Who in the hell watches movies anyway? Who has time?

I watch probably 3 or 4 movies during an entire year, if that. lol

I'm no expert on video, but I watch all the TV I want at Hulu for free and it looks and sounds good to me. Ads, yes, but not many. Shows that run an hour on broadcast/cable run less that forty-five on Hulu. (The last episode of Lie to Me was a good un'.)

http://www.hulu.com/watch/177337/lie-to-....

Rumor has it they're going to go subscription, or probably, add subscription as an option. Nine bucks for everything on cable? Among which I can pick and choose at will? Booya.

Movies? Redbox. The only drawback there is the limited selection.

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Companies that put together business models that are inherently constructed by charging their costs off on someone else never work out in the long term.

Those home security companies do this - the cops and other responders are all paid for by the taxpayers. Quite a lucrative model.

As far as Netflix, I've been a long time subscriber; Redbox has limited selection, and I'm not going out just to get a movie. Also, streaming films means instant access thru the ps3, and streaming to our iphones works flawlessly.

I did just dump my subscription down from 20.99 (3 per month+BluRay) to 10.99 (1 per month, plus BR)

Netflix and Redbox are two services that provide you with movies, but are fundamentally different in execution.

And for the person that laughed about the claim that 3 miles of wear and tear on a car - such short trips are far harder on vehicles than long ones are.

I canceled my Netflix account because of the comment, Reed Hastings can self-absorb that if he wants.

I rarely used Netflix, his unnecessary comment about Americans was just a decent excuse to save 10 bucks a month for a service I wasn't using very often. Too often I hear people bashing Americans, I am glad to punch back when it's convenient to do so.

It was a really stupid comment to make at a critical time for the company.

Yep,I'm self absorbed.I don't even talk to my neighbors.Don't really give a **** what anyone else is doing or saying.I quit doing that in high school,so his comment doesn't bother me.
You can have my Netflix subscription when you pry it from my cold,dead,debit card.
I've got three kids.I get 6 dvds per week(3 at a time) for $19 per month.Cancelled cable,use dial-up at home(since I don't need to stream anything).
I can get 60's and 70's Disney movies from Netflix.Older movies that the kids like,TV shows,documentaries that I choose to view,and yes,the latest released movies are available,but you generally can't see them on their website without a subscription.I've got Iron Man 2 lined up which doesn't even come out on dvd till a couple of days.
Do all of that with Redbox.

I don't see Netflix and Redbox+Cable as the same thing.

Redbox targets first-run movies and has the current but limited selection with strict time limit, Netflix has a large library and a flat rate swap policy.

Your local library probably beats both.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/net....

Meanwhile RedBox isn't exactly trouble-free:

http://www.wisebread.com/never-pay-for-a....

http://www.redboxlatefees.com/news?post_....

Then there's "cable on demand" - they seem to find enough bandwidth for that. Why go to Redbox when you are paying through the nose to something close to a monopoly anyway?

If you aren't Mr. Robot, you might turn in your RedBox rental late - maybe the store is in the opposite direction from work, maybe it isn't 3 miles away (or the one that is isn't open convenient hours).

Everyone is so anxious to go out to rent that Blockbuster is declaring bankruptcy (and others are in the grave). If you consume a lot, you can wait a month for it to become available, and you might watch during the week.

I got a Roku box, mainly for Tech.tv and some of the other free channels, but with an eye to Netflix streaming. (Being in an apartment overlooking many open APs, the city library, and neighbors using WEP helps). I doubt I could exhaust interesting things available from Netflix streaming before I expired. But that is me. I don't watch sports, and rarely do first-run movies.

I go to Dunkin Donuts daily. I don't go anywhere there is a RedBox kiosk weekly. I probably could find one but that is part of it - if you already go there regularly, it isn't an extra trip. If you don't, it is. If I didn't do classics and did first runs, and was going by a RedBox daily it would be very different.

Also as to bandwidth, there is something akin to but slower than Moore's law. One thing I notice about this site is its efficiency in coding - it uses very little bandwidth (OMG, Karl is stealing bandwidth with his ticker video streams! it would help if they were restartable so if the download cut off at the 75% point I could restart it and only download the remaining 25%). This was one of Microsoft's dirty secrets - write bloatware and rely on intel and AMD to double the performance so it wouldn't be insufferably slow by the release date. Consider the CPU usage of google docs...

If you don't like the movie, or don't have time, Netflix only costs the time to switch (or change the stream). You pay redbox regardless.

I would suggest just actually doing it for a month - get some DVDs for the weekend - oh, and if you don't watch them, you still have to return them on time or be charged. You still have to do it even if your plans change. That is the premise of Cable-on-demand - that you won't go out. Netflix is competing both streaming and assuming you will at least walk to your mailbox.

Then there's blue-ray. Or Apple's iTunes TV/movies, Amazon video on demand, ...

I suspect that both Netflix and RedBox will be profitable as they serve their own niche markets well.

The problem with NetFlix's streaming is the encoding - more accurately, the bandwidth limitations.

Their SD streaming is about ~1.5mbps. To put this in perspective, a SD DVD-9 (named so for the capacity of 9GB) has a native data rate off the disc (with 5.1 audio) of ~10Mbps, assuming (1) the disc is full and (2) the content runs 2 hours.

BluRay has a native capacity of 50GB on the disc. It can (and does) hit 25Mbps of transfer rate, and often sustains well into the high teens. Some modern players can tell you what it's running. Netflix's HD service maxes, assuming you can actually sustain it, at ~3.8mbps - but few people CAN sustain that rate, so the average is closer to 3mbps.

In both cases we're talking about 1/8th of the alternative, roughly. All are compressed, of course; DVD-9s are MPEG; there is better nowdays. Netflix's CODEC is rather clever, but it can't get past the infirmity of the data rate.

If you're watching it on anything bigger than a 21" TV and tell me you can't see the degradation over a DVD, you're legally blind or lying. Pick one. I find it unwatchable on any sort of larger set when it comes to movies; the motion artifacts in particular bug the hell out of me.

It's somewhat-acceptable for old TV shows, most of which are on analog media of some sort anyway. But in terms of actual quality it doesn't even get to NTSC TV standards - it's more akin to roughly what you get out of a mediocre VHS deck.

If you want to pay $9 to watch old Dragnet shows, ok.

For movies?

Pass.

All this talk about Redbox made me rent a movie. I was able to get City Island which only played in one theatre in my area. A small non-profit arts place.

Frankly, Redbox has a better selection for new movies than the now bankrupt blockbuster.

Either way creative destruction at its finest and Genesis is probably right on the streaming issue when it comes to cable in the future. Currently Comcast charges me 2.99 a movie. Which is what Blockbuster was charging the last time I went there 5 years ago.

With blockbuster gone, and Wal-Mart discounting movies down to about $10 2 months after they are out and Redbox selling the for $5 used at the Kiosk I expect the cable companies to get more aggressive as Karl has suggested.

For being such a self-absorbed country, we provide almost twice as much foreign aid as the #2 ranked country (japan).

I'm tired of hearing how ****ty of a country we are when the world constantly looks to us to bail them out when their ass is on the line or when they need our troops or weaponry to defend themselves.

Gen-

With that CEO's attitude towards me as an American, his service will have to provide a happy ending for me to ever buy his product. Infuriating.

If the cable companies decide to provide the same streaming service, Netflix is in trouble, no argument. But for DVD's, the potential for accumulating late fees using other vendors kills the agument against Netflix, in my opinion.

If it shows up at my house, and I can wait to watch it tomorrow or this weekend or next, that flexibility without having to pay the late fees is worth a few extra bucks to me and is what sold me over using Blockbuster. I would not bother doing the Redbox rental knowing I pay a buck a day since it is unlikely I'm going to watch it that day. That's just me, but I suspect others feel the same.

For $10 you can own it once it's off the "hot list" at WallyWorld.

So if you have the $9 plan and don't turn it around, well, you bought it. Except you can't keep it. Now that ain't such a good deal.

And as I said, from my perspective the streaming is worth zero, especially when I can get most of what I might be interested in from Hulu - free - provided I'm willing to live with the codec problems.

hulu has commercials, though. The best part of my cable tv detox is that I don't have to be subjected to the advertising. I kind of like having NO IDEA what movies are coming out, what the new "breakfast" sandwich is, or any of the latest commercials. I also haven't seen/heard a commercial for an auto dealership, or late-night phone sex stuff (are those still on the air?), or that creepy Burger King king (is he still around?) for weeks!

Well, that's true.....

@Lint

No one said we weren't giving. Just stupid and ignorant. The Japanese spend their money investing in other Japanese. They probably understand the people on the same Island as they are, are more important to be fed than the people on another continent.

Late fee for Redbox is 1.06 a day. 1.00 in rental feel and .06 in tax to the state of PA.

If in a day I can't get to a Redbox location considering there are 7 in 3 mile square mile radius, I deserve to eat the 1.06

creepy

$9 a month was good value for the money yesterday, it's still good value today. I just checked, and I watched 18 things last month, and 30 the month before. Granted, many were half hour TV shows, but it's still pennies for an evening's entertainment. Netflix has plenty of old westerns, other classics, documentaries, and cult and arthouse films. I'm not going to find something like James Coburn in "Duck, You Sucker!" in a Redbox kiosk. Netflix not only had it, but pointed it out to me based on my other preferences, thereby introducing me to a new favorite. That's worth something to me.

Sure, their stock is due for a reckoning. No argument there. But I'm not a shareholder. And my cable company's network may not be able to handle the bandwidth demands, and they'll have to start passing the cost on to me, or to Netflix, and that will change the value equation. But at the moment it works, and I didn't sign any long term contracts, so I have no problem using it now, and reserving the right to cancel it when something better comes along.

Exactly the same way I turned off the TV part of my cable service when that value proposition stopped making sense.

Have to agree with Gen-

Netflix streaming video quality is bad, they only stream old junk, which I don't have time to watch let alone see all the latest releases.

The CEO is probably correct in his statement though, for most Americans what is going on around them goes over their head. A good example, here in Florida when asked about Alex Sink who is running for governor over 40% thought that she was a guy!

I wonder why they only stream the old stuff? Copyright issue? If they would steeam the newer material, I think they'd be more successful.

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For a 3 mile drive? Seriously?

They're at convenience stores. You know, those places you stop at for gas, slurpees, lottery tickets, beer, etc.

Some of us don't. I have to drive 3 miles out of my way to get to a gas station/convenience store/grocery store.

I buy gas generally once a week, and go to the grocery store no more than once a month, more usually once every 6-8 weeks - the benefits of a large garden

So for me, Netflix is great. No cable, stream thru the wii.

I have a 25 mbps synchronous pipe to the Internet for work, so if I choose to use the same amount of bandwidth at night as I do during the day when it wouldn't otherwise be used for business purposes, well that's part of why I pay for it.

@Tarmoney

Probably studio revenue related. Either worried about theft or because they collect more revenue sharing from the mail order and red box rentals. Red box initially was not getting new titles from pressure from Blockbuster and Hollywood Video till the studios realized Blockbuster and Hollywood was not going to be able to maintain their model. Once one studio jumped, they all jumped.

I remember as a kid, if you lost a new release it cost somewhere near $100. New releases were released in stores after a few weeks being available in the rental outlets. I think a few Christmas shopping seasons changed the studio's minds. Again, one studio jumped one Christmas season and they all jumped the following.

The entertainment industry particularly the studios are some of the slowest moving to new media and business models.

NFLX climax run in progress. I'm thinking some LEAP puts on it. Jan 2012 or Jan 2013.