Netflix deal with Warner Bros. includes delay in queues & why it is misguided.

Under a new deal between the two companies, Netflix users won’t just have to wait 56 days to rent Warner Bros. movies on DVD. They’ll have to wait 28 days to add the movies to their queues.

As part of the Warner’s continuing effort to boost its DVD, Blu-ray, and video-on-demand business, the studio’s new deal with Netflix throws up a new roadblock for people willing to wait and get the movie as part of their monthly subscription.

via Netflix deal with Warner Bros. includes delay in queues - latimes.com.

Making people wait to just add it to their queues on Netflix, just another example of why people dislike Hollywood entertainment companies sometimes.

I totally agree with Marco Arment (creator of Instapaper) on what this delay means for me in practice.

If I’m adding a movie to my Netflix queue, I’ve already decided not to buy the DVD. I’m adding it because it looks mildly interesting and I’d like to watch it sometime. If I can’t add it to Netflix, I’ll just forget about it and probably never see it.

via Netflix deal with Warner Bros. includes delay in queues – Marco.org.

To further echo that, If I am looking to rent a movie it is likely one that I did not have enough interest to see in the theater itself. That means I am not real interested in buying it before I have seen it, so I will wait to rent it.

The point that MG Siegler makes below is very pausbile I think in the long term.

I hope we all realize where this eventually leads: the banning of movie rentals entirely. 

via parislemon • A 28-Day Window Before You Can Even *Think* About Renting A Movie.

That leads into my final point, that making it harder for consumers to access and enjoy the movie and TV studio’s content does not help in the fight against piracy.  I am not advocating piracy here in response to this, but the harder companies make it or more barriers the companies put up to access their content, they should not be surprised if people turn to other means. In that sense this issue is just another facet of the fight over SOPA/Protect IP, if companies offered easier ways to pay at fair prices to let us use their content, company likely would see more people take advantage of those opportunities. One example is the iTunes music store.

Original Article

NY TIMES: Choice cuts from David Letterman's monologue for tonight's show, in response to recent death threats against him:

inothernews:

  • “Thank you very much for being here tonight. We have great audiences night in and night out, but tonight especially, it means a lot to me. Tonight, you people are more, to me, honestly, more than an audience … you’re more like a human shield.”
  • “I’m so sorry, I’m a little late coming out. Backstage, I was talking to the guy from CBS.  We were going through the CBS life insurance policy to see if I was covered for jihad.”
  • “I have a fatwa on me. And they say the guy that issued the fatwa is an ‘Internet jihadist.’ Internet jihadist, and I said, ‘Well, heck, who says Obama isn’t creating jobs?’”
  • And so now, State Department authorities are looking into this. They’re not taking this lightly. They’re looking into it.  They’re questioning, they’re interrogating, there’s an electronic trail — but everybody knows it’s Leno.”
  • And finally, from his top ten list:  “Number 4: How can someone be so angry at a time when Kim Kardashian is so happy?”

(via brooklynmutt)

Source: inothernews

Jeopardy Pt. 4: Gameday

dayan:

Watching “Jeopardy” from the studio audience turns out to be sort of like that Kim Mitchell video where the whole band is playing inside the fridge. Everything’s identical to the show you’ve seen a million times - same cadences, same graphics and music, all the cues and blocking are instantly recognizable - but at Stonehenge scale. The video wall is a looming grid of plasma screens 20 feet away; I’m half-blind in one eye, but I can read clues perfectly from anywhere in the room (a prerequisite if you want to be able to buzz in exactly as Trebek finishes the answer). Trebek emerges from behind a Plexiglas scrim, walking with his familiar gait. It’s a shock to finally see him. 

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Neat inside peak at his jeopardy experience