Hacking NetFlix

What Movies Are You Waiting For?

Matthew on HiDefology is has been waiting since December 17th for Bladerunner on Blu-ray.

Okay Netflix, on December 17th, 2007 I added Blade Runner: Final Cut [Blu-ray] to the top of my queue and it has yet to show up. That’s with sending four or five movies a week back to you and receiving another four or five movies.

That means that you have sent me over 100 movies, with Blade Runner in the top spot of my queue. Over 100! Ever time I return movies, I wait in anticipation of this possibly being the day that you decide to send me the movie.

Are you waiting for any movies from Netflix?

Blockbuster Earnings Call Notes

Earnings call webcasts are full of great information, and Blockbuster's call from earlier today is no exception. Here's my notes from the call:

Blockbuster is really cutting costs: "...trimmed annual run-rate G&A expenses by about $100 million. In fact, this quarter alone we reduced SG&A, including advertising, by $100 million during the quarter."

In-store availability of new releases has been increased from 20% to 60%.

Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes on Total Access: "...I am pleased to report that total access subscriptions are stable at 3.1 million. The business is now profitable and we are getting back to the business of growth.

Blockbuster has a new online service in beta test, and will roll it out to all customers in June.

Movielink has more than 9,000 titles.

Blockbuster will be testing a NCR digital download kiosk next month.

Total Access grew 6.2% over last year.

Blockbuster intends to renew the war on Netflix: "We’ve got an opportunity to be much more aggressive with Netflix, much more aggressive with Game Stop, and the question is how much of our advertising will be used in that fashion."

You can read the entire transcript online at Seeking Alpha.

The Onion Tours Blockbuster Video Store Museum

The Onion takes a tour of the Blockbuster Video Store Museum:

Historic Blockbuster Store Offers Glimpse Of How Movies Were Rented In The Past

Thanks to Ryan, Logan, Shawn, Aaron, Rich and Aaron for sending this in.

Netflix #1 in ForeSee Customer Satisfaction Survey (Again)

Video Business reports that Netflix once again tops the ForeSee customer satisfaction survey.

This marks the seventh straight time that Netflix has been crowned king in ForeSee’s Top 100 Online Retail Satisfaction Index report. With a score of 86 out of a possible 100, Netflix trumped a wide range of online retailers, including Amazon.com (83), Apple.com (80), Blockbuster.com (77), BestBuy.com (74) and Target.com (73).

Blockbuster Posts Q1 Profit; Icahn Goes After Yahoo!

Blockbuster posted $45 million in net profit for Q1, but total revenue decreased by $79.8 million to $1.39 billion.

"The significant improvement in our first quarter results demonstrates the underlying strength of our core rental and emerging retail business," said Jim Keyes, Blockbuster Chairman and CEO. "BLOCKBUSTER Total Access™, our subscription rental offering, is now profitable and positioned for growth. Additionally, our stores achieved positive growth in both sales and margin. We are particularly pleased that domestic same-store revenues showed an improvement for the first time in five years primarily as a result of several initiatives we have put in place, including an increased availability of top new movies, improved store merchandising and more effective pricing. Going forward, we are confident we can continue to grow our core business, which will enable us to focus on aggressive development of our digital offerings. Our ability to provide convenient access to both physical and electronic media entertainment will provide Blockbuster a meaningful competitive advantage and allow us to create enhanced shareholder value over the long-term."

In addition to backing Blockbuster's bid for Circuit City, Carl Icahn is leading a proxy fight to take over Yahoo! You can read his letter to the Yahoo! board if you're interested.

Thanks to Matthew for sending this in.

New Releases for May 13th, 2008

Click here for the full list of new releases this week (161).

Interesting movies include The Great Debaters, Untraceable, Autism: The Musical, Numb, A Raisin in the Sun, Shin Chan: Season 1: Part 1, Cover, Mad Money, Stagecoach, Bon Cop, Bad Cop, and Aces 'N Eights.

vmcNetflix: Watch Instantly on the Xbox 360

The vmcNetflix Windows Vista Media Center plug-in now has the ability to stream Netflix's Watch Instantly movies to the Xbox 360.

You'll need a Windows Vista Home Premium Media Center and an Xbox 360, and you'll need to associate the Xbox with the Vista computer. Install the vmcNetflix plug-in on the Vista computer, and then you can run it on the Xbox Media Center (you'll find it in the "Program Library" under "Online Media"). You'll have to enter your Netflix username and password, and then you can watch movies on the Xbox 360.

I got it working, and recorded a short video to demonstrate the vmcNetflix plug-in:

The vmcNetflix plug-in works, but it is a bit buggy. You might get codec errors, and have to wait before using fast-forward (it hung the Xbox on several occassions). You also have to make sure the Vista computer is running, otherwise it won't work.

The vmcNetflix plug-in also lets you search for movies, edit your queue, and more. If you have an Xbox and Vista Media Center, I recommend giving it a try.

via Thomas Hawk and Davis Freeberg.

Watch Instantly Has Wrong Version of Bladerunner?

Jirah noticed that the Watch Instantly version of Blade Runner: The Director's Cut is not the "Director's Cut:"

The version of Blade Runner available on "Watch Now" isn't actually the Director's Cut. It's the original cut with the narration and the happy ending and no unicorns. I've just called Netflix to report the error, but who knows how long that will take to fix. I'd sure hate for the movie to be spoiled for anyone just because they watched the inferior first cut edition.

I've watched part of this version, and it has Harrison Ford's narration and the "happy ending." Can anyone confirm that this is the wrong version?

Second KDD Workshop on Netflix Prize August 24-27, 2008

The Second KDD Workshop on Large-Scale Recommender Systems and the Netflix Prize Competition will be held in Las Vegas on Agust 24 - 27.

Recommender systems have emerged over the last several years as an important area of research spanning the boundaries of such diverse set of disciplines as data mining, machine learning, information retrieval, human-computer interaction, marketing and operations research. Interest in recommender systems was further enhanced when Netflix announced its $1,000,000 prize competition in October 2006 that attracted over 20,000 participants from 167 different countries. One of the sub-fields of recommender systems that benefited very significantly from the Netflix Prize competition is the area of large-scale recommender systems, which deals with scaling recommendation methods to large datasets. Many Netflix competitors came to realize that some of the well-known recommendation algorithms would not scale well to the Netflix dataset. In addition, some of the most popular and well-regarded methods would perform poorly on the Netflix dataset — maybe because the asymptotic performance of these methods is quite different from their performance on smaller datasets.

via Geeking with Greg.

DRM Frustrates Yet Another Paying Customer

Blogger and photographer Thomas Hawk writes about his frustration getting Netflix's Watch Instantly to work:

In fact I can't even get Netflix "Watch Now" to work on my Vista Media Center PC at all. The reason why I can't Netflix's "Watch Now" to work on my Vista Media Center PC?

Yep, you guessed it. DRM. Digital Rights Management. Screwed over by DRM yet again.

Here I am, a law abiding good consumer, paying Netflix for my content, and once again I'm treated like a criminal and not allowed to play legally purchased content on my PC.

Here's his exchange with Netflix customer support:

He told me that my problem likely had to do with something called COPP (certified output protection protocol) or HDCP (he wasn't sure that this was but looked it up and told me that it was High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection). Sounds like fancy names for plain old DRM if you ask me.

He said that the error code that I'd been getting was showing up in other cases as well for some "odd reason," adding "we're not actually sure why these videocards are doing this."

He said I could try a few new things. He recommended that I check with my video card maker to see if there was a more updated driver. He also recommended that I reset the resolution on my monitor to below 1200x800 (presently it's set at 1920x1200 which he said could be a problem). He also said that instead of using the DVI cable that I'm using that I might want to try a VGA cable. And finally he added that I might need to hook up a second monitor to my PC and run it in dual monitor mode.

You can read his tale of frustration with DRM on his blog.

Blockbuster & Circuit City Continue to Dance

The Wall Street Journal has posted a letter from Carl Icahn to Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes, confirming that Icahn will buy Circuit City if Blockbuster is unable:

This is to confirm that I, and/or entities affiliated with me, (collectively with me "Purchaser") stand ready to acquire Circuit City if Blockbuster is unable to receive financing to do so or obtain any necessary shareholder approvals after doing satisfactory due diligence. Obviously, this is subject to Purchaser conducting a satisfactory due diligence review of Circuit City which will be done concurrently with Blockbuster and being satisfied as to the results of that review and of course, Purchaser will be required to obtain certain regulatory approvals which I assume that Purchaser will have no problem obtaining.

The WSJ also posted the letter from Keyes to Circuit City Chairman, President and CEO Philip J. Schoonover, requesting due diligence.

Blockbuster issued a press release to announce that Circuit City has agreed to allow Blockbuster to conduct due diligence.

Netflix Employees Get Free 8-Out Plan

One of the perks of working at Netflix is a free 8-out plan, according to former employee Michael Rubin: Netflix employees automatically get on the 8-out plan, which is really really fun, even if you never have time to watch all those movies....

The 8-out plan costs $47.99 per month, or $576 per year.

Netflix Looking for Senior Software Engineer, Personalization Research

The Analytic Talent blog has posted a Netflix job opening for a Senior Software Engineer, Personalization Research.

As a key researcher for our web application development team, you will be working on data mining and algorithm development to build the world’s best movie finding software with some of the brightest people in the E-commerce arena. Our goal is to know our customers’ movie tastes well enough to create the perfect store, always presenting amazing titles just for them.

We are looking for a very experienced engineer who can take the lead, researching, modeling, presenting, designing and building algorithms that run in a service oriented architecture to support millions of customers. The successful candidate will be a self-motivated, intellectually curious individual. A Doctorate or experience working in a research environment, work with personalization algorithms, machine learning, adaptive systems, and statistical analysis would be a bonus.

Nintendo Launches Video Channel

Nintendo quietly launched the Nintendo Channel for the Wii, described as a way to "Watch trailers, mini-documentaries, product demonstrations, and gameplay videos."

I tested the Nintendo Channel, and was surprised by the speed and quality of the video. However, the Wii is probably not going to support Netflix's Watch Instantly because the Wii lacks a hard drive, and the display is limited to 480p.

via Engadget.

Top DVD Rental from Netflix & Blockbuster: 'Crash'

NewTeeVee observed that the top rental at Netflix and Blockbuster is the 2005 movie Crash. Netflix & Blockbuster both track the top 100 rentals of all time, instead of weekly or monthly, so only a few movies on the lists are from 2007.

It's interesting to compare the top 100 DVD rentals at Netflix and Blockbuster. Are you surprised by any of the titles?

Netflix & Miramax to Distribute 'Reprise'

Variety is reporting that Miramax and Netflix's Red Envelope Entertainment division will be distributing the Norwegian film Reprise.

Shocked to discover that Norwegian shorts writer-director Joachim Trier's stylishly hip feature debut, which earned strong reviews at Sundance and "New Directors, New Films" in 2007, didn't have distribution, Rudin persuaded Miramax to release the story about two fledgling novelists who respond to early literary success in radically different ways.

Miramax (partnering with Netflix) will open "Reprise" in limited engagements in New York and L.A. on May 16.

Film Distribution Workshop in NYC on May 17th

Allen Chou, President of Passion River Films, and film distribution consultant Josh Levin will be hosting a film distribution workshop in NYC on May 17th.

Allen and Josh will also teach topics that include: “The top 10 mistakes to avoid when making a film distribution deal”, “How to develop a profitable film distribution plan”; as well as “DVD Self-distribution and Non-traditional film distribution models”. Join them as they share the secrets behind the real world of film distribution and marketing in this unique and valuable seminar. At the end of the lectures, they’ll also workshop your titles.

More information about the workshop is available online at MarketMyMovie.com.

New Releases for May 6th, 2008

Click here for the full list of new releases this week (110).

Interesting movies include Bella, I'm Not There, Teeth, A Collection of 2007 Academy Award Nominated Short Films, Neo Ned, Steel City, Love's Unfolding Dream, P.S. I Love You, Over Her Dead Body, Delirious, First Sunday, Gamers, Military Intelligence and You!, Oprah Winfrey Presents: Mitch Albom's For One More Day, Carrier, How to Cook Your Life, Crossing Jordan: Season 1, and Saawariya.

Netflix Adds Watch Instantly Queue

Netflix added a second queue to organize your Watch Instantly titles. Brent on the Netflix Community Blog explains the new Instant queue feature:

Today we added an additional Queue to your Netflix account - the Instant Queue. This Queue lets you keep a list of the movies & TV episodes you want to watch instantly on your PC. We’ve set it up for you by adding all of the titles from your DVD queue that are available to watch instantly.

Of course you can also add titles to the Queue yourself. Find titles that are available to watch instantly by clicking the Browse Instant tab on the Netflix website, or by looking for the blue Play buttons across other parts of the site. Click a Play button to watch instantly on your compatible PC, or mouse over the Play button and click Add to Instant Queue to save the title to your Queue and watch it later.

One nice feature is the availability column, which shows when Watch Instantly titles will expire. Here's a screen capture of mousing over the "Play" button, which enables you to add the movie to your Instant queue.

What do you think of the Instant queue?

Thanks to Chris, Sean, and Leigh for sending this in.

New Watch Instantly Releases on Dyers.org

Jon Dyer posted a list of the 230 Netflix Watch Instantly titles released in the past few weeks.

Maybe I can understand the reasons for adding three seasons of The Incredible Hulk, and maybe I think the demand for two more seasons of Adam 12 and three more seasons of Emergency! may be a little questionable, but there is no logic that can get me to believe that adding two more seasons of both Charles In Charge and Gimme A Break was a good idea.

That said, I picked out what I could from what was made available. There are a few documentaries, some mindless entertainment, and even some ladies’ mixed martial arts fighting. If I missed something noteworthy, be sure to drop it in the comments.

Apple Now Sells Movie Downloads on DVD Release Date

The New York Times reports that Apple will now offer movie downloads for purchase on the same day as the movie is released on DVD.

Until now, people who wanted to watch movies on cable pay-per-view systems or rental download systems like Apple TV had to wait a few weeks after the same movie was released as a DVD. (And the DVD comes out, of course, four or five months after a film hits the theaters.)

Warner Brothers has been experimenting with the new approach for the last few months. It has found that DVD rentals only fell by 3 percent to 5 percent and sales of DVDs actually increased, perhaps because of the increased promotion and fewer used rental discs available for sale.

Apple issued a press release to announce that the following studios were offering library and same-day release titles: 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lionsgate, Image Entertainment and First Look Studios.

Apple also announced that they now have "six million songs, 600 TV shows and over 1,500 films including 200 in stunning high definition videos."

via Gizmodo.

Freakomendations: Freaky Recommendations Site

Sun Researcher Paul Lamere collects unusual recommendations from Netflix, Amazon, Last.fm, and other companies.

Have you had a "freakomentation" from Netflix?

via Netflix Fan.

SAG Strike Deadline Extended

paidContent reports that the Screen Actor's Guild has extended the strike deadline.

No specific reason was given, but LAT reports that SAG’s dropped its proposal to double residuals from DVD sales, which had been a key stumbling block. SAG is now asking for what would effectively be a 15 percent hike in DVD pay.

The current contract expires June 30th. Among the points of contention, still, are the length of time film and TV shows can be streamed online before residuals can be paid to actors for their work, and what kind of programs created for the Internet should be covered under the union’s contract.

Blockbuster & Lucasfilm to Promote Indiana Jones at Indianapolis 500

Press Release: Blockbuster & Lucasfilm are teaming up to promote the new Indiana Jones film at the Indianapolis 500.

INDIANA JONES(TM) is embarking on a daring new adventure, thanks to an alliance between Andretti Green Racing, Blockbuster Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd. At a Hollywood BLOCKBUSTER® store this afternoon at 5:30 p.m. IndyCar driver Marco Andretti will unveil the #26 Indiana Jones-themed car he will drive at the Indianapolis 500 on May 25. The car, sponsored by Blockbuster and Lucasfilm Ltd., celebrates Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull(TM), opening in theaters worldwide on May 22.

Netflix One Month Free Trial for Friends & Family

Netflix is sending customers an e-mail with a one month free trail offer they can forward to friends & family.