Netflix to Stream Movies for Subscribers
Filed under: Lionsgate Films, MGM, New Line, Paramount, Paramount Classics, Sony, Sony Classics, Universal, 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight, Home Entertainment
Within the next six months, Netflix subscribers will be getting an increase in the number of movies they can watch per month. No, their at-a-time disc plan isn't changing. The DVD rental company is offering an added service to its members: streaming video. Netflix's "Watch Now" service allows subscribers to watch movies via a special player on the Netflix site. Unfortunately to start, Netflix will only be able to offer a tiny fraction of their 70,000+ titles, but considering it is an added bonus to subscribers, I don't think anyone will complain.HackingNetflix has a review of the "Watch Now" service, with visual aids, and it seems like a pretty decent concept. With the plan, Netflix doesn't take away from the experience of renting physical DVDs, nor does it exactly compete with the movie download services (though it may seem like a better alternative to them). It may not be the greatest thing ever to happen to home viewing, but it is a better incentive than Blockbuster's in-store rental bonus (especially since Blockbuster stores have disappeared completely in my neck of Brooklyn).
The best thing about "Watch Now" is the option to quit watching a movie within 5 minutes and not have that movie or time count against your available viewing hours. And it seems that if you decide to watch, say, Alexander and decide you don't like it after the first hour, the viewing time you use up is only that hour, not three. Considering you get about 9 movies worth of viewing time in your $17.99 priced plan, neither of these benefits even seem that necessary (I know I won't be watching that much on a streaming player), but they are both favorable.
If anything, I will probably only watch the beginnings of a lot of movies that I might not normally think of checking out. Then, depending on my interest, I'll add those movies to my queue (my line of preference in watching a movie still doesn't include my computer -- I just can't get comfortable with it, yet). Other than that, I might also use the new service for watching television episodes if possible.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-16-2007 @ 10:33AM
Kathi said...
The only thing in my house that I could use to take advantage of this service would be a laptop. Why would I want to watch a movie on a laptop when I can get the DVD and watch it on the TV?
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1-16-2007 @ 11:15AM
crod said...
uhhhm connect computer to tv
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1-16-2007 @ 1:19PM
Akbar Fazil said...
It is also a nice supplemental for those who
A. Don't want to wait for the next disc to arrive
B. Want to watch something that they don't want to waste a rental on.
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1-16-2007 @ 5:03PM
Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout said...
I think this is what Senator Ted "Old Codger" Stevens was referring to when he said:
"Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got... an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially. [...] They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."
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