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Posted by Goro on 02/25/06 03:43
Cp33 wrote:
> Wow, this is a real battlefield.
> Actually, regarding online download of rental video, I don't think it
> will work the way you said. You may be able to watched the downloaded
> video unlimited number of times, but only within a very limited period
> of, say, a couple of days or so. The previous examples and rules have
> shown that. Even though many people have broadband access, the
> bandwidth is not high enough to download one within a reasonably short
> period of time. If you have a low speed DSL connection (say, 800 Kbps
> downlink), it will take almost overnight to download a film of DVD
> quality. If everybody is doing that, that will substantially increase
> the traffics of the network and providers.
You may be correct as movie downloads are yet in their infancy so it's
difficult--if not entirely impossible--to properly predict in which
direction and manner it will finally succeed (if at all).
However, I will say that I have been partaking of DVD downloads for
quite some time and while it hasn't affected my DVD purchase habits at
all, it has removed video rentals from my mindset entirely. At 6mbps,
i can download a dvd5 in <2 hrs (i'm not sure exactly how long, but
it's about that long); my 16x burner gives me media in about 5 min or i
can just watch the .ISO on my computer for the "krappy" titles that
aren't worht the $.20 media investment. At netflix, i can get a dvd9
in 5-7 days.
Or what i often do is i check and see what i want, queue it up and
dwonload 3-5 dvds over an evening when i'm asleep (so the bandwidth
uptake isn't interfering with improtent stuff! :) ). The selection is
quite varied and tremendous. It's not quite "whatever you want' but
much of it is "wow, that sounds intereting." Add in teh tv shows in
720p xvids that i wath on the computer (24" Dell 16:10 monitor with the
30" on the way) and there's no shortage of stuff to watch.
I'm looking forward to seeing a proper implementation of legal
video/movie/tv show download system that gives high quality videos. If
they can do it correctly (which is always in doubt), it really could be
amazing.
But the point i was trying to make was that Netflix is alienating their
core evangelists thru their throttling process and making people WANT
and LOOK FOR alternatives. I'm sure Netflix has a bunch of very bright
minds working for them; it should be possible for them to come up with
a way to provide excellent service and not take a loss, even to those
"heavy users."
FWIW, the thing that bothered me wasn't that i couldn't rent 500 movies
a month, but that the turnaroudn time (for me, here in Arizona) was
abotu a week, but unpredictably so. So, i could send a movie in on
wednesday and not get one for the weekend.
-goro-
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