The movie screenshot game is still chugging along, and someone just answered Round 6 today. He should be posting Round 7 soon (it should show up here). Round 7 posted (I think I know the answer, heh, but I’ll let you answer so as to allow the spread of the game). At some point, I’m going to have to do a post of learnings from this experience. For instance, the requirement for hosting the next round seems to turn off lots of folks (even folks who know the answer). Also, attempting to start a meme on a low traffic blog is probably not the wisest thing to do…
In other news, I’ve already caught up with 2 of the films from my Greatest Movies I’ve Never Seen list: 12 Angry Men and Network. Both are excellent films, though they are also very, very different (both are directed by Sidney Lumet).
Part of the reason I’m watching all these films is that I’m looking for more films to put on a Top 100 movie list. One of my arbitrary requirements for this list was to avoid films made in the last 5 years. The idea is that films have to be able to stand at least a small test of time before they can be included in my all time best list… and I think that’s a good reason too. For one thing, some movies can become obscenely dated or irrelevant, and I think this rule helps avoid such embarrassing choices. But if a movie has been around for 30 years and I’m only just watching it now, how likely is it that my initial reaction will be accurate? I’ve often found myself mellowing on films I thought I loved. Then again, there are some films that I only gain an appreciation for after multiple viewings. So is going through this list of great films that I haven’t seen really going to help me much? I’m sure some of them will end up on my list, but will they stay there? I guess only time will tell.
Update: I forgot to mention how I was able to watch those two movies so quickly. Netflix has somewhat recently (apparently in January) launched a new feature called Watch Now, where instead of putting items in your queue and waiting for them to come in the mail, you can just watch them online, whenever you want. It’s a spectacular idea, and as bandwidth becomes cheaper and the quality of this service gets better, I can’t imagine how new HD formatted discs (i.e. Blue-Ray and HD-DVD) could compete. Between Netflix and services like Comcast’s OnDemand, I think there’s a good chance that neither of the new HD formats will really catch on.
Of course, the big issue here is movie selection. Netflix has a huge and diverse selection of movies, but only a small portion of them are available to watch online (there are currently around 3000 and most of those appear to be older films). I don’t know if this is because they just launched the feature and will be adding more titles as time goes on, or because they need to get some sort of special clearances, etc…
The actual experience of using the Watch Online feature could probably improve a bit. They use Windows Media Player to drive it, and it includes some DRM (which I don’t mind because, as far as I’m concerned, this is basically a rental. Plus, the feature doesn’t cost anything extra.). It only appears to work in Internet Explorer 6+, which is really annoying. I’m used to people not supporting Opera (my browser of choice) for the latest and greatest web features, but to only support IE is absurd. The only other issue here is that my WMP installation appears to be wonky, as I can’t seem to watch anything on full screen mode. The quality of the video could probably be a little better, but it works well enough for me (again, when watching a movie for free on my computer, I’m a little less picky.)
Anyway, it’s a fantastic idea. It could use some improvements, and I’d love to see the selection of Watch Now movies expand drastically in the coming months (this would be particularly helpful with Anime series, I think, though I doubt that’s high on their priority list), but for now, I’m just happy that I got a good service without even asking for it…
The Netflix Watch Now thing is pretty nifty, despite it’s Microsoft-reliance. I’ve seen some demo footage of stuff Netflix is going to do with a high-definition flash-like technology Microsoft is developing called Silverlight. It looks pretty cool, you can queue movies up to watch with people on other computers, type messages to each other while the movie plays, stuff like that. Since it’s a MS-developed tech, I think the IE/WMP-reliance is probably going to be sticking around unfortunately.
I’m not a big fan of how the viewing allowance is determined, actually, but it seems awkward enough that it will likely change. Right now it equates monthly streaming time to an hour for every dollar you pay in your plan (so if you have the $9.99/month plan, you can stream 10 hours worth of stuff per month – at least they don’t screw us on the $0.99).
Yeah, it seems like everyone’s coming out with their own proprietary flashlike application development platform. I still like the concept of the Watch Now thing, and I’m a bit unsure why I can’t watch on Firefox or even Opera. I mean, it’s just windows media player – you should still be able to watch it on other browsers…
The allowance is a bit awkward, but it suits my needs fine. I’ve got 18 hours worth of watching per month, which seems reasonable. The thing that I really like about it is that it’s free and they just up and gave it to us. All of the sudden, I get to watch more movies in a month without having to pay extra or wait for the mail. I’ve been thinking recently that if Netflix figured out a way to cut out the “mail” portion of their business, then they’d rule the movie rental business. Comcast OnDemand is actually ideally placed to do this, but their selection stinks, and I guess there’s a lot of limitations to their system. If they could provide a library of 50,000+ movies like Netflix does, then they’d be ideally placed. Again, selection is key, and right now neither really has an edge…
Yeah. It’s my opinion if you’re going to put something on the web, imposing superficial limitations like requiring Internet Explorer when you could very easily get something to work on other browsers (or, in a lot of cases, simply allow it to work on other browsers) is… well, there’s all sorts of things wrong with it.
Just getting the watch now service without having to sign up (at a higher cost) is definitely nice. Actually, I think it’s especially ideal for movies you don’t think are going to be good but have a compulsion to see anyway. Then, you at least don’t waste time having the DVD shipped to and from you in addition to the hours you spend watching it. It’ll be interesting to see how this changes things once the selection is better.