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For the folks out there that went ape-shit when Netflix first launched its “Watch it Now” service (now called “Watch Instantly”), and were getting ready to build their own home-theater-PCs (HTPC) to connect directly to their TV to stream the movies, here is your salvation.
EngadgetHD reports that the rumors from a while back about Netflix and LG getting into bed together to build a free set-top-box for your living room that will stream movies from the Netflix service are bubbling back to the surface.
If you are like me, and noticed that a few months after Watch it Now debuted, the impressive lineup of big titles started to slowly disappear, with entire catagories (like TV shows) being removed from the service, and huge portions (like Anime) getting chopped down to maybe 1 or 2 well known movie with a slew of completely unknown titles.
Now on any given week if you check out “Recent Additions”, $5 says that you don’t recognize any of the movies save for 1, and they are never first-rate titles from the last 5 years.
My gut reaction when this started was that the MPAA decided they suddenly didn’t like the idea and wanted more money for it, but Netflix refused so the MPAA revoked the rights to stream those movies. Now with these rumors, it seems that Netflix was either strategically planning a new device and wanted to dumb down the PC-accessible version or they did get dinged by the MPAA and the only way they could get the MPAA to re-agree to letting them stream the movies was to use a closed-system STB (set top box).
If Netflix does in fact release this device for free for subscribers and it includes access to a much larger/premier catalog, I will be one happy bastard. Hell, I’d probably even pay another $5/mo for it assuming it supported a nice high-def output (1080p/720p).
My guess is that since it’s streaming, it will likely support 480p (DVD) out of the box and possibly after a year or so, assuming your connection could support it, add a 720p streaming option as it will be expensive enough to archive and stream content at 720p that I imagine Netflix will want to market-test the idea (a la Apple TV) before committing that much hardware/infrastructure to the idea only to have it flop because of consumers not seeing how it’s different from their Cable DVR.
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January 3rd, 2008 at 9:13 am
IMO this is the future of movie rentals. If they do release a box and it works well, I would give up the whole mail based thing completely.
The thing I like about Netflix Watch Instantly over all the other services I’ve seen, is the ability to watch only the first 5 minutes of a movie and only get “billed” for those 5 minutes. All the other services I’ve seen, once you choose to watch a movie it’s all or nothing.
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:14 am
Totally agree. I was planning on building a HTPC specifically for this and to stop renting all together (so you don’t have to wait), then the service went to piss… so I got discouraged.
But if the selection opens back up (even with just plain 480p) I’m all over this like a fly on shit.
The best scenario would be support added to PS3 or XBox as a new service in the XMB or blade on XBox but then I imagine Sony/MS would want a big enough cut that it wouldn’t make it such a compelling business for Netflix. Who knows… if the STB fails, that would be a cool addition to those consoles.