Several months ago Netflix brought on Anthony Wood (founder of ReplayTV) to “deliver movies directly to subscribers’ televisions via the Internetâ€?- substantiating years of set-top box rumors and speculation. It now appears they’re closer to making it a reality given a recent Netflix trademark update filing:

Computer hardware, set top boxes and computer software, namely audio and video receivers and transmitters and computer software programs enabling receipt, download, playing, viewing, and rental of audio and video programming through the use of internet connections to computer hardware and receiver and transmitter apparatuses that connect to a television set or monitor.

If you’re taking requests, Netflix, I’d like to suggest maintaining the current online viewing fee structure (with super-size upsell options) and introducing hardware @ $199 with $50 price reductions every six months to hit the 99 dollar magic number within a year. Can you succeed where others (Akimbo, Moviebeam) have failed?

Back in July, Gamefly reached out to me after hearing of my first (subpar) stint as a customer. They offered me 90 days on the house (2 games out) to test their supposedly improved service. Having received about a dozen Xbox and PSP games the last two months, I can report that delivery times have improved over my first go around. Perhaps it’s the new (closer) distribution center on the east coast (Pittsburgh), perhaps they have a better system for processing games - maybe a bit of both. Regardless, the average turnaround on game rentals has been about 7 days versus the previous 10-14. And last week we had a breakthrough… I returned two games on Monday and received two new games the very same week, on Friday. Surprisingly, they beat out the two Netflix discs I also shipped out that Monday - which still haven’t been received. (Very odd. Makes me wonder if the mail person has an ebay side business.)

So what will I do once my 90 days are up? I’m continuing on at the two game out $22.95/mo plan. The trick to finding satisfaction with Gamefly is managing expectations. I know it’ll take about a week door to door to receive a new game, so I won’t ship both games back at the same time. And while the shipping times are better, they may still be too slow to bother with Gamefly’s one game out plan ($15.95/mo). Though Gamefly tells me a new distribution plant in Tampa will come online later this year, with more in the works.

The Netflix rental model is beloved in my household, and we watch very different things on Netflix DVDs than we do on our DVR. However, a new study out of the UK by a firm called Ofcom, the independent regulator of UK communications industries, suggests that DVR viewing may be cutting into DVD popularity. In other words, people are building up viewing material on their DVRs rather than bother with the inconvenience of procuring DVDs.

This is not a big shock, and certainly the trend is bound to continue as more and more video is available digitally and on demand. However, while Hollywood may temporarily make a big fuss over the loss of DVD revenues, it’s hard to imagine producers and distributors won’t get a little creative before long. They can still sell content digitally, and ultimately they’ll have a lot more flexibility in offering video and interactive extras. It’s kind of like the ruckus DVRs have created in the advertising world. Sure people can skip over ads now, but in a digital world, advertisers have lots of opportunity to foist their messages on us - from YouTube’s new ad overlays to services like Time Warner’s Look Back which blocks commercial skipping. If and when DVDs completely die out, there will still be no lack of money to be made.

It looks like TiVo, Netflix and Blockbuster will be packing their bags for Massachusetts, after they won the first of many legal scrimmages in their patent defense against Lycos. Lycos has asserted that all three companies have violated patents they own, on “information filtering technology.� The two patents that are at the heart of the case are related to the recommendation services that the companies provide.

After Lycos filed their lawsuit against the trio, ChoiceStream (the company that created Blockbuster’s suggestion service) filed a separate lawsuit, to have the patents thrown out.

In their lawsuit against Lycos, they argue that the patents are invalid because of obviousness and prior art. Because Choicestream filed their own lawsuit in the Massachusetts’ court system, TiVo, Netflix and Blockbuster sought to have their case transferred there as well. I’m not familiar enough with the legal subtleties to know why Lycos originally opposed the motion, but with Lycos’ headquarters in MA, the judge found the request reasonable enough and granted the motion.

(more…)

Netflix confirms what we knew to be the holdup in bringing “Watch Now” streaming movies to OS X:

A key issue for delivering movies online is that the studios require use of DRM (Digital Rights Management) to protect titles. And that’s our holdup for the Mac - there’s not yet a studio-sanctioned, publicly-available Mac DRM solution (Apple doesn’t license theirs). I can promise you that, when an approved solution becomes available for the Mac, we’ll be there. I’ll also say that Silverlight 1.1 looks like a promising candidate - but that its DRM isn’t likely to be fully available until 2008.

For a demo of what a Netflix Silverlight solution might look like click here. But, if you’re not interested in waiting until ‘08, perhaps you heard Microsoft’s DRM has been broken — Netflix titles and can stripped and archived. Lastly, speaking of 2008, Netlflix is working on a solution to provide direct Firefox streaming early in the year.

(via Hacking Netflix)

A periodic roundup of relevant news…

• Netflix Watch Now Movie Archive Hack: Brent Evans
• Third Generation HD DVD Players Get Official: Engadget
• Watch Out For Wireless High-Def TV: CNET
• OpenMoko Neo Dev Kit Unboxing: Gizmodo
• Billboard Hot 100 Chart To Include Online Streaming: paidContent

The Netflix website has been down over 12 hours. Crazy!

The Netflix web site is temporarily unavailable.
It is anticipated that the site will be available again at 1:00 PM Pacific time.
We apologize for any inconvenience this causes you.
Please visit us again soon.

I don’t suppose this means cool, new features are being rolled? Probably not… they would have mentioned it to buoy their plummeting shares.

According to an Engadget tipster, Netflix has been conducting focus groups for two set-top box prototypes. The Watch Now-receiving hardware would reportedly clock in at $50 (composite & S-Video) or $100 (component & HDMI) — Which strikes me as extremely affordable… if they can pull it off. Though, I’d still prefer to have fewer boxes and can think of several other platforms I’d rather see this functionality land on.

(Spotted on TiVo Lovers)