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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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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?
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