Hacking NetFlix

Netflix Announces Streaming on Sony Bravia TVs This Fall

Netflix today announced a deal with Sony to add Netflix Streaming to Bravia Internet Video-capable TVs and older Bravia models through the Bravia Internet video link module. Sony joins Netflix hardware streaming partners Microsoft, Roku, LG, Samsung, TiVo, and Vizio.

“Sony has been a world leader in consumer electronics for decades,” said Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings.  “We are proud to include Sony Electronics among our CE partners who continue to provide new and exciting ways for Netflix members to instantly watch movies and TV episodes in their living rooms on their TVs.” 

What was missing from this announcement? The PS3, due to an exclusive deal with Microsoft for the Xbox 360. 

Rare Look Inside Two Tennessee Netflix Shipping Centers

Netflix gave reporters a tour of two Tennessee shipping centers, and WMC-TV posted a video tour of the "secret" Memphis facility that processes 11,000 movies per day:

The discs are still opened and inspected by hand, but the rest of the process is now handled by machines:

"By 8:00 a.m., all 11,000 disks are ready for the NPI, a huge machine that performs multiple tasks. At this stage, it works at 30,000 DVD's per hour. The first time a DVD passes through, the machine generates an email that is sent to a customer informing that person his or her DVD has been successfully returned.
During a second pass-through, the NPI determines whether a movie is scheduled to be sent to another customer. If not, it heads to the shelf. If so, it heads across the room to another machine - the stuffer.
Back when Netflix first started in 1999, envelopes were stuffed manually. Now, the stuffer does the same job - at 3,200 per hour. From the stuffer, the discs return to the NPI."

At the Memphis Shipping Center a staff of 18 processes more than 24,000 discs per day, according to a story in the Tennessean.

Thanks to Jason for sending this in.

Are Blu-ray Discs Cracking more than DVDs?

Consumerist has a report on damaged Blu-ray discs, Are Blu-ray Netflix Customers Paying Extra Because The Discs Keep Cracking? The comments on the story are mixed, but they quote a reader named Victor: 

"We have been experiencing a growing number of brand new Blu-Ray releases from Netflix that arrive with a small crack (usually 1-3mm, and sometimes only through the hardcoat part) along the outer edge that makes the disc unplayable. In better than 4 years we have had only ONE regular Netflix DVD arrive cracked, but with Blu Ray we've now have three arrive in just the last three weeks with this problem. I started asking around, and it seems like this is a growing problem. The Blu Ray hard coating actually seems to make the discs MORE susceptible to damage in transit."

I'm renting more Blu-ray discs, but I have yet to have a problem. Have you experience problems with Blu-ray discs?

TiVo Offering Customers Upgrade Discount on HD DVRs

TiVo is offering Series 1 & 2 customers that have owned a TiVo DVR for more than a year $50 or more towards a new HD TiVo, capable of streaming Netflix movies. You can check to see if you're eligible on the Tivo website. 

I'm getting close to getting rid of my Series 2 and the $12 monthly fee. I rarely use it anymore, and instead I watch TV on Netflix Roku Player, Comcast's On Demand service, iTunes, and Hulu.

Do you have a TiVO? Do you prefer it over a TiVO HD?

via PC Magazine.

Netflix New Releases for July 7th, 2009

Click here for the full list of new releases this week (73).

Interesting titles include Knowing, Push, The Unborn, Five Fingers, Night Train, Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox, Kath and Kim: Season 1, Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy, Very Young Girls, Resolved, Clones, Lonely are the Brave, and Coco Chanel.

Voting for the Netflix Find Your Voice Contest Ends Sunday Night

Voting for the Netflix Find Your Voice Contest ends Sunday night at midnight, and then the 5 finalists will be judged by Josh Brolin, Dustin Lance Black, Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen, Stephanie Allain, and John Sayles. The winner will be notified after July 31st.

Netflix New Releases for June 30th, 2009 (Full List)

Click here for the full list of new releases this week (90).

Interesting titles include Two Lovers, Entourage: Season 5, The Education of Charlie Banks, Pedro, Princess Protection Program, Jonas Brothers: The Concert Experience, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, The Man with the Golden Arm, Three Priests, 12 Rounds, Hide, The IT Crowd: Season 2, and Tokyo!

Netflix $1 Million Prize Won by Team Effort?

It looks like a combined effort has won the Netflix Prize, with a 10.05% improvement. The winning team, BellKor's Prgmatic Chaos, is a combined effort from AT&T, Commendo, Pragmatic Theory, and Yahoo! Research. There's a funny post about how they picked the name of the team (I personally liked "Show Me The Money").

According to the rules, other teams have 30 days to submit a better solution, or the $1 million prize is going to BellKor's Pragmatic Theory.

via Kottke.

Netflix to Offer Streaming on the Wii?

A reader participated in one of Netflix's many customer surveys, and one of the questions asked "...how likely would you or someone in your household be to a Netflix Instant Streaming Disc for the Nintendo Wii (available for free) in order to instantly watch movies & TV episodes on your TV?"

In a previous survey Netflix asked about the PS3 and Wii, but they were going to charge $9.99 for the disc. Looks like they're considering giving the software away now.

Interesting timing, as NewTeeVee reported yesterday that Nintendo is offering CinemaNow movies on the Wii in Japan.

Would you be interested in Netflix Streaming on the Wii?

Netflix Posts Shipping Center Photos on Facebook

Netflix has posted a series of new photos from a shipping center on Facebook.

Thanks to Sam for sending this in.

Strange Netflix Site Bug: No Images

Update from Netflix: "All is well again. Images are loading properly."

Netflix is currently experiencing a strange website bug: no images. Netflixhelps on Twitter: "Some users reporting no images on the website...we're hard at work on it. Thanks for your patience."

Netflix Awarded Patent for Managing Rental Items Across Distribution Locations

12:01 Tuesday reports that Netflix was recently awarded a fifth patent, #7,546,252, "Approach for managing rental items across a plurality of distribution locations."  

An "inventory free" approach for managing rental items across a plurality of distribution locations includes sending at least some rental items that are not needed by two or more distribution locations to a designated distribution location. Rental items sent to the designated distribution location may be permanently stored at the designated distribution location, returned to the distribution location from which they were sent, or sent to other distribution locations, depending upon where the rental items are needed. In situations where particular rental items are not currently needed by customers at a distribution location, but there is a high likelihood that the particular rental items will be needed by the customers within a specified time, the particular rental items may be maintained at the distribution location as "float" and not sent to the designated distribution location. The float is re-processed as returned rental items prior to being again rented to customers. The determination of whether customers need, or do not need, a particular rental item may be made based upon a wide variety of criteria such as time criteria, actual and predicted customer demand for rental items, actual and predicted returns of rental items, Net Ships and predicted loss and breakage of rental items.

via Davis Freeberg.

Netflix Verifying Addresses?

Mark received an e-mail from Netflix, informing him that they have verified his address with the U.S. Postal Service, and they wanted him to confirm that it was correct.

Dear Mark,

In order to deliver your DVDs to you as quickly as possible, we routinely update our shipping information. Your shipping information has recently been updated by the U.S. Postal Service. Using addresses validated by the U.S. Postal Service ensures the fastest possible delivery of your DVDs. Please verify that the new address listed below is correct.

(My correct address is listed here in the email)

If this address is correct, you do not need to take any further action as our records have already been updated. If this new address is NOT correct, please update your address information as soon as possible to avoid interruptions in your service.

-Your friends at Netflix

Has anyone else received a similar e-mail from Netflix?

Netflix Adds Streaming Availability Dates to the Queue

Netflix is now letting users know when streaming titles will be available by adding "Instant" dates or "Coming Soon" in the Queue.

I'm not sure when Netflix rolled this feature out (I only have 2 titles with upcoming streaming dates out of more than 350), but it should help prevent customers from requesting a DVD when the movie will also be available on streaming (like The Code). 

Thanks to Patrick & Lisa for sending this in.

WSJ Talks with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings about the End of DVD

The Wall Street Journal spoke with CEO Reed Hastings about the future of the company, Netflix Boss Plots Life After the DVD (subscription required). The story looks at Netflix's streaming business and the struggle to transition from DVD. The article also sheds some light on why Netflix decided to work with partners instead of becoming a hardware company: 

But the product's early 2008 public unveiling neared, several senior Netflix executives began to express misgivings about straying into the unfamiliar hardware business. The box would never have mass appeal if it was limited to accessing Netflix's movie services, some argued.
Barry McCarthy, Netflix's chief financial officer, was one of the skeptics. "Are we out of our f- minds?" Mr. McCarthy recalls thinking about the hardware plans. "We don't even know what we don't know about this business." He describes Mr. Hastings's infatuation with the project with two words: "Apple lust."
Mr. Hastings concedes that he "fell in love with building boxes" and that part of the inspiration was watching Apple Inc. use its hardware to sell online content. Apple, too, is seeking to bring Internet video to TV sets through its iTunes Store and a box called Apple TV. "Every entrepreneur is a Steve Jobs  wannabe," he says. "I was as guilty of that as anybody."

Thanks to Greg for sending this in.

AP: Redbox A Growing Threat for Netflix?

The Associated Press takes a look at Redbox and the threat it poses to Netflix, Redbox's Machines Take on Netflix's Envelopes. On a recent quarterly earnings call, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said DVD kiosks would be his #1 competitor by the end of the year. 

The number of DVD kiosks is growing quickly: Redbox now has 15,400, and Blockbuster plans on rolling out 10,000. Another reason he might worry: one of Reed Hastings key people is now president of Redbox:

Mitch Lowe, Redbox's president, came to the company after six years with Netflix, where he was vice president of business development. While at Netflix, he managed one of the company's competitive advantages: a popular system that recommends lesser-known movies to subscribers based on ratings for films they've already watched. That helps Netflix's 10.3 million customers sift through 100,000 movie titles.

Tidbits from the story: More than 4 million people used a Redbox kiosk last month, and there are now more DVD rental kiosks in the U.S. than video stores.

U.K. Netflix Clone Lovefilm Mulling Sale

paidContent reports that U.K. Netflix clone Lovefilm is in discussions regarding a sale: A spokesperson told us: “We can confirm Lovefilm has received approaches and the board is considering options on on behalf of the group and its shareholders.”  Netflix competitor Amazon is a shareholder in Lovefilm.

Netflix New Releases for June 23rd, 2009

Click here for the full list of new releases this week (72).

Interesting titles include  Inkheart, The Code, Confessions of a Shopaholic, The Pink Panther 2, My Dinner With Andre, Phoebe in Wonderland, At The Death House Door, Hallowed Grounds, Last Year at Marienbad, Waltz with Bashir, Table for Three, Bob Funk, Dragon Hunters, and Mr. Troop Mom.

Wired on The $1 Million Netflix Prize

Wired has written an update on the Netflix Prize contest as the teams get close to the finish line, "$1 Million Netflix Prize So Close, They Can Taste It." 

Team Pragmatic Theory’s most recent submission, posted in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, shows a current improvement of 9.78 percent, giving the pair a slim lead over last year’s leaders, BellKor in BigChaos, a team that includes AT&T engineers, with Netflix’ seven-figure prize tantalizingly close to being won.
“For a long time, we weren’t sure if 10 percent was even achievable,” said Piotte by e-mail. “Now that we’re getting closer, it seems highly probable that it can be done. Right now, we’re feeling very motivated and excited. The focus for us is no longer ‘if’ someone will make it to 10 percent, but rather ‘when.’”

I really didn't think that the contestants would get this close so fast, but there are more than 48,000 contestants from 180 countries working on the problem.

Blockbuster To Offer Game Rentals, In-Store Weekly Subscriptions, More...

Recent Blockbuster news on HackingBlockbuster:

• Blockbuster will begin testing game rentals in Cleveland on June 30th for Total Access and By Mail subscribers. 
• Blockbuster has fixed a shipping glitch that was causing delays for some customers.
• Planning a summer road trip? Blockbuster has launched an interactive map that shows where famous movies were filmed.
• Blockbuster is launching the Summer Escape Pass, a $10 per week in-store subscription for movies and game rentals (one disc at a time).

Netflix Shipping on Saturday from Flushing, NY & Chicago

William and Kevin report that Netflix is now receiving and shipping discs on Saturday at the Chicago and Flushing, New York shipping centers. Is Netflix shipping on Saturday in your area? 

Xbox 360 Netflix Streaming Will Be Down For Scheduled Xbox LIVE Maintenance

The Netflix blog warns that Netflix streaming on the Xbox 360 will be offline as part of the scheduled Xbox LIVE maintenance starting at 3am ET on Tuesday, and the outage could last up to 24 hours.

Netflix Reminding Customers about Terms of Use?

A reader sent in an interesting "reminder" they received from Netflix, asking them to read and agree to the Netflix Terms of Use.

The notice reads: "Your use of the Netflix service is subject to our Terms of Use. Please take a moment to review the Terms of Use and confirm the following: I have read and agree to the Terms of Use."

Has anyone else seen this?

Netflix Explains The Streaming Closed Caption Problem

Neil Hunt, Netflix's Chief Product Officer, on the Netflix blog explains why it's so hard for Netflix to add closed captions to the streaming titles:

"You might be asking how it could be so hard, since we already subtitle foreign language streams with English subtitles. These subtitles are "burned in" to the video stream at the time of encoding - they are so-called "open captions" that cannot be turned on and off by the viewer. The majority of viewers would object to English captions on English content, so we have to figure out how to let individual viewers turn them on and off.

Encoding a separate stream for each title is not an option - it takes us about 500 processor-months to make one encode through the entire library, and for this we would have to re-encode four different formats. Duplicating the encoded streams is prohibitive in space too.

So we are working on optionally delivering the SAMI file (Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange), or similar, to the client, and having it render the text and then overlay it on the video at playback time. Unfortunately, the tools for rendering SAMI files in Silverlight, or in CE (Consumer Electronics) devices, are weak or non-existent, and there is some technology development required.

I would expect to deliver subtitles or captions to Silverlight clients sometime in 2010, and roll the same technology out to each CE device as we are able to migrate the technology, and work with the CE manufacturer to deliver firmware updates for each player."

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Auditioning for Netflix-Sponsored Show

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is on the road and is looking for movie geeks for a Netflix-sponsored show. They're auditioning this morning in Charlotte, and will be visiting Indianapolis (6/17), Tampa (6/19) and Houston (7/1). If you're interested in being on the show, you have to be over 18, pass a test, and an interview (more info on requirements here).