YouTube Unveils 3,000 Full-Fledge Movie Offerings, Challenging Netflix

[MtnMan]

If it was like .50 cents a movie I could see it... 4 dollars... not so much.

No, not even at 50 cents, as I will simply turn a movie off when I find "it ain't my cup of tea".

 

[vi edit]

No, not even at 50 cents, as I will simply turn a movie off when I find "it ain't my cup of tea".

What does your cup of tea have to do with the price of movie rentals on the internet?

 

[Kev]

how do you find which ones are available in hd?

 

[darkswordsman17]

Their selection looks like a mix between Hulu and Crackle.

I'd use Crackle more often but they have a pretty limited selection and it randomly decides to not work. Like right now, I can't get any of the videos to load, despite it working perfectly fine the other day. Other times it will just keep loading their little Crackle intro over and over and over, or doing the same thing with an ad. I could understand if I was doing something different, but I'm not. Same browser, same version of everything, and it just randomly doesn't work right.

Rental price is too high, although I don't think its really out of line for other rental services (like Xbox Live/PSN/iTunes/etc). Only way I'd pay that much is if it was a movie that's currently in theaters.

I think there's definitely room to move in against Netflix (especially since it seems like the studios more and more want to neuter it), but none of the stuff they've done so far is really it. That's ok, I use them more as compliments (Hulu for current TV, maybe a movie here or there if I notice it on there and its not on Netflix, etc).

The only issue is that its easy to miss out on stuff because of different sites and then half the time you don't even know its there because you either have to dig or search for it (but most of the time, I'm just browsing). Like on Hulu, where you'd be forgiven for thinking that 95% of their movie selection was Lifetime movies.

I'm all for more selection, I just want more coherency, and so far Netflix offers the best experience for that.

Anyone know of any aggregate sites that show you updates of what's new across sites (and maybe compare databases between sites so you know which site has what)?

 

[ultimatebob]

http://www.youtube.com/movies

Heh... I guess that their "They service is only available in the US, buzz off you crazy Brit!" page isn't ready yet.

 

[Andy22]

You're paying a $3 premium for being able to watch movies before redbox (total assumption on my part) and not having to return a disk. Not worth it imo. Now that directv offers youtube videos I wonder if they will eventually allow you to watch these. Kinda doubt it since it would be direct competition for their own on demand.

 

[The_Dude8]

What does your cup of tea have to do with the price of movie rentals on the internet?

I think with .50 cents, he can buy himself a cup of green tea.

 

[TuxDave]

You're paying a $3 premium for being able to watch movies before redbox (total assumption on my part) and not having to return a disk. Not worth it imo. Now that directv offers youtube videos I wonder if they will eventually allow you to watch these. Kinda doubt it since it would be direct competition for their own on demand.

Pretty big assumption. Based on how fast things can get to Netflix or Blockbuster, I would guess Youtube would get stuck with the same delayed restriction of "time to dvd purchase to time for rental"

 

[jtvang125]

I'll stick with netflix

-Unlimited streaming
-Rewatch as many times as I want
-More supported devices
-No risks trying non-mainstream movies (if it sucks I could go onto next movie and not be out $4 for each)

 

[ch33zw1z]

My experience with youtube is this: constant buffering, waiting for videos to play all the time. IMO, they fix that issue, they may have something here.

 

[HAL9000]

Heh... I guess that their "They service is only available in the US, buzz off you crazy Brit!" page isn't ready yet.

It works now you crazy yank.

 

[Brainonska511]

It doesn't help them that they are competing with Amazon OnDemand as well. They are also lacking a WMC plug-in :/.

 

[VtPC83]

I tried this last night. It sucked. I had to watch the movie in 480p. It was tiny and when I tried to make it bigger it became blotchy (duh I know). Netflix is 10x better about this than youtube apparently.

 

[shortylickens]

It doesn't help them that they are competing with Amazon OnDemand as well. They are also lacking a WMC plug-in :/.

Yeah Amazon is expanding their movie selection all time. And you get a lot of them free with Prime.

 

[ultimatebob]

It works now you crazy yank.

How about that... usually Google pilots new products in the US first.

 

[ed21x]

if it were closer to $2/movie, I would definitely be on board as I at most only rent 1-2 movies/month.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Again Google with another dud. They just really seem to have missed the mark with their music/movie service. Nobody wants to pay $4 to rent a movie to watch on Youtube. Nobody.

It really seems like Google is trying hard to grow from their bread/butter services that made them what they are (search, maps, advertising, etc.), but they lack the direction and polish to execute successfully. Even Android, IMHO, is largely successful because they filled a void nobody else did.

 

[shortylickens]

Again Google with another dud. They just really seem to have missed the mark with their music/movie service. Nobody wants to pay $4 to rent a movie to watch on Youtube. Nobody.

It really seems like Google is trying hard to grow from their bread/butter services that made them what they are (search, maps, advertising, etc.), but they lack the direction and polish to execute successfully. Even Android, IMHO, is largely successful because they filled a void nobody else did.

Unfortunately they are now competing with Microsoft, RIM, and Palm all of whom have a much stronger business pedigree and seem to be taking shit seriously now.

 

[davmat787]

They have the old Jason and the Argonauts in the free section!! Of course it is free many other places too, but I love that old flick for some reason.

 

[Kev]

I watched about 15 seconds of ghostbusters.

The video quality is shit.

The audio is out of sync.

Youtube will never get money from me.