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I'm in the same boat as you. I cut the cord about 5 months ago and haven't looked back. I have Netflix and Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Apple TV. I know I am missing out on a lot of great content and it pisses me off...until I get my bill, which is a fraction of what I was paying before. Also, the convenience of my current setup is unmatchable.

The thing is, like you said, the technology has changed. I want shows on my current setup. I am willing to pay more for more content. One thing I thought was very interesting is Apple removing TV show rentals. I never purchase movies or TV shows. I like to rent them, watch them once and I usually don't want to watch them again. If I do, I will rent it again.

Why can't content providers understand this? Netflix and Hulu need to start creating their own content, which I know they are both working towards.

One semi-related note: AMC is ending Breaking Bad next season because of Madmen sucking up the budget - Netflix and Hulu: go buy that show! I would gladly pay for a show-specific season pass just to watch Breaking Bad.

Not to get off-topic, but why did you buy an Apple TV instead of a Roku (or do you have both)?

Everyone makies mistakes.

I have both. The UI on the Apple TV is better (but not leaps and bounds better), and the Netflix quality seems to be just a little better in HD. Both are connected to HDMI.

Of course, the Roku also does Hulu and Pandora, and I have a second one upstairs on the non-SD tv. From what I've gathered the Apple TV 2 doesn't play nice on SD.

We have Roku 2 and Apple TV, the UI on Apple TV is better, esp. Netflix. Roku 2 is 1080p, Apple TV is 720p, but our LCDTV does such a good job upsampling 720p you can't really tell.

Roku 2 has access to a lot more content, but the experience of surfing channels is kind of fragmented. The included Angry Birds game and motion remote rock tho!

I have both. Roku has high wife acceptance factor, but apple tv has two killer features - YouTube and AirPlay.

YouTube is available on Roku, and works excellently.

I have all the users that upload old Formula 1, so I can watch old races whenever I want.

Democracy Now also has it's own Roku channel, as do many many other things like Ted that you might not have thought of. It's worth spending some time on Google searching this stuff out.

I'd say I spend more time watching YouTube, NetFlix and HULU+ on the Roku than any other consumption mechanism.

Local news on OTA HD follows behind.

One slightly sad note, I only have the base Roku, and it's quite slow (maybe buffering), so my 2 year old is now utterly tolerant of loading bars, and will watch the loading bar, since she knows that content will follow. Her absolutely favorite thing on TV, though she doesn't watch much (seriously), is the mime segment on Nihongo Quick Lesson, NHK's little Japanese-lessons show that runs about 2:15pm, right after her lunch. I guess really, it's not much different to me as a kid waiting for the TV to warm up and show a picture...

As a side note to this, the Apple TV works very, very well for streaming from your iTunes movie library. I'm in the slow-ish process of converting my entire DVD library over to video files that iTunes likes for this purpose.

I have thought about doing this many times but my family is bilingual. If I want the movie in original (usually English) and German am I going to have to rip the movie twice? That would be a deal breaker then.

You can have multiple soundtracks in the iTunes mp4 container. Just use the "Apple TV2" profile of Handbrake. The interface to select the right audio track on the Apple TV is a bit difficult to find (see Google for details).

MatthewPhillips - To answer your question I purchased an Apple TV (the original one) a while ago so I could rent movies from iTunes and play them on my TV. I also liked streaming my music to my surround sound system on my TV. I never used the Apple TV to store content though, as it was originally purposed to do.

I actually just purchased a Roku the other day and connected it to Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon. Prior to that I was using my Xbox for these services (not Amazon). Roku is pretty cool but very buggy and slow to load. I am not as impressed as I thought I would be.

I use it for the content; the other boxes don't offer as much variety. I think the PS3 probably comes the closest though. I wish they would offer a cheaper streaming only device.

Really? My Roku is great. I have two, actually, and I don't think I've ever seen a bug.

I bought a Roku about two years ago; it's been a wonderful little device; have had very few problems, and most of those were down to the content providers and not the box itself.

I recommend checking out Amazon's instant videos that are not included with Prime. They have something on sale every day. It is usually a rental for $0.99 during the week and a few different rentals for $1.99 over the weekend. Just look at the top left corner on the instant video page for the deal of the day.

> AMC is ending Breaking Bad next season because of Madmen sucking up the budget

Thankfully, that's not going to happen. AMC tried cutting BrBa back to only 6 episodes next season. But Sony owns the rights to the show, so they shopped it around. AMC caved. For all the press Mad Men gets, Breaking Bad has ~2x the viewers per episode, and Walking Dead (which had it's budget cut due to Mad Men's cost) gets about ~2.5x the viewers.

[Edit: Removed my snarky comment about AMC's management.]

To AMC's credit, the CPM AMC receives for Mad Men is much higher: $34 instead of $12-$25. It could be because people pay attention to the commercials, since the show is about advertising. A cynic would say it's a prestige thing for media buyers to get their ads run on Mad Men.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.printFrie...

You mean classy ad campaigns like this one?

http://main.stylelist.com/2010/08/05/dove-mad-men-commercial...

While I agree with the original poster, i.e., those who are already using netflix are unlikely to go back, netflix is supposed to be a growth business (P/E of > 60), ergo, if this leads to less growth, that will be terrible terrible terrible for the company.

Maybe AMC's management fancy themselves as modern-day Mad Men and are fond of the show

They aired Walking Dead season 1 in the UK earlier this year, awesome stuff. It was the first time I turned my TV on for about 3 months & worth every minute :)

Very glad it is coming back for a second season.

Love Breaking Bad. I appreciate it ending after next season as too many shows die a prolonged declining death.

Mad Men costs about $3m per episode (http://adage.com/article/mediaworks/mad-men-advertising/1451...), the same as Breaking Bad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Bad).

> Hell, I'm even done with sketchy torrent sites, and different scene groups fighting over who gets to release what, and a billion codecs and formats.

I'm not sure what sites you're using, but if you use a scene-only torrent tracker, the only releases you'll see are XviD for SD and x264 for HD, which never give me any problems. And one of the fundamental purposes of the scene is to eliminate duplicates - one valid release per movie/TV show episode.

If you want to spend your time reading scene notices and follow along with the endless pissing contests between the different release groups, that's fine. But if you just want to consume the content, like I do, it's pretty hard to find a better all-encompassing, no-bullshit source than the scene. With my 20 mbit connection, I can have an HD TV show ready to go in <10 mins and a movie in <30.

I haven't torrented anything in probably two or three years (only used it for non-US releases and before I had significant income), but I've never needed to fuss with codecs/formats after using the Combined Community Codec Pack.

I had no idea there was any drama about who provided what content in that scene, but I suppose that's one more reason to welcome legitimate online video sources.

> I had no idea there was any drama about who provided what content in that scene

It's called The Scene[0], and yes, there are humongous drama queens in some of the biggest release groups.

> but I suppose that's one more reason to welcome legitimate online video sources.

Not really, since, as I said above, it has no effect on the end consumers of said media.

0: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Warez_scene

I don't think you get it.

Starz isn't turning it's back on the internet, Starz realizes the internet is where it's financial future lies and so it wants more money from the internet. And it's betting that it can take Netflix for more then Netflix wants to pony up today.

And maybe Netflix will pay a higher price to keep that content or maybe they can get by without it (see my link to Reed Hastings' comments). But even so this pattern is going to repeat over and over with every other media deal Netflix has as internet tv mainstreams and cash rich Amazon, Apple and friends bid up the price of net based content deals.

If this is their plan I think they're smart to simply want more money from Netflix now that viewership has increased. However, this wasn't the impression I got from the Starz executive's quote. What I got was that they felt their internet streaming deal with Netflix was cannibalizing their cable business model. I agree with the original comment's guess that most of the people who cut the chord are not going back, defeating their plan to get these customers to subscribe to their cable channel.

I'm sure they have actual data that strongly points to Netflix cutting into their margins. They could have asked for more money, but that would probably mean longer agreements, pushing them out to 2015 or 2016, by which time I'm sure they'll want to have a more direct customer relationship.

Only a small fraction of Netflix subscribers are cord cutters. They will undoubtedly see a benefit (short term) of this move. Long term internet TV is going to be a lot like cable TV is today. There won't be aggregator services. Starz will have it's own "app" on all of these boxes that you subscribe to outside of Netflix. NBC will probably have their own as well. CBS will be one of the last holdouts, their audience is old enough that the internet is having a softer affect.

Us early adopters have had it really good for the last few years, surely you didn't think it was going to continue? Surely you didn't think you'd be getting a large and continually growing catalog of movies (many of which are fairly recent) for only $8 a month forever? Like it or not but businesses like Starz hold all of the cards.

They don't hold shit. If it isn't more convenient to use their service than it is to get the content for free, they lose. Netflix is there, but just barely.

Netflix has more subscribers than the largest cable company and the content that Starz provides is available from multiple sources (other than the two or three shows that they make).

Yes, but they probably get a pittance per Netflix subscriber compared to cable. In their minds they're probably asking themselves why would anyone pay $15/mo for the Starz cable broadcast when they could pay $8 for Starz on demand via Netflix? The fact is Netflix needs Starz more than Starz needs Netflix. The Starz content dramatically improved the streaming library, and Starz obviously feels like it's at the expense of their cable market.

Maybe they are right. Maybe they are wrong. My opinion is that they have the stronger position. I think Starz content will be back on Netflix when either the timing is better for them or the get better terms from Netflix.

I have stated several times in the past that by the time Netflix has the selection that cable does it will cost about the same price. If people were upset by the recent price increases they should prepare themselves for the future.

It didn't sound like this was a negotiating tactic, they made a firm announcement without apparently talking to Netflix about it.

What they might be thinking is to start an online VoD service themselves, they could offer it as a bonus to cable subscribers as a way of enticing subscribers.

They probably saw what HBOGO was doing and got greedy. Only HBO has their own great content and IP in addition to movies. The smart companies like AMC are actually starting to make their own as well so they become a destination. I'd love to just subscribe to HBOGO for my $15 rather than cox so HBO has cable companies firmly in check.

Netflix, and even companies like STARZ, may have issue when internet TVs take over completely and all studios/channels can easily setup their own 'channel' to stream content rather than having to join services that have a foothold on consoles, devices and TVs currently. The middle man is getting worked out of many markets. Why wouldn't the movie companies that license to STARZ want to collect from all that content? STARZ may just have killed themselves off.

Hbo is owned by time warner, a cable company.

Time Warner and Time Warner Cable are now two independent companies. So, HBO isn't owned by a cable company, but they owe a major share of their revenues to the cable companies. HBO doesn't offer a stand alone internet service probably because they don't want to upset existing relationships with cable providers.

Netflix without their ingenious DVD distribution mechanism is just a Starlight movie player on top of S3. Yes, that is a gross oversimplification, I don't see what's stopping somebody with deep pockets like Starz from coming along and building essentially the same thing. Why not cut out the middle-man?

Because unless those deep pockets actually release functioning players on Wii, PS3, XBox, iPad, OSX, Win 7, Samsung Blu-Ray players, then I wont be using their service. That's quite a barrier to entry. Not insurmountable, sure. Then they have to make sure I hear about it. Then get my credit card number. And you have to do all this in a recession when consumer sentiment is at an all time low. I'd love someone to do it, I just don't think its gonna happen.

In contrast there's itunes, where in theory I can watch movies that aren't on Netflix. But I don't. I'm not buying an apple TV when my TV is already overloaded with input. And because I can't watch it on my TV, I've never bothered to figure out how to do it on my Mac or my iPad. I have watched plenty of Netflix on my Mac though. Unfortunately, a new release movie for $9.99 is just not that much better than an old movie included in my monthly fee. $9.99 to rent a movie? Fuck. No.

Because people like us would go work for Netflix as developers because we know we'd be treated like first-class citizens. Starz? Who's leaving a job at Google to go work for Starz?

Hmm. I remember reading a lot of bad developer sentiment about the culture at Netflix. Any Netflix devs care to chime in?

It really is just like the "freedom and responsibility culture" slide deck at http://www.netflix.com/Jobs

That deck isn't just aspirational, it's how the company actually runs.

So the answer is that Netflix is not for everyone. High performers and those who can take smart risks tend to like it. Those who prefer lots of process or are more risk averse tend not to.

I'm the engineering lead on the Silverlight player at Netflix. Honestly, I love it when people underestimate the complexity of the player. To me, it means we're doing a good job. 3+ years of releasing every 2 weeks and still no settings dialog. It always just does the right thing.

Regarding S3, S3 is not a CDN.

To your point about disintermediation, it's a good question. A direct to consumer play by the content owners would cut out Starz as well as Netflix. The last time the studios did that, it didn't end so well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Pictures#1941.E2.80.9....

I can think of a couple good reasons it wouldn't work out today, either. I'd predict that the business model of a content silo would be less profitable than the current system. Studios make more money when they have multiple distribution channels; distributing their own goods would give rise to conflicting incentives. Also, you need the DNA of a software company to compete in the streaming space. Studios are built to make movies; Netflix (and Amazon) are built to make software, and it's software that powers streaming. Even if that software is almost invisible.

How come all of your objections (as well as US v Paramount) haven't applied to online game developers as well? Making movies is one hell of a lot easier than developing modern PC/console games, and the game studios are having no qualms with the direct-to-consumer model. Companies like Valve and EA were game developers and publishers long before they started offering services like Steam and Origin.

Ultimately, the same Internet that will kill the cable companies will also kill Netflix. (I have more confidence in Netflix to reinvent itself when the time comes, of course, since you've already done it once.)

Valve and EA were software companies with experience delivering content over the internet before they started offering direct download services, though.

Sure, but the point is, his "DNA" argument is a complete non-starter. Game studios have to do a ridiculous number of things that have nothing to do with the core business of game design, like rendering, physics, networking, tool development, and so on. The same's true of a few movie studios who've led the way for the rest. Are we supposed to believe that a Pixar or a LucasArts or a James Cameron is somehow incapable of developing and deploying a simple networked Silverlight player?

I hope that Netflix's long term business model doesn't depend on the answer to that question being "No, that's not in their DNA."

I agree that each content provider developing their own digital distribution system would be inefficient and confusing to the consumer, who desires a simple, centralized menu and search function to locate and view content.

It's nice that so many websites offer some kind of streaming video, but the friction of moving from site to site, each with their own navigation and search functions of varying quality, seems like as much trouble to most consumers as getting up and walking across the room to change channels on their TV.

Netflix has done a good job in aggregating content, although I don't believe they have a format and business model that is sustainable into the next decade.

My comment about software DNA is not central to my point, so I take that back.

Regarding the game business, it's not a good comparison. Selling games is like the DVD business: games are produced at a fixed cost and sold at nearly zero marginal cost. This is true of games sold on disc as well as games sold online through Steam.

But this is not how the movie streaming business works. Content is licensed, not sold. It's licensed to a single buyer for a fixed window of time. After that, it's licensed to someone else. This is why HBO, AMC, and Netflix will never be showing the same movie at the same time.

This is a profit maximization strategy by the studios. I doubt that major studios would make more profit with a direct to consumer model, at least not with one that would replace the windows in which Netflix typically buys content. It could potentially work for new releases, though. I'll leave the exact reasons why as an exercise to the reader.

Yes, that is a gross oversimplification, I don't see what's stopping somebody with deep pockets like Starz from coming along and building essentially the same thing

Less space than a Nomad, no wireless. Lame.

"I don't think they get it."

Oh, I think they do get it. This will start happening soon with all the content providers. They saw how Apple monopolized the music business, and now they want to avoid the same fate with Netflix. This is basically a bunch of posturing in order to bend Netflix over a table during contract negotiations with the major networks and channels.

Having worked in Hollywood before, I would not be surprised whatsoever if the heads of all the networks got together one week in a boardroom, hashed out their Netflix bargaining strategy, and agreed on a tactical plan. Hell, the industry is so consolidated that the same two or three people basically run every network out there.

They might be annoying. They might not give a good goddamn what's best for the consumer. But they're not stupid. (Or at least not as stupid as the music industry execs were).

That said, I wish they'd invest more money, time, and effort into building or supporting Netflix competitors, rather than stifling the Netflix business model altogether. I could live with a world in which I had to pick between Netflix and a handful of others like it. But I would probably tear my hair out in a world with just a content-crippled Netflix and no viable substitutes.

"I don't think they get it. The landscape has changed and I'm not going back."

You think? I do wonder about the economics though. $300M vs what? People with content aren't married to a distribution partner, and they certainly aren't married to one who can't deliver eyeballs. So come the next NAB show in Vegas it will be an interesting discussion Netflix has with its potential partners.

The next HUGE disruption will be the first team to put together a streaming 24hr news channel. Think about it, something like Google+ for news, where you get notified when there is actually new information about a news story you are following, and you can go back and see that story. Or you open the 'portal' and it shows you the top 5 news stories being covered in each segment, then as you watch them they drop off to be replaced by stories lower in the list, only to re-appear if they have new data. I can't wait, but nobody has done a Ted Turner yet. Hard to kick off since it violates a lot of current practices in the news business, but it will come.

It is really a historic time, this realignment which allows 'pure' information businesses. As folks who know me are aware I find economics of information to be pretty cool.

Currently, news in video format suck big time. I prefer text format (including web sites) a million times over, and the reasons are many: I can absorb the news at my own speed (which might be faster, or slower, or on repeat, etc), I don't get hypnotized by messages addressed to my reptilian brain (such as bright colors, the newsperson's gestures and tone and facial expression, glitzy sounds, etc), and so on.

But maybe this will change in the future. For now, text mode is much less biased.

That's a fair point, one wonders if all the flash and crawls and such give folks seizures. The concept would work well for audio as well though, and then listening to it as a sort of dynamic podcast while driving might be more useful than waiting for an hour of half hour point to arrive. If they could do that and give me traffic updates for the road on which my phone was telling them I was on? That would totally rock for me too. While I feel for the guy who's stalled on the Bay Bridge if that means they don't have time to mention that 101S is about to become a parking lot, then I'm screwed.

If I could have someone who I could say "what's new?" and have them tell me, knowing what they have already told me, so that I could actually just get what was new. I'd really really appreciate that and leave my car radio in aux-in mode 24/7 :-)

Have you tried Newslook? It's news video from third parties (i.e. Reuters) curated by editors.

I get most of my news for free via the net on Al-jazeera on livestream.

Go to NPR.org and click Listen. It works almost exactly like that. No video, of course, but it's better content than anything on tv.

Or follow a news channel on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/RussiaToday

(as an example)

With a streaming news channel and notifications of upcoming stories you really can call someone, have them turn on the TV (or streamer) and catch the entire story from the beginning like they do in television/movies.

I've been internet-only for over 3 years now. No cable. I have an antenna for live sports.

There is still so much room in this space, and Netflix is more vulnerable than they look. No matter what set-top box you buy (e.g, Roku, Apple TV) or software you use (e.g., Boxee, Clicker), something important is left out. Please, somebody, make something solid.

Can't happen legally until copyright law is modified. The media companies are deeply involved in shenanigans like this, used as mechanisms to attempt to restrain consumers within the bonds of "traditional" formats like CDs and cable.

If you want to set up Boxee to plug in to your favorite trackers, you can have this right now, but no one can offer it out of the box because the content owners don't want them to do it, and our law allows the content owner to dictate that.

> Can't happen legally until copyright law is modified.

Then someone had better make an illegal application that does all this in a very attractive & easy-to-use way, because that seems to be the only way to get the companies off their asses and in action.

As I noted, there are plugins that make this very smooth from XBMC/Boxee. The chilling effects of copyright litigation prevent any real polish going into an out-of-the-box product, at least in America. Maybe another group of Swedes with the fortitude of The Pirate Bay's founders will crop up some time and take this on.

As soon as I can get any NFL game via the internet, I'm done with any sat/cable service. I have directv for NFL sunday ticket which comes with the rest of their service so I have everything else.

When the NFL gets their act together and I can get nfl.tv the way I can get mlb.tv, I'm gone from directv and just getting everything via the net.

You can get Sunday Ticket on the PS3 now.

I think you have to be unable to access DirecTV via satellite.

Hmm, I'm not sure. The press release[1] can certainly be read that way "do not currently have access", but I haven't seen any of the blogs talk about that aspect.

[1]http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/08/17/directv-and-playst...

w/o paying directv for everything else?

agreed, why waste my time and money waiting on their schedules to watch movies. Im not necessarily a netflix loyalist, but Im definitely not going back to cable.

I'm even done with sketchy torrent sites, and different scene groups fighting over who gets to release what, and a billion codecs and formats.

What torrent sites have you ben using? I use tvtorrents, demonoid and thepiratebay, and they are great. "Billion codecs"?! my media player (totem on linux) can play them all, I don't know what codecs they are in. I never notice anything about groups fighting, there's always a file there, sometimes more than one. Doesn't matter to me if there's > 1 file. "Sketchy sites" might apply if you're using windows, which is insecure, but I use Linux and it's fine.

IME torrent sites are some of the best (and often only) ways to get lots of music, tv and film.

GStreamer is definitely the lower rung in Linux media playback. If you haven't tried them yet, consider using mplayer2 or at least VLC instead of totem.

GStreamer has worked well for me. VLC and mplayer also are able to handle all formats that are thrown at it.

What media players can't play every single format?

I wish I could be like you but there is not enough good content even though I may only be interested 10-15 shows and most are on pay channels. I still enjoy the theater as it's still the best way to watch a movie.

My childish dream: Apple, Google, and MS combine efforts to create their own production companies with content available on all platforms. Hire away all the talent and we return to 70's style filmmaking and TV shows where the studios had less control. The big three have always treated this part of this business as break-even so the prices will be cheaper.

I don't see the current tv/film ecosystem getting broken until there's a widely available toolset that enables rapid creation of high quality animation by casual users. At that point YouTube will swamp Hollywood.

1. Take any crappy MMO going down the tubes.

2. Hack in a frontend for Kinect and a higher quality text to speech ala Xtranormal

3. Release it as Blizzard Fantasy Studio and Profit.

I came here to basically say this. I'm not going back to cable. Between Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, etc there's no reason for me to revert to overpriced cable packages.

Same here, haven't had any type of 'cable/tv/sattelite' experience for about 8 years, and I'm not surprised a lot of people are also in these same boat.

I have cable TV that's included with my association fee and I watch about an hour a week. I'd much rather watch video on my iPad or Netflix Instant.