So, who is doing a better job at offering full-length movies (and at full resolution) streaming service? Is it Apple (do not know what they call their service), Microsoft's partner Netflix, or is Sony's thingy do better? _________________ Trust no one. Absolutely no one. Advice of the board.
Link Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 1:59 pm Post subject:
I have netflix and like it alot. Many devices are getting the capability built-in.
I didn't know that Microsoft was partnered with Netflix on the streaming? Do you say that only because of the xbox? Is so then it should look more like: Microsoft-Samsung-LG-Roku and Netflix partnership.
Link Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 4:57 pm Post subject:
Vudu is nice, but I think $300 for a one-trick pony of a box that does nothing but enable movie rentals for $3.99-5.99 is too damn much money. I don't even want to know what they get for that new one.
I like the Netflix streaming option, but you NEED a really fast connection for it to work - it's not "download and watch later" - it's streaming. I believe much of the library of HD movies don't have discrete surround, and those that do will only play that way on the Xbox, which of course requires a Live subscription. Mo money.
I like the AppleTV because it does a hell of a lot more than just play rented movies, and for "only" $229, it's a nice little doodad. The movies are also a little cheaper than Roku at $3.99 and 4.99 for catalog and new release titles, but they're only 720p.
Seems like the options are:
A) Spend a lot of money for the Vudu and movies if you want max pic/sound quality and no monthly fees
B) Spend a modest amount of money and pay monthly fees for an Xbox with a Netflix and Live subscription
C) Spend a little less money on an AppleTV, have a more full featured device (than the Vudy), have no subscription fees, but give up a little in pic quality (at least they all have DVD quality discrete surround).
I have a crappy 1.5mbps DSL line, so the AppleTV or Vudu thing are probably my only options. Neither has me that interested because to be perfectly honest, Blu-rays in the mail from Netflix works perfectly for us. Ultimate in pic/sound quality, and we only have time to watch the two we have in the mail, anyway.
SC
Last edited by ecrabb on Fri Feb 06, 2009 11:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
Link Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 11:06 pm Post subject:
Oh, I wasn't talking from a picture quality or title catelog, but rather which was doing a better business than the other. _________________ Trust no one. Absolutely no one. Advice of the board.
Link Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 11:14 pm Post subject:
ecrabb wrote:
Vudu is nice, but I think $300 for a one-trick pony of a box that does nothing but enable movie rentals for $3.99-5.99 is too damn much money. I don't even want to know what they get for that new one.
I like the Netflix streaming option, but you NEED a really fast connection for it to work - it's not "download and watch later" - it's streaming. I believe much of the library of HD movies don't have discrete surround, and those that do will only play that way on the Xbox, which of course requires a Live subscription. Mo money.
I like the AppleTV because it does a hell of a lot more than just play rented movies, and for "only" $229, it's a nice little doodad. The movies are also a little cheaper than Roku at $3.99 and 4.99 for catalog and new release titles, but they're only 720p.
Seems like the options are:
A) Spend a lot of money for the Vudu and movies if you want max pic/sound quality and no monthly fees
B) Spend a modest amount of money and pay monthly fees for an Xbox with a Netflix and Live subscription
C) Spend a little less money on an AppleTV, have a more full featured device (than the Vudy), have no subscription fees, but give up a little in pic quality (at least they all have DVD quality discrete surround).
I don't have a crappy 1.5mbps DSL line, so the AppleTV or Vudu thing are probably my only options. Neither has me that interested because to be perfectly honest, Blu-rays in the mail from Netflix works perfectly for us. Ultimate in pic/sound quality, and we only have time to watch the two we have in the mail, anyway.
SC
No surprise here.
You are paying for Netflix BR rentals and don't use the online streaming content, but you still rent movies from Apple TV? That is bizarre if that is true.
They are perfect for the upstairs TV. I wouldn't watch them in my theater, but I don't spend 90% of my viewing time in the theater.
I wish Netflix had better sound for sure.
The Samsung 2500, 2550, LG BD300, and Roku will all do Netflix HD. The sound is still stereo. Upgrades in sound are coming...
Link Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 11:54 pm Post subject:
What do you mean, no surprise, Greg? I said I didn't use ANY of the streaming options. Netflix streaming looks like ASS on a 1.5mbps connection. It's not even DVD quality. It's totally unwatchable in my opinion. I'm not sure the HD service even looks or works on the Xbox because you have to have a Live subscription... and I don't have one right now.
As I said, none of the streaming options are really of any interest to me right now. They're just not compelling compared to what I get with BD's from Netflix. Sure, it's not instant, but I don't watch on a spur of the moment, anyway. The discs are just sitting there, and if I get the kids in bed, I don't have work to do, and we're not too tired, we watch one. That equates to exactly one or two movies/week. So, for $13.99 for my 2-at-a-time, w can watch 4-8 movies per month, have the best sound and video quality, and not wait for anything to download nor worry about burning all my broadband speed for hours at a time. For that - for the very best in sound/picture quality I can get, I pay between $3.50 and $1.75/movie, depending on how many we get watched that month.
There's just no reason at this point for me to think about streaming from Vudu, Apple, or even Netflix. If I want to watch a movie, I'm going to the theater and watching it on Blu-ray.
Link Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 1:47 am Post subject:
If you want to try it bestbuy.com sells 13month live subscriptions for $30. If you can swallow giving that much money to Microsoft, I think you owe it to yourself to watch some streaming HD flicks over the next year. Surely over 13 months you can make it worth your while to watch at least $30 of netflix streaming?
Joined: 30 Mar 2008 Posts: 374 Location: Seattle, WA
Link Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 2:42 am Post subject:
ecrabb wrote:
I like the Netflix streaming option, but you NEED a really fast connection for it to work - it's not "download and watch later" - it's streaming. I believe much of the library of HD movies don't have discrete surround, and those that do will only play that way on the Xbox, which of course requires a Live subscription. Mo money.
Unfortunately all Netflix streaming is stereo audio, regardless of HD/non-HD or device (XBox, etc.).
Joined: 30 Mar 2008 Posts: 374 Location: Seattle, WA
Link Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 2:46 am Post subject:
perisoft wrote:
I have to think they murder the bandwidth on streamed movies, though - why go to all the trouble of tweaking your PJ and then give it lousy input?
And if they DON'T murder the bandwidth, I could stream exactly one short HD movie before I ran out of bandwidth for the month. Yay.
Netflix HD quality is actually surprisingly good. Better than DVD in some ways, IMO. I watched Heroes season 1 and 2 on my 64" RPTV Pioneer and it was great. Just wished they supported 5.1 audio. And I don't think it kills your bandwidth cap really, but I guess that depends on how much of a couch potato you are.
Link Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 2:52 pm Post subject:
I did not know that the Netflix service offered through Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace is streaming-only. I guess this is a must in order to offer those $199 360 users a means into the service. Seems like a big shortcoming in what could have been a better service.
But, the wide area network traffic management would disallow anything else other than stream in cases like Comcast. If you use more than 70% of your paid-for broadband speed for more than 15-minutes you are going to get throttled. _________________ Trust no one. Absolutely no one. Advice of the board.
Joined: 30 Mar 2008 Posts: 374 Location: Seattle, WA
Link Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 7:52 pm Post subject:
WanMan wrote:
I did not know that the Netflix service offered through Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace is streaming-only. I guess this is a must in order to offer those $199 360 users a means into the service. Seems like a big shortcoming in what could have been a better service.
This is not a limitation of the XBox. That's the only online service NetFlix provides, regardless of the computer or device that connects to it.
And, as far as XBox is concerned, it's not really a shortcoming because XBox Live also offers rental downloads (not streaming) alongside what NetFlix offers, and many are in HD (720P) format (with multi-channel audio), so you have the choice of one or the other depending on your needs.
Quote:
But, the wide area network traffic management would disallow anything else other than stream in cases like Comcast. If you use more than 70% of your paid-for broadband speed for more than 15-minutes you are going to get throttled.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Comcast fanboy by any stretch of the imagination, but I think people's perception of bandwidth throttling is a bit off. Clearly Microsoft and other companies that rely on providing high definition video services over the Internet would have thought twice about doing so if they knew they'd have issues with ISPs ruining the customer's experience. I'm sure you probably feel the pain if you do any kind of BitTorrent type stuff, but for things like downloading XBox Live movies or streaming NetFlix movies it just works and I haven't noticed any throttling issues.
Link Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 11:12 am Post subject:
schmoe wrote:
WanMan wrote:
I did not know that the Netflix service offered through Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace is streaming-only. I guess this is a must in order to offer those $199 360 users a means into the service. Seems like a big shortcoming in what could have been a better service.
This is not a limitation of the XBox. That's the only online service NetFlix provides, regardless of the computer or device that connects to it.
And, as far as XBox is concerned, it's not really a shortcoming because XBox Live also offers rental downloads (not streaming) alongside what NetFlix offers, and many are in HD (720P) format (with multi-channel audio), so you have the choice of one or the other depending on your needs.
Quote:
But, the wide area network traffic management would disallow anything else other than stream in cases like Comcast. If you use more than 70% of your paid-for broadband speed for more than 15-minutes you are going to get throttled.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Comcast fanboy by any stretch of the imagination, but I think people's perception of bandwidth throttling is a bit off. Clearly Microsoft and other companies that rely on providing high definition video services over the Internet would have thought twice about doing so if they knew they'd have issues with ISPs ruining the customer's experience. I'm sure you probably feel the pain if you do any kind of BitTorrent type stuff, but for things like downloading XBox Live movies or streaming NetFlix movies it just works and I haven't noticed any throttling issues.
The WAN stuff is actually my line of work. Its not exclusive to Comcast--I only used them as a high profile example. AT&T copied some 3rd ranked cable provider out in Beaumont Texas in apply ridiculously low bandwidth caps that were one-tenth of Comcast's 250GB/month. They did this because they know their customers have no other place to go.
And the last time I done any reading, there is some confusion on interpreting Comcast's plan as to whether or not their throttling will occur before/after the 250GB cap. And I do not think companies like Netflix cares one bit about the netowrk throttling or caps ISPs are applying as its not a reflection on them and they simply tell the customers its their ISP (and correctly so).
The mentality of network providers has long been to over-subscribe their packet-switched networks. I can tell you seeing 1000% over-subscription rates is not uncommon at all, because they pathetic business model is built on the [very] old school belief that less then one-tenth the users will be consuming. This was seen in the SLC/DLC products out there. _________________ Trust no one. Absolutely no one. Advice of the board.
Joined: 18 Mar 2006 Posts: 397 Location: Northern Ontario, Canada
Link Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 2:27 pm Post subject:
I agree it's the ISP's problem to deliver bandwidth but the pricing model was built on 1/10th average user usage (and variable per user at that - ie. browsing, msn, etc). As more people subscribe to streaming video watch the piplines get choked out. hence the throttling, hence more adherence to bandwidth limitations, hence the price of your DSL/cable service going up. Personally, i can't see the internet holding up to streaming. something will have to change in the technology to make it work. No one will want to pay more just to stream video (ISP and rental rates combined). _________________ Rod
Joined: 30 Mar 2008 Posts: 374 Location: Seattle, WA
Link Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 8:44 pm Post subject:
WanMan wrote:
And I do not think companies like Netflix cares one bit about the netowrk throttling or caps ISPs are applying as its not a reflection on them and they simply tell the customers its their ISP (and correctly so).
This can't be true, especially when we're talking about the one or two companies that provide a huge chunk of Internet service to the US. Why would Netflix and other companies build such a feature if the right infrastructure and ISP policies weren't in place to allow it to succeed? Sure, if a couple small ISPs were excluded then I suppose companies like Netflix might make the argument that it still makes sense to build the feature, but we're talking about the big guys like Comcast and ATT. The economics of the situation wouldn't make sense.
I don't disagree that throttling controls exist and that they kind of suck for the consumer, but it must be the case that these streaming and movie download services are taken into consideration when companies like Comcast try to figure out what a reasonable cap is.
FWIW, I was part of the Beta effort for the Netflix integration in XBox 360 and I never felt the affects of throttling, nor did anyone else in the beta test newsgroup complain that throttling was getting in their way of streaming movies. And XBox Live movie downloads (multi-gigabyte files in HD) has been around for serveral years and I've never heard of a complaint around throttling.
Link Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 9:22 pm Post subject:
I agree with schmoe here. Netflix would be crazy to set up a nationwide streaming video service without first at least investigating what the user experience would be like.
I have never been throttled to my knowledge but RIGHT as I downloaded microtorrent and started to download a few things my internet kept getting flaky. I called in to schedule a service call and as I was talking to the Customer Service Rep. he asked if I do any P2P file sharing. I said no, and just then paused the uTorrent and the Rep said, "There! All the traffic at your location has stopped now. Does your internet work now?" Easy enough to blame a neighbor that has hopped on my wifi network but scared me enough to delete the uTorrent.
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Joined: 12 Jan 2007
Joined: 13 Mar 2006
Link
you slay me sometimes SC. 
