Hacking NetFlix

New HD-DVD Format Possible Opportunity for Netflix

Aron, a frequent contributor to this site, suggested that the new DVD format could be an opportunity for Netflix:

Might start actually seeing viewable movies by next christmas on players running 1000$/pop. This would be a lucrative niche to serve for Netflix, and in turn Netflix should accelerate adoption given the problematic economics that brick/mortar rentailers would have in supporting the format.

He's referring to the Video Store Magazine story about the new HD-DVD format. While it will require new players, the new format will enable increased resolution and audio, as well as room for additional interactive content.

“We have evaluated all the emerging home entertainment technologies and have selected the one which we feel is the most beneficial to our consumers,” said Craig Kornblau, president of USHE. Universal will begin issuing select titles in the HD-DVD format by next holiday season, 2005. “We are confident that HD-DVD’s advanced features will lead to a more robust consumer experience. For content providers such as Universal, the enhanced copy protection allows us to continue our fight against piracy and preserve the integrity of our properties.”

NY Times Critical of Blockbuster CEO Compensation

The NY Times is running a very critical story on the compensation that Blockbuster CEO, John F. Antioco, has received:

Since becoming a public company in 1999, Blockbuster has lost more than $3 billion on almost $30 billion in revenue. Over that period, Mr. Antioco has received $19 million in salary and bonuses and oodles of stock options.

During much of the time Mr. Antioco, the hired hand, was raking it in, the company's shareholders were not. Blockbuster stock, which made its debut in August 1999 at $15, hit a high of $30 in May 2002. Since then, the ride has been mostly downhill.

It's worth a read, especially if you own Blockbuster stock.

Thanks to Joe for sending this in.

New Netflix DVD Sleeves?

Alert Netflix subscriber Steven noticed that Netflix has changed the sleeve design.

Seen these yet? Both of these arrived the same day.

I hate the new one. Ugly type, harder to read. The checkboxes for bad disks
are gone.

But most odd is the loss of branding. Note the logo is gone. Actually, all
branding is gone. No name anywhere on the front. I wonder if this is on
purpose, like they are going to be reselling the service thru another
channel. Maybe like Virgin does with mobile service. But that's pure
speculation.

The back is identical. And, now that I think of it, does still have the logo
and address.

He sent in these pictures of the old and new sleeves:

Netflix Odyssey Reporting Queue Problems

A Netflix Odyssey is reporting possible movie loss and strange behavior if you have a large number of movies in your queue:

I'm seeing some weird stuff in my queue. I have 490 discs in my queue. My cube-mate was talking about The Bourne Identity, so I went out to Netflix to take a look, saw I already had it in my queue, and clicked on "Move to top of my queue.". Suddenly, I have only 360 movies in my queue... apparently everything below where Identity was got lost.

I think I might have lost a few movies when I updated my queue earlier, but I'm always adding and deleting movies so I can't be sure.

He suggests that you print a copy of your queue, especially if you have a lot of movies saved. It's also a good idea to backup your hard drive, or anything else you have some time invested in creating, on a regular basis.

Netflix Partners with Independent Feature Project

The Los Angeles Times is running a story about a partnership between Netflix and the Indepenent Feature Project to provide their 9,000 members free access to the films nominated for the Independent Spirit Awards.

The story provides some interesting statistics about Netflix and why they are a leader in independent film distribution:

Overall, Netflix controls only 8% to 9% of the DVD rental market. But the company accounts for one-third to one-half of all rentals of "indie" and low-budget movies. According to Sarandos, the Netflix executive, specialized films often outperform mainstream studio movies rented via the service.

For example, 1 in 4 Netflix subscribers have rented "The House of Sand and Fog," the critically acclaimed drama that made little at the box office. The New Zealand film "Whale Rider," whose young star Keisha Castle-Hughes earned an Oscar nomination but whose ticket sales totaled about $20 million, has been rented on Netflix more than either "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" or "The Hulk."

Only the IFP members will have access to the movies:

But this year, IFP members will access the nominated films through a special page on Netflix's website, punching in a code to order DVDs free of charge. Netflix will pay to make DVDs of the films that have not yet been acquired by distributors — usually about 25% of the nominees. The company will pick up the cost of mailing those DVDs to IFP members.

Netflix is providing this service to IFP members for free, but can expect many to join Netflix. This should also help differentiate Netflix from the competition by increasing their exposure to influential movie viewers.

Thanks to Joe for sending this in.

New Releases for November 30, 2004

With Ron Jeremy and Vanessa Williams as cast members this week, I was wondering if Netflix had suddenly started carrying adult movies.

Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius (2004) James Caviezel, Jeremy Northam
Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day (1996) Peter Alexander, Michael Stipe
Combat! Season 2: Mission 1 (4-Disc Series) (1963) Rick Jason, Vic Morrow
Combat! Season 2: Mission 2 (4-Disc Series) (1963) Rick Jason, Vic Morrow
Countdown to Wednesday (2004) Paul Dini, Stan Lee
Diamond Hunters (2001) Roy Scheider, Alyssa Milano
Eating: Comedy About Women and Food (1990) Nelly Alard, Lisa Blake Richards
Forever Love (1998) Reba McEntire, Tim Matheson
Hero (2002) Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu Wai
High School Boot Camp (2000)
It's All True (1993) Manuel 'Jacare' Olimpio Meira, Jeronimo Andre De Souza
Justine (1977) Koo Stark, Martin Potter
Lost in Space: Season 2: Vol. 2 (4-Disc Series) (1966) Guy Williams, June Lockhart
Lost Reality (2004) Ron Jeremy, Rip Taylor
Luther (2003) Joseph Fiennes, Alfred Molina
My Flesh and Blood (2003) Susan Tom
Northern Exposure: Season 2 (4-Disc Series) (1991) Rob Morrow, Barry Corbin
Prisoner: Cell Block H (3-Disc Series) (1979) Peter Adams, Julia Blake
Racing with the Moon (1984) Sean Penn, Elizabeth Mcgovern
Samantha: An American Girl Holiday (2004) Mia Farrow, Annasophia Robb
Secrets of a Windmill Girl (1966) Peter Swanwick, Martin Jarvis
Spider-Man 2 (2004) Tobey Maquire, Kirsten Dunst
The Courage to Love (2000) Vanessa L. Williams, Gil Bellows
The Man from Deep River (1973) Ivan Rassimov, Me Me Lai
The Protectors: Season 1 (4-Disc Series) (1972) Robert Vaughn, Nyree Dawn Porter
The Real Thing (2002) James Wardlaw, John Arnold
Tru Calling: Season 1 (6-Disc Series) (2003) Eliza Dushku, Shawn Reaves
Vendetta: No Conscience, No Mercy (2004) Daniel Baldwin, John Novak

Becky Bought a Movie From Netflix

Becky over at the Netflix Fan Blog has a story about how she broke a Netflix movie and paid for it:

I've finally bought a movie from Netflix. They say you're not supposed to do it, but it was an accident. I was carrying a copy of Only Angels Have Wings in my jacket pocket. I forgot it was there. When I buckled my seatbelt over it, I discovered DVDs don't fold; they crack.

It cost her $20 and they shipped her a new copy. I always wondered how they would handle it.

I've been lucky and never broke a movie, but I've had several lost over the past 2 years. Each time I reported it they immediately sent out the next one in my queue.

Have you bought a movie or reported a lost disc?

Possible 10% Postal Price Increase in 2006

CNN Money is reporting that the Postal Service is proposing a 10% price increase for early 2006. This will definitely hurt Netflix and Blockbuster, possibly leading to a price increase by all DVD-by-mail companies to compensate for the increased postage costs (they pay postage in both directions).

Thanks to Aron for sending this in.

Does Netflix Need An Advanced Search?

LaWilson writes:

I have a question.  I use Napster's music subscription service. One feature that I like is that I can filter out music with explicit lyrics from coming up in my searches, which is very nice.

I wonder if Netflix would be open to a similar feature for searches. I don't really watch R rated movies, and it would be great if they offered a filter that would filter out these movies and narrow my searches and recommendations down considerably.  Let me know what you find out, since I know they read your board.

I think this is a great idea. They could add an advanced search dialog box that would give us all kinds of options for searching, including rating, release date range, and more.

What do you think?

Netflix "Awaiting Release" Queue

George sent in the following e-mail:

I am not sure if you have seen this before but its something i have recently found after joining netflix about a month ago. If you do a search on netflix for a movie that is out or announced to be in theaters soon it will come up in netflix with the save option which allows you to have it in a awaiting release que that then will dump it to your normal que once it is about to come out of dvd. It's a nice little feature for movies that are in the theater that you don't want to spend $8-10 to see. I currently have Oceans Twelve, The Incredables, and Shark tale in mine so that I don't forget about them and make sure to get them once they come out.

Yeah, you "super renters" and longtime users might know about this, but we get some new users here that might not know about this feature.

I use this feature all the time and currently have 22 movies in my "Awaiting Release" section.