Netflix surpasses Bitorrent in internet saturation!

[ElFenix]

Love netflix streaming! I would also love to "cut the cord" it sounds great in theory, but in practice, even with Hulu, it wouldnt work for me. As I guess im kind of a TV junkie. I just started using a Roku XDS. Now if that were to add a dedicated ESPN HD channel and a few other additions, I would give serious thought to cutting the cord.

for all the sporting events i actually want to watch on tv (baseball is a radio sport, damnit), it's cheaper to get several pitchers at a sports bar than it is cable. i could do without ESPN's ego.

 

[wuliheron]

Don't want no 500 channels of shit to choose from. Don't want no sports special, cooking shows, or reality TV and don't want to pay for them. Don't want no instant access to the latest and greatest and don't mind watching old TV shows and B movies in low resolution while waiting for something better to come in the mail.

 

[Zebo]

We all love netflix streaming but they have a fucked up business model that relies on ISPs being nice to them (build free pipes, routers, switches, staff for netflix profit?). This won't end well.

 

[Zebo]

I still got the superduper $159 package from our cable company because of other people living in the house but all I watch are classic movies on netflix. Mainly B&W. Used to watch TCM but netflix has em on demand.

 

[Karl Agathon]

I would love to cut the cord, just to many HD channels I wouldnt want to do without.

 

[Zebo]

I never liked passive forms of entertainment so it would be trivial to cut the cord. All I used TV for is sleeping.

 

[Arglebargle]

We all love netflix streaming but they have a fucked up business model that relies on ISPs being nice to them (build free pipes, routers, switches, staff for netflix profit?). This won't end well.

So many of the ISPs are in the content business as well. They, of course, do not want the competition there, and are going to throw up roadblocks.

 

[wuliheron]

I never liked passive forms of entertainment so it would be trivial to cut the cord. All I used TV for is sleeping.

My TV is broadcast only, 25 years old, and cost me $20.oo at an SPCA sale. As long as you're just giving money away for free....

 

[Broheim]

but, knowing that silverlight is a microsoft baby, it makes sense as to why they wont allow it on linux. but i still think they should allow it, i dont think people will rush to buy linux pc's once silverlight supports it...

http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight

Moonlight is an open source implementation of Silverlight, primarily for Linux and other Unix/X11 based operating systems. In September of 2007, Microsoft and Novell announced a technical collaboration that includes access to Microsoft's test suites for Silverlight and the distribution of a Media Pack for Linux users that will contain licensed media codecs for video and audio

there's nobody but netlix to blame for the lack of Linux support.

 

[wirednuts]

wow im only 2+ years past the party on that one... yikes. thanks for the link

 

[Modelworks]

there's nobody but netlix to blame for the lack of Linux support.

Actually it is Linux users fault more than anyone else.

Netflix does not use silverlight for the service anywhere but on the windows pc. Blu-ray players, set top boxes, media players, all run Linux and stream netflix fine. The problem is protecting the content. On windows there is something called protected content path, basically data enters and is protected from decryption or saving all the way to the display device. The data is encrypted in memory and on the pci express bus . Silverlight is an API used to interface to that system.

Linux has a problem because it has no protected content path. Linux users wanted things to be open and so things like DRM are a problem. Without a way to insure that someone isn't going to write their own driver for something like a motherboard chipset to defeat the DRM and save the content then netflix will never come to the linux pc.

Linux on set top boxes is different. The chips used on those boxes have hardware decryption. The chips originated in the satellite and cable box descrambler market and so they do things like AES 256 in hardware. There is no point where anyone can grab the content because linux on those boxes only has access to the content in the form of play, stop, ffwd, rew and the driver is more like someone using a remote control to control their DVD player. Linux doesn't have access to the actual data. The decoder, decryption , playback hardware is all in its own little section of the chip that runs separate from the user side.


If linux users want netflix then they need to come up with a protected content path equivalent to that of windows.

 

[Broheim]

*snip*

protected media path and protected video path isn't implemented in in Windows XP, yet netflix supports that just fine.

 

[smitbret]

It's because Netflix is easy and priced right.

For 80% of the people, it's all about ease and convenience. Real people with real jobs don't have time and patience to deal with all of the crap that media conglomerates want to put us through.

For example, I like to buy the BR/DVD/Digital combo packs of animated movies for my kids. BR for home, DVD on the road. I thought the Digital might be a cool idea until I discovered it was a DRM'd .wmv file that could only be registered to one device. Why the hell would I even bother when I can just run the DVD through CloneDVD Mobile or Handbrake and have a DRM free .mp4 in twenty minutes? Stupid.

Or, the Amazon MP3 Downloader. I pay for an mp3 album and for some reason I was unable to download it because the server was down or something. I come back to download it later and they tell me the window had expired and they wanted me to repurchase. Not only that, but I also had to download and install their software to bloat my system just to download it in the first place. Last I checked, Firefox's downloader worked just fine for me for the last 15 years.

And don't get me started on Cinavia. I think it's absolute crap that Sony wants to prevent me from being able to rip a Blu-Ray that I own and stream via my home network to the tv that I want. No, they want me to purchase a Blu-Ray player for every frickin' location in the house.

It's almost to the point that CD Rips and Cams from the theater are the only way to really do it anymore.

Netflix and Redbox are the only ones that get it. I pay one fee, once a month and don't have to worry about limits or caps or anything. I simply sit down and press a couple of buttons and I'm rolling, from any box in my house. Most people don't care if it's true HD quality. I don't see how Old School would be any funnier if I can see the features on Will Ferrell's face any more clearly. That's also why satellite and cable providers are nearly recession proof. You sit down, punch a button and you're entertained.

Or, as I walk out of Walgreens I see the Kiosk, slide my card and pay a buck for a DVD. If I forget to bring it back the next day, it charges me another $1. Makes sense to me.

I really think the idiots in Hollywood have no sense of reality. Money has probably skewed their thinking so badly that they are incapable of understanding the common citizen that puts the money in their pockets.

 

[smitbret]

for all the sporting events i actually want to watch on tv (baseball is a radio sport, damnit), it's cheaper to get several pitchers at a sports bar than it is cable. i could do without ESPN's ego.

Really, you can drink and watch all of the sports you want for $50 a month. You're a lightweight.

 

[shortylickens]

Shens.
If you pirate it once you never have to stream it again. Not to mention theirs is super compressed 720p wheres downloading 1080p torrents is easy.

 

[smitbret]

Shens.
If you pirate it once you never have to stream it again. Not to mention theirs is super compressed 720p wheres downloading 1080p torrents is easy.

Bolded the key word there. That's way more important than 720p vs. 1080p to most people.

 

[wirednuts]

agreed^^ like i said earlier, people really dont give a shit about video or audio quality. as long as its clear enough to not be annoying, and the sound is good enough to make out the words, people are fine with it. what they really hate is going to a semi-dangerous torrent site to download this weird little file that has to be opened by some download program and then you have to wait a day or two and then you have to stop seeding it. fuck all that, where do i slip in the dollar?

that said, streaming quality is nothing to laugh at anymore anyway. its getting really good.

 

[Acanthus]

I cut the cord long ago and have been on netflix streaming with a single dvd + Blu ray upgrade.

The only thing I want now is for HBO to implement a streaming service for people who do not have cable and don't want to order it through the local cable company.

 

[wirednuts]

id like to see every cable channel stream live online for a small monthly fee. then i could get the channels i want, and nothing else

 

[wuliheron]

We all love netflix streaming but they have a fucked up business model that relies on ISPs being nice to them (build free pipes, routers, switches, staff for netflix profit?). This won't end well.

Their business model is perfectly sound. ISPs regularly throttle the internet and pretty much do as they please anyway. Some have even been caught advertising speeds that are twice what they actually provide. Its still the wild west in that market and at the rate Netflix is going they might just start their own ISP. The existing ISPs can either adapt or face new competition. Its the cable and satellite companies that need to watch their asses.

 

[wirednuts]

cable companies already supply fast internet, so they can adapt to iptv quickly... but if i were dish or direct tv, i would have already been heavily investing in ways to get the fastest broadband internet to earth from space. it not going to be too much longer before "cable tv" as we know it is disbanded.

 

[Sureshot324]

We all love netflix streaming but they have a fucked up business model that relies on ISPs being nice to them (build free pipes, routers, switches, staff for netflix profit?). This won't end well.

I pay my ISP for internet. It shouldn't matter to them what I use it for. Netflix does have to pay for their own servers including bandwidth.

 

[cubby1223]

Bah, just because you don't utilize the connection you pay for doesn't that nobody else doesn't use it either. Believe it or not, some of us use our connections heavily. I'm not against metered service, but knowing how Telco's operate...metered service will be rape upon the customer. Now what happens when people can no longer afford the internet? Oh, that's right, back to cable TV...where the other rape is happening.

Seriously? Are you this miserable of a person in real life?

Just because you love using whatever it is that you use, doesn't mean that someone else should "be raped" just so you can have your moral victory against Telcos. Every argument you make has an alternate side to it. You just choose to always favor the side that helps your individual bank account the most, regardless of the effects of anyone else.

I mean, sure that's what you're supposed to do, look out for yourself first. But don't for a second believe it makes you a wise person.

 

[cubby1223]

We all love netflix streaming but they have a fucked up business model that relies on ISPs being nice to them (build free pipes, routers, switches, staff for netflix profit?). This won't end well.

Did brick & mortar dvd rental stores pay for dvd manufacturers to produce dvd players?

It won't end well because Netflix is too cheap of a subscription price. Netflix is more along the lines of supplemental income to producers, the big money is elsewhere. What won't end well is when the other revenue sources dry up as more people switch to Netflix.

The same basic concept of Netflix & Bittorrent are exactly the same - distribute digital data at extremely low costs.

 

[wuliheron]

cable companies already supply fast internet, so they can adapt to iptv quickly... but if i were dish or direct tv, i would have already been heavily investing in ways to get the fastest broadband internet to earth from space. it not going to be too much longer before "cable tv" as we know it is disbanded.

The real problem is that optical communications are still primitive, but you can't get any faster or denser communications. Theoretically fiber optics can be massively multiplexed and plugged into every computer so cheaply as to warrant pulling down every telephone and TV cable in the country and melting them down for the metal. A complete infrastructure overhaul similar to when we replaced telegraph wires with telephones.

It's precisely because everyone can see the light at the end of the tunnel that the ISPs and whatnot are allowed to get away with so much crap. It encourages innovation in a newly emerging market. Satellites and cable TV and anything else will have to stay fast on their feet and watch which the wind blows to capitalize on whatever happens between now and the next major infrastructure overhaul. Once it is overhauled their roles will pretty much be defined and circumscribed.