Netflix Streaming Goes International in 2010

Foreigners rejoice! No more VPN tunneling and proxy hacks. If Netflix streaming is your bag, you might see it expand to your country in the second half of 2010. Here’s the word:

CEO Reed Hastings unveiled the company’s plans to take its business international next year—albeit streaming-only, not mail-order rentals. “We’re looking to the second half of 2010 to make our streaming offering international,” he said, during the company’s Q309 earnings call. “The plan is to start small in one market, prove out our model, and expand into other countries.”

The article also features some interesting statistics that Netflix has gathered about their customers. Netflix also estimates that postal costs for their operation will weigh in around $600 MILLION. Unreal. Read the full article at PaidContent – Netflix To Take Its Streaming Business International Next Year.

Get Splattered: New Webseries “Splatter” to Debut on Netflix For Free

That’s right, the genius that brought you Gremlins is back with a new webseries called “Splatter“, starring your favorite Goonie Corey Feldman. The series, produced by B-movie legend Roger Corman, will debut for free on Netflix (no account required). The first episode will go up on October 29th, with a second following on November 6th, and then the finale on November 13th (a Friday too, nice). Here’s some more info:

Directed by Joe Dante, “Splatter” is about a musical genius who accumulated as many hit records as he did enemies while climbing up the fame ladder. Johnny Splatter’s sudden death, ruled a suicide, brings a small circle of professional parasites and hangers-on to his Hollywood Hills mansion for the reading of his last will and testament.  But as his “frenmies” come to pick the bones clean, Johnny has returned for a deadly encore long after what they thought was his final curtain.

The Splatter website already has a trailer and some nice bonus features. Go check it out! Thanks to Hacking Netflix again – Netflix To Present Free Webisodes of ‘Splatter’ Starting on October 29th.

Surfing Movies with Jinni – Public Beta Opens with Netflix Support

Hacking Netflix has a short report on hooking up the web 2.0 film content browser Jinni with your Netflix account. Now that the service is open for a public beta, you can try it out. Here’s the word:

I’ve been playing with the beta of Jinni, a movie and TV show recommendation website that integrates nicely with your Netflix account. I’m always looking for new movies and shows to watch, and Jinni takes a different approach, letting you search for movies based on mood or plot.

Looks pretty slick. Makes you wonder if Netflix will gobble them up or try and form their own type of recommendation system. Read the full story at Hacking Netflix – Jinni Recommendation Site Launches Public Beta.

Windows 7 Media Center to Feature Netflix Instant Watch Interface

With the launch of Windows 7 only two days away, many happy Netflix campers will be relieved to know that the media center featured in the operating system has the bases covered. Engadget reports:

Those already upgraded to Windows 7 ahead of Thursday’s launch events (no, we’re not coming to your party) should find a Netflix button parked under the Movies section in Media Center starting today.

[...]

Not seeing it yet? Go to the Tasks –>Settings–>General–>Automatic Download Options and manually start an update there, the new tiles should arrive shortly.

Grab the popcorn and mute your IM account. Read the full article at Engadget, complete with pretty pictures – Windows 7 Media Center’s upgraded Netflix Watch Instantly interface now available.

Nostalgia for Rental Shops: Time Says “Netflix Stinks!”

Netflix has grown so quickly that you can’t be surprised some are still left clinging to the old ways of getting content to your eye balls. A writer for Time is one of them and this is what he has to say:

Beyond the mail delays and the botched orders, the lack of human interaction is the big problem with Netflix and its cyber-ilk. Thanks to the Internet, we can now do nearly everything–working, shopping, moviegoing, social networking, having sex–on one machine at home. We’re becoming a society of shut-ins. We deprive ourselves of exercise, even if it’s just a stroll around the mall, until we’re the shape of those blobby people in WALL•E. And we deny ourselves the random epiphanies of human contact.

Getting movies by mail is, Netflix hopes, just a stage between the Blockbuster era of video stores and the imminent streaming of movies. You can already get 12,000 Netflix titles on your TV (if you have a Blu-ray player or spring for a $100 Netflix box). So, O.K., soon there will be no more waiting for DVDs. But it’ll come at a price. You’ll be what the online corporate culture wants you to be: a passive, inert receptacle for its products.

I don’t really agree with most of it, but if there’s anything to take away from the article it’s that Netflix’s recommendation system could use some more work, and you’re a mindless lump of lard if you embrace simplified, direct, and active choices for accessing the one thing that really matters: content. Full article over at Time.

A Peek Behind the Curtain at Netflix

Peep these shots of one of Netflix’s distribution centers. Everybody wore their Netflix t-shirts for photo day!

Netflix to Drop In Captions for Streaming Content Next Year

Neflix has pledged to add closed captions and subtitles for it’s streaming titles, but the change wont happen until 2010. Details:

The largest U.S. rental service via mail will complete the process of creating text files that give customers the option of enacting captions on digital titles on devices using Microsoft’s Silverlight components sometime in 2010, Netflix chief product officer Neil Hunt said on the company’s community blog late last week. Hunt added that encoding a separate caption stream for each title is both cost- and bandwidth prohibitive.

“Captioning is in our development plans but is about a year away,” Hunt wrote on the blog.

Seems like a fundamental thing to include in your service, but then again I’ve never heard any complaints about it. However, over at Hacking Netflix they gleamed a little more information about why it has taken Netflix so long to add the feature:

“You might be asking how it could be so hard, since we already subtitle foreign language streams with English subtitles. These subtitles are “burned in” to the video stream at the time of encoding – they are so-called “open captions” that cannot be turned on and off by the viewer. The majority of viewers would object to English captions on English content, so we have to figure out how to let individual viewers turn them on and off.

Encoding a separate stream for each title is not an option – it takes us about 500 processor-months to make one encode through the entire library, and for this we would have to re-encode four different formats. Duplicating the encoded streams is prohibitive in space too.

So we are working on optionally delivering the SAMI file (Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange), or similar, to the client, and having it render the text and then overlay it on the video at playback time. Unfortunately, the tools for rendering SAMI files in Silverlight, or in CE (Consumer Electronics) devices, are weak or non-existent, and there is some technology development required.

Thanks VidBiz and Hacking Netflix.

One Step Closer: LG Ships LCD HDTVs with Netflix Built-In

LG has two new HDTV units that feature Netflix steaming capabilities. The units are the 47 inch LG 47LH50 LCD and the slicker LG 50PS80. Check it out:

LG Electronics said Thursday it has started shipping a pair of flat-panel TVs that are among the first with built-in capability to stream movies from the Netflix online service.

The 47-inch 47LH50 ($2,100 suggested retail) LCD TV and 50-inch plasma 50PS80 ($2,100), which were introduced at International CES, are FullHD 1080p models incorporating Netflix instant-streaming software. The software enables access to the Internet-based movie-rental content without the need of external devices, other than an in-home broadband network.

Two additional models with the feature — a 42-inch 42LH50 LCD TV ($1,700)and 60-inch 60PS80 plasma set ($3,200) — are slated to ship this summer, LG said.

The models include what LG calls NetCast Entertainment Access.

Now all we need is better broadband and access to all services, and we’re set for VOD take over. Thanks to Twice.

Netflix Now Streaming Through Windows Vista

Microsoft has teamed up with Netflix on a new Windows Vista feature dubbed “Netflix in Windows Media”. I’m sure most of you are thinking “well I can already dial into Netflix with my browser, why would I use this crap?” Well, Microsoft has their answer:

The Netflix feature is already available to computers users, via a standard Web browser. The advantage of accessing the feature through Windows Media Center application, according to Microsoft, is that “consumers no longer need to jump from Web site to Web site to find the TV shows, movies, sports and news they want to watch.”

In addition, Netflix in Windows Media Center is designed to work with any WMC-compatible remote control. The Netflix instant watching in Windows Media Center is powered by Microsoft’s Silverlight media-playback platform.

Netflix seems to be making great strides in separating itself from many of the VOD competitors, including iTunes and Amazon. Should be interesting to see what unfolds next. Cheers to Multichannel.

Netflix Doubles Down: Boosts 2009 Streaming Spending by 33%

Netflix will increase spending on the young video streaming operations this year, to the tune of 33% or $100 million clams. Clearly, Netflix can see the future.

Netflix will increase spending on its video-streaming operations this year by about a third, as the company widens its inventory of digital titles while likely arranging for more components to be able to play them on TVs, according to an analyst’s report released yesterday.

[...]

Netflix, which doesn’t disclose what it spends on streaming operations, has been augmenting its by-mail service with its video-streaming product. The company has reached agreements to make its digital titles available for streaming through components such as Microsoft’s Xbox 360 videogame console, TiVo digital video recorders and Blu-ray Disc players from Samsung and LG Electronics.

Netflix, which has estimated that subscribers for its DVD delivery service will peak between 2013 and 2018, pegs its digital inventory at more than 12,000 titles, though blog HackingNetflix.com said today that the number might be closer to 15,000.

Netflix said in late February that it’s likely to add a video-streaming-only option for subscribers as it shifts more of its resources toward digital content delivery, though it hasn’t given a timeframe for such an option.

As the costs come down and the library widens, Netflix may be poised to take the lead in the furious race to the finish line for the big players in VOD right now. Full story on Video Biz.