com/newsanalysis/mediaentertainment/10332654.html
Regarding credibility:
From the New York Times article:
Blockbuster has added a staggering 700,000 subscribers since Nov. 1. ?I wouldn?t be surprised to see our online subscribers double by the end of 2007,? John F. Antioco, the chief executive of Blockbuster, said.
Mr. Hastings played down the competition. ?We have a lot of room to grow,? he said, adding that he expects Blockbuster?s online business to grow as well. ?Our relative execution will determine what the share split is? between Netflix and Blockbuster, he added. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/technology/16netflix.html?ref=business
More than a year ago, Netflix made a projection of 20,000,000 subscribers in 2010 or 2012.
Blockbuster is solidly in the online DVD-by-mail game. If this is true, and since 20,000,000 seems to be viewed as the total potential market for the online DVD-by-mail market, Netflix would be more responsible if they entirely dropped the projection of 20,000,000 subscribers or, at least, dropped it to 10,000,000 which is about the best that they can possibly hope for.
possibility of online viewing. I'm, therefore, extremely disappointed it will not be
available for OSX.
- This service will rock
- by jchandler15 January 17, 2007 8:51 AM PST
- The thing I like about this is that it's streaming live, has little delay and has near DVD quality images. I may consider using this service in the near future
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(6 Comments)Josh Chandler
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