Netflix, TiVo to Develop Internet Movie Product
It's official: Netflix, TiVo to Develop Internet Movie Product. I talked about this at length back when the Newsweek article came out, but in the past month or so of silence from both sides, I had a sinking feeling that maybe the rumors in Newsweek weren't true. It's great to hear word that this deal is really going to happen and make a lot of Netflix and TiVo customers happy.
Some have speculated that this deal would never happen, due in part to Netflix not having the rights to sell streaming movies, but a few weeks ago they scored a deal with Warner Brothers Studios for the rights. Hopefully the other studios will join them and let Netflix offer their full catalog to TiVo owners.
The problem for me is the unwillingness of DirecTv to open up their DirecTivo box to Tivo extensions...
I did read that it was possible to hack it, but I'd realy prefer that DirecTv and Tivo would recognize that opening up their boxes to extensions so that we could add functionality from Tivo (Re DirecTivo) and in general from third parties would make their offerings much more attractive, valuable... with out them having to do any extra work.
I might be less bothered by the closed character if there were massive developments by the venders, but as I see it DirecTv, Tivo (and ReplayTv) are very slow at developing new capabilities and thus pushing those of us who would like to purchase them to delay, as I am doing, or move toward an open system (as the PC BeyondTv system -- which now is planning to PUBLISH its API's)
Posted by: Mike Liveright | September 30, 2004 at 09:08 PM
I have a question: isn't this feature pretty much already being offered by the likes of Microsoft and Snapstream vis-a-vis their partnerships with Movielink and Cinemanow? (see screenshots of Cinemanow here: http://www.snapstream.com/Products/firefly/firefly_cinemanow_community.asp)
From what I can tell, this isn't so radically new. And as an MCE user, I can tell you that these services are, um, forward looking (ie they suck today, but I bet they'll be cool in the future when everyone's got lots of bandwidth).
What's going to make TIVO + Netflix any better?
Posted by: Anonymous | October 01, 2004 at 11:25 PM
I think the Netflix+TiVo deal looks better because there is a potential for all of Netflix's selection, and useful tools, in addition to TiVo's interface.
I can't imagine a moviebeam or cinemanow combo with some home theater PC software being nearly as smooth as what TiVo and Netflix are known for.
I suspect their product would someday be as easy as clicking some buttons to move items in your Netflix queue over to your TiVo, then turn on your TV to watch by pushing a button.
Posted by: Matt Haughey | October 02, 2004 at 12:26 PM
Yeah, what Mike L said. Damn you DirecTV!
That Warner deal certainly is encouraging, although I'm still not sure I'd give up the actual DVD's with all the extras for the downloaded version. Assuming I even had a stand-alone TiVo -- still, it's great to see TiVo innovating. I was beginning to get worried about them.
Posted by: TraderMike.net | October 04, 2004 at 07:13 AM
If you'd like some information on this, email me and I'll hook you up. I'm writing an article on Netflix as we speak.
Posted by: Matt Goyer | October 05, 2004 at 04:22 PM