Netflix To Offer Streaming-Only Service Plans 151
MojoKid writes "Debates are raging as to what the future of movie distribution will look like.
There are those who claim that physical discs, like DVDs, Blu-ray, and whatever format will eventually supplant Blu-ray, will always deliver a superior viewing experience versus anything that will be available via streaming. Pundits on the other side of the debate say that as broadband's footprint continues to expand, quality is improving.
Interestingly, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is siding firmly with the latter camp, and it would even appear that Netflix is gearing up to move all of its eggs
from the mail-distribution basket to the online streaming basket. Hastings indicated that perhaps as soon as later this year or sometime in 2010, Netflix might start offering online-streaming-only subscription plans beyond just its current Starz
plan."
ok (Score:5, Insightful)
"all their eggs" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Support more Systems (Score:2, Insightful)
Hulu and several other media sites don't work outside the US, and finding an adequately responsive proxy is a bigger pain than I thought.
I'm not sure that's quite right (Score:5, Insightful)
There are those who claim that physical discs like DVDs, Blu-ray, and whatever format will eventually supplant Blu-ray will always deliver a superior viewing experience versus anything that will be available via streaming
While this is the argument that gets bandied about a lot, I don't believe it's actually the crux of the matter. But I think it's more accurate of the situation to frame it this way: For the majority of people, is the (overall) streaming experience good enough? Because for a lot of folks, convenience may be more important than a small uptick in quality.
For a somewhat analogous situation, I look to my teenage daughter's friends and their music buying habits. They almost exclusively buy their music from iTunes, even though no one can really argue that an iTunes or iTunes Plus encoding is as good as a CD, and the costs are more or less equivalent. But the quality difference is quite small (subjectively speaking, of course), and the convenience factor is huge.
There will always be some people for whom absolute quality trumps all else. The REAL question is, is this group large enough to sustain an ongoing market of manufacturing and selling physical media?
Re:Unwatchable (Score:5, Insightful)
I consider this whole issue almost moot, since we already know how it will play out: streaming video will win.
Selection: It's obvious why selection will be so much greater without having to carry huge inventories of discs.
Image quality: again, it's only a matter of time. Online, software-based formats will have better quality since they can more easily evolve. For me this is already the case; since I haven't bought a blu-ray, the only way to get better-than-dvd quality is by downloading something in high-def and watching on a laptop. Bandwidth seems like a big-issue at the moment, but compared to the text-only Internet of the early 90's, we're already about 90% of the way there.
So what is this whole discussion about? Whether supplanting discs with streaming will take two years vs. five years?
Re:ok (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>I think that's a great idea
I don't. My internet connection only offers 0.8 megabit/s quality, while Bluray averages ~40 megabit/s, Clearly the physical option offers the best picture quality, and also the cheapest option ($180/year for internet versus $0 to have amazon.com deliver the discs to me). Plus the convenience of owning the TV show or movie for multiple viewings.