“Girding for a potential threat from Apple Inc., online DVD rental service Netflix Inc. is lifting its limits on how long most subscribers can watch movies and television shows over high-speed Internet connections,” Michael Liedtke reports for The Associated Press.
“The change will become effective Monday, on the eve of Apple’s widely anticipated move into the movie rental industry. Although Apple hasn’t confirmed anything yet, Chief Executive Steve Jobs is expected to make it official during a presentation Tuesday in San Francisco,” Liedtke reports.
“Netflix is gearing up for the increased competition by expanding a year-old feature that streams movies over the Internet instead of making customers wait for their online rental requests to be delivered through the mail,” Liedtke reports.
“Until now, Netflix restricted how long its more than 7 million subscribers could use the streaming service each month, based on how much they pay to rent DVDs.
For instance, under a popular plan that charges $16.99 per month to rent up to three DVDs at a time, Netflix customers could watch as many as 17 hours of entertainment each month on the streaming service, dubbed ‘Watch Instantly,'” Liedtke reports.
“With Monday’s change, virtually all Netflix subscribers will be able to stream as many movies and TV shows as they want from a library containing more than 6,000 titles. There will be no additional charge for the unlimited access,” Liedtke reports. “Only the small portion of Netflix customers who pay $4.99 to rent up to two DVDs per month won’t be provided unlimited access to the streaming service.”
“Removing the time constraints on its streamed entertainment could give Netflix an advantage over Apple’s movie rental service. Apple will charge $3.99 for movies that can be downloaded and played for up to 24 hours, according to media reports citing people familiar with the company’s rental plans,” Liedtke reports.
“Apple’s rental service is expected to offer its customers more flexibility, allowing movies to be viewed on the Cupertino-based company’s ubiquitous iPod and iPhone, as well as on computers,” Liedtke reports.
More in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Brenden” for the heads up.]
Somebody’s getting nervous.
Zune is at it again. Keep it up. What Mac are you using really?
MDN word – clearly
As in Clearly Zune Tang is a Mac Fan.
Zune is at it again. Keep it up. What Mac are you using really?
MDN word – clearly
As in Clearly Zune Tang is a Mac Fan.
Zune is at it again. Keep it up. What Mac are you using really?
MDN word – clearly
As in Clearly Zune Tang is a Mac Fan.
Zune is at it again. Keep it up. What Mac are you using really?
MDN word – clearly
As in Clearly Zune Tang is a Mac Fan.
Zune is at it again. Keep it up. What Mac are you using really?
MDN word – clearly
As in Clearly Zune Tang is a Mac Fan.
Of course critics will say, “Netflix offers so much more content than iTunes” but in the end iTunes will still win. Apple will be able to offer full portability to their audience, meaning users can view their movies on their iPhone, iPod, authorized computers, and full screen via a yet-to-be-released HD-AppleTV (hey that rhymes!). All this while the other services scramble to let their users stream content solely to their PC monitor.
‘ Somebody’s getting nervous ”
If Apples plan to charge $3.99 for 24 hours, they’re the ones who should be nervous
“Apple will charge $3.99 for movies that can be downloaded and played for up to 24 hours, according to media reports citing people familiar with the company’s rental plans,” Liedtke reports.”
When did Apple announce this? Never? Oh so we are reporting apon complete speculation?
Actually I heard that Apple will allow for unlimited downloads of Full HD quality movies for free! And they have upgraded all of the pipes so that everyone can download the massive amounts of data in seconds. AND they also will give all the poor children in the world a free goat.
How’s that for complete speculation
Dallas,
Is the goat alive?
Why don’t we wait until Apple actually announces their plan and their pricing before we try to dissect how it will fare against the competition?
It’s just silly to criticize the pricing as too expensive and the download periods as too short when the plan hasn’t even been announced.
Well,
I really wonder how studios are going to make ANY money on unlimited content for $17 / month. That just does not add up.
Netfix ought to be supporting Macs. My estimate is Apple is grabbing 20% of the home market, or near to it at this point.
“With Monday’s change, virtually all Netflix subscribers will be able to stream as many movies and TV shows as they want from a library containing more than 6,000 titles. There will be no additional charge for the unlimited access,” Liedtke reports. “Only the small portion of Netflix customers who pay $4.99 to rent up to two DVDs per month won’t be provided unlimited access to the streaming service.”
Two DVDs per month? Is that right, or is it supposed to be, “$4.99 per month, to rent two DVDs at a time”? Then again, two rentals for $4.99 would be pretty cheap…
Anyway, back to Apple–I hope they offer a video subscription option, along with rentals.
I’d prefer to pay one flat rate fee, to watch as much as I want, in as much time as it takes me to do so. I don’t want arbitrary limits set for the length of time before a video expires.
Here’s how the studios make money:
First $17/month is more than most people spend on renting movies now. Get them into an automatic subscription, and you’ve got people spending $204/year on something they probably spent less than a hundred on without the subscription.
Second, since you’ve got them using your service, it can contain ads for even more revenue, just like they’ve done with DVDs.
Renting is never a good idea unless it’s short term, our you’re the lessor, not the lessee.
@ LorD1776,
If you have to evoke Hitler to make a point about a politician, you must have a very weak argument.
Not only that, you say, “Hell, he’d gas the liberals if he could get away with it,” as if that would be a bad thing.
Since with online-rental.movies there is no physical DVD to bring back, I cannot see any reason why I should not be able to watch a movie e.g. for 30 days. With DRM you cannot pass it to someone else anyway, so what is the point?
Could be handy for movies to be watched while you are on holiday or a business trip. The short 24-hour limit is absolutely unnecessary.
I have to wonder how much Netflix is downloading at the moment.
Will this change really make a difference in how much people download??
I tried using Netflix on a pc and the downloads sucked. It kept stalling and jerking. I gave up on it. Hulu works much better and its being free does not help.
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@ all you muffins arguing politics. In case you have not noticed this is a technology site and NOT a political site. Furthermore the majority of us on this planet who do not live in the US and are not US citizens are generally not interested in your US politics.
@change rocks: “Until Obama really says something – lets get his ads off of here – they annoy me.”
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Wow, all the piss in their pants Republican candidates can talk about are ways to keep the sheeple sceered, and you think Obama says nothing? You got blinders on dude.
P.S. I don’t think Obama is the best the Democrats have, but with the possible exception of Ron Paul, he is light years better than the old white men running for the Republics.
This might have been discussed before so bare with me… If Apple were to buy NetFlix, wouldn’t the license agreements transfer to Apple, thus giving Apple access to almost every title out there, while slowly converting them all to a down loadable format?? I happen to like Netflix but they had the bull by the horns and lost their grip. They had a head start on everyone and didn’t adapt . My loyalty is with Apple anyway so whatever service they provide I plan to use…
Big Al says :”Not only that, you say, “Hell, he’d gas the liberals if he could get away with it,” as if that would be a bad thing.”
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Big Al, I’m a liberal who is a responsible member of my community, raising three kids, putting them through college, paying my taxes, donating to charity, holding down a responsible job. Not to mention a Macintosh fan since 1990.
Why do you want to see me gassed?
I have to ask, do you represent the majority of Republicans and conservatives, or are you at the lower end of the gene pool for that constituency? I really would like to know. Someone care to help me out on that question?
We, consumers, should be happy, that competition is making for better offerings; however not having a Mac version is rotten.
As for the ads, aren’t the ads based upon your individual surfing habits? I never see the ads, that people complain about.
fenman:
If you visit MDN long enough you will soon recognize that MDN is actually an open forum. Get used to it otherwise you will be constantly frustrated. Of course, if you find the topics at MDN too eclectic and less technical, you should best visit another site with more threads more to your liking.
The movies currently available from Netflix for download are a small subset of their DVD collection, mostly junk. If they fix that they’ll have something.
“As for the ads, aren’t the ads based upon your individual surfing habits?”
Aha. That’s why I keep seeing ads for free porn and salty snack foods.
Big Al,
I said nothing about Hitler. I appears to be you who have seen fit to infer a connotation.
And your comment “as if that would be a bad thing” was said like a true defender of democracy. Thank you.
fenman,
We muffins here in the U.S. are generally not interested in our politics either. But we sure as hell like competition, no matter what the subject. Getting one-up on each other can be very entertaining.