Netflix boss says DVD has two years left

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/152659

by mjfern • 17 years ago

25 32 17 years ago

tech.yahoo.com

dasil003• 17 years ago

This link is locking up Safari before it even loads. Can't even get the menu bar to activate. Works fine in Firefox. Anyone else experiencing this?

MikeCapone7• 17 years ago

Works fine in Safari 4.0.3 on OSX 10.6.1.

diN0bot• 17 years ago

i often wish i could stream books. if the kindle allowed me to check out from a digital library and return books, even with a very low monthly fee or very low price per book, that would be sweeeeeet.

schoudha2• 17 years ago

This break the economic model for books. It works with libraries because of limited quantity.

This could work if we had a fixed number of digital library books per a zip code.

frossie2• 17 years ago

Can you elaborate? Why do you need to fix the number of digital copies in a geographic area?

When we all went from using Blockbusters (=akin to library) to using Netflix (=akin to what is being proposed upthread), did it break the economic model for DVDs?

nwatson• 17 years ago

The "Northern California Digital Library" (http://califa.lib.overdrive.com) already loans out digital books (read with Adobe Digital Editions software) to patrons of many Northern California library branches. The system enforces limits on how many copies of any book can be checked out and so is just like a library. It's convenient but the selection is, for now, limited. I've found some good books there and really prefer this to going to the library.

And the DRM appears to just work. I don't mind this model for books, music (I'm a Napster-to-Go subscriber), and when the first viable stream-for-rent system for movies arrives I won't mind that either.

MikeCapone7• 17 years ago

Anyone has numbers on how much bandwidth (a range..) it takes to stream a movie in close-to-DVD quality?

I don't have personal experience with streaming from Netflix (I'm in Canada), so I'm not sure how they do it. But back of the envelope, I would assume that with a modern codec (f.ex. h.264) you could compress the average 2-hour movie to about 1.5 gig without losing too much quality. That's about 750 megs/hour, or about 210k/s. Certainly doable.

But if you want HD that's another story...

schoudha2• 17 years ago

5mbps, encoded at 720p, with a decent h264 decoder will far exceed DVD quality with audio and video. Apple TV is a good example of this.

10mbps will approach blu-ray.

joezydeco• 17 years ago

I'm curious what the satellite broadcasters are using for their HD streams. I've read anywhere from 8 to 10 mbps for a "good" stream (e.g. HBO), but since they encode variably I bet it cranks way down for other channels (like news channels or comedy central).

DarkShikari3• 17 years ago

The latest x264 can get away with about 800-1000kbps average bitrate for nearly-perfect rips of a DVD (and down to as low as 300-500kbps if you're willing to lose the film grain). Most web services are worse--since they don't use x264 (a large number still use ancient formats like FLV...). There are some exceptions: Vudu, for example, uses x264 and is able to get tolerable quality 1080p in 2.8mbps. But I personally wouldn't bother with that--at 2.8mbps your 1080p certainly won't have any more detail than 720p. Of course, most people don't notice this because most Blu-rays don't have more detail than 720p either.

Note that DVDs themselves are already highly lossy; most DVDs have been lowpassed before encoding, so they have significantly less detail than their resolution would suggest. This is rather unfortunate, as the tradition has stuck with Blu-ray, despite it being completely counterproductive when using a good H.264 encoder.

Broadcast is an even worse situation; most broadcast television is atrocious quality-wise. This is usually because of outdated technology (MPEG-2), highly-lossy transcoding to save bandwidth (Comcast is a huge offender here), or just plain absurd bandwidth restrictions (a major television station in Japan uses 4mbps H.264 for 1080i). Of course, this is all aggravated by the requirement of constant bitrate and short keyframe intervals for broadcast streams.

MikeCapone7• 17 years ago

> Note that DVDs themselves are already highly lossy; most DVDs have been lowpassed before encoding, so they have significantly less detail than their resolution would suggest. This is rather unfortunate, as the tradition has stuck with Blu-ray, despite it being completely counterproductive when using a good H.264 encoder.

Could you explain what you mean by "lowpassed"?

Any idea what keeps the adoption of modern x264 codecs? Are they expensive to license? Is it just inertia?

You just made me wonder how good things would look if they did it right... Do you think it would make a big difference to the untrained eye (you sound like someone in the video business)?

kierank• 17 years ago

I'd add use of 1080i compared to better alternatives like 720p to that list too.

frossie2• 17 years ago

Netflix themselves recommend 2 Mb/s for "DVD quality". That puts then into the "good home broadband" range.

(I get 1.5 Mb/s on my ADSL at home, but I am in a rural area)

dcurtis• 17 years ago

Netflix "DVD quality" is nowhere near true DVD quality. It also only steams stereo audio.

sachinag2• 17 years ago

If anyone knows a way to take the over on this, please let me know. Even if the claim is that DVD rental revenue will be streaming revenue just for Netflix, and it's not a general industry claim, I'm still taking the over. I can buy claims that actual streams may be higher, because the high utilization early adopters will stream more. But revenue? Overall userbase? General market? I laugh.

No, seriously, I'd like to do a two-year LEAP/long bet on this.

btn• 17 years ago

Why? It only took ~4 years for DVD to obliterate VHS, and even less time for DVD sales to exceed those for VHS [1]. Hastings doesn't say if the replacement for DVD will be BluRay or streaming, but I think rapid consumer uptake of new delivery technologies is a reasonable prediction to make.

[1] http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/gtp/wvprodretail.html

sachinag2• 17 years ago

If the studios are smart, it's Blu-ray. If they're not, it's streaming. BUT I'm willing to take the long bet and say DVDs last longer than two years, regardless.

If you are willing to take the other side, let's make a bet.

elq• 17 years ago

Reading comprehension for the win - "DVD will only be the "primary delivery format" at the company for the next two years, though he did add that it would stick around in some fashion for the next decade or two."

DanielBMarkham3• 17 years ago

So let's get this straight: consumers of movies are going from low-bitrate DVDs to BluRay and even 3-D TV in the future, and this guy is predicting consumers going for lower quality movies because the delivery mechanism is faster?

Hell if I know, but it sure looks like hardware manufacturers are making different bets looking at the same market. Perhaps NetFlix spins off into a low-end video-at-any-quality delivery service and another part of the market goes 3-D?

MikeCapone7• 17 years ago

I'm constantly surprised by how many people can't tell the difference between HD and standard DVD. I even know some people who don't really care if it's VHS or DVD (well, one girl at least).

Maybe their research shows that a big portion of people are fine with DVD quality, and that the others will just rent the blu-rays via mail while waiting for streaming HD?

DanielBMarkham3• 17 years ago

That's the thing of it -- obviously there is a market for "video at any speed" and a market for hi-fi/prosumers.

For instance, research has shown that more people actually like hacked-up, low-bandwidth mp3s over higher-quality ones. So perhaps this guy is thinking the video market goes the same direction? That the price for bits will always trend towards zero?

If so, this will be a major shift in the movie business -- as big as MP3 file-sharing was to the music industry.

jfarmer• 17 years ago

shrug

It's a bet either way and anecdotes are anecdotes, but Netflix has lots of data and personally this is how I behave.

I've dropped TV entirely for Hulu. What I can't get on Hulu I order from iTunes.

If every movie on Netflix were streaming, I'd watch it that way, even at a lower quality.

So, YMMV, maybe you're 100% the opposite and/or you know lots of people who care about 780p, 10455p, and whatever else. But I don't think I'm from Pluto, either.

From a strategic perspective I think he's right in the limit. Bandwidth is going to infinity. If consumers prefer timeliness to quality they'll put up with lower quality and wait for bandwidth to improve.

The end game is the same: high-res everything, instantly.

callmeed• 17 years ago

"this guy is predicting consumers going for lower quality movies because the delivery mechanism is faster?"

Isn't that what happened to music? (more or less)

InclinedPlane• 17 years ago

Yes. Instant streaming (or high-quality, lossy compression) is more important than HD. HD is worthwhile on a subset of material (do you really need the simpsons in 1080p?) while lowering the hurdles for watching any video media is valuable for almost everything (TV, movies, etc.)

According to the intertrons, a total of $750 million was spent on blu-ray discs in 2008 in the US. Netflix's instant streaming service alone brings in at least a 10th of that revenue if not more, and the library is still relatively small. More importantly, streaming is growing much faster than blu-ray adoption, so it's easy to see where these trends are headed.

chrischen• 17 years ago

As great as streaming is, there will always be the need for a sense of ownership, or paying for digital content will be dead too. Streaming works because it seems like you are paying for the stream. But I don't think this is the replacement for DVDs, since physical media adds value and sense of ownership to digital content so that people may feel justified towards paying for a digital copy. Streaming is a great way to watch most movies but what about the movie you are a die hard fan? Blu rays are basically DVDs, but they still don't solve the issue of price, instant gratification, and versatility (since it's still hard to find bluray players everywhere).

I think digital downloads may be a possible solution. While it may not be physical, a download might provide sense of ownership, especially if it is not DRMd, and it certainly can provde instant gratification. So it could be the counterpart to streaming for those die hard fans that want their own copy. Maybe supplement it with a bluray disc that comes in the mail and you're set.

zandorg• 17 years ago

My old laptop isn't fast enough to play newer video formats, so I need DVDs.

Netflix boss says DVD has two years left

Related Stories