At least the movie industry (and TV industry) is experimenting with models for downloading/streaming content. And working hard to find economic models that will work.

The music industry stuck its head in the sand for nearly a decade (in the early 90s the only people not predicting the MP3 world worked for the RIAA). And in the wake of no legal market for MP3s the ‘illegal’ file sharing market exploded. Image a world where the RIAA had embraced the technology in the late 90s or early 00s rather than suing everyone to death (actually more their deaths than anyone elses).

The movie and TV industries are at least trying (although not always succeeding (bit-torrent anyone)) to create a viable market before a large number of ‘free’ alternatives take over. They haven’t found one that seems to work yet. But I think Netflix is on the right track. On-Demand and similar services from cable and satellite providers are also coming along nicely.

I've seen more stuff - mostly old TV shows - from my Netflix account in recent months over its Watch Instantly function that with the DVDs. It works surprisingly well; just click a couple times and then sit back (Alfred Hitchcock Presents in B&W looks fine on a little computer screen). If they can make it work that well on a TV, I'm hooked.

I love Netflix. I do. However, I have no interest in buying another little black box to add to my entertainment system. Especially since I already have a TiVo. An HD-TiVo, for which I paid a large sum of money (and which necessitated the spending of another large sum of money for an HDTV). Why can't I download movies to my existing box, which already allows it?

Furthermore, why can't I download movies to my Apple laptop?

This would be an interesting way to catch up on TV series, even more flexible than what I already do to order Netflix DVDs without even the 2 day wait. If it comes with a DVD player also (I don't care about HD or BluRay at this point), even better to get rid of another device in my living room.

Then again, if AppleTV really gets Video-On-Demand rental service on Macworld Expo Steve-note Day (Jan 15), that could also be a compelling. Alas, Battlestar Galactica--an NBC Universal production--is no longer available from iTunes. But Buffy is a FOX DVD product and Fox just penned the deal with Apple.

I am currently using Amazon Unbox to download movie rentals to my Tivo. It is great! I can order it directly from the Tivo (no need to go to my computer) and order up a movie. It is billed to my Amazon account, and so far I have only downloaded the .99 movie specials. But there is also alot of free content, I just watched a fantastic version of What's Up Doc? (the Warner Bros. cartoon, not the Streisand movie) for free.

Unbox has its drawbacks, even if you "buy" a movie, you can't burn it to DVD or record it to VHS. It just sits on the Tivo, taking up hard drive space. But, I just use it for rentals anyway, so that doesn't bother me. The next drawback is they just don't have the back catalogue Netflix does. Of course, even at that, I am sure Netflix will not be able to offer everything for download, because the studios still have to agree.

However, for the foreseeable future (read, writers' strike)I will be Unboxing, On Demanding, Netflixing, Tivocasting (web videos downloaded to my Tivo), and watching the new cable season.

Gee, maybe we don't need network programing anyway?

See my post above. No need to get another black box in your house.

They simply don't want to stock the material anymore. They figure they can shove the technical problems of forcing all that media down the pipe on to the cable company who you KNOW is going to fight it to protect their movie on demand offering.

Anyway it's not really instant. It's downloaded and then they'll have to figure out how to expire it. My pipe is on good day 4Mbps downlink. That would translate to 280 minutes download time for an 8.4GB DVD. Which is more or less 2.5x the real time playback time. So accounting for inline buffering while playback you would need about 60 to 80 minutes download time before playback. Now I'm sure TW would be thrilled to sell me an 8Mbps fat pipe for another $50/month but that sort of defeats the whole purpose.

What's the difference, aside from quantity of inventory, between what Netflix is proposing and using my DVR and Movies-on-Demand feature of my cable company? If they were to expand their offerings, why would I need Netflix?

But not the format, I already have a Tivo, if Netflix could just get their service to work the way Amazon's Unbox does, I would totally use it. I do not want another 2 or 3 hundred dollar box just so I can download movies, plus I'm still ticked at Netflix for not making their site Mac compatible for instant viewing.

Also, if Amazon can grow their catalog to rival Netflix's, I might just drop Netflix.

Tinybubbles:

Amazon Unbox is a fine service when coupled with TiVo, I agree. I've used it myself. The problem is exactly what you've mentioned--they don't have the big Netflix back catalog. I haven't found much I've wanted to see on Unbox, unfortunately. Presumably they will expand it--I'm looking forward to that.

Lestat1:

Are you my clone?

I was very disappointed when the Netflix/Tivo partnership fell apart. We were supposed to get Netflix downloads instead of Amazon in 2005, but things fell apart and Amazon seems to have stepped in. I am with both of you, if Amazon can expand its catalog, bye bye Netflix. But by the same token, if Netflix can get its sh-t back together with Tivo, I won't need to use Unbox. The great thing about Unbox is there is not membership fee, so they would be my preference if the catalog can expand.

Of course, as I mentioned in my original post, I would be surprised if ALL of Netflix catalog is available for download (not everything is available for instant viewing, for example) because the real bottleneck here are the content providers (read the Major studios.)

No wonder the writers are striking, these people are idiots. They say they don't know how to make the internet pay and here they have the opportunity to make some actual cash, but have their heads so far up their own butts over copyright they can't see straight. They really need to take a cue from the fashion industry, where they acknowledge there is nothing new under the sun and there are people making nearly the same thing at all different price points (I'm talking about knockoffs.) We already see some of this in the direct to video market.

So it is good that there is some experimentation going on in the market, I just can't believe how slow the pace of progress is.

BTW, let me lament the passing of the neighborhood video store, I'm not talking Blockbuster, but the mom and pops who just plain love movies and stock their stores with Netflix worthy titles. I appreciate all this technology, but I do miss those crazy, unintended conversations and suggestions from staff and customers.