Anybody who rents Dvds might be interested in this

[RabidDog]

Possible scenario of the future....Netflix and Tivo married ??
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/35153.html
or just waiting to have a bastard child?

[Moloko_Plus]

Their kids would have hooves.

[MrMungus]

Possible scenario of the future....Netflix and Tivo married ??
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/35153.html
or just waiting to have a bastard child?

I can see that. Since (I hear) Tivos have LAN connections, what's to prevent people from ordering movies, having them downloaded in the background to the Tivo hard drive (IOW, the same amount of wait as a Netflix rental), and watching them when they're ready to watch. I think they'd be stupid NOT to partner.

[Gazorgan]

I've done this analysis before.

Let's so we go MPEG4 DVD quality video. That's 2 GB per movie (no arguments about 600 MB AVI files being DVD quality, I want D1 Resolution and AC3 Audio).

Bandwidth in the US is roughly $500 per Mbps (DS3 rates). Typical Cable user can hit, oh say, 1 GB/hour. 2 hours to d/l a movie isn't bad (can nearly stream it at that rate). Now 1 Mbps over 30 days translates to 324,000 MBytes which is 162 Movies at 2 GB. That's about $3.10 per movie.

Now if we scale this up from DS3's (45 Mbps) to what? OC-48's? I'm not sure what the cost would be. 1/2 ? 1/3? Anyone know what an OC48 goes for (and the fact there are what 3 providers in the US that could support that?). You would need at least 4 POP's to avoid killing the NAP's.

Let's also consider what your ISP will say when you start adding 10 GB's of additional traffic to your usage. Many cable systems are oversubscribed now (Digital Telephony is first, then digital Cable, then Digital PPV, then Cable modems....the bottom of the pecking order). My bandwidth at 4 am is 3 Mbps max, but at 9:30 Pm I'm lucky to hit 1.5 Mbps.

So, the online Netflix company will have to deal with customers downloads in the 4-8 hour range. People dott' want to watch a movie tomarrow, they want to watch it now. PPV works because people are impulsive.

Let's not forget the annoying DRM issues. Once you get it, you typically have 24 hours to watch it. Well excuse the *&^% out of me, but my family isn't going to watch this on my computer system (despite the 21" monitor and 5.1 speakers). We want to watch it on the 'big screen' in full surround sound. That means I have to be able to burn it to a settop player. Bye-bye DRM..... I do have my computer hooked up to my TV, but being a Geek isn't the norm.

To fight the long downloads only has 1 solution. 600 MB movies that suck. The current online movie places truly Suck, with a capital S. Paying $3.95 for a 24 hour VCD rental just doesn't work. For $2.50 I can rent from a local place for 3 days, newly released DVD's (usually in stock).

In summation. Netflix works. It works because its simple to use, has a queuing system, and isn't cost prohibitive. The advent of cheap DVD burners can only be helping Netflix. There are other companies using the same business model and making money. Online movies are plagued by poor quality, inconvienent download times, and annoying DRM issues. They also, generally speaking, aren't friendly to home entertainment systems. They also have tremedous startup costs, and lack infrastructure support for widespread acceptance.

As to a LAN enabled Tivo with DRM issues. Well, read the Eula....your talking about hardware based spyware. Didn't you hear how many people were re-winding their Tivo's to see Janet Jacksons funky jewelary? How did they know that? It might work if you had a limit, or payed by the GB for stored movies. Say $19.95 a month gets you 10 GB of DRM, say 5 movies? That's a possibility, dump one and the next in queue starts.......

[MrMungus]

As to a LAN enabled Tivo with DRM issues. Well, read the Eula....your talking about hardware based spyware. Didn't you hear how many people were re-winding their Tivo's to see Janet Jacksons funky jewelary? How did they know that? It might work if you had a limit, or payed by the GB for stored movies. Say $19.95 a month gets you 10 GB of DRM, say 5 movies? That's a possibility, dump one and the next in queue starts.......

Yes and the police are now rounding up everyone who watched it more than once.

Paranoia.

[DivXExpert]

And people are going to be wanting better quality video in the future anyway, with HDTV becoming so popular, the bandwidth, and the speed of download would be horrible. HDTV is 19mb/sec i believe, thats a ton, and they can't really run any more compression then they already are, they are pushing the bits/pixel very hard already. To much mosquito noise if you ask me. Anyway, I think that physical medium is going to be the consumers choice for a long while.

[RabidDog]

I could certainly see 1gB per movie (no ac3). 512k adsl moving to 1 or 2mbps or even 23mbps. So more attractive/usable in future. Many business models could work.

[indolikaa]

As to a LAN enabled Tivo with DRM issues. Well, read the Eula....your talking about hardware based spyware. Didn't you hear how many people were re-winding their Tivo's to see Janet Jacksons funky jewelary? How did they know that?

Say WHAT? Please elaborate...

[Greg12]

I think eventually everyone is gonna have to combine and string OCR-48's all over the US

[MrMungus]

I could certainly see 1gB per movie (no ac3). 512k adsl moving to 1 or 2mbps or even 23mbps. So more attractive/usable in future. Many business models could work.

Yeah, but then the problem is cable and DSL companies nailing you for excessive bandwidth usage.

[RabidDog]

1gb a day isnt excessive.. in fact its downright lazy

[MikieV]

As to a LAN enabled Tivo with DRM issues. Well, read the Eula....your talking about hardware based spyware. Didn't you hear how many people were re-winding their Tivo's to see Janet Jacksons funky jewelary? How did they know that?

Say WHAT? Please elaborate...

From the Tivo FAQ, on policies.

Does TiVo know what I'm watching?
TiVo knows how important personal privacy is to you, so we designed our system and established strict policies to help protect the privacy of your Personally Identifiable Viewing Information. In summary:

The TiVo DVR collects certain types of information from its users, including Anonymous Viewing Information, Diagnostic Information, Commerce Information, and Service Information. TiVo has no way to access any of your Personally Identifiable Viewing Information from your DVR without your prior consent. Absent your consent, the TiVo service has no way of knowing what shows you-as an individual or household- have watched, recorded, or rated with Thumbs Up(TM) or Thumbs Down(TM).

TiVo does collect Anonymous Viewing Information; that is, information about viewing choices made while using your DVR, but that does not identify you as an individual or household. In other words, there is no personally identifiable information associated with the viewing information that could identify the viewing information as coming from you or your household. TiVo also collects Diagnostic Information from a small number of randomly sampled DVRs for quality control purposes. If you don't want even your Anonymous Viewing Information or Diagnostic Information used in any way, simply tell us by calling our toll free number (1-877-367-8486).

If you affirmatively elect to engage in a commercial transaction using the TiVo service, such as by responding to an advertisement on the TiVo service, TiVo will collect and disclose your Commerce Information to the commerce partner fulfilling the transaction.

Edited on Feb 8, to add empahsis to the above.