Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Netflix's Newest Threat: $1 Online Rentals From Zediva

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Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 03-16-2011, 12:12 PM:

Netflix's Newest Threat: $1 Online Rentals From Zediva

Source: hollywoodrepoter.com

quote:
NEW YORK - New online film rental service Zediva, which offers current DVD titles for as low as $1, may become the latest headache for Hollywood studios and the latest challenger to Netflix, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Zediva allows users to stream movies, which are newly released on DVD, via the Internet - to computers and select Internet-connected TVs, Blu-ray players and other devices - without the delays of other services.

On its Web site, the company uses the tag line “New Movies Now” and also highlights that it is offering “new movies before Netflix and Redbox.”

Netflix’s streaming service, for example, offers older films, and the company has to wait 28 days under its studio deals before it can offer new DVD releases via mail. Coinstar’s Redbox service offers $1 rentals per night, but is also subject to the 28 delay window.

While comparable services on cable or the Internet typically cost $4 or $5, according to the Journal, Zediva offers single film rentals for $1.99, but a package of 10 rentals costs only $10.

The company’s operation depends on a data center full of DVD players that play the movies ordered on its site. Users control playback via the site.

“When you rent a movie from Zediva, you have up to 14 days to complete watching the movie,” the company says on its Web site. “Each time you rent the movie, you receive control of that DVD for 4 hours.”

The Journal predicted that Hollywood would likely mount a legal challenge to ensure that the company adheres to current release windows and doesn’t undercut the balance of power in Hollywood.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 03-16-2011, 12:46 PM:

The company’s operation depends on a data center full of DVD players that play the movies ordered on its site. Users control playback via the site.

Each time you rent the movie, you receive control of that DVD for 4 hours.

Interesting idea to try and get around having to license streaming rights, but from a technological point of view, this is an epic fail waiting to happen.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-16-2011, 04:28 PM:

Streaming DVDs? So that means I have to sit through menus, FBI Warnings and trailers as well? Screw that. I'd happily pay more for Netflix.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-16-2011, 08:34 PM:

So this outfit has thousands of DVD players with disks queued up and you control a remote DVD player through a website? I agree, sounds like a lot waiting to go wrong.

I suppose the studios' legal departments will be all over that one. I think it's PROBABLY illegal to stream their content over the web from a DVD. Something about that license statement, "non-commercial exhibition in homes."

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 03-23-2011, 10:07 PM:

Wait -- what streaming fees? You don't pay any "streaming" fees is you run a cable from your den to your living room so you can watch your DVD on the monitor in the other room. Or even closer to home, you don't have to pay any streaming fee getting the DVD signal from the DVD player to the set -- why is this any different? The run may be longer, but it is still one player playing one DVD to one display. They bought the DVD, they can rent it unencumbered; if doing that, then video rental stores wouldn't be able to rent DVDs. Why is it any different that the video store owner who buys a DVD and rents it for a buck?

Notre Dame had a very similar system -- they had a room the size of a barn with racks and racks of laser disc players with cabling run to hundreds of classrooms. Professors were able to call up the A/V Center and ask us to cue up a particular title; they would then be able to control the player remotely. I believe they had Epson or possibly NEC projectors in the rooms. They spent a LOT of money on that system. I am sure it has been dismantled by now, or at least the LD player are gone. Talk about technology obsolescence biting one in the ass!

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 03-23-2011, 10:15 PM:

quote:
“When you rent a movie from Zediva, you have up to 14 days to complete watching the movie,” . . . . . . “Each time you rent the movie, you receive control of that DVD for 4 hours.”

Anyone else read this paragraph a few times and are still saying "huh"?

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-23-2011, 11:28 PM:

What they're saying is this:
1) If you go to watch the movie, you'll get control of an actual DVD instantly streamed to you for 4 hours.
2) If you come back 15 days from now and try to watch it, you'll be charged again.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 03-24-2011, 12:43 AM:

I read it as each time you want control of the DVD for 4 hours, you have to re-rent it.

The whole idea is stupid from a maintenance perspective. Who is going to maintain those DVD players? They DO wear out and start skipping and such over time.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-24-2011, 03:28 AM:

I'd only subscribe to this if I could stream RCA SelectaVision discs.

Posted by Ian Parfrey (Member # 5122) on 03-24-2011, 02:36 PM:

Indeed an epic fail if this is a case of actual DVD's being streamed in real time. Somehow, I can't see that happening in reality as it's a hardware failure just waiting to happen. I envisage something similar to a video jukebox, an RCA TCR 100 or Odetic but dumping to hard drive and then out to the stream.

It may be crazy enough to work but somehow .....

Posted by David E. Nedrow (Member # 4981) on 03-24-2011, 07:57 PM:

Actually, there's no technical reason this won't work. It's a very simple thing to hook each player up to a realtime transcoder that sends an MPEG-4 stream (or similar) to a distribution network. Yes, hardware failures of the backend players is an issue, but one they surely took into account in their business plan, right? Right?

They do note that in most cases, they will skip preliminary material where possible. This indicates some type of automated (RS-232 or other) control of the player.

Now, regardless of how much they've thought about working around copyright issues, I see a couple of problems, not the least of which is the transcoding. The jury is still out on whether that is legal, even for a consumer who has actually purchased the disc.

I think the 4 hours/14 day thing simply means you have four hours total over the course of 14 days in which to watch the disc. Don't make it through in that 4/14 window, and you get to rent it again.

I have to laugh at all of thee schemes. Netflix, Redbox, Zediva, etc. A few years ago there was a service that was available that provided pretty much what everyone wants from these guys. It was called DIVX and I knew a lot of people who loved it. Its problem was being having been introduced a couple of years too early. If it came around now, people would probably eat it up. "Still doing Netflix? Why do you have to return anything? Get DIVX."

-David

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-25-2011, 02:03 AM:

Uh, no. DIVX wasn't quite like that. With DIVX, you had to go to your nearest Circuit City to get the latest DIVX disc for $5. Then you keep it forever but can only watch it a limited amount of times. Netflix is completely different. Next to no effort is required. Most people can hobble down to their mailbox to get the disc and returning it is just as easy. Also it creates less landfill since other people will rent the same disc once returned. With DIVX people would throw away tons of useless discs that they no longer had any use for. It was introduced at virtually the exact same time as DVD. DIVX failed for a reason and it would not be warmly received if it were introduced today instead.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 03-25-2011, 02:33 AM:

I got my hopes up when I saw this:

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-25-2011, 01:04 PM:

What this company is probably doing (or planning to do eventually) is to just "copy" the movie itself off of the DVDs and have it sitting in a server. No actual DVDs would be involved and that way the menu and other crap wouldn't be involved either. But, to make it all legal, the company would have BOUGHT the DVDs thereby making it legal to "play" them.

They would probably have a phony rack of a couple of hundred DVD players all playing disks, so when the company suits come walking in they can say "Here you go, these are the players being controlled by our customers" when in reality the movies are coming off servers in the back room in a different state.

Maybe I've seen "Coma" or "Sneakers" one too many times but this seems doable.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 03-27-2011, 06:31 PM:

quote: Ian Parfrey
an RCA TCR 100

I can almost hear the dreaded chewing of the tapes now...

Posted by Ian Parfrey (Member # 5122) on 03-28-2011, 02:12 AM:

Ahh, but think of all the overtime in fixing these dreaded things.