TiVo and Netflix Hook Up

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."

Protecting content

[erick99]

The companies are planning to work together on technology that will secure this content, she said.

This is no small undertaking. I've gotta believe the MPAA and other interested bodies will be up Tivo/Netflix collective arses about piracy. It will be very interesting to see how long it takes to make the MPAA & company feel safe....

Couple of things.

[Eeknay]

First, we have the inevitable piracy argument, that you can rip the movie fairly easily to a computer for all others to see, especially since there's no protection like a DVD could possible give.

Second, what about all those different versions of movies? Will they offer, for example, the Return of the King Theatrical *and* EE version? The primary concern here is both the time it takes to download, since many people have varying speeds of connection, and whether or not TiVo/Netflix can keep up with demand from thousands (millions?) of customers all wanting the same movie when it just gets released.

And in regards to length of movies, what about storage capacity on the TiVo? Won't it fill up awfully quickly given a certain amount of movies downloaded rather than purchased on DVD?

Physical Medium

[F7F7NoYes]

The deal with TiVo will give Netflix an alternative distribution strategy, Devar said. The company believes DVDs will continue to be the dominant medium for movies over the next few years, but the deal with TiVo gives Netflix a start down the road toward the delivery of movies over the Internet, she said.

I work in the rental industry, In my opinion the masses still like tangible goods. While the DVD is dominant now, another physical delivery method will replace them, not delivery over the internet. It would work for a few demographics but even my grandmother owns a DVD player. She will not be getting this service however.

Interested To See Microsoft's Reply

[BRock97]

Chalk up another weapon in Tivo's arsenal for living room domination. One of the final strokes would be for them to make the Tivo the centralized media portal in the house with the ability to run clients on PCs, other TV's, and maybe even the Playstation 2, precisely what Microsoft is doing with Media Center Edition and the Xbox. For Tivo's sake, I hope they play this correctly as it has the possiblity to either make or break the company.

I do wonder, though, if we won't see a similar announcement from Microsoft in the near future. After all, wouldn't a service like this fit perfectly into their growing living room plans? I would think so.

For me, I would love to have this type of functionality from Tivo. The ability to not only stream shows that you have recorded, but movies that you have downloaded from Netflix to any client would probably make me invest in a Tivo setup.

Whoa!

[mcc]

Wait, this is a pretty big deal, isn't it? This is basically the fabled iTunes Music Store for Video.

I mean, yeah, there have been net video stores before, but none of them seemed terribly serious, all of them lacked a focus on appealing to traditional consumer rather than (well) people like us, and none of them possessed any pleasant sort of integration with more traditional video technology not based entirely on a computer-- all very much, interestingly, like the net music stores that existed before the iTunes Music Store...

This has the potential to become a big deal and resecure the position as "the PVR" Tivo once had...

Distributed downloads

[Anonymous Coward]

Tivo could easily create a distibuted download system. A great model would be to give users a discount on their bill if they agree to provide a portion of their bandwidth for sharing the movies. The P2P work has already been done it would be trivial to extend the Tivo OS to serve movies on a P2P network of other subscribers. Of course you'd have to have logic built in so the user was not affected by another user accessing a portion of a movie from their harddrive. All trivial I think.

Re:The Key Quote" Secure This Content"

[MindStalker]

Well the tivo2 is a bit harder to hack, but not impossible. Either way yes, its not totally secure, I heard somewhere something about how tivo is changing their new boxes, or possibly upgrading series2, to make it so pay-per-view movies and other broadcast-flagged content will automatially dissapear after 3 days, but still be recorded. Personally I see this as a reasonable comprimise. The new netflix movies will probably autodelete themselves after you turn them in in order to download new movies. Hopefully it won't delete untill you have fully downloaded and started to watch the newest movies so there isn't the time lag between turning them in and watching the newest ones.

Oh Man...

[Omicron]

This is gonna push me over the edge. I've resisted buying a TiVo so far...and I've tried out NetFlix, but I don't like the slow mailing times to receive a movie...I'm more of an instant gratification kind of guy.

This combination could be dangerous for someone like me :)

Re:I'll try it

[Anonymous Coward]

With the broadband delivery...the movie you want is always available

Is it really? I doubt the movie industry will let them get away with unlimited distribution of movies. I'm sure they are going to have to purchase a fixed number of licenses for simultaneous distribution. Once they reach that limit, the movie is out of stock until someone erases it from their TiVo. Of course, because it's on TiVo and not mailed, you will get a faster turnaround time, so the movie will be back in stock quicker (assuming the faster turnaround time doesn't mean netflix will order fewer licenses).

Re:Couple of things.

[tdemark]

First, we have the inevitable piracy argument, that you can rip the movie fairly easily to a computer for all others to see, especially since there's no protection like a DVD could possible give.

Umm... how it is any different than Netflix today? I know people with Netflix accounts and all they do is order DVDs, copy them (removing Macrovision and Region in the process), and then send them back. These people have huge DVD collections and it really only cost them the media and a few months of Netflix.

- Tony

Re:Protecting content

[Anonymous Coward]

Companies need to get off their collective arses and start delivering moive-on-demand over broadband, or it will be worse for them in the long run.

The relatively new MPEG-4 format allows people to rip DVD video into pretty small files that have at least the same quality as an old VHS tape, if not a bit better. That means a two-hour movie can be compressed to about 300 megabytes, give or take with still a good quality picture and good sound.

The more widespread broadband connections get and the more advanced P2P technologies become the more that "movie" sharing will become as prevalent as "music" sharing. 300 megabyte files are easy to share from a broadband perspective, taking only 10-20 minutes on average as a torrent download (compared to hours for gigabyte DVD downloads).

Businesses like iTunes are finding it very difficult to compete in the online-music market where everyone is used to music being free, and now here is a newcomer wanting 99 cents and having a smaller selection of music, and formatted in bizarre and unconvertable formats.

It makes sense to have businesses like Netflix and Tivo to want to enter the broadband movie market as early as possible to get the regular consumers used to paying X dollars for movies sent to their TV.

They do have the benefit that most people want to watch movies on their TV rather then their computer, and Tivo is the perfect delivery device for doing just that.

Now anyone want to make a bet on how long before the "Blockbuster" or "Hollywood Video" stores file for Chapter 11?

Re:This will last just long enough

[DrXym]

I don't see why not. The speed of the system is obviously network bound, not computational bound. I'm assuming that Netflix would have a library of titles pre-ripped into the appropriate media format. Then it's a matter of sending them over the wire, encrypting / DRM'ing them as you go.

I doubt it would be too tricky to twiddle the odd key frame to insert customer specific data. This could be done overtly as with those annoying dots that some film prints have these days, or covertly by changing some insignificant bits in the video / sound. Or a mix of covert and overt. We're not talking much data here either. I'd guess that 64 bits would uniquely identify every user / box combo in existence with room to spare.

Of course if someone grabbed two hacked movies, a naive scheme might allow them to splice the two watermarked movies into a single 'clean' movie. e.g. compare each frame, identify the different ones and pick the one that looks clean.

So on top of basic watermarking you might also toss in some random salt (e.g. random bits every now and then), vary the embedded id based on some formula, and even imperceptably stretch / compress parts of the audio / video to make it hard to what is clean and what isn't.

It also has to be robust enough that it is discernable even if the video is recompressed. But beyond that you're pursuing diminishing returns.

All you're trying to do is scare your users into compliance. If they really want that movie, there are plenty of easier ways of doing it, including just going out and renting / ripping it. The quality would probably be better anyway.