Netflix drops its used DVD store

A few days ago a friend called letting me know Netflix was doing away with its used DVD store. As a Netflix member and collector of DVDs, I have used the used section of the Web site a number of times to pick up movies mostly for $5.99.

Netflix started selling used DVDs a few years ago, a side venture to its more traditional rental movies by mail model that made Netflix one of the most successful online businesses around.

The move for Netflix to drop out of the used DVD business isn’t really that surprising to me and I don’t think the reasons for the decision are really being talked about.

Netflix claims the decision was made to allow the company the room to focus on its core business — movie rentals by mail and streaming video. I’m guessing that is true, but there is something in the statement that is missing.

Netflix is working hard on building its streaming service, announcing an upgrade to HD for a number of titles, prepping for a launch on Xbox 360 and TiVo along with Blu-Ray players that support the format.

The company has also made agreements with the movie channel Starz in order to get its hands on new movie releases. I think this agreement is actually the most telling reason for Netflix to pull out of the used store business.

Lets face it, the movie industry hates used stores. A used DVD sold doesn’t count in sales figures for the movie and ultimately means a “loss in sales” for the studio or distributor that doesn’t get a cut of that sale.

The movie industry has been slow to adopt the Netflix streaming service, mostly pushing out “catalog movies” that haven’t spent time on the big screen in a few years.

Closing down its used DVD store is a good will measure for Netflix, letting the movie companies know they are ready to play ball and really push the streaming service even further. Netflix is positioning themselves for the future and they’re doing it now.

I only hope Netflix doesn’t give too much. The entertainment industry is notorious for taking a pound when an ounce was offered.

At any rate, the streaming service is building up and becoming one of the most compelling offerings out there. If that means missing out on a few deals on DVD, that’s fine. After all, I’ll be able to watch it on my Xbox soon enough.

I love Twitter but …

Like many tech philes I have been enamored with the service “Twitter.” It’s a difficult thing to explain but I think this video does it as good as anything.

Video by Common Craft.

I have been using Twitter myself for quiet a while, since it was just a little birdie as it were, going back to early February 2007. Since that time I’ve only actually known a couple people who Twitter and yet, I have seen my viewers swell to over 80 people.

I now have a goal to expand that to 100 people by the end of September. Not sure how I’m going to do it but so far the people who follow me just seem to do it on their own, I’m going to let it happen organically. I’ve gone up over 20 people in about a month so it’s not unlikely.

The problem I find with Twitter, and a complaint that many users have, is the constant instability of the service. It is almost constantly down. That makes for a difficult user experience. And yet almost all of us continue to return to the simple social networking service.

I lost interest in FaceBook before I started using it and the MySpace experience is awful. It’s all about Twitter — at least when it works.

You can follow me right from my blog, otherwise friend me up on twitter.com/rjw3. Let me know if you do and I’ll follow you back. It’s worth it I swear.

TiVo + YouTube coming soon?

I’ve been hearing some rumors around the Web that we’re soon going to see video sharing site YouTube sharing its content on TiVo. This isn’t a new situation for the Google owned YouTube as content can be watched on devices like the Apple TV.

As a user of TiVo, this is somewhat exciting news. The idea of getting YouTube directly on my TiVo means a lot more content opportunities. I’ve seen the experience on Apple TV and it’s pretty smooth. Having used TiVo’s partnership with Amazon Unbox service, I expect a pretty strong quality to come out of this.

There are more partnerships that have been talked about, but a rumored Netflix partnership has apparently stalled. I would love to see Netflix Watch Now on my TiVo.

TiVo CEO Tom Rogers also talked about a new vision for TiVo, opening the device to a whole house experience. Currently I’m able to share content between my two TiVos (living room and bed room) which is nice, but to do it through one box in a more seamless manor would be exciting.

All this is making me feel good about holding off on upgrading to an HD TiVo had this point. My standard def box is doing me pretty well. I just have to ignore the HD QAM video I can watch. Soon though, hopefully.

Blu-Ray prices rise without HD DVD

One of the fears I had when HD DVD announced it was calling it a day was the already absorbent prices of Blu-Ray players would skyrocket with the lack of competition. In the months leading up to the demise of HD DVD, prices of the Blu-Ray competitor were falling dramatically, with players priced under the $100/$150 - a price point that got me to buy into the format.

It has been evident to me for a long time Blu-Ray players were priced based on the PlayStation 3. Sony, the primary backer of the high definition Blu-Ray format also produces the PS3 - set to be a major part of Sony’s revenue stream. Oh yeah, and it plays Blu-Ray movies too.

Continue reading Blu-Ray prices rise without HD DVD…

Talk about something interesting

If you don’t follow the tech community closely you probably missed it. An interview that has implications that were larger than the audience in attendance for it. It involved a Business Week columnist/author and the creator of Facebook.com.

It was billed as an interesting keynote address for SXSW, a conference that brings together technology, music, art and everything else in between. An evolving event that kicked off many years ago that has expanded from a focus on music to what it is today.

The piece of SXSW that seems to be attracting the most attention this year is an interview between Mark Zuckerberg, an entrepreneur with a reputation for being shy and avoiding public speaking. The other, a columnist/journalist who admits to being a friend of “Zuck’s” - Sarah Lacy.

Continue reading Talk about something interesting…

Other functions for HD DVD players

Best Buy is advertising one of Toshiba’s HD DVD players in an interesting way. Hey, it’s an Upconverting DVD player! - oh yeah and it plays HD DVDs too, if you want it to, I guess.

HD DVD ends, Web uses greatest villain to comment

I just pushed a soon-to-be released HD DVD movie to the top of my Netflix queue, the first I’ve added since Warner announced last month it would end support for the format later this year.

When the announcement came days before the Consumer Electronics world entered its big trade show in January, the end of HD DVD seemed to be inevitable.

As the Web is so good at doing, a video popped up taking footage from a German film about the downfall of Nazi Germany re-subtitled with comments about HD DVD. I felt sick watching it.

A friend sent me the You Tube video with a chuckle, but I found it impossible to laugh at it. Comparing the downfall of a consumer electronic product to the greatest villain our world has ever known - a group that killed millions of people and set an entire country on a course it still strives to over-come.

While I’m not suggesting censorship, I’m completely against that, I do find it sad that someone took footage documenting the downfall of one of our worlds more horrific regimes, repurposed in this way.

There has been a lot of comedy at the expense of Nazis over the years, well deserved, thought out and pointed humor that serves to demonstrate the absurdity of their actions. This particular video seems to take a less thought out take on Nazis in an effort for a cheap laugh at the expense of a consumer product. Not really funny, more nauseating.

I understand where the creators of this video is coming from and I’ll give them credit for some interesting jokes at the expense of HD DVD, but placed over a backdrop with Hitler, it feels more like an ignorant frat joke that has the potential to open wounds instead of a light hearted video to be passed around the office.

Cleaning up my downloads folder

Earlier today I downloaded a QuickTime video from Tekzilla, a Revision3 video podcast on technology. I watched the 30 some odd minute HD video talking about MacWorld and some of the fun things that were introduced.

After watching it I went to my downloads folder to delete it, finding a folder filled with nearly a gig of PDF files, wallpaper, unused shareware and a few other video files. Generally speaking, the majority of the files fell squarely in the “I don’t need or use these” category.

There were of course a few gems in the rough, which I moved to a more permanent “documents” or “pictures” folder, but for the most part the files that served no real purpose ended up in the trash.

Some of the files dated back to over 6 months ago, many duplicates of HDTV manuals I downloaded looking at feature sets before selecting my Vizio.

It’s an interesting metaphor for life I think, we often accumulate stuff we don’t need and every so often we need to purge ourselves of some unneeded stuff.

That said I backed up all the files, even the unneeded ones, onto a DVD-R. So no, I won’t be getting rid of that second copy of Dogma anytime soon. I’m too much of a pack-rat.

Gizmodo seeks attention, gets it?

The Consumer Electronics Show seems to draw more and more attention from main stream media each year. With the popularity of HDTVs exploding and every other person owning an MP3 player, technology is no longer relegated the the geeks and nerds in the AV room.

With more media outlets and the growth in the tech blogging community, the competition to be “your source” for news at CES has never been more fervent. Some source did live blogging, others did creative videos, while at least one blog made a complete fool of itself.

This year, Gizmodo did a stunt at CES. Using a gadget advertised on late night TV that turns off all televisions within a certain radius. Said blogger took the device and shut off dozens of flashy new HDTVs throughout the show and interrupted a press conference. This of course annoyed vender’s, organizers and generally everybody with any sense of common decency.

The individuals responsible for the stunt over at said tech blog have made claims of civil disobedience to prove their independence and not being part of the establishment. The problem comes in that this particular blog is part of a major corporation that is seeking as much traffic as possible - note advertisers paid the bills that allowed the bloggers to do this prank.

Any claims of civil disobedience as a reasoning behind the stunt is pure posturing. This was all about page views, click throughs and visibility. This particular blog has a history of such antics drawing both curious attention and negative attention. As time goes on the site has lost a great deal of credibility. While their competition (Engadget) has almost always taken a journalistic high road, avoiding such stunts and recognizing what credibility is really about.

I have to be honest, I have never been a fan of Gizmodo. Its always felt a little less tasteful or honest in comparison to its competitors. This incident just serves to prove the point. While its competition have run into controversy - including one reported rumor that likely caused a serious, all be it short lived, dip in Apple’s stock price on Wall Street - Engadget has generally felt more trust worthy.

As a professional journalist I question the tactics and explanations from the perpetrator. From posting a “comedy” video of the clips to their “response” to the criticism that flooded the tech community in recent days.

In the end, if they wanted to get attention, they’ve obviously made their point. As for their journalistic credibility - I’d argue they never really had it.

Give me Sling or give me something

I’ve been out of commission for the last few days with headaches and colds but that hasn’t stopped me from keeping an eye on things at the Consumer Electronics Show. The big CES event this year showed off a couple things that caught my eye.

SlingBox has been a product I’ve been interested in for a while. I intend on picking one up in the near future to hook up to my TiVo for viewing when I’m traveling. The SlingBox connects to your television or DVD player or TiVo and lets you watch and control it through your computer.

This year the fine SlingMedia folks came through with their long discussed SlingCatcher. This new product will let users send from the SlingBox to another television - taking the computer out of the equation. Interesting idea. I plan on using this to watch TiVo’d shows in another room. Good times.

Then there was the death of HD DVD. I saw it coming before it happened but I am disappointed it happened the way it did. I have some thoughts I’ll expand on it later, but I have to say - Warner Bros. doesn’t have the consumer in mind. It’s a money thing, and that’s a shame. Oh well. I still have a nice upconverting DVD player at least.