Watch Instantly, on Windows Media Center
Those TV shoppers who just can’t bring themselves to pay good money for Apple’s good products will be pleased to know that Netflix’s streaming videos are coming to the Windows Media Center.
Only catch is, users have to be running Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate. You basic Vista won’t cut it … another reason to regret that operating system. Also out in the cold are the XP diehards and downgraders.
Netflix and Microsoft previously partnered on Xbox 360 delivery of “Watch Instantly” streams, available to the game console’s Live Gold subscribers.
“We’re building on our broader vision to alleviate the need to jump from Web site to Web site to find TV shows, movies, sports and news,” Microsoft said in today’s freshly cooked canned statement. “With Windows Media Center, (viewers) can now find it in one place.”
The Windows Media Center elite must also have a basic or better subscription to Netflix. The streaming catalog of 12,000-some (mostly dated) movies and TV shows comes at no additional cost. Microsoft’s Silverlight video platform will do the heavy lifting.
Home Premium runs about $60 more than Basic, while Ultimate adds another $120 or so to the tab. Microsoft, meanwhile, is ready to trash Vista with a highly anticipated OS, Windows 7.
WMC added a sports channel in March with content from CBS and Fox.
Update: Silicon Valley Insider looks at the Netflix deal from the Apple perspective. The post notes that “Netflix support makes the Xbox 360 a more attractive movie machine than Apple’s sad Apple TV. … And it makes Windows Media Center more attractive than Apple’s “Front Row media center software.” The dagger gets slipped in thusly: “Apple admits its home entertainment business is a ‘hobby.’ But right now, maybe ‘joke’ is a better word.
Meanwhile, live streaming site Mogulus has redubbed itself Livestream, reflecting its function rather than, uh, some futuristic executive whose bit was left on the cutting room floor in “The Matrix.”
Max Haot, Livestream CEO and co-founder, lets slip this bit of promo-talk:
Livestream is doing for live video streaming what YouTube did for on-demand video clips. While we didn’t invent live streaming, we’re removing the barriers — making live video production and streaming easy and affordable for anybody to use and experience. … Live video streaming is well positioned to become a key force moving us toward richer, more immersive content experiences and communication.”
Netflix floats streaming HBO video
Netflix wants to know: Would you pay another $10 a month for HBO shows and movies via the streaming video service Watch Instantly?
The mail-rental giant asked subscribers about their interest in online versions of current HBO series such as “Big Love” and “Flight of the Concords,” as well as oldie goldies “The Sopranos,” “Six Feet Under” and “The Wire.” And a bunch of movies showing their age.
Netflix’s Watch Instantly streaming service comes with a regular subscription. It features mostly catalog movies and indie fare but has a solid 12,000 or so movies on tap.
The poll cited “HBO content,” not specific channels. There are seven.
Netflix has been moving aggressively into the broadband streaming video business, finding hardware outlets recently on the Xbox 360, Tivo, and Blu-ray boxes from LG and Samsung. The HBO fare would be available via those channels, as well as on PCs.
$10? (Well, make it $9.99.) Sounds like a non-starter. If you get the Time Warner premium service via cable or satellite, who needs it? And $10 will get you most of the way to paying for the cable tier, anyway. The value to such a service may be in exploring older HBO series such as “Rome,” maybe.
“Big Love” looks surprisingly strong this season, but for the most part HBO’s glory days have come and gone. I’m thinking the price point for HBO streaming video via Netflix is something like $5 a month (make that $4.99). Even though HBO fare goes for $1.99 an episode on iTunes. Remember, Watch Instantly is free … of additional charge.
Hacking Netflix broke the story. Video Business quoted a Netflix flack as saying hundreds of similar polls are emailed out each month, and that there were no talks with HBO anyway.
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Streaming vids boost Netflix profits
Saying “it’s very clear that streaming is energizing our growth,” Netflix chieftain Reed Hastings announced strong earnings, revenues and subscriber increases for the fourth quarter, sending its stock on a two-day tear. Profits were up 45%.
Hastings credited Netflix’s movie-streaming service Watch Instantly with the flashy numbers, which handily beat the Street. For the online video industry, this is a big deal.
The news that online video service already is impacting the mail-rental giant’s bottom line is startling and exciting. No doubt the story is being closely tracked in the Hollywood studios and at the networks.
Netflix has been aggressively promoting its streaming videos and lining up hardware partners, especially in recent months. Hastings said 2008′s “substantial” investment in online video content will be surpassed in 2009.
There was no indication he would be adding current hit movies to Watch Instantly, however.
(Read the Netflix earnings report.)
To use Watch Instantly you have to be a Netflix DVD rental subscriber, which was likely a factor in the company’s report that it brought in more subscribers at a lower acquisition cost. (Cablers can only dream … ) Total subscribers are about to surpass 10 million.
Hastings said he saw evidence that Watch Instantly users were renting fewer DVDs. “Time will tell whether this substitution effect is an attribute of early adopters or a mainstream behavior.” He said Netflix was in talks with “nearly every (consumer electronics) manufacturer” regarding Blu-rays and online television.
Netflix stock shot up 15% on Tuesday’s news, and added another 4% Wednesday amid a strong market rally.
“We plan to spend as much money as we can with the studios, licensing as much content as we can — we are already one of the studios’ largest Internet revenue sources,” Hastings said. “Our spending is limited only by what content is available at reasonable costs.”
Netflix has been busily cutting carriage deals for its streaming video service, now standard on some Blu-ray players from LG and Samsung. LG plans “broadband TVs” with Netflix inside. The recently redesigned Xbox 360 Marketplace offers Watch Instantly, and lone wolves can buy a black box, from Roku, that picks up only that signal. TiVo started carrying the Netflix online video stream late last year.
Meanwhile, over at set-top box maker Vudu, 15% of workers were laid off. That leaves about 50 staffers. A spokesman said most of those shown the door were temp workers.
Disclosure: I’m a Netflix stockholder, feeling better about things now. The company’s affiliate ads run on this blog.
Promo:
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LG flows Netflix stream into HDTVs
No black box required:
LG continues to cut innovative deals with movie and TV content distributors, this time routing Netflix’s streaming video service through new LCD and plasma HDTV models to be introduced at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas.
The “Broadband HDTVs” are expected in market this spring. Streaming video will come straight into the HDTVs. Local broadband issues would be expected to affect quality as with any outboard Internet video device.
Netflix and LG already have partnered on a set-top box and the network BD300 Blu-ray player. LG said five of its upcoming Blu-ray players and home theater set-ups would include Netflix’s streaming service, called Watch Instantly.
“LG Electronics was first to embrace Netflix as a streaming partner a year ago, and was first in 2008 to introduce a Blu-ray disc player that streams movies from Netflix,” said the mail-rental giant’s chieftain Reed Hastings. “So it’s fitting that LG is the first to introduce Netflix instant streaming directly to the TV with these next-generation HDTVs.”
For Netflix, the move continues its evolution away from the famous red mailer envelopes containing rental DVD discs. Hastings, credited as an early visionary of e-commerce, has long said broadband delivery would be the future for his company. (For this reason, I remain a cautiously optimistic shareholder in Netflix.)
LG has been aggressively trying to set its consumer electronics products apart from the big-box crowd with content-driven deals. A week ago, the Korean manufacturer announced online video deals for its Blu-ray players with online PPV provider CinemaNow and user-generated video homebase YouTube.
Netflix streaming to TiVo boxes
Netflix and TiVo are linking up to stream the video renter’s Watch Instantly service to DVRs.
Testing will begin immediately. TiVo customers with HD-ready set-top boxes will have the streaming movies service by the end of the year, the New York Times reported. An eligible subscription to Netflix is required.
The Watch Instantly service will not be available to those using DirecTV boxes with TiVo.
Netflix has been on the move with its online video service, as slowdowns in its traditional mail rentals have battered the company’s bottom line.
Netflix just announced availability of its streaming movies and TV shows to Mac (Intel) users, as well as to owners of some new Samsung Blu-ray machines.
Recent content deals include partnerships with Starz Entertainment, CBS and Disney. A lot of the films offered on Watch Instantly are catalog titles and indie fare.