This news may not be a surprise, given the huge success of Netflix's Watch Instantly streaming service, which had been activated over
1 million times on Xbox Live the last time we checked -- accounting for about 10 percent of its subscriptions. Regardless, word has come from Netflix's CFO Barry McCarthy that the company plans to offer a streaming-only service "in the near future." The Watch Instantly service currently offers about 12,000 movies (around 100,000 titles are available if you order the physical discs), on a variety of devices, including
Xbox Live and
Roku boxes, so it seems like a smart move, though we don't know the timeline or pricing of the stream-only service. Here's to hoping they expand their offering a little before then... maybe
Final Destination? Just a suggestion.
[Via
Joystiq]
posted Feb 25th 2009 8:38PM
I can't wait for portable devices to support this. I would totally buy in then.
bring it on! asap!
They would need to seriously expand the library if they do this, such as actually including new movies.
They would also need to seriously expand their network capacity. I jumped on Netflix streaming as soon as it was available for the Mac (without jumping through hoops). I've noticed a steady decline in the quality of the streams. There are now a lot more bumps, hiccups, playing of the audio only while the video catches up, etc. I don't have problems with any other site.
As a "free" part of their main service, they can get away with this. If someone is paying solely for streaming though, they can't.
Completely agree Matt, the selection now is horrrrible, with the "newest" movie being 21!
The selection is horrible, but even when that is changed, the quality is not ready for prime-time.
Nearly every of the Starz package are far too grainy to watch, and even the others are never good enough for me to switch to streaming only. Especially for HD!
Uhm, I completely disagree. First, the quality is very watchable, around the quality of a DVD. Second, I don't think there are many, if ANY movies in HD on Netflix. Lots of TV shows and some indy films...but I don't think any features. The HD streams for things like Heroes are VERY nice (not quite Blu-ray quality, but still very nice).
I will totally buy into this, but everyone is right, they are being rightfully-criticized for their limited selection. That's ok when it's a free add-on service, but if people are paying exclusively for it...that needs to change (I think it will though).
When is this available for the U.K.? Im bored of swapping dvd's like pokemon cards. I want steaming...
There already is a starz play only plan om Netflix
" Starz Play Only (no DVDs)
Only includes access to Starz Play and live Starz Play TV channel.
No DVD rentals are included. Unlimited streaming of Starz Play for a flat monthly fee of $7.99."
Forget Final Destination, I'll sign up when they stream Battlestar Galactica!
sony owns blue ray and sony pictures, they dont want to lose sales on blue ray so they wont sign over rights to so many films. I have been using netflix with my windows media center and have some good and bad experiences with it. I have realized that alot of the shit they have sucks. But if one searches for the movie they want, it is most likely available to stream. Give them time, they have been growing very rapidly on top of this degrading economy. They will have the capital very soon to buy rights to good movies.
Nice TV you got there
Hmm.
I wonder what the price will be! I rent movies exclusively on my Apple TV, but it's hard for me to fork over much money for an older non-new release.
I'd be tempted to pay for a service that gives me on-demand access to older movies and TV shows for a monthly fee.
I sort of hoped that's the direction Apple would go, but I may also be supporting a different vendor if Netflix raises the bar on movie subscriptions.
just wondering why is it that there arent as many movies available for release on steaming? why are none of the new releases streamable?
Basically, the contracts for these things were written up before people were thinking much about streaming and we have to wait for them to expire in order to get a new deal. At least that's what Netflix is claiming.
I don't know about you guys but I'm pretty disappointed by Netflix's streaming through Xbox. Initially, I was excited about this since A) I was a Netflix subscriber and B) a Xbox Live customer. however, as it's already stated, their selection is very poor and the video quality can be pretty bad.
I instantly watched a movie a few weeks ago and the video was so bad, I walked up to my 46" Sony HDTV to see what the heck was going on. I stopped the movie. Yikes. Granted another movie I watched was better but would classify it as only view-able at best.
I'm so disappointed by Netflix's video quality and selection of New Releases, I'm checking out other vendors, most notably Vudu since of it's high Blu-Ray like video quality.
I've had the exact opposite experience. Maybe it was because my expectations were really low, but when I started streaming NetFlix via the XBox I was really impressed with the video quality (just a notch below DVD).
I wonder if distance to wireless router makes a difference? Mine is only 10 to 12 feet away. So the signal is always strong.
Granted I wish the streaming movie selection was better and that the XBox fans were quieter. But as far as the video goes, I'm very impressed.
This best not raise the price of normal rentals.`
You can already get starz streaming for 7.99 with no DVDs.
I hope Sony is paying attention…previously when asked if they were considering a subscription based movie rental system they replied "our customers want to own their media"…well 1mm netflix streaming activations later and that argument no longer holds water. Just another example of media companies confusing audio and video ownership habits; for music people prefer to own but for video an "on-demand" type service is preferred since most people only watch a movie or TV show once while they'll listen to a song over and over…