Redbox Set To Compete With Netflix On Video Streaming 119
First time accepted submitter roc97007 writes "Looks like Netflix may be getting some much needed competition in the video streaming market. From the article: 'Later this month, Redbox will offer an unlimited streaming-video plan that includes movies from Warner Bros. and pay TV channel Epix, along with four nights of physical DVD rentals, for $8 a month, or $9 a month if customers want Blu-ray discs. The offering is a direct attack on Netflix Inc. and is priced even lower than the $10-a-month DVD and streaming plan that Netflix abandoned a year ago. The lowest price plan from Netflix that combines DVDs-by-mail and streaming is now $16 a month.'"
Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
But will it run on Linux?
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And now that Netflix under Wine works [compholio.com], we might have two options!
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However, there is still hope! A new hope? From this huffingtonpost article [huffingtonpost.com]: "Epix CEO Mark Greenberg said the expansion onto Redbox will help grow its customer base since Redbox's customers tend to be younger than its current
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> "At launch, Redbox Instant will be available through traditional web browsers"
What could be more "traditional" than a web browser running on Linux? Linux/Unix has been "browsing" the web for as long as there have been web browsers. And most of the "web" is powered by Linux.
Really, Flash might be a PITA, but if they do go that route for "traditional" web browsers, it could mean instant access on Linux. I like Netflix, but I like discs too, and when they split the two plans apart, DOUBLING the total pr
Only mainstream blockbusters? (Score:5, Insightful)
While the price and features of the Redbox service are similar to what's offered by Netflix, its library is smaller and focused mainly on the most popular Hollywood fare, which Strickland says are the movies that "really matter in the marketplace."
Well, that pretty much rules out my tastes, then. No thanks.
Re:Only mainstream blockbusters? (Score:5, Interesting)
While the price and features of the Redbox service are similar to what's offered by Netflix, its library is smaller and focused mainly on the most popular Hollywood fare, which Strickland says are the movies that "really matter in the marketplace."
Well, that pretty much rules out my tastes, then. No thanks.
Agreed. I joined Netflix several years ago because of all of the things they rented that I couldn't get at the local rental places.
Agreed. (Score:1)
Once Amazon streaming gets its prices down to a reasonable buck-a-stream, I will probably use that exclusively.
Until then, I basically don't stream. I'm not interested in watching often enough to justify eight bucks a month, even for a complete library. And four bucks per stream is just stupid.
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Have you tried to use this feature? Only a very tiny fraction of Amazon's videos are eligible for free streaming under the Amazon Prime plan. Most of them make you pay extra, the same price as everyone else. Only very old stuff is maybe free.
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On the website you can search and then check "Prime Eligible" on the left.
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I use it all the time. Currently watching Downton Abbey.
Anyway, I dropped Netflix streaming and started using Prime, since I also shop a lot on Amazon and appreciate the quick free shipping. I keep the cheapest Netflix DVD plan to get movies that are not free on Prime or aren't available for streaming anywhere.
Re:Only mainstream blockbusters? (Score:5, Funny)
Can we get a -1 hipster mod?
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Well, that pretty much rules out my tastes, then. No thanks.
Indeed.
Even with Netflix, as far as streaming over the Intertubes, you're pretty much stuck with mainstream stuff. If you want any of the niche stuff, you're still stuck with ordering the DVD...
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Most popular? Around me, Redbox is nothing but B movies. It seems like their criteria is guns or talking animals.
Hardly competition at least for now (Score:5, Informative)
Netflix streaming: 60,000 titles (movies and tv shows); lots of Blu-ray players, TVs, and all the major game consoles have Netflix apps
Redbox streaming: 5500 titles (movies only); a few Blu-ray players and TVs will have support, no game consoles for the time being
Redbox DVD/Blu-ray: 4 nights per month
Netflix DVD/Blu-ray: Unlimited
I'm sure Redbox's library and device support will expand over time, but they have a long way to go to be a real competitor to Netflix. They don't help themselves by excluding TV shows and starting out being invitation only.
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Meh. Unlimited DVDs from Netflix always averaged about 4 a month for me anyways.
I canceled Netflix (only streaming plan) at the end of the summer after having it for years. It felt like I'd gone through all the 5 and 4 star movies I wanted to see. And Netflix didn't appear to be getting much new streaming content I cared about. And the 3 star movies that made up my queue felt more like a chore to go through than entertainment. I've never tried Redbox but have seen the boxes at many convenient locations
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As I read it, it's 4 nights a month not 4 movies for as long as you want a month.
Many Locations but fewer options (Score:2)
I've never tried Redbox but have seen the boxes at many convenient locations.
And when you exhaust the six movies the RedBox unit has that you want to see?
Also enjoy the return of the thrill from video store days when the physical location you find a RedBox at is out of all the five/four star movies, and has only the three star movies in stock...
I'm going to subscribe just for the access to streaming newer movies, but I have little reason to think the physical units will be of any use to me more than a few t
Re:Hardly competition at least for now (Score:4, Insightful)
Gmail and Facebook were invitation only (Score:2)
Redbox streaming: [...] no game consoles for the time being
Only because you aren't willing to consider a small-form-factor, low-noise PC as the fourth console.
They don't help themselves by excluding TV shows
Did Netflix launch with TV shows? Perhaps the copyright owners in TV shows will become more willing to license them to Redbox once Redbox gains more experience.
and starting out being invitation only.
Gmail and Pinterest started out invitation only while they scaled up. Facebook started out invitation only, where all college students were invited, but anyone who graduated in or before about 2004 was out of luck. Advogato is still invitation only; as
Yes, Netflix launched with TV shows (Score:2)
Did Netflix launch with TV shows?
Yes. Both when it was disc only, and also when streaming started. In fact there were a lot more TV shows than movies (and there still are).
The depth of the TV selection is why I would never drop Netflix.
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Redbox streaming: [...] no game consoles for the time being
Only because you aren't willing to consider a small-form-factor, low-noise PC as the fourth console.
Actually, I do have an HTPC. Most people do not, and aren't going to get one just for Redbox streaming.
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Why build that thing when I got all of these ready made devices that do Netflix?
Meh.. that's not a serious option.
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They don't help themselves by excluding TV shows
Did Netflix launch with TV shows? Perhaps the copyright owners in TV shows will become more willing to license them to Redbox once Redbox gains more experience.
and starting out being invitation only.
Gmail and Pinterest started out invitation only while they scaled up. Facebook started out invitation only, where all college students were invited, but anyone who graduated in or before about 2004 was out of luck. Advogato is still invitation only; as far as I can tell, you need commit privileges on a high-profile free software project to get certified.
Oops, I meant to respond to these also.
TFA makes it sound like Redbox was unwilling to license TV shows from the content owners, not the other way around.
As for Gmail and Facebook, that's irrelevent. They were not paid services trying to take customers from an established paid service. They could take as long as they wanted to to scale up. Redbox needs to move quicker than that, or they'll be written off in a hurry, and never get the additional content deals and subscriber base to truly compete with Netf
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Netflix streaming: 60,000 titles
54,328 of which are knock-off movies with titles and cover images suspiciously close to those of Pixar and Dreamworks theatrical releases.
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...what?
Hardly competition at all! (Score:2, Interesting)
Wake me up when they start getting anywhere near 1% of the stuff available as torrents...
To get the real RedBox DVD experience (Score:2)
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actually, 8-16 is negative 8, which is LESS than 1, idiot.
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Streaming plus 4 nights of rentals. Wonder how much you'd end up paying to keep your physical dvd for 2 weeks+ like you can with netflix?
Easy to beat Netflix... (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be awesome if Netflix was an online library of movies and TV shows, nearly everything produced in the past 100 years. Unfortunately it seems it is quite far from that goal and Redbox doesn't seem to be much of a competitor at this point.
Re:Easy to beat Netflix... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am reasonably sure Netflix would do exactly this - if the studios would let them.
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I am sure the studios would let them, if netflix payed them enough.
Re:Easy to beat Netflix... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with the studios is that, frequently, their version of "enough" is "Tip consumer upside down and shake vigorously."
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It's sad the studios don't realize they face a Hobson's choice. Your shit is going online and that's the way it is.
Now, what they can control is if they choose to be paid for it. The price, however, isn't particularly negotiable. It's either cheaper than the pain of pirating, or it isn't. Netflix happens to have a sweet pricing point where I'd rather pay for it than put in the time and effort. Good on them for realizing this.
As it stands, studios have chosen door 3 which is to sell plastic to the dozen
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At least there are some who decide to sell plastic. There are other studios who don't sell DVDs of their shows and don't offer them on Netflix (or any other streaming service). In this case, selling streaming rights to Netflix is found money. The content isn't earning money in anything other way (and may be available online via pirates anyway) so why not let Netflix stream it legally and generate some revenue (even if it isn't much)?
Re:Easy to beat Netflix... (Score:4, Insightful)
The studies demand way too much money. Subscription fees would go up to $100/mo, not $8/mo.
I dont know if $100/mo is accurate, but I do know that if Netflix offered "nearly every movie ever made" for 24/7 on-demand streaming, that I would probably give them $100/mo for the service.
Obviously there will be some content that they just wouldn't be able to get at any price, but there are times when I am looking for a specific movie, and currently by me estimation Netflix streaming has fewer than 33% of the movies that I type into their search box.
In a recent slashdot story I showed that of the earliest 20 entries on wikipedia's list of dystopian movies, thats Netflix only offered 4 of them (a dismal 20%.) If they turned the experience around on its head, if 80% of the time when I search for a specific movie that its ultimately available immediately for streaming, then that $100 starts looking quite attractive.
Re:Easy to beat Netflix... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a feeling the "content owners" would never consent to this. They may put it on some kind of physical media that may or may not last 2 or 3 decades or more, but I have this gut feeling that they'll never put their stuff up for streaming "forever."
I am extremely distrustful of streaming. I don't believe for a second that a movie I like, and I mean really like will be available to stream 10, 20, 30 years after initial release. There's no permanence to streaming.
For that reason I prefer physical. I have many other reasons, but this one's probably the biggest one, right behind picture and sound quality.
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so the fact that more and more movies and TV shows are available online isn't taken into account for your doom and gloom scenario?
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It's not the amount that's available (or not available) that I have misgivings about -- it's how long will it be available for.
Can you really look me in the eye and tell me with a straight face that you belive that something in streaming today will be available for streaming 20 years from now? Do you trust the content owners that much? I don't.
Here's another reason to love phys
The answer is yes (Score:2)
Can you really look me in the eye and tell me with a straight face that you belive that something in streaming today will be available for streaming 20 years from now?
Absolutely.
Do you trust the content owners that much?
Don't trust them at all. I do trust they enjoy recurring revenue from the content they already have streaming right now, and can't see them giving that up.
The real trick is to get someone to START streaming. But once they have done so, it's going to be streaming somewhere forever...
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Can you really look me in the eye and tell me with a straight face that you belive that something in streaming today will be available for streaming 20 years from now?
Absolutely.
Do you trust the content owners that much?
Don't trust them at all. I do trust they enjoy recurring revenue from the content they already have streaming right now, and can't see them giving that up.
The real trick is to get someone to START streaming. But once they have done so, it's going to be streaming somewhere forever...
really? might want to ask stars about that they pulled their streaming content from netflix. Although it may not be streaming forever, but it will be on the web forever be it torrents usenet ftp, linking sites, or darknet, or shared friend 2 friend
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If you there is a movie/TV show that is a must-have, buy it. If you go physical, don't forget to buy an extra player for storage since eventually it will be hard to find one to play those disks. Hopefully the video ports don't change too many times to where you will need a bunch of adapters. With physical or digital, if you want the best, be prepared to keep on having to "upgrade" to higher quality versions at full retail price. While streaming is not going to offer the best picture of the time, I would ass
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No just go with netflix redbox and library dvds/blurays and rip them to you harddrive in as high a quality a file as you can(you can always make the video smaller for portable devices later after all). format may change but you can format shift it now. connectors won't mater any more either as you can just copy it from one drive to another. Optical disks are great but is nothing compared to external hard drives. DRM skeams will come and go but my copy of handbrake vlc and libdvdcss are forever. (best of all
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To be fair: Can you be sure that the DVD or Blu-Ray that you buy today will still work in 10 years? 20 years? 30 years? Given that DVDs are only 16 years old, we don't really know how they'll hold up in 30 years' time.
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It would be awesome. And a money maker. Have commercials, pay for a no commercial showing, or have a subscription for all content commercial free.
The media companies could make a fortune. This is a case where over long copyright is biting them in the ass.
Oh, and it would be the studios direct to consumer, not through a 3rd party. AND it would mead direct to consumer without dealing with broadcast issues and cable companies.
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How do you define "easy"? "Offer nearly everything" seems like a pretty big requirement to me.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Last I checked, they do not offer disk for rent.
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Hulu Plus has commercials, so it is not competition (IMHO).
I am a Netflix DVD only customer, but signed up for Amazon Prime when I got a deal for $20 off the regular Prime rate.. Largely to use the streaming (but I haven't used it yet, will likely use it over my extra long Xmas vacation).
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Are Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime Video suddenly non-existent?
Hulu Plus likes to double-dip. They make you pay a subscription and at the same time they keep on increasing their number of commercials slowly but surely (which you must watch even if you're a paid subscriber). Soon, they'll have more commercials than the TV networks themselves.
Amazon Prime, I do not like their video selection. May be, I'd like them more if I had young kids, but right now I don't.
This isn't to say that I'm excited about RedBox entering this market. RedBox (their non-streaming service at l
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Hulu Plus is a joke, and Amazon Prime doesn't have a terribly good selection.
Not sure how much better RedBox is going to be but I sincerely hope someone can give Netflix a run for their money.
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Hulu plus is good for being a replacement DVR for network TV. Plus reruns. That's about it.
Amazon Prime, though, is your key to cutting the cable. You see, most of what's on any channel is crap. But if there's one or two shows keeping you on cable (such as Mad Men), then you can buy the current season on Amazon and get the stream the day after it airs for the first time on AMC. This lets you be current on those one or two shows keeping you on the cable. Plus, actually streaming recent stuff.
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You're right. I was mostly talking about the "free" streaming you get with Prime. The stuff you can specifically buy has some good stuff in it.
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Hulu Plus doesn't count as competition, in my book, at all. PAYING for a streaming service to have programs interrupted by unskippable advertising is just plain crazy. It is bad enough with Cable TV, but at least my TiVo gives me full control.
They could not PAY me to force me to watch stuff I don't want to watch. It is about as hostile of a model I can think of at the moment.
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Hi America,
What's Hulu?
Regards
Rest of World
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Regard,
America
Redbox started at -1 for me. (Score:2)
When I first saw a Redbox kiosk, my thought was that by going with bright red they were trying to emulate Netflix's red envelopes.
I loathe cheap knock offs, and I'm surprised they weren't sued over 'trade dress' by Netflix.
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There is a vast gulf between "same dominant color" and "cheap knock off". Redbox has a very different distribution method than Netflix. Your reasoning is superficial.
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yes, cause no one else in the history of the world has used red product containers
besides, I have never personally seen a redbox envelope in my entire life, by your logic Netflix should be sued by Civic Video
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_Video [wikipedia.org]
God I hate cheap ripoffs, fuck netflix
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new colors? If you count each rgb hex code as a unique colors and each competitor get a single corporate color then there would have to be 16,777,216 competitors before you need more. But i have met people that thought that netflix owned redbox simply because of the colors were the same.
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Brick red is a very common color.
Way more of a complement than competition (Score:2)
I'll subscribe to both. That way I get new movie streaming from RedBox, older content and some TV from Netflix, and discs from both (Netflix I think has a wider range of discs that will not be streamed).
Don't forget that Disney will only stream from Netflix starting in 2014 I believe... that is quite a draw no matter what. Disney was a major factor in the success of BluRay over HD-DVD also.
I Will Try It (Score:2)
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We got them beat in Canada (Score:5, Funny)
we just walk 10 km in the snow to the DVD store.
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Actually I'll tell you a true story. In the late 80's when I lived in the interior of BC (Kamloops) me and my buddy use to walk probably close to 5 km each way down and up hill from Aberdeen area to Overwaitea which is a large grocery store chain to rent Sega Genesis games on his moms account.
This was when they were just finishing the Coquihalla HWY so we walked on the unpaved way. Kamloops use to get some nasty winters and there was lots of snow threading and frozen feet as we though we were cool walking i
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Sadly, I know someone who *DID* walk uphill to and from school. Split custody with parents. His mother lived downhill from the school, his father uphill. In the morning, he would walk from his mother's house to the school, uphill. In the afternoon his mother worked, so he would walk home to his father's house, uphill from school. His mother would pick him up at his father's house and bring him home at night. He always had shoes though =)
Still streaming (Score:1)
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So if they don't stream you something in unreasonable quality (seriously doubt it'll even be possible to stream full 1080p uncompressed video for a long time to come), you'll just take it for free?
Don't fool yourself; you're not even on their radar for target audience.
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You do realize that an uncompressed 1920x1080x32bppx30fps video is about 1.8 terabytes, right?
Who will win? (Score:1)
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Violate the first rule of Usenet before its too late to get your regurgitated 'high definition' content of movies and series concepts already produced.
With nzbmatrix [sickbeard.com] and several other nzb indexes being taken down lately, it looks like the various *AAs are taking an active interest in usenet as well. I look for a lot more of these to go private.
Get rid of the monthly charge (Score:1)
Let me stream the movie for the cost of the kiosk rental. No way I go through 8 movies a month. 1 a week at most. I would do it if I could stream it for a buck.
It is inevitable, but I don't like it. (Score:2)
"Looks like Netflix may be getting some much needed competition in the video streaming market. . ."
No.
Sorry, let me explain - in this case competition is not a good thing. I am fairly certain both services will want exclusivity of distribution (at least for a certain time frame), much in the same way premium pay cable channels want exclusivity. This is not a good thing - it will lead to a dozen different services. It is not just the need to pay $10-$20 a month to different services, it is having to maintain the billings to all those services and secure logins.
Streaming internet video is one of the few
The Android/Xbox app I am waiting for... (Score:1)
netflix still better (Score:1)
Netflix has a large variety of movies and tv shows plus you can hold the dvd's for more than 4 days unlike the verizon/redbox and blockbuster which charge you for lateness and other stupid fees. Yeah, netflix movie selection is not that great but it's still better than what's on TV. Netflix TV shows is not that bad plus they have some new TV shows on there. Netflix should had never made that Disney deal they could had used that $300 million to add more TV shows or newer movies, bring back stargate sgu.
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