Netflix Now Offers Instant Online Movie Streaming

An anonymous reader writes "If you're the owner of a video rental store, it may be time to start thinking about getting into a different business, according to ZDNet. Netflix, the online movie rental service, is offering a new feature that allows its subscribers to instantly view movies and TV shows on their PC. From the article: 'Following a one-time, under-60-second installation of a simple browser applet, most subscribers' movie selections will begin playing in their Web browser in as little as 10 to 15 seconds. Movies can be paused and a position bar gives viewers the ability to immediately jump to any point in the movie. In all, the instant watching feature requires only Internet connectivity with a minimum of one megabit per second of bandwidth.' These movies are in addition to the standard DVDs you can have at home, it should be pointed out. You can see a demonstration of the service at the Hacking Netflix blog." Only a small percentage of customers have it available at the moment, but they hope to roll it out to everyone within six months.

wow....

the tubes are really gonna get filled up now...

Scratched?

I wonder if the streaming videos will have virtual scratches that cause them to skip like the real netflix dvd's do......

Re:Scratched?

They're way ahead of you. The state-of-the-art disc simulation subroutines will utilize something called "network lag" for much the same effect.

Re:Scratched?

don't worry, there's a link to click to say you didn't receive that frame of the video and they'll send it again

Re:Scratched?

It's an upgrade like their home theater kit. The home theater kit comes with floor gunk, stale popcorn airfreshner and a fake head to put infront of you to give that special visual experience. It also comes with a CD of teen age girls talking and babies crying in case you don't have your own on hand.

Say goodbye to the Internet you knew

This is the kind of thing that is going to strain the Internet's fabric at the seams. Up until now, your typical 1337 torrent freak was pretty uncommon among the general public, so the Internet has coped for the most part. But when the general public starts downloading several gigabytes of video every night, the whole equation will change.

I strongly suspect you will see bit capacities on all ISPs very shortly if they don't have them already. I know Sympatico in Canada was "unlimited" right up until last month when all their DSL circuits went to 5Mbps, and they claimed they would grandfather existing customers with unlimited service - which they turned on within the month.

So... I don't know whether this is a positive or a negative change, but I'm guessing for a lot of peering points and a lot of overloaded switch fabrics, this is a deal breaker.

Re:Say goodbye to the Internet you knew

Netflix is going to have to pay for bandwidth. Nobody will sell netflix bandwidth at a loss for very long. If average costs for the consumer end go up because of higher average usage, they'll raise prices on the other end, or delay dropping prices for a while. It seems pretty simple to me.

The internet went through a similar adjustment when the text to graphic change occurred in the early 90s. People predicted these "huge" graphic files and animations were going to break the internet. Prices have only gone down. I used to pay $30/month for 9600 baud dialup. Now I pay $30/month for 1.5/384 dsl. I bet in 10 years we'll be measuring our internet bandwith in gigabits and it'll still be $30/month.

Just think about how much things have changed. The typical home internet user used to have a dumb terminal and would occasionally transfer files of a few kilobytes. Total monthly usage was maybe 1 megabyte for a fiend. We've already added several orders of magnitude to this. Why the problem with one or two more?

Re:Say goodbye to the Internet you knew

Up until now, your typical 1337 torrent freak was pretty uncommon among the general public

Nonono, that's just what we want the **AA to think!

Actually, people were saying the same things about MMOs, and before that Usenet binaries, and before the integration of images into webpages. As long as people expect a certain level of service, the industry will grow to provide it, which in turn will make people expect a certain level of service. It's a cycle, you can never "top out" on infrastructure.

Re:Say goodbye to the Internet you knew

We are definitely *not* going to see a doubling of performance for switch fabric in the near future. We definitely *could* see a doubling of Internet traffic as a result of IPTV.

We weren't going to see a doubling of performance on the speed of a modem connected to POTS lines either, once that topped out. Instead of trying to break laws of physics with century-old copper wire, they replaced it with broadband.

Of course working on the backbone is much different than swapping your 56K modem for cable or fiber or what have you, and I'm not saying any of this will happen overnight, or even anytime soon. However, it is pretty much a guarantee that something will eventually come along to upgrade what's in use now. And if broadband video and/or other goodies the customers want choke out the current system, the providers will have to either set up something new, or lose their clientele to someone who does.

Remember AOL apologizing in their TV ads for service interruptions and busy signals during the Internet boom? Nobody in the industry wants to do that again, and they'll throw all the cash they can at avoiding it.

Re:Say goodbye to the Internet you knew

As long as men can say "My pipe is bigger than yours," Internet bandwidth will never stop expanding.

The dawn of a new era

This has definitely been a long time coming, but finally legal movie downloads are going the way of digital music, UP!

Hold on now...

Don't think this is the end of Blockbuster and friends yet. They still have one -major- advantage over streaming.
The TV.
Until there's some way to put these videos on your TV without offending the MPAA (Not everyone has a HTPC), DVDs will always have the advantage. Not to mention the low amount of people I know that have the necessary bandwith for this service.

Re:Hold on now...

S-Video cables are that difficult to use? Every computer I've owned in the past 5 years has had an S-Video TV-out on it. Every TV I've had has either a composite or S-Video in. You don't need Windows Media Centre or Front Row to watch movies on your TV. I just plug my crappy old notebook (with no battery, a broken lid catch, an external WiFi card and a slow hard disk) into either my small TV or projector. I can use the aforementioned S-Video, or even VGA, to do the job. Putting your computer's display through a TV is one of the easiest things you can do with a computer. And, the MPAA doesn't give a shit, as it's an auxilary monitor. It might have Macrovision on it, but you can still watch it perfectly. Just no recordy-recordy, that's all.

weak feature

Somehow, I don't think that the brick and mortar video rental services are doomed just yet. There's a bit of a difference in picking up a movie with your groceries to watch it with the family on the big-screen in the living room, and downloading it so you can wait to buffer up enough to play it inside a web browser window with heavy compression on the small screen of the bill-paying appliance.

windows only

I read an article in the paper this morning claiming that this will be available for windows only. How disappointing.

This is SO DOA for me...

(1) I use Linux/Mac. (2) I've got DSL, 50-80 Kbyte/s max. (3) How do I stream it to my 27" Sony tube TV? (4) Why do I want lower than DVD quality? (5) Why do I want a smaller window to actually find time/watch the movie?

windows only

From Netflix [netflix.com]:

System Requirements:
Windows XP with Service Pack 2
or Windows Vista

Internet Explorer version 6
or higher

Great to Evaluate Movies

I will not watch a full movie on my PC. That's what I have a home theater setup for. I already have Netflix and I'm excited because I will be able to evaluate a movie before I put it in my queue. I'll watch the first 20 minutes of the movie and decide if it is worth investing more time.

Internet Not Ready

In all, the instant watching feature requires only Internet connectivity with a minimum of one megabit per second of bandwidth

ONLY one megabit per second of bandwidth? I live in a well populated area and my ONLY option is 768Kbps DSL or a 6Mbps cable connection that is saturated with other users in the neighborhood. Verizon's FIOS is still a few years away from being installed in my neighborhood, so this service is useless to me.

Hopefully this service will get people to see the benefit of higher speed connections and spark a bigger demand for more speed.

Good First Step!

I like the way Netflix is doing this. Rolling it out as an additional, no extra fee, feature of their service shows that they are ready to start the next generation of film viewing, and that they realize that this service is not presently ready to fully replace their current model.

Good job Netflix!

quality?

The main reason that I use Netflix (as opposed to downloading movies over Bittorrent) is that I have a nice TV, surround sound system, etc. and prefer DVD quality as opposed to anything you can get over the internet. Until Netflix can offer a similar service over the internet (at least 480p, 5.1 surround), I'm not that interested.

What I'm Waiting For

This is really close to what I've been waiting for. If the app will allow me to go "full screen" with the proper overlay setting, it'll be perfect.

Of course, I wonder about the "1Mb/s" requirement. XVID files are usually around 400MB/hour. That's what, 128kbps. What is their service doing that requires 8* the bandwidth of a torrent download?

And before you say that the BT download is low quality, I watch these things via S-Video out of my laptop right onto a 50" 1080i HDTV.

PS, I just pulled up the properties for a show. It says the video is encoded at 139kbps and the audio is 113kbps. The file size is 358MB and it runs 42m41s. That's 139kbps.

Don't sound the death knell just yet

Obstacles for this service killing off the bricks and mortar rental shops:

• Closed captioning.
• Big ass TVs that aren't connected to the 'net.
• Being able to take it to a friend's house.

The sweet spot for me for a service such as this will be when Apple releases a Mac mini with an HDTV tuner for convenient way to get a movie from my PC to my television where I can watch movies from the comfort of my couch with my decent stereo cranked up enough to make the bass notes of the soundtrack rumble through the floor. Not to mention, it makes it hard to rent a flick to take on the road to a friend's house or for the kid's watch on a long trip in the car. Consequently, I think the bricks and mortar rental places have plenty of time to keep making a substantial profit.

mixed signals

i personally think this is atleast a step in the right direction.. a lot of people are complaining about it being in a web-browser, and how lame it would be to watch a movie on your computer.. well, being that I have my TV hooked up as a secondary display, I'm sure it will be just fine.. atleast fine enough to get the point of the movie across.. I know not to be looking for DVD quality with this of course..

I don't think I'll use the service all the time, but I wouldn't mind using it if the quality is somewhat decent.. I don't know whether or not Netflix will do this, but I'd like to pay for the movies as I watch them.. Optionally.. I'd gladly pop in my CC#, and pay like $1-$3 bucks for a one time stream that would let me watch it for up to 3 days.. I don't watch movies enough to pay someone a monthly fee.. but if i'm feeling lazy, and want something quick, then this might be the way to go.. I guess it also will depend on whether or not we can actually Full Screen the stream..

How long before stream rippers run the costs up?

It happens to XM all the time, songs ripped directly from the stream. How long before amazon and netflix and whoever else face the same problem? I can see these streaming movies cancelled once the RIAA and MPAA get wind of the number of streamgrabbers out there. How easy would it be, really? Now we burn netflix DVD's in about 2 hours, imagine how many people would signup for netflix if they could burn (or save to ISO) the movie AS THEY WATCH IT? This has 'Netflix, meet shark' written all over it. 12 months tops before prices skyrocket due to theft or it's cancelled completely. Just saying.

QOS

As the telephone companies love to tell us, IPTV over the internet as we know it is impossible. Without QOS, this service will not work - at all. Why is Netflix lying like this? It makes me cry.

Dumb overreaching in first sentence

I think virtually all rhetoric about device B being a "device-A-killer," or one technology quickly displacing other, is dumb... and in many cases is promotion by supporters of the new device or technology, hoping to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In 2000, when dedicated eBook devices were introduced, one could have imagined people saying "If you're the owner of a bookstore, it may be time to start thinking about getting into a different business."

In 1950, and early adopters were inviting their friends to come over and watch Milton Berle, one could have imagined people saying "If you're the owner of a movie theatre, it may be time to start thinking about getting into a different business."

All businessmen need to be watching their back, and video rental store owners are well advised to be vigilant... the times, they certainly are a' changin'. Going out to the movies and buying overpriced boxes of Nonpareils is a different product and a different experience from watching "The Wizard of Oz" on a television set. The latter model may ultimately displace the former, but it's not at all obvious just how it will happen or at what speed or when

Similarly, downloading a movie and watching it on your PC is going to feel very different from renting a DVD. And speaking of Milton Berle on a 5" diameter round Dumont picture tube... a) who wants to watch movies "on their PCs?" b) Do you have your PC in the living room connected to a big screen? Does anybody you know? Yesyesyes I know all about the technology and Steve Job's "Apple TV" and "convergence," the big buzzword since 1990. I just don't see it actually happening yet. All these companies are selling a solution to something my son-in-law doesn't see as a big problem.

If Netflix would let you burn that movie to a DVD and carry it over to the big-screen TV set that a lot of people I know do have, then, yes, the video stores should worry a bit more. But at the moment the movie industry seems to be adamantly opposed to concepts like "permanent" and "own" and "bought it."

Netflix grew up to its name

Well, the name says it "Netflix". Reminds me of now famous quote of Bill Gates that Blu-ray and HD-DVD are the last of removable disk media formats.

This is a good start

For those who don't want to actually read the article I will summarize the key parts. 1) The bandwidth is 1 -3 Mbps, so depending on what you have it will be from ok quality to DVD quality. 2) Its included with the monthly subscription, but restricted to 18 hours/ month to start 3) They are working on making it available to people with less bandwidth so it might soon support less then 1 Mbps My personal take on this, this is so far the best of any offering out there, compared to the strict movie download sites that are charging almost $4/ movie to RENT for the quality you get above (hope this will force those sites to drop the price to less then $1), this is a very nice add on service and if you want higher quality you can order the DVD, you can preview a TV show and see if you really want to get the whole season on DVD. The question of when it will be available on the TV is quite simple. I think in about 5 years we will have flash drives or disks that are capable of storing 30 gig or more, when that is done there will be a special player format that can be copied to this drive with DRM and time limits (ie the movie will be there for 24 - 48 hours) but most people will not care because it will be a RENTAL you will be paying $1 a movie to rent or a subscription like netflix with 2 - 7 movies "out" at a time, you will download the movie with the computer place it on the flash drive and then pop the drive into your HD-Flash player to watch on the TV. The current format of read only disks is too expensive and time consuming over all it would take hours to make a DVD (5 hours to download and an additional 2 hours to burn 15 gig and thats being very liberal with bandwidth and speeds). This just doesn't scale well when the disks costs $2 each or more, and all you want to do is rent.

MythTV + Netflix streaming

now we just need a module to make this work from within MythTV.

Blockbuster

I think this may be Netflixs anti-blockbuster service. Somewhere online you can get Blockbusters version of netflix for 1 month free, but the thing is you can take the DVD's that got sent to you back to the store and pickup any movie rental for free, always giving you basically 3 movies in your posession at one time. It's really awesome and I love it. Netflix is trying to find to tide people over while you are waiting for DVD's in the mail. I don't think this is it, because it does appeal to your average movie watcher, i.e. can't watch it on TV. But at least they are trying.....

This is the net-neutrality argument

This really illustrates the argument over net neutrality: Netflix's service (almost) directly competes with your cable company's video-on-demand service. But, what has to be even more galling to the cable companies, the Netflix service does it by sending video over cable company's own network! (Assuming you get your internet through a cable modem.) No wonder they want to treat different providers differently.

The problem, of course, is that since most "high-speed" residential internet services still don't provide truly high-speed service, the quality of this Netflix service is probably nowhere near as good as the cable company's video-on-demand service. And, that gives the cable company a big disincentive to upgrade their data network -- as soon as they do, somebody will use that upgraded network to "steal" customers from their other services.

Because most phone companies also want to provide video over their high-speed networks, the probable end result of this will be that so-called "high-speed" providers will slow their deployment of faster Internet connections. Competition is the only real cure for this.

15 years

I predict the movie store goer (generation) still has 15 years left. These are the people my parents age who have no desire to work a DVD player, can check their hotmail, and are at retirement age. Once this very large market dwindles, then this doomsday scenario might have some legs.

*HOW* is the transfer implemented?

Ok, it's time to deal with this before it gets too big.

If the movies are transferred to the user via a good old fashioned protocol like http or ftp, then that means ISPs can cache it. 10000 Comcast users buy the movie, and those gigabytes get transferred from Netflix to Comcast once, and then 10000 times from Comcast's hard drive to the users (assuming those users aren't sharing any "more local" caches).

If they are using some stupid streaming protocol, then it gets transferred once for each sale. That is really, really stupid. It doesn't just harm Comcast (who, let's face it, is going to pass the cost on to their customers) but it also costs Netflix (oh wait, they will just pass the cost on, too). It also costs everyone in between, pisses off ISPs since they don't like to pass extra costs to the customers ("if we're going to charge customers more, then that extra charge should go into our pocket, dammit!") and that means we get more lobbyist in Washington to get rid of "net neutrality" which not only sucks, but will probably have numerous other distasteful riders attached.

That means it is you guys -- the customers -- who need to make sure this is done right. If Netflix's approach doesn't work with caches (e.g. Squid) then BOYCOTT IT. Anything that is a technological step backwards from the web, is a disgrace.

Re:*HOW* is the transfer implemented?

BTW, I don't think caching and DRM are compatible.

Sure they are. Company distributes video file encrypted with AES (or another block cipher) and keep the AES key secret. Anyone can download that file. The company has some DRM scheme such that an asymmetric key is generated such that the DRM utility on the customer's computer is only one with access to the private key. The user pays the company and then the company encrypts the key for the video file with the user's key and sends it off. This key may be stored in a key file or may just be put into the video file as metadata along with the title, etc. It doesn't matter because the key is only usable by that one user. (The decrypted key is never stored on the hard drive and is carefully protected when in memory.) As I understand it, this essentially is how MS's WMV (and WMA?) encryption currently works (in terms of process, not specific algorithms). You can look up details on the WMV protection, which is documented to some extent, but, as far as I know, not cracked.

Good Next Step

This is a good next step for Netflix. Here is a partial list of what they have done so far:

• Let the postman deliver and return the movies. This got around the shelf space limit of the physical video store.
• Introduce a monthly subscription that eliminated late fees. Procrastinators rejoice!
• Get many of the studios to press (or allow Netflix to press) special editions of movies that travel through the mail better.
• Compete with the new crop of VOD (video on demand) offerings by including it in the monthly fee (this might be an upgrade feature later).

Before there was widespread broadband we had a "last mile" problem that everyone was talking about. Now, many here are complaining about the "last room" problem of being able to watch this on their TV. I, for one, am glad that Netflix is not yet trying to solve this problem. It leaves it open to be solved in a non-restrictive way.

With the fast forward features from Netflix, all I need to stop watching in one room and start in another is a Internet connected browser. How soon before I can play this on my PS3, XBox360, Wii, SlingCatcher, or what ever other device that has the right connection to a TV. For my living room I would want something like the new Apple TV with HDMI connector. For other rooms, maybe I'll try to find some cheap unit with RCA output.

If Netflix continues to expand the number of movies offered by VOD like they have with DVD then I look forward to my multitude of choices. For action movies and long playing TV series I will continue to get the DVDs in the mail. For romantic movies and cartoons that the wife wants to watch, the downloaded quality would be fine.

Already available in the UK

Unless I'm missing something, we've had this service in the UK for the last year or so. It's available via Blueyonder (a cable TV provider who actually laid their own fibre backbone years ago I believe).

The service is called Teleport [blueyonder.co.uk], and in a lot of ways it seems better than this offering because it streams instantly (like really, instantly) to the TV. There is no lag, the picture quality is normal broadcast quality, and the price competes with DVD rental (with the obvious bonus of not having to move off your couch).

As part of the normal cable tv subscription Blueyonder also offer the ability to stream a variety of TV programmes that you may have missed earlier in the week. Streaming TV shows is free. Its almost like having a PVR, but without the need to remember to record stuff. Its a great service that I sorely miss since I moved 6 months ago into a street which isnt wired for cable.

whats the main difference?

isnt this just "On Demand", but for a PC instead of TV?

Cable+DSL ISPs, if you're reading this...

... we need that fiber to the home and/or DOCSIS 2.0/3.0 soon before we're unable to view even simple web pages.

Where's the rage?

So where are the screams about evil DRM and user lock in? Apple is being (frivolously) sued because of the iPod-iTunes-iTunes Store connection, despite the fact that CDs and MP3 files can be imported into iTunes and onto the iPod. The Fairplay DRM is legally stripped from iTunes Store purchases by burning them to CDs. Finally, Apple provides software for Windows users. So along comes Netflix with a MS DRM distribution scheme and no Mac user option, but no outraged reaction to noxious MS DRM and no rants about user lock in. I guess it is OK to be locked in by MS technology.

Is it the right time?

I work for Quickflix - the Australian equivalent of Netflix. We have over 10,000 compared to about a zillion Netflix members. Our Competitor (Bigpond) announced that they are now offering Video on Demand.
br> In Australia, we've only just cottoned on to the concept of DVD rentals arriving in your letterbox, so it's at least another few years away until it becomes viable for us to sell and make a profit.

Our market is generally at the 30-40 something's who have a few bucks. The market for VOD (generalisation) is the 20something - 30something Tech Savvy. The cross section of those two market areas - are potential users of this product, and it's quite small.

The problem is that we're competing with millions of pirated movies online that are completely free, and you can own. Who wants to pay for a movie when you can get it for free anyway?

I think in America, you have a larger population, and VOD is more than likely sustainable. But In Australia? It's years away before it becomes a popular alternative to online DVD libraries, and the local Blockbuster.

So, how does the licensing on this work?

I wonder if they pay for every copy streamed, or every part thereof.

Or do they "Set Aside" a video for everyone currently viewing, and if you want to view and they run out of videos, you have to wait?

Or did they just not bother to check with the MPAA at all?

I'm hoping the second one. I have a BUNCH of CDs and I'd love to make them available for streaming to a protected player as long as I have "Purchased copies" sitting in reserve. In fact, the concept of a "Music/Movie Co-op" where people donate music or movies in order to stream others isn't far behind.

What did NetFlix do? What do I have to do to be able to stream movies to people willing to pay for the privilege just like NetFlix??

Re:We already have it..

A) You can't put a full 2hr movie on YouTube without breaking it into 20 chunks, which is a HUGE hassle
B) YouTube looks like crap on my 15in laptop. What about your 42in 1080p HDTV?
C) Put YouTube on your TV without a device more advanced than a DVD player

Not that this doesn't have it's own problems:
A) Ridiculous bandwith requirements for the common person
B) Can't put it on your TV easily (again)

Re:Typo...

a small percentage

I don't believe that's technically a plural, so 'has' would actually be right.

Re:We already have it..

Pshaw... YouTube is the Wal-Mart of video. Tons of garbage nobody wants to watch, a couple of actual gems worth finding, and everything is encoded in Flash, the worlds most efficient, yet hardest to bear watching, video technology.

Re:We already have it..

...and every time I set foot in Walmart to buy a $10 item I end up getting at least $100 worth of crap. Same thing with Youtube. I go there to watch one video and end up wasting 2 hours watching other crap. Your analogy was better than you first thought.