Netflix Lives On - In its various forms

http://www.slate.com/id/2265755

Most of the article is dead-on, with....

... two notes:

1. Their (and everybody else's) streaming service is crap. The video looks like crap, and the audio is not 5.1 or anything like that (mono, most often). I know that a lot of people don't care about that, but looking forward that is unacceptable (3D?) and that is from whence I speak. Personally, given the choice I would never ever watch a movie streamed off the network instead of off a disc (CERTAINLY if the disc in question was blu-ray), even if I had to wait for it 2-3 days for it to come in the mail.

2. Their streaming service offers no extras (alternate languages & mixes / captions / commentary / making-of's etc etc).

#1 is a matter of network throughput. Given unlimited network bandwidth you can put through the 25GB (blu-ray average) of two hours or so that an HD movie requires. But in practice that's about an order of magnitude higher than even the best home networks can provide (and TWO orders of magnitude off from what my DSL in NYC gets me.. boo-hoo to me, and go figure).

#2 is a matter of software -- creating an end-user interface that allows you to hyperlink via the player / DVR / Apple TV off on-screen choices to various bits of video segments etc. That's not hard in the great/small scheme of things, just a drive to provide an alternate user-end interface to the legacy content of 14 years of standard DVD titles (a pure software driven DVD player -- in real time over the internet -- not likely given copyright panty-bunching).

So, we will continue to see a segmentation between "let me watch the movie (crappy, streamed)" and "give me the whole experience with the extras (full, off a disc)".