Hacking NetFlix

Consumers to Start Cutting the Cord in 2010

CNN Money cites a Yankee Group study that predicts one in eight consumers will "cut the cord" and cancel cable or satellite service in 2010.

Going without cable or satellite is unthinkable to many Americans -- just over 90% of U.S. households subscribe to some form of pay TV. But just as mobile phones have replaced many customers' land-line service, Vittore said on-demand Internet video will soon whittle that 90% figure down.

Pay TV is getting more expensive
The biggest reason why customers will cut the cord, according to the study, is the growing cost of pay-TV service. Cable and satellite viewers pay an average of $71 per month, and they receive an average annual price hike of 5%, according to research firm Centris.

Have you or are you planning on cutting the cord this year? 

Thanks to Evan for sending this in.

Free 7 Day Trial of EpixHD Online Movie Service

Epix, a cable channel and online movie streaming service, is offering a free 7-day pass if you create a free account and request an invite code. They have a large collection of movies, including Benjamin Button and Iron Man. 

 

I signed up for an account, requested the free code, and was soon watching Benjamin button for free. The player looks similar to Hulu, and the quality of the movies was HD or very close to it.

via DealNews.

Apple CEO Mentions Netflix in Essay about Flash Support

Apple CEO Steve Jobs explains why he's not supporting Flash on the iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad in an essay entitled Thoughts on Flash. 

Adobe has repeatedly said that Apple mobile devices cannot access “the full web” because 75% of video on the web is in Flash. What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads. YouTube, with an estimated 40% of the web’s video, shines in an app bundled on all Apple mobile devices, with the iPad offering perhaps the best YouTube discovery and viewing experience ever. Add to this video from Vimeo, Netflix, Facebook, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ESPN, NPR, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, People, National Geographic, and many, many others. iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video.

Since Apple doesn't support Flash or Silverlight on the iPad, they're probably streaming the video in H.264.

Netflix Survey Seeking Customer Testimonials for Ad Campaign

Bay Area Blogger and photographer Thomas Hawk took a Netflix survey that asked if he was willing to give a testimony about the service. Here's the full text of the question:

Netflix's ad agency is considering using Netflix members in your area in an advertisement with testimonials. The agent is looking for a diverse group of people - different ages, backgrounds, lifestyles, etc - and is in the process of interviewing. Would you like to be interviewed by an ad agency representative with the possibility of being selected for a Netflix advertisement? 

Netflix Opening Second Shipping Center in New Jersey

Netflix is moving the smaller Philadelphia shipping center to Bordentown, New Jersey and will lease a 40,000 square foot building for processing movies. Netflix also operates a shipping center in Newark.

via PhillyBurbs and GlobeSt.

Is The DVD Release Window Increasing Movie Piracy?

Crunchgear reports that Avatar, currently unavailable from Netflix and Redbox, will probably gain the honor of being the most pirated Blu-ray disc of all time.

The film has been downloaded, according to TorrentFreak (which I trust implicitly, by the way, good guys over there), more than 200,000 times in the first four days of availability. That’s the 10GB+ Blu-ray version, mind you. The standard-def version is higher, in part because not everyone has the time nor inclination to downloaded something so large.

via Inside Redbox.

Coinstar Reports $350 Million in Revenue: Redbox Renting 9 Million Movies Per Week

It looks like Netflix and Redbox had a great Q1. Coinstar, the company that owns Redbox, reported $350 million in revenue for the quarter, with $263 million of revenue from Redbox and $60 million came from coin services. Home Media Magazine reports that Redbox is now renting 9 million DVDs per week, and added 2,400 kiosks in Q1 for a total of 24,800 in the U.S. 

Netflix Hiring for International Streaming Service, Cloud Computing

Netflix took another step towards launching the promised streaming-only service in a yet-unnamed country by posting a job description for a Director of Product Management, International (via NewTeeVee). The job sounds interesting and challenging: "You won’t have any direct reports. You will, however, have bright technology, design, research, customer service, marketing and operations partners, and plenty of resources to execute your vision. Our approach is to stay “lean and mean”; building management layers adds complexity that often stands in the way of results. This approach gives you time to think “big picture” then get a team focused on a few key ideas that will drive innovation." 

It'll be interesting to see where they launch the first international streaming service -- my guess is an English-speaking country like Canada (the rights might be easier to get since it's part of North America), England, or Ireland. 

Netflix's Adrian Cockcroft is looking for a Cloud Platform Engineer, and this posting sheds some light on the technologies Netflix uses: "If you are interested in the CAP theorem NoSQL systems like Voldemort, Cassandra and SimpleDB, scalability and expect to be at the Velocity Conference in June, then you are the kind of engineer I'm interested in hiring."

If you're looking for work or a change, Netflix has a lot of openings at http://jobs.netflix.com.

Looking for HD Titles for Streaming?

If you're looking for HD titles to stream to your Netflix-ready device (PC & Mac HD streaming will be available later this year) you can select the HD Genre on the Netflix website, but you can also use InstantWatcher. InstantWatcher lists the 961 HD titles, and enables you to sort by movies or TV shows, rating, title expiration date and more. I find myself using InstantWatcher more and more because it gives you so many options to search for movies.

Thanks to Lester for suggesting this story.

Time Warner Disrupting Internet Service to Warn Torrent Users?

A reader wrote, "I came home to find my Internet cut off. Turns out Warner Bros got my IP address from a ROM emulator I downloaded containing some Harry Potter games. I have downloaded countless TV shows over the last 5 years. They busted me on some Harry Potter games I didn't even want. I was going for some old Gameboy games to add to an emulator I put on my Wii, and those just happened to be along for the ride.

First violation is a warning. Second one carries a $39.95 fee. Looks like I'm done with torrents. Though I may have to take the risk to finish up this series of Ashes to Ashes."

Has anyone else been warned about using BitTorrent or had their Internet service disrupted?