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Bad news: Netflix burdened with longer DVD window

As if Netflix hasn’t had enough bad news recently, they’re now telling us Warner Bros. has extended the rental window from 28-days to 56-days. This means, instead of waiting a month to rent a new DVD or Blu-ray Disc, you now have to wait almost two months.

Warner Bros., along with many other Hollywood studios, had instituted a 28-day sales-only window for newly released DVDs and Blu-ray Discs in order to encourage disc-sales. Clearly the 28-day window was an homage to Danny Boyle, because sales of movies have not been bolstered by such a stupid plan.

It’s not clear why Netflix is entitled to such a long window as brick-and-mortar renters like Blockbuster (if they’re still into that sort of thing), and Redbox now get the titles a month earlier. Not that this was any different than before, because Netflix usually had long-waiting times for newly released movies anyway due to their demand. From reading the press release, it seems like they might be doing this to give UltraViolet and the Warner-owned Flixster an advantage over Netflix.

Read the press release after the break.
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Are movies on disc dead?

During the Great Format Wars of 2007, some Outsiders kept their distance from the fray by declaring all physical media a lost cause. In spite of their valiant efforts, Blu-ray Disc sales have grown considerably, and the format is picking up the slack where DVD has left.

But the rag-tag bunch of insurgents would not give up, and now Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, iTunes, HBO Go and other mercenaries have kept their fight up and streaming video has become ubiquitous. Netflix instant-only subscribers far outnumber disc-only subscribers.

Given all that, nothing comes close to the director’s original intention of a cinematic experience like Blu-ray Disc does. Academy Award-winning director Ridley Scott even wrote an article for the Huffington Post arguing this point:

Blu-ray disc, of which I’ve been a supporter since its inception, is the closest we’ve come to replicating the best theatrical viewing experience I’ve ever seen. It allows us to present in a person’s living room films in their original form with proper colors, aspect ratio, sound quality, and, perhaps most importantly, startling clarity.

The problem with an argument like this is that it is directed at the geeks like me who care about quality over convenience. The people who have massive screens at home who can really make use of the higher definition video, and powerful speaker setups capable of delivering the audiophile-quality Blu-ray Disc provides.

The mass market consumer buys eggs at Walmart because it’s more convenient. They order clothes on Amazon without ever trying it on to avoid going to the store. And for years have complained about DVDs presented in their original theatrical aspect ratio, which lead to the horrific pan-and-scan copies that lopped off the sides of the picture.

Even more damning, the younger generation are watching more video on portable 3″ screens than on larger televisions or computer screens. At that size, high-definition really doesn’t matter.

Ridley Scott argues that, “Technology will need to make many more huge leaps before one can ever view films with the level of picture and sound quality many film lovers demand without having to slide a disc into a player, especially with the technical requirements of today’s 3D movies.” The important part of that sentence is “film lovers.” There are film lovers, and then there are casual film consumers. There is the guy who watched The Tree of Life four times in his local indie theater, and then the girl who stayed up all night to watch the latest Twilight regurgitation.

Personally, I spend more time streaming video from Netflix on my computer than I do in front of my TV with a Blu-ray Disc. This is borne out of practically though, as I can’t really blast my surround sound system while my kids are asleep. What I prefer is the high-definition quality and emotional impact of Blu-ray Disc, but what the reality I’ve come to is compromise happens where the rubber meets the road.

And in the end, I feel like going out to the Imax last weekend to see Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol was the best compromise of all. Big screen. Big sound. Kids at home asleep.

UltraViolet has arrived

The most promising content ownership solution from the owners of properties has finally arrived. On October 11, Warner Home Video released Horrible Bosses on Blu-ray Disc and DVD with UltraViolet enabled. Warner is committed to including UltraViolet on all upcoming releases, including Green Lantern, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, and Shameless: The Complete First Season.

Sony has also announced the upcoming releases of The Smurfs and Friends With Benefits will be UltraViolet enabled.

Every major studio except Disney is on board with the technology, and there is massive support on the hardware manufacturer side as well. The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) group of companies is hoping to challenge the streaming or renting concept we’ve all embraced for one of true content ownership.

Best Buy and Walmart are both interested in selling UltraViolet hardware.

How it works

UltraViolet logos will be located on compatible Blu-ray Discs and DVDs, and inside there will be a redemption code. The user will set up an account at UVVU.com and enter the codes. The content will then be available for use on up to ten devices (PCs, HDTVs, BD players, mobile devices, etc). Up to six people may be registered on each account with access to the content.

Eventually, UltraViolet content will be available for purchase as digital-only, but this may be burned to disc by the end user.

The caveat

Until UltraViolet-enabled hardware becomes available, owners of Horrible Bosses (and other future Warner Bros. UltraViolet content) will only be able to watch the digital copy at Flixster.com. Hardware support should follow in early 2012.

On September 19th, I put my Netflix account in an “on hold” status. This is the day that the new Netflix price increases were set to kick in for my account.

With my account in an on hold status, I won’t receive any Netflix service, but more importantly, they won’t receive any of my money, as all billing is halted.

So why did I do it and why am I writing about it? This move is just my little way of protesting their price increases, their poor “justifications” and their anti-customer behaviors. After all, the strongest consumer voice is the wallet.

Interestingly enough, the same day that I put my account on hold, Netflix announced that they were spinning off their DVD & Blu-ray Disc rentals into an entirely separate service dubbed Qwikster.

When I heard that Qwikster would require completely separate billing and queue management, I actually wasn’t that shocked. Netflix has been making dumb decisions and pissing off customers for quite some time now. By now I just expect them to do things that aren’t customer friendly.

I haven’t yet decided on whether I will be fully cancelling my Netflix account or removing the hold to reactivate service. At this point I’m still thinking about it and waiting to see what else the company will (or won’t) do.

In related news, I didn’t receive an email from Netflix regarding the Qwikster spin-off and I didn’t receive the “apology” email from CEO Reed Hastings, maybe because my account is on hold? If so, WTF?

According to rumors online, Netflix could lose up to 1/3 of their subscribers due to the recent fiascos. Is your service with Netflix or Qwikster still active or are you cutting them off?

DirecTV launches premium video on demand service

Launching today, DirecTV’s premium video on demand service will provide the Adam Sandler movie Just Go With It for home rental less than 70 days after the film’s premier, and before any DVD or Blu-ray Disc release.

The price for such early access will be steep, at $29.99 for a 48-hour time frame. This is high, but may be competitive compared with taking a whole family to the cinemaplex at $10.50 per head.

This is the first time any major studio has allowed a movie to be released for home viewing this soon after playing in theaters. Just Go With It will be followed by Hall Pass, The Adjustment Bureau, and Cedar Rapids. Release dates for those films have not been announced, but may be as soon as 60 days after their theater release debut.

In 2006, under the direction of Mark Cuban, Magnolia Pictures released the Steven Soderbergh film Bubble simultaneously to theaters, cable/satellite and DVD as a pilot to test how such a release would work. A few months later, The Road to Guantanamo was similarly released by Roadside Attractions to theaters, cable and with internet download.

Is 3D tech getting out of hand?

This morning on NPR’s Morning Edition there was a business story on the new invention, 2D glasses. I’m not kidding, this is a real thing. These glasses allow you to watch a 3D movie in 2D. As described on the website,

2D Glasses block the same image with both lenses, so each eye gets the same picture resulting in a 2D image and an elimination of eyeball strain.

The glasses cost $9.99 with shipping. Which means the $3 premium for 3D movies just got that much more expensive for those whom 3D doesn’t work.

This is a compromise, of course, for those who don’t want to make their 3D loving family have to watch movies in 2D because of their headaches. But how many compromises must there be?

Yesterday I opened the special 4-disc edition of Disney’s Tron: Legacy Blu-ray Disc. That’s right, 4-discs! Why? Because Disney is cutting edge. Tron is a technical marvel, with 7.1 DTS:HD Master Audio, and full 1080p 3D. Of course most people don’t have that kind of setup.

The first disc is the 3D version BD. The second is the 2D BD with bonus features. (There are no 3D bonus features.) The third disc is the DVD feature and DVD bonus features (which are different than the BD bonus features). And the fourth disc is the digital copy.

Remember the promise of all of this on one disc? Those were the days.

But why is there a 3D and a 2D Blu-ray Disc? I’m glad you asked. The 3D disc will not play without a 3D setup. Not at all. It won’t just play a 2D version, it won’t play anything.

Oh, and by the way, when showing off the 3D display, sometimes it doesn’t look very good. People shrug and say they weren’t impressed. And then a couple minutes later they’ll be blown away with the same material. I figured out what happened: the TV didn’t recognize the 3D content, but since “3D” was selected, it output the 2D-3D converted video, which looks really bad. But when the 3D signal is detected, it looks great. (Mind you, this is a Sony BD player connected directly to a Sony 3DTV.)

Which brings up my original question: Is 3D tech getting out of hand?

I think so. All of the manufacturers and content providers are pushing hard for 3D, and it’s unprecedented how home 3D has avoided a format war and how fast the technology has penetrated the market. But consumers want convenience served alongside their entertainment. It’s why theaters have been suffering when it comes to ticket sales; It’s not convenient to go out to watch a movie when you can do it at home. It’s also why audio and video quality has suffered compression over the past decade in order to stuff the files onto smaller devices, and stream across space-time.

Listen, I like 3D but I also understand why people don’t want to jump through hoops in order to enjoy it. It can be a real pain. Consumers like features on the box, but they don’t like to actually enable features or learn how to use them. Nobody wants to ave to think about how to get everything setup before every movie. On many discs you already have to select what type of audio to use, which is ignored most of the time anyway, giving the default option most of the time. Nobody also wants to have to select the right disc out of a bundle pack, turn on glasses, make sure the TV is syncing up properly with the player, and on and on. They want to just sit down and enjoy the ride.

What do you think? Is technology getting in the way of media enjoyment?

UltraViolet gets Hollywood support

All it took was a near-collapse of the movie industry, and the bankruptcies of Hollywood mainstays like MGM, but the major studios look to be catching up to the 21st Century. Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem announced multiple industry partners at CES 2011 to include all of the major Hollywood studios except for lone wolf Disney.

“The most highly skilled users are already downloading content, making copies and watching on any device they want,” said Mitch Singer, the chief technology officer of Sony Pictures, who has been the key executive behind Ultraviolet. “We’re trying to build a business model for everyone around that behavior.”

UltraViolet is a cross-industry cooperation to provide digital rights ownership by consumers in a simple way. It was developed due to the frustrating way every manufacturer seemed to have their own digital rights management (DRM) which didn’t play well with others.

Each consumer will have a “rights locker” that will receive the DRM information at purchase or rental. The content will be streamed or downloaded from the provider in accordance with the rights stored int he locker. The digital content may be transfered between devices or shared without obtaining additional rights.

Digital content providers signed up so far include Best Buy, Comcast, Microsoft, Panasonic, Sony and Toshiba. The content can be shared with up to six friends or family members, and can be transfered or streamed to up to twelve devices. They may also be copied to DVD or flash media for back up.

The studios and distributors retain the right to decide where and how to sel their content with UltraViolet technology, but the retailers will set the prices. Digital copies of movies and TV shows may be purchased or rented with computers, Internet-connected televisions, and with Blu-ray Discs. The estimated cost will be $11 or $12.

The coalition has been hard at work obtaining partnerships with phone, tablet, HDTV, Blu-ray player, video game console and computer manufacturers. Software will need to be implemented on any device to support UltraViolet DRM technology.

The CES 2011 announcement was for content availability from the major motion picture studios. Hardware and retail availability will come later this year. The studios wanted to provide the content now so there are no hurdles to getting the hardware and retail market up and running.

There were hints that UV technology would allow for ripping of DVDs for storage on local hard drives, and possibly in the cloud, with an UltraViolet license. UV-branded Blu-ray and DVD discs would come with a digital “copy-in-the-cloud” for streaming ro downloading. The stored content would be subject to the same terms as downloaded or steamed content.

Notably absent from this major consortium are Disney and Apple. (Apple CEO Steve Jobs is the largest share-holder of Disney.) These companies always went their own way, but they do it incredibly successfully so time will tell if they come to support UltraViolet in the future. Disney has been developing their own system for cloud-based rights management called Keychest. Just like they ad their own layer of encryption on DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, Disney will certainly try to do their own thing here.

Unless Apple joins the group, iPhones, iPods and iPads – and maybe even OS X – won’t have access to the UV ecosystem. The die hard Apple fans will justify why they rent movies from iTunes while the rest of the world enjoys lifetime ownership of their collection.