netflix Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Netflix subscribers rejoiced when Microsoft partnered with the incredibly popular online rental service a little shy of a year ago to bring Netflix Watch Instantly streaming service to the Xbox 360 free of charge to members with a Gold Xbox Live Subscription. This move boosted Netflix' subscriber base considerably while also being a feather in Microsoft's multimedia cap; the 360 may not have a Blu-ray drive, but it does allow a user to stream all of Netflix' WI library to their TV. Well, now that feather has lost a little bit of its luster, as Microsoft's exclusive arrangement with the movie provider is no longer all that exclusive.

Starting this November, Netflix Watch Instantly streaming will be available for Sony's Playstation 3, also completely free of charge to anyone who owns a PS3 and subscribes to at least the $8.99 per month Netflix plan (that would be the 1 DVD out at-a-time plan with unlimited instant watching). It's a deal that should give PS3 owners a great feeling, as they now have the most multi-media friendly console on the market. I'm not picking sides here, but the system will soon be boasting the impressive combination of A) Sony's own online rental service, B) a Blu-ray drive, C) a built in web-browser that allows users to access sites like YouTube and Hulu, D) unrestricted access to Netflix' Watch Instantly library, which includes a several thousand strong selection of movies and TV shows. Oh, and it plays games too.

Read on for more details, including how to enable your PS3 for the new service, which is slightly more complicated than a system update.

If your business is known exclusively for renting out content other entities have created how do you go about telling customers that you're now going to start creating original content of your own for distribution? Well if you're NetFlix, you hire Roger Corman to produce and Joe Dante to direct a streaming web series called "Splatter" starring Corey Feldman. Bet ya' didn't see that coming.

There are no concrete details about the series yet, only that which Feldman has posted on his personal blog (via Hacking NetFlix) "This will be their first ever live streaming web series. Splatter will be a multi episode web series that will go live on the web on Halloween weekend. My characters name is Jonny Splatter. That is pretty much all I am allowed to say for now."

Read the rest over at Horror Squad

For many filmmakers, film festivals are a way to potentially secure distribution for their indie films. Maybe a very few will hit the jackpot and land a deal with a big studio. However, most deals are likely to incorporate a limited -- if any -- theatrical release, followed by DVD or increasingly, online distribution or video on demand (VOD). At a brunch hosted by Cinetic FilmBuff during Fantastic Fest, a bunch of film journalists gathered to discuss the future of VOD and alternate methods of distributing films.

The big question we discussed is: How do people watch movies these days? Movies that don't get theatrical distribution are often automatically considered second-tier, and the term "direct to DVD" is still derogatory. But many people do most of their movie viewing in their own homes, either on TV or on a computer or other device, like the iPhone. We watch movies on DVD, but also on cable, through VOD channels that are available through cable TV or online, and through online streaming sites, like Netflix Watch Instantly and Hulu. A month ago, I had the choice of watching World's Greatest Dad on Amazon VOD, or waiting a week to see it in the theater -- this model made it possible for people in any city, not just those getting a theatrical release -- to watch the movie.

Even if you don't live in the United States, you've likely heard of Netflix, the Internet-based DVD rental service responsible for ushering in the final days of Blockbusters and Hollywood Videos on every suburban street corner. For those who haven't used it, it's a very simple service: Add movies to your queue and within one business day, whatever is at the top of your queue magically ends up in your mailbox.

Simple service it may be, there's a lot of science (and magic) involved. Aside from the logistical aspect of managing, tracking, and dispersing millions of discs nationwide every single day, Netflix has the daunting task of being responsible for recommending movies based on your taste. However, the corporation's robominds are, to their own admission, fairly linear in their logic... Liked Dawn of the Dead 2004? You'll probably like 28 Days Later... So in an attempt to get a leg up on any future competitors, Netflix created the Netflix Prize in 2006.

The rules were simple: The first person or team to create a new collaborative filter algorithm that improved the recommendation accuracy of Netflix' own algorithm by at least 10% would take home $1,000,000. It may be a testament to how good Netflix' in-house system already was, but it took nearly 3 years for a team to make enough progress to claim the million dollar prize. Even then, deciding the winner came down to the wire; the second place team submitted their bid 20 minutes later than the winning team, which must be maddening in the scope of a 3-year long competition.

In an apparent effort to stem the tide of consumer interest in their movies, 20th Century Fox has decided not to make their new releases available to a large, legitimate DVD rental retail operation. Reason? They're not charging enough.

That's the message I get from reading an article at Company Town, a Los Angeles Times blog. Reportedly, Fox "has instructed its DVD wholesalers not to sell discs to Redbox -- which is owned by Coinstar Inc. -- or other DVD kiosk companies until 30 days after they are released." Fox is not alone among Hollywood studios. "Many studios are wary of Redbox, whose business has doubled in the last year, because its kiosks rent out DVDs for just $1 per night. That undercuts stores with higher rental prices, Netflix and disc sales." Universal Studios is involved in a legal case with Redbox because the studio wants a 45-day window. However, EngadgetHD notes that Disney, Lions Gate, and Sony have agreed to deals with Redbox.

With DVD sales down, studios want to maximum their revenues from every source and, to be fair, waiting 30-45 days to be able to rent a movie for $1.00 doesn't seem unreasonable to me. But, though the big red machines have popped up outside convenience stores in my neighborhood, I haven't tried them out yet. Have you? Does it work as advertised? Are you a repeat customer? Why you do rent from Redbox rather than Blockbuster, Netflix, or your local video store? What's the biggest determining factor for you: price, selection, or convenience?

When I bought my first DVD player, in 2000, it was accompanied by a glossy flier for a company called Netflix that allowed you to rent DVDs by mail. Intrigued by the convenience and lured by the promise of no late fees, I signed up. Nearly a decade later, I am still a happy and loyal customer.

Richard Corliss, film critic for Time magazine and a venerable elder statesman in the world of cinema, takes a more jaundiced view, which he explains in a piece bluntly entitled "Why Netflix Stinks." Many of his criticisms are the sort you would expect from a man his age (65): Netflix keeps people from leaving their houses and interacting with humans; it makes independent video stores go out of business; it encourages kids to congregate on his lawn and listen to their rock 'n' roll music; it makes Sizzler run out of shrimp too soon after the 4:00 p.m. dinner rush; etc.

All of that is more a matter of philosophy, I suppose. But then Corliss sullies the good name of Netflix with this criticism:

"With Netflix, you surrender those basic American rights: impulse choice and instant gratification. You must cool your jets for two to four days, dependent as you are on both the skill of Netflix employees to put the correct movie in your envelope (sometimes they don't) and the speed of the U.S. Postal Service. By the time a video arrives, you may have forgotten why you rented it."

Netflix began a contest in 2006 for coders to win $1,000,000 if they could improve Netflix's Cinematch algorithm by at least 10%, and because coders like a good challenge (and people like money), folks have been steadily tinkering with their 1's and 0's ever since. (You can read more about the contest and its rules here.) Three years later, two teams came together with the winning code, which was confirmed Friday. Netflix's VP of corporate communications Steve Swasey told Wired, "This has been terribly exciting. It's like watching the Belmont Stakes, the Preakness and the Indy 500 all at once -- for geeks."

There are still a few hurdles for the team to jump through; the Netflix contest site states, "your qualifying submissions must have the largest accuracy improvement verified by the Contest judges, you must share your method with (and non-exclusively license it to) Netflix, and you must describe to the world how you did it and why it works."

As Wired points out, Netflix isn't the only company to dip its toes into "so-called Prize economics," which is when these companies offer prize incentives to outsiders to basically do work for free with an outside chance of winning big bucks. But doesn't this say to companies that it's okay to try and get lots and lots of hours from (some) highly skilled professionals for free? It would have cost Netflix far more than $1M to get consultants and coders on the job, especially for full-time gigs with all the benefits and trimmings. I'm not a code geek, but if I were, I'd probably be interested in this sort of challenge as well. On the other hand, perhaps I'd rather have a full-time job at Netflix writing code all day along with, you know, insurance.

When I first saw the Chicago Tribune headline "'Crash' remains top DVD rental,' I was really hoping it was referring to Cronenberg's 1996 film about car crash fetishists. Sadly, it was referring to the Oscar-winning film from 2005 about interconnected Los Angelinos and their issues with class, race, and general navel-gazing.

Even Crash's director Paul Haggis isn't sure why his movie is still top of the pops at Netflix. He told the Chicago Tribune, "I just assumed it was some sort of anomaly... I have no idea why anyone went to the movie in the first place, let alone rent it. It was a little independent film, and when people started to see it, I was amazed."

Haggis, along with many viewers, was also surprised his movie won the Oscar for best picture in 2005, beating out Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night, and Good Luck, and Munich. "It's certainly not a perfect movie," Haggis said. "I love the Oscars; I just think they are the best thing in the world, but if you asked me if it was the best film of the year, I'd say, 'Of course not.'" (So would a lot of people.)

It might have something to do with the Netflix recommending algorithm, which is great but definitely fallible -- it seems to think I want to see 27 Dresses and Henry Poole is Here. Or maybe people are really committed to watching all 81 best picture winners now that they're unemployed. What's your guess?

Have you ever wondered how on earth rent-by-mail DVDs manage to get so scratched up? Take a close look at the photo above, from Boston.com, and notice how carefully a gloved Netflix employee is scratching up a DVD so it has that "used" appearance we've all come to know and love. Isn't that considerate of them?

Bad jokes aside, the gallery of images below provides a behind-the-scenes look at "an unmarked warehouse" in Northborough, Massachusetts, where about 50 Netflix employees "sort through and repackage more than 60,000 discs every day." To be fair, it's the customers who manage to scratch up DVDs, and Netflix appears to make a good-faith effort to discard DVDs that have become unplayable -- at least to the extent they can, since they're sorting them at the rate of 500-700 per hour.

Netflix angered some customers this week with the announcement that it would be increasing the $1.00 per month surcharge for Blu-ray customers, which was just added last fall. They explained in an e-mail that they had "increased significantly" the number of Blu-ray titles they stocked, and "as you've probably heard, Blu-ray discs are substantially more expensive than standard-definition DVDs." How big an increase depends on how you look at it: Information Week described it as a "300% increase," since the surcharge would increase from $1.00 to $4.00 for customers on the "three disks at a time" monthly plan. Overall, the same plan would cost 24% more per month.

I don't have Blu-ray capability (it's a long, sad story), so I'm wondering what your experiences have been renting Blu-rays, either online or in person. Completely satisfactory? Are you downloading / streaming more movies to watch on your computer or TV? Or do you prefer to buy your DVDs and Blu-rays?

I've ranted once or twice about some of the geekier goodies I've found through Netflix, but somehow this one got by me. It'd been a while since I'd visited Hacking Netflix, which is an excellent blog by the way, and it was there that I read ... huh, what's this? I can now view ALL* my "Watch Instantly" titles through my Xbox 360? Really? Well I just had to check that out.

My system needed to update to the jazzy new 360 dashboard, but introducing my Xbox to my Netflix queue was remarkably easy. Now, you can't exactly browse through the Netflix website -- in fact the 360 system only accesses your WI queue. But I watched two episodes of Heroes (Season 3) and the whole of Sam Peckinpah's The Killer Elite (starring James Caan AND Robert Duvall!) in one enjoyable sitting. (Yeah, I'm a good sitter.) Just another reason that Xbox is cooler than Playstation ... says the guy who plays games with his console maybe five times a year.

In other Netflix news, I've discovered a few more obscurities that might be worthy of note: In addition to the aforementioned Peckinpah film, I recently watched a few Gene Hackman ones from 1977: March or Die and The Domino Principle. Both uneven, but dang I love Gene Hackman. Other recent flicks include George C. Scott in The Hindenburg (meh), Marooned (more Hackman!), and THX 1138 (more Duvall!) And I finally saw the mega-weird Spider Baby. Sheesh. Frankly the Netflix Watch Insantly service has improved exponentially since they partnered up with Starz. Now there's NO excuse for me not to have a movie on at all times.

(* Nope, not all. Some of your queued titles will NOT be available via your 360. According to the HN blog, looks like it's all the Sony-owned titles.)