Warner & Netflix announce a way to throttle BD new releases (1 Viewer)

[Chuck Anstey]

Originally Posted by Jon Martin

Face it, the DVD rental industry has been lucky to be able to stick around for the past decade. People were so used to renting VHS that they stayed with the practice even though DVDs only cost a small percentage of what a VHS did.

I think you have your dates mixed up because DVD hasn't been around as long as you seem to think it has. DVD players were not into enough consumer's homes until 2002-2003 time frame that it became a truly viable rental format equal to VHS. Then video stores were switching to only DVD almost overnight. DVD has only been the primary rental format for the last 7 or so years. The sell-through market has impacted rentals but the whole point of the article was sell-through is falling so Warner is resorting to tricks to try to increase sales. I think that as a group, consumers have decided to buy less movies or simply buy cheap $5 movies and they'll rent the new releases. Maybe people are just sharing DVDs more than before.

If the studios kill off the rental market by eliminating revenue sharing or put a delay in renting, then we will just be back to where video rental started; Mom and Pop buy the movies for sell-through prices and rent them out. This is what NetFlix did until this deal with Warner. There will always be a demand for renting movies on current physical media until an On-Demand system with high quality is in place that has a tremendous catalog of titles. NetFlix is trying to do this but they have a ways to go. At that time we will be right back to renting but in a different form.

I guess I am lucky to have a Hastings in town that rents movies. One problem I had with the place was they charge a $2 premium for Blu-ray rentals. So I went to the nearby BB, which I haven't been into in 6 years to see their selection of Blu and how much they charge. BB doesn't charge a premium. Of course their rental fee was more than Hastings charges for Blu-ray if you bring the movie back the next day for a $2 credit. So it wasn't that Hastings was charging too much for Blu, it was they were renting their DVDs really cheap.

 

[cafink]

I think Jon's closer than you give him credit for. 1999 was the year DVD really started to take off. The DVD market was huge by the end of 2000.

 

[Jon Martin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuck Anstey

If the studios kill off the rental market by eliminating revenue sharing or put a delay in renting, then we will just be back to where video rental started; Mom and Pop buy the movies for sell-through prices and rent them out. This is what NetFlix did until this deal with Warner. There will always be a demand for renting movies on current physical media until an On-Demand system with high quality is in place that has a tremendous catalog of titles. NetFlix is trying to do this but they have a ways to go. At that time we will be right back to renting but in a different form.

I think that Netflix always had some type of deal with Warner as for supplying DVDs. If you rent one of their films, they are always specially made, with Netflix logos on them and often missing extras (this was one way they tried to get people to buy the DVD).

It was in the renegotiation of their deal that this change was made. Warner, knowing that they sell a large amount of titles in the first few weeks, asked for the delay and Netflix, seeing the future may for them be in streaming, agreed if they could get more titles in that format. It works for both of them.

Some do think that Netflix's streaming is quite good. I'm not a fan. I have a Roku box, but still prefer the actual discs. But then again, I still listen to CDs.

As far as the time frame, I agree that it really took off in 1999. In 1998, I first got a player. I was a relatively late adopter as I was heavily invested in laserdiscs and didn't want it to catch on. But with DVDs available for sale in all my retail stores, I gave in. Even today, we are having 10th anniversary editions of films being released that were originally released 10 years ago. We are on the second go round for some titles.

By 2003, my local mom and pop chain had closed. Hollywood Video had closed. My BB was about to close. The rental market was already hurting. For me, there already is no rental market other than Netflix.

 

[dpippel]

Originally Posted by Jon Martin

I think Best Buy and Wal Mart, along with Warner, will have the most to gain from this deal

In my opinion WB is sadly mistaken if they believe this is going to result in significantly higher sales for first-release titles, which is what they're shooting for. I think that most people will just rent such releases from BB B&M (yes, they still exist in large numbers), BB Online (which so far isn't playing these silly games), they'll PPV it, or they'll simply wait the 29 days to get it from Netflix and that will be that. Customers who want to purchase a title have probably already made that decision before release day. But what do I know...

 

[Todd smith]

I certainly dont like this move. Apparently Netflix feels this will be a good business move, but as a consumer there is nothing good about it for me. If BB does not end up doing this as well, I will grab Warner rentals from them I suppose........glad I got some R1G1 coupons at BB.

 

[Ron-P]

I don't use Netflix anyway so it's no big deal to me. Netflix is the absolute worst for renting Blu-rays. I dropped their service long ago.

 

[Chuck Anstey]

Originally Posted by cafink

I think Jon's closer than you give him credit for. 1999 was the year DVD really started to take off. The DVD market was huge by the end of 2000.

It wasn't until Christmas 2000 that DVD had achieved its place as the inevitable format to supplant VHS as the number 1 home video format but the number of households with a DVD player was still just a blip compared to VHS players. It still took another few years to actually become number one. Before Xmas 2000 there was still a question of whether DVD would become the new laser disc or the new standard format. If you bought your player before Xmas 2000, you were definitely an early adopter.

 

[Chris Brunner]

Longer wait times for WB titles PLUS an new $4 extra per month for BD discs? (I didn't have to pay a surcharge when I added HD-DVDs to my account back in the day.)

Sounds like Netflix is making good money on these new practices, but I am getting nothing in return. In fact, services I have enjoyed over the past 10 years are being hampered at additional cost to me.

I am seriously considering pulling the plug on Neflix, as much as that saddens me. I have always been a huge proponent f their service.

C

 

[Brent M]

I'd already canceled my Netflix account and little things like this ensure that I won't be re-activating it.

 

[RickER]

I pay less than $11 a month for one at a time unlimited with Blu-ray? I think its a damn good deal. I also get NetFlix streaming over my PS3, for nothing! I dont see what the problem is? So you have to wait a few weeks to get The Hangover, so what?

 

[Douglas Monce]

I have to agree with Rick on this one.

Doug

 

[TonyD]

Netflix works just fine for me.
Wish it was cheaper but oh well, i wish everything was cheaper.

 

[dpippel]

I pay $9 a month for unlimited one at a time with Blockbuster (averaging 8-10 titles per month), no surcharge for Blu-ray, and I won't have to wait for WB releases. I could care less about low quality streaming video. If I want that there are a number of online sources that can I use via my PS3 for zero cost. Netflix is doing nothing that's going to get them my business. In fact they're ensuring that I'll never use their service again.

 

[TonyD]

It'll be coming to BBO too I'm sure of that.
btw many of the shows and movies netflix streams are HD and look great.

 

[Douglas Monce]

Yeah I have to say I'm very surprised with the quality of the streaming HD on netflix.

Doug

 

[Jim_K]

I dropped Netflix for BBO a long time ago and I'm glad I did.

No BD surcharge, no overt throttling and I actually receive new release BD's on a regular basis. I actually get the service I pay for. Imagine that.