Interesting. Reuters reports that the Canadian Netflix service is set to launch later this week. And will solely offer video streaming. If I’d read my email a little closer a week ago, I might have caught this tidbit earlier (see above).
The decision to forgo physical media does seem to make good sense on a number of levels. As it would be insanely expensive and difficult to duplicate their US DVD shipping infrastructure on a national scale. Risky as well, given the Netflix brand is new to Canada and disc rentals (other than from kiosks) may be on the way out. However, Canadian pricing and digital content offerings/licensing have yet to be revealed. As we know, the US movie selection is often lacking… (via Hacking Netflix)
Whoa, we don’t know the movie selection is lacking. *looks at 500 items in queue.* People just have terrible, terrible taste in what to watch.
I should say “lacking in terms of new release Hollywood blockbusters.” :) There’s a decent amount of good stuff, hidden gems – but I need more help with recommendations and content discovery.
“Whoa, we don’t know the movie selection is lacking. *looks at 500 items in queue.* People just have terrible, terrible taste in what to watch.”
This is quite true, but even for folks with decent taste, the HD selection is still lacking, and that will continue into the future.
Well, at least it’s a start. If Netflix can get past the maze of licensing restrictions to legally stream in Canada, I’m hoping it will open the door (even if only a crack) for other companies such as Hulu (and Pandora!) to start offering services in Canada as well.
I would say that Netflix is lacking in terms of new releases and HD quality titles.
From HackingNetflix.com…”Raghu at Feedfliks used the Netflix API to discover that Netflix now has more than 130,000 movies & TV shows, 28,000 streaming titles (more than 4,315 in HD).”
While on the surface that seems like a lot, that is only ~15% of the titles that are available in HD. Moreover, the SD content from Starz – where a lot of the newer top titles come from – is terrible quality.
Update… The service is now live. It runs $8/mo (CAD) and has some interesting variances in content from the US service. Additionally, while some third party hardware is supported at launch (Wii, iPhone) others such as the Xbox 360 aren’t currently ready to go.
just signed up for the service… you get what you pay for. If I was broke, yes this may be a good service, but I rather spend the money and get what I want than being content with 10 year old movies. I rather go to suspect or Queen video and pay the 5 bucks to get what I want…. truthfully, this service sucks, I will probably cancel it once the free month is up.