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Will Netflix Make You Choose Or Cancel?

// July 12th, 2011 // 1 Comment » // technology

Today, Netflix unveiled new plans that will be pushed to all customers as of September 1. Today, I pay $9.99/month and get 1 DVD home at a time with unlimited access to Netflix’s streaming library. It’s admittedly a great bargain, but the new plans are pretty radical.

Effective September 1st, I have the option of choosing 1 DVD at home at a time, OR unlimited streaming for $7.99/month, a savings of $2/month. However, if I want to continue my current plan with both features, I have to pay that $7.99/month twice, for a total of $15.98. That’s a monthly increase of $6/month for the exact same level of service that I’m currently enjoying.

The really tragic thing about this is that Netflix obviously thinks their streaming selection is worth the same amount of money as their DVD selection. I’ve been a subscriber for years and I can tell you for a fact that it’s not. Their streaming selection currently consists of mostly older flicks, along with a bunch of movies from smaller studios. It’s great when you’re looking for something new and random to watch, but it’s nowhere near a stand-alone service.

Of course, Netflix could surprise us all with some heavy content announcements in the next month and a half…..but I’m doubtful.

I’m still debating, but I’m fairly certain we will be dropping the DVD part of our plan and will stick with just the streaming. I know that sounds like going against the previous paragraph, but the streaming plan gives me access on mobile devices, which is where we watch 95% of our content nowadays. Reading various reactions around the internet today, it seems Netflix has a large contingency of customers who are threatening to quit entirely.

Two years ago, if you wanted movies, Netflix was it. Today, though, you can download movies pretty much anywhere. Google just pushed out an update to the Android Market that will offer movies, while HTC has its Watch app, Samsung has a movie service, and even Blockbuster is still around in the streaming world.

I know many of my readers are Netflix subscribers, so I’m interested to know: what will you do? Will you keep DVDs, keep streaming, keep both, or cancel altogether?

Why Is Netflix So Anti-Social?

// June 21st, 2011 // 7 Comments » // annoying, Social Networks

I’ve been a Netflix subscriber since September of 2008 – that’s nearly 3 years – and I’m a heavy user of the service. I actually use the streaming feature more, but I do the DVDs occasionally, as well (I’m horrible at remembering to return them). Thus far, I’ve rated over 200 movies, and I’ve spent quite a while telling the service my preferences, using the handy (if not a bit limiting) ‘Never, Sometimes, Often’ rating scoring system. I really thoroughly enjoy testing Netflix’s ability to recommend movies that I’ll really enjoy, so I use that feature the most.

Unfortunately, there’s one thing that Netflix absolutely sucks at – being social. By that I mean that the service makes no attempt whatsoever to allow me to connect to my friends. There is some rudimentary Facebook support, but it’s only used (as best I could tell) to share my ratings. It’s not enough, and it limits the fun of the service, especially in bringing the community feeling back to movies.

How Could Netflix Be More Social?

For starters, Netflix could offer me the ability to find friends of mine who are also using Netflix. Many other online services make it easy for me to connect my Google, Twitter, or Facebook accounts to see if I’ve already connected with someone there, and then let me add that person as a contact on the service. This is a great feature that I often use to quickly build a contact list on a new service.

There are a handful of reasons I might want to connect with others on a movie service such as Netflix. For starters, I’d like to see what movies my friends are watching, as well as what rating they gave the movie. Clearly if 5 of my friends watched a movie and all rated it 2 stars, I’d rather avoid that film, even if it would otherwise match my preferences or viewing habits. Likewise, if several of my friends gave a movie a 5 star rating, but the movie didn’t really match my preferences or viewing habits, I might like to check it out, since so many of my friends liked it.

With an established buddy list in Netflix, I could also recommend movies to my friends individually – services like GetGlue and GoMiso already allow me to ‘check-in’ to various media – such as a movie – and a contact list in Netflix could offer me a similar experience. With Netflix’s Stream Instantly service, I could be offered the chance to share my movie selection to Facebook/Twitter/etc. either at the beginning of the movie or at the end with just a click of the remote.

As it stands, Netflix is a complete island. The movies that it recommends are solely based on me and my past history. While this often results in some good recommendations, it’s entirely limited.

Cutting The Cord

// May 19th, 2011 // 2 Comments » // technology

A few weeks ago, shortly after Hulu Plus came to the Xbox, I called AT&T and had them disconnect the TV portion of my U-verse account with them. I’ve been a U-verse subscriber for a long time, but was paying nearly $90/month for the service, with the U200 package, two DVRs, and one HD receiver.

My video solution now includes my Xbox, which offers Hulu Plus and Netflix access. I went from paying $90/month to paying $24/month ($15.99 for Netflix 2-disc account and $8 for Hulu Plus). So, I’ve got an extra $90 in my pocket each month, but what did I lose?

The biggest thing that I’ve lost is the ability to watch shows as they air, or shortly thereafter. We only have a few TV shows that we watch (Modern Family, Cougar Town, Family Guy, etc), and had somewhat gotten comfortable with when they came on, so that we would watch them within an hour of the original air date. Hulu Plus gets these shows within 24 hours, so we’ve had to adjust a bit.

The only other loss we’ve really suffered is sports, which neither Christina nor myself are into. We also get left out of some conversations with friends about TV moments that might have happened the evening before, but a quick search on YouTube usually gets us up to speed.

The biggest caveat that we have yet to encounter is AT&T’s new data caps. Our data plan will eventually have a 250GB/month limit placed on it, with fees imposed for going over. As it stands, AT&T is apparently still building the tool to measure this (when I tried to look it up, I landed at a page showing this message:

Of course, streaming all of my video through Netflix and Hulu Plus will push that 250GB limit, so this is a wildcard in my solution.

Have you cut the cord? If so, how’s it working out for you? If not, what’s holding you back?

Movie Services Are Missing The Boat

// October 10th, 2010 // No Comments » // technology

I wouldn’t say I’m a movie buff by any stretch of the imagination, but I do love watching movies, and I watch them all the time. I try to keep up with new releases and such, but it’s difficult. I’m a current Netflix subscriber, and I’ve used IMDB for years. Since I got my Nexus One, I like to lay in bed at night and watch movie trailers for upcoming films on Flixster – it’s a great way to pass some time without committing to an entire TV show or movie, and it keeps me up-to-date on what’s coming to the theatre soon.

Unfortunately, delivering movie trailers is where both Flixster and IMDB have stopped. I believe Flixster has a way for me to save movies to an ‘I want to see this’ list, but that’s only a partial step in the right direction. None of the services thus far have a way for me to be reminded when a movie is actually released in theatres or on DVD. Here’s what I’d like to see:

1. Get Me To The Theatre – I’d like to be able to watch a movie trailer, and then have the option to add the film to my calendar (Google, preferably) so that I get a pop-up notification a week or so before the movie opens in theatres. Since trailers tend to come available months, sometimes a year or more before the movie opens, this would be a great way for Flixster and IMDB to bring me back to their service – the calendar alert might include a link to look up showtimes or buy tickets online or invite my friends to setup a movie night.

2. Get me To Rent The DVD – I’d also like to see Netflix join the fun by tying into either Flixster or IMDB to see what movies I added to my ‘in theatres’ calendar and give me the option to add yet another alert to notify me when the DVD is released, so I can add it to my Netflix queue easily (and be reminded so I can re-arrange my Netflix queue if necessary). This could also have an option to tell my friends so I could organize a movie night.

Unfortunately, as best as I can find, none of this stuff is easily accomplished today. I haven’t had a chance to really explore to see if it’s even feasible, but I shouldn’t have to. Somewhere along the line, the whole movie experience failed to keep up with the mobile and social Internet that’s woven into our lives. Technology should enrich and enable our real lives, and that’s something that no one in the movie industry is doing, at the moment. Who’ll step up?

Droid Doesn’t Do Video Streaming

// September 13th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // android

Since getting my Nexus One, I’ve been exploring various things I can do with the phone. Some, like music, are awesome experiences. Other experiences, like phontography, kinda suck. I’ve also noticed that video streaming – trying to enjoy video content streamed over either WiFi or cellular networks, is just as bad.

Sure, Android has a decent YouTube application baked right into the operating system. Unfortunately, it’s YouTube. The problem I have with YouTube is that it’s poorly managed. While that allows Google to skate around DMCA issues, it also results in a really messy site. Try searching for a music video by your favorite artist or other popular video clip. Odds are, you’ll get hundreds, if not thousands of results. Some of those results are quality copies, others might be edited (or ‘remixed’) by the uploader, might have alternative lyrics added, or will otherwise be a poor copy of the original.

Worse yet, YouTube is typically not the first choice of creative folks who are producing quality content. It’s more like the MySpace of video sharing sites – lots of junk videos by 16-year-olds who want to be video stars. YouTube also has this annoying practice of not making all their videos available through the mobile app – forcing you to choose between the app’s phone-friendly interface and the desktop site’s superior video selection.

The real quality stuff is usually found elsewhere, such as on Vimeo. Fortunately, Vimeo’s videos – including those in HD – play really well on my Nexus One. In fact, the overall experience, in my opinion, is much better than YouTube. Unfortunately, Vimeo’s ‘mobile’ site only gives access to the featured videos – if you want to browse through channels or groups or anything, you have to switch to the desktop site.

For those wondering about my aversion to ‘desktop’ sites on my phone, you can read more about why Consumers Don’t Want To Browse Desktop Websites On Their Phones.

There also seems to be a severe lack of video streaming applications for Android devices. Hulu Plus is only available on the iPhone at the moment, while the Netflix app is only on the iPad, for now. SPBtv is available, but only for off-the-wall channels – few that I’d want to watch. There’s a TV.com application, but most of its full episodes are only available over a WiFi connection – are you kidding me?

Browsing the Android market doesn’t seem to yield any independent developer making any waves, either. Surely Android is a good platform for something other than web browsing and music consumption, right? Have I missed something? Is there some super secret awesome video streaming or video playback app for my Nexus One that I’ve somehow missed out on? It’s not like Android-owners don’t have unlimited data – unless you’ve purchased an Android device from AT&T in the past month or two, in the U.S. at least, I know you have unlimited data – why can’t we use it?

Even for locally-stored videos, Brad Linder at ZatzNotFunny.com has done some explorations and only found two decent video players for the Android platform. You’ve got to be kidding me!

Droid Doesn’t Do Video Streaming

// September 13th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // android

Since getting my Nexus One, I’ve been exploring various things I can do with the phone. Some, like music, are awesome experiences. Other experiences, like phontography, kinda suck. I’ve also noticed that video streaming – trying to enjoy video content streamed over either WiFi or cellular networks, is just as bad.

Sure, Android has a decent YouTube application baked right into the operating system. Unfortunately, it’s YouTube. The problem I have with YouTube is that it’s poorly managed. While that allows Google to skate around DMCA issues, it also results in a really messy site. Try searching for a music video by your favorite artist or other popular video clip. Odds are, you’ll get hundreds, if not thousands of results. Some of those results are quality copies, others might be edited (or ‘remixed’) by the uploader, might have alternative lyrics added, or will otherwise be a poor copy of the original.

Worse yet, YouTube is typically not the first choice of creative folks who are producing quality content. It’s more like the MySpace of video sharing sites – lots of junk videos by 16-year-olds who want to be video stars. YouTube also has this annoying practice of not making all their videos available through the mobile app – forcing you to choose between the app’s phone-friendly interface and the desktop site’s superior video selection.

The real quality stuff is usually found elsewhere, such as on Vimeo. Fortunately, Vimeo’s videos – including those in HD – play really well on my Nexus One. In fact, the overall experience, in my opinion, is much better than YouTube. Unfortunately, Vimeo’s ‘mobile’ site only gives access to the featured videos – if you want to browse through channels or groups or anything, you have to switch to the desktop site.

For those wondering about my aversion to ‘desktop’ sites on my phone, you can read more about why Consumers Don’t Want To Browse Desktop Websites On Their Phones.

There also seems to be a severe lack of video streaming applications for Android devices. Hulu Plus is only available on the iPhone at the moment, while the Netflix app is only on the iPad, for now. SPBtv is available, but only for off-the-wall channels – few that I’d want to watch. There’s a TV.com application, but most of its full episodes are only available over a WiFi connection – are you kidding me?

Browsing the Android market doesn’t seem to yield any independent developer making any waves, either. Surely Android is a good platform for something other than web browsing and music consumption, right? Have I missed something? Is there some super secret awesome video streaming or video playback app for my Nexus One that I’ve somehow missed out on? It’s not like Android-owners don’t have unlimited data – unless you’ve purchased an Android device from AT&T in the past month or two, in the U.S. at least, I know you have unlimited data – why can’t we use it?

Even for locally-stored videos, Brad Linder at ZatzNotFunny.com has done some explorations and only found two decent video players for the Android platform. You’ve got to be kidding me!

My Home Theatre PC Doesn’t Know Me

// March 5th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // technology, toys

When I finally purchased a big-screen TV for our house, I was thrilled to hook it up to our media center, to have large-screen access to all of our movies, music, photos, and streaming content such as Netflix. I use Windows Media Center because it’s the easiest to setup and manage, especially since every other computer in our house is also running Windows 7. Lately, I also found these two awesome plugins to allow me to access Boxee and Hulu Desktop straight from Windows Media Center with my remote.

Unfortunately, the addition of these two plugins also proved how impersonal my Home Theatre PC (HTPC) really is. You see, Boxee, Hulu, and even Netflix all create a custom profile for each of their users. This profile is built by tracking the content that you watch, and you can get recommendations based on your past viewing history as well as share your viewing habits with your friends to have a better experience.

In our house, there are only two of us – Mrs. Guru and me. As you might expect, we both have vastly different tastes in movie, tv shows, and music. There are also situations when we agree on things, and we often watch movies together. Unfortunately, our HTPC doesn’t know that – as far as it is concerned, there is only one extremely eccentric user in the house, and that’s where the experience fails.

I would like to be able to setup profiles for each user – it’d be a bit of a hassle to begin with, but no more than the rest of the initial setup process. After that, it should be pretty seamless. When choosing something to watch, I would ideally get a quick pop-up, asking who I am, or who’s in the room. I could then – using the Media Center remote – simply choose my own profile, and then the content would begin playing. There could even be a group option, for those movies that Mrs. Guru and I enjoy together.

With this setup, our own viewing habits would be channeled to our own profiles, easily, with no muss or fuss. More importantly, it’s something that Mrs. Guru could do on her own, too. Of course, this is only a software solution, and would be the easiest to implement to existing setups. In the future, things could get even cooler, with facial recognition (though admittedly, that’s a bit creepy) or perhaps shortcut buttons on the remote itself.

I know that both Boxee and Hulu Desktop let you have multiple user accounts setup, but there’s not really an easy way to switch between them, that I’ve discovered. It needs to be easy enough for my wife to do it, but ‘in your face’ enough that we don’t forget to do it, too. Do you have multiple people using the same HTPC? What’s your solution?

My Home Theatre PC Doesn’t Know Me

// March 5th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // technology, toys

When I finally purchased a big-screen TV for our house, I was thrilled to hook it up to our media center, to have large-screen access to all of our movies, music, photos, and streaming content such as Netflix. I use Windows Media Center because it’s the easiest to setup and manage, especially since every other computer in our house is also running Windows 7. Lately, I also found these two awesome plugins to allow me to access Boxee and Hulu Desktop straight from Windows Media Center with my remote.

Unfortunately, the addition of these two plugins also proved how impersonal my Home Theatre PC (HTPC) really is. You see, Boxee, Hulu, and even Netflix all create a custom profile for each of their users. This profile is built by tracking the content that you watch, and you can get recommendations based on your past viewing history as well as share your viewing habits with your friends to have a better experience.

In our house, there are only two of us – Mrs. Guru and me. As you might expect, we both have vastly different tastes in movie, tv shows, and music. There are also situations when we agree on things, and we often watch movies together. Unfortunately, our HTPC doesn’t know that – as far as it is concerned, there is only one extremely eccentric user in the house, and that’s where the experience fails.

I would like to be able to setup profiles for each user – it’d be a bit of a hassle to begin with, but no more than the rest of the initial setup process. After that, it should be pretty seamless. When choosing something to watch, I would ideally get a quick pop-up, asking who I am, or who’s in the room. I could then – using the Media Center remote – simply choose my own profile, and then the content would begin playing. There could even be a group option, for those movies that Mrs. Guru and I enjoy together.

With this setup, our own viewing habits would be channeled to our own profiles, easily, with no muss or fuss. More importantly, it’s something that Mrs. Guru could do on her own, too. Of course, this is only a software solution, and would be the easiest to implement to existing setups. In the future, things could get even cooler, with facial recognition (though admittedly, that’s a bit creepy) or perhaps shortcut buttons on the remote itself.

I know that both Boxee and Hulu Desktop let you have multiple user accounts setup, but there’s not really an easy way to switch between them, that I’ve discovered. It needs to be easy enough for my wife to do it, but ‘in your face’ enough that we don’t forget to do it, too. Do you have multiple people using the same HTPC? What’s your solution?

Movie Theatres Must Innovate In 2009

// January 2nd, 2009 // 3 Comments » // annoying

I’m sure I’m not the first person to predict the demise of the traditional movie theatre, and I’m sure they won’t completely go away in the near future. However, I am seeing a big trend of consumers who are going to the movie theatre less and less, and I’m joining them.

This Christmas, my dad purchased a new, massive, flat-panel TV. I’ve no idea what size, exactly, but it’s a good sized one. He’s already got a surround sound system, and now has his laptop hooked up via HDMI cable, and is setting up a Netflix account. The only parts that I suggested was the HDMI cable and the Netflix. The rest he did on his own. He’s built his own home theatre. My parents also don’t have cable TV, and probably never will.

Flat-panel TV prices are dropping, and they stand to drop a bit more. At the same time, home broadband connections are getting faster, and consumers are getting smart. If the movie theatre companies were smart, they would be looking to help consumers make this transition even easier.

I went to the movies last night, and saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Terrible movie, it’s basically 3 hours of nothing happening. It cost me and Mrs. Guru $17.50 to see the movie. It was advertised to start at 6:50pm, but the actual movie did not begin until 7:11pm (I kept track). That’s 21 minutes of not just trailers for other movies, but 2 features on the same TNT show, a few other cable network plugs, 2 reminders to turn my phone on silent, and 3-4 other miscellaneous commercials.

I also recently had the opportunity to watch my first movie in Blu-Ray, on a new TV designed to take advantage of the visual superiority. The quality was miles beyond what you see in the theatre, and I could pause/rewind the movie. Home theatres also eliminate ads and the opportunity for someone else’s phone or baby to ruin my movie. Today’s movie theatre projectors simply aren’t designed to take advantage of newer high-definition technology, and I really can’t see the benefit to going to the movie theatre anymore.

It’s interesting that such a perceived social activity as going to the movie theatre is being isolated back to the home, and in a more enjoyable way. I say perceived because you’re not supposed to talk, so you might as well be sitting there alone.

What can the movie theatres do? They need to figure out a way to partner with Netflix and other home theatre-related companies to somehow generate revenue from home viewers. I know I won’t be going back to a regular movie theatre – voluntarily – for a long, long while.

I Don’t Have A TV

// November 18th, 2008 // No Comments » // cool

The only TV that I have in my house is a small 21″ tube TV, you know, the old kind with the *massive* back that makes finding a place for it a big pain. This TV is actually in my office, we don’t even have one in our livingroom, and don’t really see a big need for it. However, I watch HOURS of tv and movies. How do I do this?

It’s easy, thanks to the internet. 99% of the media that Mrs. Guru and I consume is done on our laptops, which we can easily carry from the office to the livingroom to the bedroom. While we’re also Netflix subscribers, we both utilize a number of different tools online to legally consume video.

First up, my personal favorite is Hulu. There’s not too big of a backlog on there, but new episodes of Family Guy are posted regularly, as well as King of the Hill and a bevy of TV shows that we don’t watch. Sure, there’s a few commercials here and there, but I rarely encounter any buffering.

I also recently got an invite to Boxee, and have been using it on my Ubuntu laptop (as the Windows client isn’t available yet). This media center application allows you to easily browse local media, but also internet media, such as Hulu, CBS.com, and a pocketful of other online video locations, all in one place. It’s really rather brilliant.

What’s more, when we *do* buy a new TV, I’m 100% convinced of the benefits of just plugging a spare computer into it to use as a media center, rather than a cable box with a hefty monthly fee. There’s really no need for cable subscriptions anymore, unless you watch odd shows, or just like to channel surf. Thus far, for the $14/month of our Netflix subscription and the price of high-speed internet (which I would have anyways, thanks to my job), we can consume all the TV and movies that we want, on any computer in the house. It’s really rather brilliant, and something that I’m glad to see finally happening.