On May 4, 2008, at 10:42 AM, Matt Shields wrote: > On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 11:02 AM, Kevin Krieser <k_krieser at sbcglobal.net > > wrote: >> >> >> On May 4, 2008, at 9:23 AM, Matt Shields wrote: >> >> >>> On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 6:31 AM, Kai Schaetzl <maillists at conactive.com >>> > >> wrote: >>> >>>> Ralph Angenendt wrote on Sun, 4 May 2008 10:22:11 +0200: >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>> In other words: They don't want your money. If I were you, I'd >>>>> respect >>>>> that. Make yourself heard over at Netflix, though. >>>>> >>>> >>>> I remember about the Netflix format from before 2000. It's a very >>>> low >>>> bandwidth format with really bad quality. AFAIK it was mainly >>>> porn sites >>>> using it. I thought it had died out since long. >>>> >>>> Kai >>>> >>>> >>> >>> Netflix only started doing on demand movies about a year ago, and >>> from >>> what I remember when I had the service it wasn't all that bad. It >>> looked great on a laptop, and on my 720p 37" HDTV it looked better >>> than normal tv, but not as good as an HD program. >>> >>> I agree with Ralph, complain to them, I know I did. Unfortunately >>> they probably don't think there are enough Linux users to justify >>> providing service to us. I'm just really surprised they haven't >>> provided service to Mac users, the new Quicktime format actually has >>> better compression rates than any of the WMV/WMA formats. >>> >>> >> >> >> Apparently the problem with the Mac is the DRM again. The studios >> are >> apparently all worried that people will keep copies of the old TV >> shows and >> movies downloaded. >> >> I have an old Mac Mini that I would like to use to watch some >> Netflix shows >> on (better than sitting in front of a computer, or watching it on a >> small >> laptop), but until it is supported I can't. The Mini is hooked up >> to my TV >> directly. >> > > Quicktime absolutely supports DRM, so what's the problem? It's a > cheap company that's looking to get the most bang for the littlest > buck. It wouldn't have taken much to have their system ask for the > users choice of player (WMP or QT), so the other remaining issue is > time to convert films to digital format and storage. Since the > conversion is probably automated it shouldn't have taken that much > extra time. So the only issue is disk space, which means that Netflix > was too cheap to spend the extra money to store a QT version of the > films so they could get the Mac users. From what I remember of the > Netflix downloads they were looking for a cheap way to get ahead of > Blockbuster. They looked good, but they did as little as possible, > which included a limited availability of movies. > > And for those that say it's more complicated than I state, I have > built a site from ground up(programming and video encoding) which > hosted independent films in WMV and QT formats. For me the most > complicated part was converting films that were not on optical media > (like DVD), because if they were sent on tape format (DVCPRO, DV, > BetaCam, etc) you were limited to the speed of playback, whereas > digital you can rip faster. When it came to storage, even at high def > quality storage was still cheap. Even bandwidth for streaming was > quite cheap If what you are talking about is Apple's Fairplay, then yes, there is a DRM that works on the mac. It also works on Windows too. And, apparently, Apple won't license it to NetFlix since NetFlix is a competitor, and Apple would rather people go through iTunes. Another good reason why many people like open source solutions.