Hacking NetFlix

Netflix & Blockbuster Investor Events Today

Netflix will be hosting an investor day event in San Francisco starting at 8am (PT) and ending at 12:30pm. The event will be streamed live and will feature presentations from Netflix executives including Reed Hastings (CEO), Neil Hunt (CPO), Leslie Kilgore (CMO), Barry McCarthy (CFO), Andy Rendich (VP Operations), and Ted Sarandos (CCO). Anyone can watch online at http://ir.netflix.com.

Blockbuster is also hosting a shareholder's meeting at 10am (ET) in New York City.

Using Netflix's Watch Instantly on Multiple Computers

According to the Netflix website, there is a limit to how many computer you can use to view Watch Instantly titles:

In addition, due to requirements from content providers, there's a limit to the number of unique devices each account can use to watch instantly over the course of a year. Each Netflix account may watch instantly on up to four unique PCs over the course of 12 months.

Tech-Recipes has a hack that might enable Watch Instantly on more than 4 computers:

This recipe will explain how to export the netflix registry key and then import it in to your registry on more than 4 different pcs after you have the netflix watch now viewer installed. I'll even offer a quick and easy solution to storing your keys and managing them

The registry key is: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Netflix\Movie Viewer\.

Thanks to Geoff and RP for sending this in.

Netflix Player Reviews

A number of people have written reviews of the Netflix Player:

David Pogue from the New York Times shot a rather bizarre video review of the Netflix Player:

Thomas Hawk thinks that the Netflix Player will fail:

1. People don't want more boxes in their living room they want less. A satellite receiver or cable box, an XBox 360, a home theater sound system, a TiVo, an AppleTV, a DVD player, etc. etc. The last thing people want is one more ugly box cluttering up their living room.

2. The content on the box is not very compelling. Do I want Netflix "Watch Now" in my living room? Sure. Would I pay $100 to buy a box that streams me old episodes of Columbo or Xena Warrior Princess Season 1? No.

Can I get Juno on the Roku? No. Can I get Michael Clayton, or There Will Be Blood or American Gangster on the Roku? Nope.

PC Magazine reviewed the Netflix Player:

Despite minor flaws, the Netflix player from Roku offers near-instant streams of movies without increasing your subscription cost. My sincere hope is that Netflix cribs from Apple's playbook and offers a wider Instant queue selection in the future. As it is, the library still has plenty to offer, but it's only a small slice of the full catalog. If the selection improves, I'd gladly pay $100 for a box. Netflix partnerships with other manufacturers, such as LG, have been announced, and deals with at least two more unnamed partners are in the works. My guess is that eventually, the streaming feature will be part of Blu-ray players and TVs. But for now, the Netflix Player by Roku strikes me as a great value for early adopters and film addicts alike.

Dave Zatz has some great photos of unboxing the Netflix Player.

Akimbo Going Out of Business

Just as Netflix launches the Netflix Player, TechCrunch reports that online video company Akimbo is going out of business.

Akimbo launched in 2002 as a hardware-based VOD company. Using a hard-drive equipped settop box, users could download a variety of shows from 200 content partners. In October 2005 the company shifted directions and introduced Akimbo for Media Center, which did away with the hardware and allowed users to use Akimbo through a plugin on compatible computers. Finally, last February, the company reinvented itself once more, and became a whitelabel video service provider.

Netflix Hiring Senior Corporate Counsel

Netflix is looking for a senior corporate counsel:

Netflix, the world’s leading on-line movie rental company, seeks a Senior Corporate Counsel with responsibility for a wide array of intellectual property matters affecting the company, including copyright and trademark counseling, patent prosecution and technology licensing. Reporting to the General Counsel, this position will touch all aspects of the company’s business. The successful candidate will work with senior management on important transactional matters and should be extremely comfortable counseling business partners and making decisions that have both legal and business impacts. This position will be responsible for working with our engineers on technology development efforts for our instant watching feature as well as on automation efforts for our by-mail service. This position will provide counseling on intellectual property matters for all business units, including our website teams and our content acquisition group.

Director & Actor Sydney Pollack Taken by Cancer

The movie industry lost a talented actor and director to cancer this week. Netflix has a page listing most of his work, but here are a few of my favorite films: Michael Clayton, Eyes Wide Shut, The Sopranos, Out of Africa, The Shoot Horses, Don't They?, and Three Days of the Condor.

via Spout.

New Releases for May 27th, 2008

Click here for the full list of new releases this week (158).

Interesting movies include Rambo, The Air I Breathe, Cassandra's Dream, Grace is Gone, Noise, Grizzly Park, Cleaner, Bomb It, Darfur Now, Frontline: Bush's War, What Would Jesus Buy?, Lipstick Jungle: Season 1, The Invaders: Season 1, and The Violin.

10 Day Wait for Roku's Netflix Player

If you're thinking about buying a Netflix Player, Roku is telling customers that it could be a 10-day wait before they can ship your order.

It's been a fantastic couple of days for us here at Roku. The Netflix Player by Roku has proven to be a tremendously popular product -- so much so that we're getting behind in fulfilling orders.

Right now we're looking at about 10 days from order placement to shipping. We have plenty of product on the way, but they're on the proverbial "slow boat from China". A boat arrives every week, so sit tight and we'll get them too you as quickly as possible.

Thanks to Darren for sending this in.

Blockbuster Launches Box

With all the buzz about Roku's Netflix Player set-top box this week, it wouldn't be fair if I didn't post a photo of Blockbuster's entry into the "pizza box" market:

All kidding aside, Blockbuster is close to announcing a download strategy, and it will be interesting to see what they have been up to since they bought Movielink.

Photo courtesy Dan from Silicon Alley Insider.

Video of the Netflix Player by Roku

I got a Netflix Player review unit today, and I put together the following video to give you a feel for the product.

Netflix spent a lot of time making the device easy to setup and use, and since my main machine is a Mac I will use Watch Instantly a lot more.

Initially the picture looked compressed -- I had to change the setting on the Netflix Player to Widescreen, and also on the TV.

If you're having trouble with the Netflix Player, Netflix is doing support. You can reach the Netflix Player support team at 888-600-7658.

$99 is less than half of the Apple TV, but the Netflix Player doesn't display photos or play music. I bet that other companies will create Netflix-enabled devices that accept SD cards for photos and hard drives for music.

The quality of the movies and TV shows was better than I expected, but some, like Weeds, were a bit grainy despite a high-quality connection. Netflix has said that the Netflix Player will support HD video in the future.

If you order the Netflix Player, it only includes a composite cable so you might want to order the component, optical audio and HDMI cables for $19.99 (very reasonable).

I tested the Netflix Player with HDMI, but the box also supports component (2nd best), s-video (3rd), and composite output (lowest quality). The box only supports 480i and 480p at this time.

The selection for Watch Instantly is getting better, and I'm finding more and more titles I want to see. Netflix launched Watch Instantly last January with about 1,000 titles, and they just passed 10,000 titles.

It's quiet -- a lot quieter than my Xbox 360 (what was Microsoft thinking?).

There are a few new releases available for Watch Instantly, but I wonder how Netflix will be able to offer new releases when they rent for $2.99 and up. Will we see $2.99 - $4.99 new releases for Watch Instantly?

I'm still hoping that the Xbox 360 will be a Watch Instantly device (you can have up to 4 per Netflix account). I already want a couple of these is different parts of the house.

What do you think? Are you going to buy a Netflix Player?