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Netflix and "Rental" Disks
DaveMMR:
--- Quote from: knave on February 01, 2011, 01:08:51 pm ---Netflix has 1000's of movies available for streaming...if you can't find something "good" to watch you are not trying.
You can always turn it off and start something else. I have discovered some really good movies that I otherwise never would have heard of.
--- End quote ---
+1
Forget about getting new releases... and you'll often be disappointed if you're looking for a specific film. But I've queued up quite a few titles I want to watch when I have a few minutes. I've been able to catch up on 30 Rock, watch some good British sketch comedy shows (A Bit of Fry & Laurie, Monty Python, etc.) and some decent episodes of MST3K. They also have some interesting documentaries.
For new releases or other films, I have many on-demands channels on FiOS, plus my local Redbox.
boykster:
I've been with Netflix since 2000 - crazy! I've had at most 4-5 'bad' discs that had issues playing for whatever reason, and I've only ever gotten the wrong disc once very early on. I've also "lost" 2 discs - one was my fault and I put the wrong DVD in the sleeve, and the second one was honestly and truly lost in the mail.
I think there will always be some market for physical media - I'm a video snob and LOVE the high quality HD video on Bluray. I've seen the current 'best' streaming offerings and will admit that it is better than DVD quality by quite a bit, but still pales in comparison to uncompressed BD titles. For most viewing, it's not an issue, but on a 92" screen (1080p projector), you can see the difference. I'll gladly take the convenience of streaming for older 'library' type movies and for TV stuff....
newmanfamilyvlogs:
--- Quote from: boykster on February 01, 2011, 11:13:43 pm ---I'm a video snob and LOVE the high quality HD video on Bluray.
--- End quote ---
The whole physical media vs streaming issue is a bit of a false dichotomy. There is also the third choice of non-streaming straight up download and watch later.
A movie transfered from Bluray straight to a harddrive with no transcoding (eg: a bit perfect copy) will have the exact same quality as the original disc. There's nothing magical about the plastic it's on. So if we assume that an average Bluray disc is around 50 gigabytes (I believe this is the current max capacity) then we get come up with the following:
A new 3 terabyte hard drive is $209.
3 terabytes / 50 gigabytes = 61.44 movies stored at a time
209 / 61.44 = $3.40 per movie stored.
And that price is only going to drop.
Now this assumes that the cost of bandwidth is negligible. On a modest 10 megabit connection it should take around 12 hours to get a single 50 gig film. Still faster than waiting on the mail.
boykster:
No argument here...it's all about the bits, not the medium. I just dont see netflix and content providers rushing to offer full bit rate downloads, hence my comment on physical media.
newmanfamilyvlogs:
http://www.techspot.com/news/42036-mail-service-costs-netflix-20-times-more-than-streaming.html
You never know, once the telecoms finally get us up to some modern broadband speeds, it might happen. If I've got a 100mbit pipe, suddenly that 50 gigs (which would include all the extras and what not) comes down to a transfer time of around an hour and a half. That's streamable territory. If this is the kind of connection 'everybody' has, then the infrastructure to support it is already there.
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