Posted on 07/07/2010 1:48:37 AM PDT by Las Vegas Dave
Tuesday's announcement of a content-streaming deal between Netflix and Relativity Media, the latter a Hollywood production company that makes mainstream flicks such as "Get Him to the Greek," "Grown Ups," and "Robin Hood," is welcome news for subscribers of the movie-rental service. It means that Netflix members will be able to stream Relativity titles to their TVs and computers sooner than before. Rather than waiting (in some cases) years after a movie's DVD release before they can watch the title online, members will only have to wait months.
OK, if you're the instant gratification type, that's still a long wait. But online streaming is moving in the right direction, and the Relativity pact is likely the first of similar deals between Netflix and Hollywood. Previously, recent films (such as the 2010 titles above) might have been entangled in long-term agreements with pay-TV channels such as HBO, Showtime, and Starz. The new agreement shortens the streaming delay considerably, albeit for a select number of titles.
Content Cornucopia
If you're not familiar with Netflix, here's how it works. Subscribers pay $9 per month to stream more than 20,000 movies and TV shows, and they can also rent one DVD at a time. For an extra $2 a month, they can get Blu-ray discs too. (Pricier options let them rent multiple discs at once.) Netflix has more than 13 million subscribers.
Netflix's two-tiered approach to movie distribution--discs and streaming--is appealing to consumers, most of whom probably have a DVD player as well as a streaming device, be it a set-top box, game console, Internet-ready TV, or Blu-ray player, in the living room. And while Netflix got its start by delivering shiny plastic discs via snail mail, it has made it clear that online streaming is the future.
(Excerpt) Read more at pcworld.com ...
Because it's theft. It's called The Pirate's Bay for a reason.
< jealousy = on> must be great for watching Fox News < /sarc>
Compression techniques on blu ray have already gotten much better since the initial releases on blu ray. That much is evident in the picture quality. Avatar on blu ray was unlike anything that I have ever seen in my entire life in terms of image and sound quality.
I’m not interested in dvds or streams. If a movie is good and should be watched, then it should be watched on blu ray in my opinion.
“Be careful how you pull your “free” content. It can get real pricey, real quick.”
On the other hand, anything that takes money out of the mouths of America haters in hollywood and the music industry can’t be all bad.
I have an upconverting DVD player and the results are pretty good. Titles are cheap and plentiful.
I disagree. The streaming video is more like VHS quality.
Facing the music: $1.9M file-share verdict stuns Minn. mom
June 19, 2009
By Julia Cheng, APA replay of the nation's only file-sharing case to go to trial has ended with the same result — a Minnesota woman was found to have violated music copyrights and must pay huge damages to the recording industry.
A federal jury ruled Thursday that Jammie Thomas-Rasset willfully violated the copyrights on 24 songs, and awarded recording companies $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song.
Thomas-Rasset's second trial actually turned out worse for her. When a different federal jury heard her case in 2007, it hit Thomas-Rasset with a $222,000 judgment.
...
U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, who heard the first lawsuit in 2007, ordered up a new trial after deciding he had erred in instructions to the jurors. The first time, he said the companies didn't have to prove anyone downloaded the copyrighted songs she allegedly made available. Davis later concluded the law requires that actual distribution be shown.
His jury instructions this time framed the issues somewhat differently. He didn't explicitly define distribution but said the acts of downloading copyrighted sound recordings or distributing them to other users on peer-to-peer networks like Kazaa, without a license from the owners, are copyright violations.
Your FRiends will be happy to visit you at the GrayBar.
If you don’t like someone, just don’t use their stuff. Theft is not morally superior.
(No, I don’t watch TV, and rarely watch movies. It can be done if you hate Hollywood that much.)
It is fun, but Glenn Beck’s head is SOOOO BIG :o)
Oh I agree, don't get me wrong. I am just saying that because Toshiba and Sony messed around so long, there will never be the large base of people demanding BDs like there is for DVDs. They were still fighting the format war for the first few years of affordable high def screens, and that was a costly mistake.
Talk about the poor "quality" of content streamed on Netflix, Comcast and supposed "High def" cable's content isn't much better either: lots of macro blocking, compressed signal, piggy-backing channels resulting in lower bit rates, 720p, 1080i instead of 1080p; all of these things contribute to MEDIOCRE, LOW "high-def" all of which also cannot begin to compete with Blu-ray. Again, AVATAR on Blu-ray is a tremendous example of genuine high definition audio and video... too bad the movie isn't as good as it's A/V, but I guess we cannot have everything.
Even if one is able to download and save a high resolution, high-def movie on their hard drive, hard drives still crash and when they do that content is GONE. With a Blu-ray disk I have a true 1080p high definition HARD copy that will last for years and years to come.
You can HD/Bluray fiasco on Toshiba. Their greed led to an unwillingness to agree to a SINGLE standard and they have paid dearly for it.
Yeah, it all started when Toshiba hit Sony back. :-)
You can BLAME (sorry, forgot the word.)
Just got my first BR player, and signed up for Netflix. Streaming is not an option for me because of my lousy “broadband” connection, and I wouldn’t want it to be unless they could equal the video and audio quality of Blu-ray.
That said, my very expensive player has issues with the scratches on nearly every disc I’ve rented, at least one of which has gone back unwatched. They’re sending another copy, but what a pain.
It’s too bad, because the service is outstanding.
The only thing that will bury Blu-ray, though, is when solid state storage becomes cheap enough to put content on flash card type devices that would eliminate moving parts and damage from careless handling. Now THAT would be cool. :-)
LLS
Yeah! So I can't imagine what it's like on the projection TV!
after the HDDVD foldup, one of the Sony execs stated that BluRay would be the last optical format.
I agree. I stream Netflix via my Blu-ray player; but it is mainly old TV shows. I enjoy being able to watch the Dick Van Dyke Show or Have Gun-Will Travel without having to collect all the discs (and I will not watch those shows repeatedly, anyway). The quality is not near Blu-ray. Even HD stuff I have archived on my DiSH receiver (and its extra external hard drive) is not Blu-ray quality.
I don't know why there is always someone trying to spread FUD about Blu-ray. Remember the Toshiba upconverting DVD player that was supposed to spell the end of Blu-ray? Besides, Blu-ray is cheap now.
Blu-ray isn’t going anywhere. Eventually DVDs will be gone, and everything will be blu-ray, because it won’t be worth it to the companies to make two sets of every disk.
Already, a lot of special content is only available to blu-ray purchasers, it used to be that you could always get all the special features by buying a 2-disk special edition, but (for example) Alice in Wonderland required a blu-ray purchase to see most of the special features.
And since a good blu-ray player is hardly more expensive than last year’s good DVD player, soon everybody will be buying blu-ray players.
And since it really doesn’t cost any more for a company to press a blu-ray disk than a regular DVD, relative to the set-up and delivery and packaging costs, there’s no reason that within 5 years blu-ray disks would be cheaper than old DVDs simply due to volume.
I haven’t done blu-ray yet because I got lost in the “don’t buy old blu-ray players since they changed the format”. I know that at some point the players are all being sold with upgrade capability, but I don’t know which ones are or aren’t, and I’ve been afraid to buy old clearance models.
But I figure soon I’ll do it, even though I now have two regular DVD players that are home theatre systems, meaning they have my sound built in and so my upgrade cost is more than just a player.
Of course, my “home theatre” only cost me $180, since I bought a clearance item. So it’s not like I have a large investment like most people. The only thing I bought that costs real money are the TV sets, (and the monthly payment for my content, currently FIOS).
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