TiVo and Netflix Hook Up 148
thejoelpatrol writes "It's official. After denying that such a deal was in the works, TiVo and Netflix have finalized a deal to let TiVo subscribers download movies over their broadband connections. Several such services have sprung up recently, but none has the name recognition of either of these beloved entertainment-technology companies."
I'll try it (Score:5, Insightful)
The Key Quote" Secure This Content" (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is a clue, if I can view it then it is not secure nor will it ever be secure enough.
DRM is the crazy idea of giving me the content, and also the key to view it, but though obfuscation somehow hide the decrypt process. It won't work in the long run [dashes.com].
Re:Couple of things. (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, if you run out of room you can always hack your TiVo.
Re:The Register has a little more info (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'll try it (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a benefit, though. With your current Netflix subscription, you lose movie time when you drop your viewed movie in the mail and wait for another one to come back to you. Plus, the movie that's next in your queue may not be available, and you may have to settle.
With the broadband delivery, there's less turnaround time, and the movie you want is always available. You don't have to worry about movies getting lost in the mail (which happened four separate times to me, and they billed me for all four when I cancelled.)
On Netflix's side, I bet they'd be thrilled, because their costs would go down. Less shipping costs, less printing costs, no more paying people to sort incoming DVD's, etc. If they can cut their own costs while increasing services to the consumer, they might not raise prices anyway, and still raise profits.
Re:Physical Medium (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Physical Medium (Score:1, Insightful)
This will last just long enough (Score:2, Insightful)
So its a nice idea but it will not last longer then 4 weeks till its cracked and ppl are back to buying plastic disks...
Re:Physical Medium (Score:3, Insightful)
I must be getting old. No, I don't remember that because I don't think my grandmother was ever aware of DVD technology. What I remember is when my grandparents bought this new fangled VCR and couldn't even manage to
Tivo/Netflix =! iTunes parallel: Burn to disk (Score:3, Insightful)
A Tivo may be a nice, reliable bit of kit but ultimately, its a hard drive and as such will eventually fail or be upgraded. If this service locks the media file to the tivo unit - as it certainly will do - then it is more illiberal than iTunes.
Services of this sort really need to recognise that the licence to play the file has passed to the purchaser by allowing backup of the file to unprotected physical media. I love the idea and the convenience but I won't buy into these services until they offer me the kind of long-term security that the uneven pile of DVD cases by my TV offers. If I can play the movie on my PC over a network connection, in a player of my choice, even better.
Until then, DRM encumbers my usage and I take my right as a consumer not to buy, as I may wish to take my DVDs to a friends house to watch them but I draw the line at lugging my Tivo around.
Re:This will last just long enough (Score:5, Insightful)
As proof of that, note that you can easily get DVD rips right now. So what's the point of cracking the TIVO system? And even if it is cracked, it seems highly likely that each movie would be digitally watermarked with your account number, TIVO box and other incriminating info. So releasing it out onto the P2P networks seems like a very foolhardy thing to do.
The only benefit from a cracked system is perhaps you could build your own personal jukebox of movies. Again, it's not like you can't do that already so I wonder what the point is.
Frictionless economy. (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't --well at least not without resorting to sunday school guilt tactics that might sound nice in an on-line forum but don't do shit in the real world where the average person is far too cynical. So you can't convince the consumer that it's wrong to redistribute. The only thing you can do is play the DRM game, but obviously encryption is worthless when you're sending your precious "secret" to an audiance that has no interest in preserving the secret.
Asking the consumer to pay for the bandwidth AND the content simply will not work. A more likely business model is an ISP offering free movies to keep subscribers --and considering it an honor!
Digital content is worth the cheapest media it can be printed on and I just bought a stack of DVD+Rs 4Xs for 16cents a piece. No shit.
Hurts the MS DRM strategy? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, it appears that it is simply going to be easier to sell such content services through hardware specifically created for such purposes and not through modified pcs. Not even MS was able to get the PC industry to do a 180 (go from general to specialized hardware by limiting the user's control) fast enough. And, ironically, the specialized hardware approach to content services is being propelled even more quickly by the economics that embedded Linux is making possible.
One might even get the feeling that an imaginary hand is leading Linux/Open Source to wider and wider adoption . .
Why the focus on digital delivery? (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, why couldn't my TiVo:
- Recommend movies for me based on my viewing ordering patterns
I could see what TiVo recommends and just order from my TiVo.
- Offer me the ability to order movies based that I'm currently watching
So I could see a movie commercial-free and uncut if I don't like the way the network has edited it or I don't like the pan and scan. Or recommend a movie related to what I'm currently watching.
- Let me search/browse the NetFlix database and order.
The TiVo has the capacity to keep a NetFlix inventory. Ordering from the TV seems more comfortable way to interact with NetFlix.
- Let me manage my NetFlix account
What movies to I have, how many more could I request, what I've ordered.
Re:The Key Quote" Secure This Content" (Score:5, Insightful)
Cable Companies and Bandwidth Abuse? (Score:5, Insightful)
I assume that the Tivo/netflix movies will be high quality and so probably won't be less than 4GB for a feature.
So in a house with 3 teens and 5 computers I wonder how hard it would be to reach this cap via 10+ movies per month, heavy MMPORPG usage, the new comcast video mail, etc
DirecTiVo (Score:4, Insightful)
Use NetFlix website? (Score:2, Insightful)
With low quality sound and video ?!?... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'll try it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'll try it (Score:3, Insightful)
Network bandwidth is cheap unless you are Cox, Adelphia, Time-Warner, etc. They may end up shutting people off for pulling down large movies on a regular basis.
I would suspect that with the MASSIVE amounts of bandwidth that NetFlix could end up pushing it would be in their best interested to peer directly with the large cable providers so that both parties can reduce their costs.
Re:Cable Companies and Bandwidth Abuse? (Score:3, Insightful)
The smart move if for the cable companies and Tivo/Flix to start peering so as to reduce their networking costs.
How about HD? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'll try it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:3, Insightful)
I for one have no plans to get digital cable any time soon. I'd rather not drop that much cash on TV. There are more important things. I personally already think I'm overpaying for standard cable...
This deal, however, appeals to me greatly, and I'm sure there are tons of people like me who are happy about this.
Re:Couple of things. (Score:3, Insightful)
And I would say that it is much harder to hack a Series 2 Tivo than it is to decrypt a stream on a DVD. DeCSS has been around for years, printed on t-shirts, and implemented in perl in a few lines of code. Series 2 Tivo's employ digital private/public key technology to make sure that the signed kernel isn't changed and that you can't install your own software. Also, they have announced plans for the new TivoToGo feature to allow you to export shows to your PC only by using a USB flash memory device with a private key on it. You know they are going to be at least as paranoid about not pissing off the MPAA with this feature.
About storage size, most Tivos these days have 60 or 80 GB of storage. That is plenty of room to store several movies. I'm sure you could fit a handful of movies even on a 40GB Tivo. Plus, this is Netflix, the DVD *rental* store. You are only expected to have 3 or 4 movies at one given time. This isn't about archiving movies forever. If you want to keep a movie, you buy the DVD for $20.
The time it takes to download a movie and the bandwidth it will take for Tivo and/or Netflix to provide movies to millions of people over the internet is a valid one. But these are real companies with real money to purchase large amounts of bandwidth. As long as you aren't on dialup, they will probably be able to deliver you a movie faster than the USPS can do it. And even if does take longer, at least you are still guaranteed to get the movie you want because there isn't a limit on the number of copies of a given movie.
Re:Cable Companies and Bandwidth Abuse? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'll try it (Score:2, Insightful)
A movie out is $25 bucks for me. Three/month * is $75.
But that ignores problems with Netflix. 1) the long latency time. 2) the fact that movies sit on my shelf for more than a month till I have time to watch them. 3) The number of times I've got 3 movies out that my daughter doesn't want to watch, but my daughter and I want to watch a movie.
Dynamic Netflix would allow me to jump around in the queue overnight. I could d/l the movies we want to watch when we want to watch them.
Well worth the $$ for me.
Re:I'll try it (Score:3, Insightful)