http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080520-awin-for-digital-distribution-as-netflix-set-top-box-debuts.html

I don't have a Netflix account... or a TV (I just use my monitor for everything... hey, I'm a bachelor)... but if you have both, I think you'll want one of these.

Well Netflix's streaming options are very limited. Almost no new movies.

I love Netflix, especially with the feature of unlimited online videos at no extra cost with a regular subscription, and the lack of newer movies via internet streaming will probably change sometime in the future (eventually with added costs probably... but totally worth it in my opinion).

The TV box is neat, but to tell the truth it's the same thing as having a media center PC with a remote and a Netflix account (and internet, of course). For those who don't want to mess with a media center PC though this is a good item.

Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate both come with media center (not to mention Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005), and that coupled with an optional remote is an awesome combo.

There have been a number of occasions where I've hooked up a handy laptop PC to a larger TV (both sound and video) and just streamed a movie via wireless internet from Netflix. The media center remote makes it an even better experience, but technically not absolutely necessary (unless you wanna stay on your butt to play/pause, heh).

Remember the writers strike? That was one of the things it was about. New movies being released to millions of people for "free" won't happen ... Netflix will have to license them at a very hefty premium. HBO can only afford to license 40 new releases a month or so. Don't expect it to change any time soon.

The movie industry's 1980s-era approach to the ways movies are distributed (as has happened with the music industry) will probably be forced to change if they want to combat the consumer's growth of desire for convenience and understanding of technology readily available in the living room and/or home office.

In the future I could see services like Netflix coming to an agreement with the industry regarding new releases via online subscription streaming (not downloading) in that (for example) they charge a $15-20 monthly fee. This is not unlike someone paying for HBO service on their cable or satellite-TV subscription, only the consumer gets to choose what he or she wants to watch (a system easy to provide with expandable infrastructure that Netflix already has in place).

If they absolutely resist any change to more modern preferences, people could always turn to less legal sources to get service. In any case, with the uprising of Netflix and the iTunes store among others, I am confident that it will not be as long as we think before subscription streaming of new-release (not in the theater) becomes common place among internet and media-PC users.

The Netflix on-demand selection really does blow. I would definitely recommend signing up for an account and looking through it before considering hardware dependent on it. The resolution is only 480p too.

AppleTV has a half decent selection of newer releases in HD, but blows for other reasons.

I hope someone gets this right soon. Otherwise, I fear my HDTV will still be in pristine condition by the time it's obsolete, being used about an hour a week.

The movie industry's 1980s-era approach to the ways movies are distributed (as has happened with the music industry) will probably be forced to change if they want to combat the consumer's growth of desire for convenience and understanding of technology readily available in the living room and/or home office.

In the future I could see services like Netflix coming to an agreement with the industry regarding new releases via online subscription streaming (not downloading) in that (for example) they charge a $15-20 monthly fee.

If they absolutely resist any change to more modern preferences, people could always turn to less legal sources to get service. In any case, with the uprising of Netflix and the iTunes store among others, I am confident that it will not be as long as we think before subscription streaming of new-release (not in the theater) becomes common place among internet and media-PC users.
I absolutely agree.

The only reason that industry hasn't yet come crashing down, like the record industry, is the additional bandwidth required for video and HD further raising that bar. It's only a matter of time until video is an online, on-demand commodity priced service, just like music on iTunes.

I absolutely agree.

The only reason that industry hasn't yet come crashing down, like the record industry, is the additional bandwidth required for video and HD further raising that bar. It's only a matter of time until video is an online, on-demand commodity priced service, just like music on iTunes.

True that and good point.

Although Netflix's current selection of online streaming movies/TV isn't stellar, one has to remember that the service is unlimited and at no extra charge in addition to the already excellent DVD/Blu-Ray mail-rental service!

There are some good older movies and other videos available via streaming though. I am in the process of watching some excellent documentaries and older films in addition to my regular mail service. And I know at least one of the Star Trek movies is available there so I'm content for the most part =).

You guys are pretty off base though. To create a professional quality album you can do it for $100,000. That is 40 days in a recording studio, packaging and shipping. Net total of people involved are normally 1 producer, the bank (we'll say 5 people) and a recording engineer or two.

To make a movie, at least, you need $10 million. Special effects, action scenes, or a "star" and you're well in the $100 million. You need a cast of dozens, crew of hundreds, not to mention you need to then pitch it to all of the movie theaters and HOPE they pick it up. Nearly half of all "Hollywood" features never even get shown in a movie theater. They release on DVD and hope to recoup their losses, and many Hollywood features never recoup the money they put in already. Documentaries are even worse, probably 80% of them never recoup their costs. Television pilots? Probably 95% of them never get picked up. So now they should be licensed for free by Netflix and shown to people, as many as they want whenever they want, for $8 / month? That would mean the end of the movie industry, period. Instead of having 40-50 movies to watch, you'd have none.

I won't argue that movie sets aren't wasteful at times. Night at the Museum 2 which I just worked behind the scenes this weekend had ~150 people when they could have gotten away with half of that probably. But you can't expect 150 people to work 12-16 hours a day for 3 months for free ...

And there is no point of arguing it, because they won't be licensing their movies to Netflix for free. They'll sell the DVDs to them and let them rent them out, and when interest fades and they can't create/distribute more DVDs at an affordable profit they'll license the digital medium to Netflix years later.

People said the same things about music a decade or two ago. Everyone knew that you couldn't make a record without a label, exorbitantly expensive studio equipment, production, etc.

We now know that was obviously short-sighted.

Just like how in the 30's, everyone knew that color cameras and televisions would never be feasible to use for broadcast TV.

Now, we already have people similarly innovating with video production (http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/24/storming-omaha-beach.html). It's only a matter of time until the industry shrugs off the current paradigm and adapts, or a new one takes its place.

Who said anything about them being licensed to Netflix for free? Netflix would have had to pay to license movies for Internet distribution regardless of whether the writers got a piece of it.

As for movie profitability, does that take "Hollywood accounting" into consideration?

And for the ability to make a movie on less than $10 million...what about Clerks? Blair Witch Project? Pi (and later Requiem for a Dream)? Memento? Reservoir Dogs? The Usual Suspects? Donnie Darko? Shaun of the Dead?

Those are poor examples Palarran because your budget doesn't include costs of distribution, promotions, etc. In today's economy most of those would be close to the 10 mill range. Few of them (Clerks, Blair Witch) were with unpaid cast and crew. I think the best example is the 2006 Oscar Winner Crash which cost 6.5 Million and 1.5 Million in promotions. Most of its fame came from winning the Oscar of course, but today that same film would cost 10 Million from concept to distribution with paid cast and crew. Most of the films you listed had 2 to 3 million promotions alone, which is required by most theaters to warrant a screening.

Sure there are exceptions, Napoleon Dynamite was like 5 million after promotions and such, but those are either done for free (DOE so they get paid if successful) and they almost never have the special effects, action sequences, and stuff we've all grown to love. And they aren't theatrical resolution or quality by todays standards and thus probably won't get a screening even if they are great (without millions of dollars of cleanup)

All that information is more or less irrelevant, because in the near future (I'm guessing) neither Netflix nor any other service will stream movies that are still in the theatre (and if they did I'm sure they would charge at least what a normal ticket would cost or more per viewing).

We are talking about new releases here (as in, released on DVD).

Right. A DVD costs $10 or so per unit. To have it On Demand like HBO and so forth does it costs less than $10 per person that watches but a lot more than $8/month/person. They don't have recent releases on their internet streaming because it costs too much ... this probably won't change for a long time to come. If anything it may be more like pay per view of a few bucks per recent film, free for old ones.