Netflix streaming videos now unlimited
Looks like it’s time to give Netflix another look, even if you don’t want to fool with those dorky red envelopes.
The mail-rental giant’s Watch Instantly feature today went to unlimited video streaming for almost all customers. Unless you’re paying $4.99 a month, you’re in. Previously there were caps on the number of online viewing hours. (Mac users, you get nothing — Windows only.)
Netflix says its streaming video library has about “6,000 familiar movies and TV episodes.” The main DVD library has something like 90,000 titles. I will be checking out the service via the 2-week trial offer. Self-serving ad link below.
As the world knows, Steve Jobs is about to announce movie rentals for iTunes in a few hours. This annual MacWorld speech has become a one-man CES for Apple and its competitors (last year it was the iPhone unveiling). Jobs’ rivals won’t let the man get onstage without a bunch of last-minute random vectors. First it was Amazon and its giant MP3 giveaway, now it’s Netflix.
Amazing to see the download/streaming universe expand so suddenly — in just six months — after years of slow growth. And much of the credit goes to, yep, Steve Jobs.
Clear case of bias: I sat in on a meeting with Jobs a few years back. Told him we loved his Macs, and he said he loved our web site and visited it daily. Cool guy. I’m a Mac owner as well but I put up with a PC laptop. And yeah, I own some Apple stock, too. Go stock.
Ad text link:
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10% of consumers prefer downloads
DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group, the DVD industry’s cheerleading squad, just released a study showing that consumers prefer watching a movie on DVD or TV instead of downloading it.
The video industry trades both positioned this bit of non-news as “just 10% preferred to watch a movie via streaming or downloading.”
Download Movies 101 finds it surprising that 10% of consumers actually do prefer downloading over just spinning a disc. The number probably is partially explained by the fact that all of the respondents reported they watched three or more hours of streaming video a week — read, YouTube.
The news stories didn’t say how the survey question(s) were phrased, but here’s betting it didn’t go like this:
“Would you prefer to download a rented movie for $3.99 and watch it right away on your computer or TiVo, or pay twice as much to rent a used disc that you have to pick up and return — or wait days for in the mail.”
When you consider something like 5% of the computer world is on Macs, that 10% looks a bit more promising.
“It was interesting to learn that while consumers are embracing digital entertainment, DVD remains the most popular means for viewing video content in the home,” said DEG co-chairman Matt Lasorsa of New Line.
Did DEG seriously expect to find anything else?
One interesting result: 24% said they would pay to watch a movie online (or burn a DVD) at the same time the movie runs in theaters — what the biz calls day and date.
The SmithGeiger-conducted study “Online Content: New Pathways of Discovery and Use” surveyed 1,035 broadband users in the U.S., ages 18 to 49.
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Hooray for Bollywood movies online
I love Bollywood
My favorite film from India is a cheesy thriller called “The Fog”
Then there’s the excellent “Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India”
Anyway, as you’d expect there are many ways to come by Bollywood output on the web, in addition to the IRC downloads and the usual freebies via YouTube and Google. Outlets seem to come and go a lot. Here are a couple:
Rajshri.com offers more than 275 films, 1,400 music videos and about a thousand TV shows. A lot of the fare can be streamed for free; U.S. pricing for downloads ranges from a buck to $10. Among the offerings are “Vivah,” billed as “India’s first movie to debut on the Internet!” Good site.
BollywoodTV has plenty of movies in addition to the TV stuff. Nothing works unless you download the “video enhancement” software Edgestream. Sign-up required as well.
Metacafe stacks up about 735 movies under “Indian videos.” Some are mildly racy; try to contain yourself.
BharatMovies has a lot of full-length content. On a lot of them the grainy images look like they passed through somebody’s camcorder. Movies categories include Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali. As with all of these sites, I have no idea where they stand on copyrights.
Jaman hosts Bollywood fare and world cinema from all continents. Some in high def. Not much for free, but a great place to poke around. Has a program that allows indie filmmakers to post their works.
Aapka Video doesn’t seem to have movies, just good videos. It also welcomes uploads from wanna-be filmmakers, especially if they’re bringing some desi babes. Aapka appears to be the most technically accomplished of the sites — translation: Everything seems to work and look good. Plus, there’s a box on most pages that orients the uninitiated and points us to the good stuff — such as the oeuvre of silicone star Rakhi Sawant
Update (Aug. 3, 2007): Indian web TV portal already a hit
Download, streaming revs rise put at 39%
Streaming and downloaded A/V will produce $2.6 billion in revenue this year, according to the research outfit AccuStream iMedia Research. That’s an increase of 39% from last year, the number crunchers note.
Of that total revenue, only 2.2% is expected to come from movies. “Entertainment,” including TV shows, should register 3.4% Real Networks’ SuperPass video service will pull 4.1%, AccuStream said.
The lion’s share, of course, goes to music, which is predicted to snare 85% via mostly download sellers such as the market-leading iTunes Store. Sports is tagged at 5.4% and news 1.2%.
The downloading of movies, forecast at $60 million in 2007, is up 133.4% over 2006, and is on track to break the $100 million threshold in 2008, AccuStream predicts. “Movie revenue growth has been hampered by limited availability of both front line titles and catalog depth,” the researchers note, to nobody’s surprise.
“Demand for premium content from studios and broadcast networks will boost revenue and share as offerings expand over a 3-7 year period,” commented Paul Palumbo, wonk-in-chief at AccuStream.
Want a copy of the report? No problem. Scrape together $1,900 and “add to cart.”
VeohTV: all over the place
The new digital goodies blog last100 took a test lap with VeohTV, the full-screen P2P aggregator that goes by the slogan “Video Lives All Over the Web.” The application is still in beta, but last100 blogger has posted a fairly detailed review of VeohTV.
Here’s a look at Veoh’s YouTube channel, where, presumably, most of the action is:
Videos played immediately but, as expected, picture quality wasn’t too good blown up to full-screen. Other channels looked much better (such as HD podcasts) but inevitably took a lot longer to load. This is the downside of VeohTV’s open approach to aggregating many video sources into one unified player. By mixing different video formats, the viewing experience varies greatly.
The blog also checked out the live TV service Zattoo, which is available only in the EU.
Last100 is written by London-based journalist Steve O’Hear. Looks like a great place to keep up with streaming/downloading schemes. It’s part of the fledgling network attached to the popular web technology blog Read/WriteWeb.