HDTV Almanac

Last spring, I wrote about Netflix demo’ing its streaming service on a Windows Phone 7 operating system. Now comes word that Netflix is releasing free applications for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch that will let subscribers access streaming content on these portable devices.

The free apps can access the streaming service across either a WiFi or 3G data connection. You can even stop in the middle of a movie or TV episode, and then when you come back, it will pick up right where you left off. This works even if you restart on another device, such as your home computer. You can download the free apps from the Apple iTunes store.

This announcement is particularly interesting in the light of recent news reports that Apple is negotiating to rent TV episodes for $.99 each. The all-you-can-eat Netflix service is available to any subscriber with an $8.99 monthly subscription or higher, so the break-even point is just 10 shows a month, no matter whether you watch on your phone, media player, computer, notebook, video game console, or Internet-connected TV or Blu-ray player. Netflix is expanding its footprint across the entertainment landscape, and Apple’s pay-as-you-go model may be a difficult sell.

What is it about technology products and acronyms? It’s bad enough that products have deadpan model numbers; can you tell what the new Samsung product does if all you know is the “BD-C8000” model number? I know that I can’t guess. Let me tell you what it is: a 3D BD HD player with WiFi, DLNA, and HDMI 1.4 support. If that makes your heart beat faster, you might be wearing a beanie with a propellor on top.

For the rest of you, let me explain what that means. The “BD” stands for Blu-ray disc, so this player can play HDTV discs in 1080p high definition (the HD part, but you probably knew that). And the 3D means that it can do so in stereoscopic splendor. WiFi is the familiar wireless network connection. (It supports 802.11b/g/n, but only /n is recommended for video streaming.) DLNA lets you play media files that you have stored on your network, and HDMI 1.4 is the latest version of the high-speed serial connection which includes support for 3DTV. Oh, and this is a portable device that will play for up to three hours on a single charge, according to Samsung.

It sounds like an appealing device. You get support for streaming Internet features including Netflix and other services, which is cool. And it’s available now for $499. It loses a little luster as you look closer, however. The 10.3″ “high resolution” screen is not capable of displaying HD images; according to the owner’s manual it only has 1024 by 600 pixels, so to see all the Blu-ray detail, you’ll have to connect it to an HDTV. And you’ll only be able to see the 3D images on a 3D-capably HDTV; the portable display is only 2D.

So it’s more than a string of letters and numbers, but a little less than a portable HDTV experience. However, if you’ve started your collection of Blu-ray titles and want to be able to enjoy them when you’re traveling, this could be just what you need.

The Motley Fool declares “game over“. I agree, though the seeds for this domination were planted a long time ago.

What’s the big deal? Netflix has agreed to pay $1 billion to Epix over the next five years in return for the right to stream movie titles over the Internet for its Watch Instantly service. Who is Epix? It’s a new premimum movie channel owned by Paramount Pictures, MGM, and Lionsgate.

So what? The cool thing about Watch Instantly is that for a single-disc Netflix subscription for $9 a month, you can watch all the streaming content that you want. Until now, this has been a case of large portions of middling quality, as the catalog has been mostly older classics and also-ran titles. A recent deal with Starz has boosted the quality a tad, but this new deal will provide a major boost to the quantity and quality of the content available online from Netflix. The service gets to stream recent titles from these major movie studios, and it could start as soon as September 1.

And more Watch Instantly viewers will mean less money spent on discs and postage. Some sources report that Netflix spends $600 million a year on postage (and the rates are about to go up again), so it doesn’t take too many new members using just Watch Instantly to make this billion dollar deal look like a bargain. And you can be sure that this new deal will attract more subscribers. Netflix streaming is already supported by Windows Media Center, many network-connected TVs and Blu-ray players, as well as all three major video game consoles. Not to mention TiVo and Roku boxes and the iPad. Who needs a computer in the living room?

Netflix is a juggernaut, growing its subscriber rolls, and rapidly slicing away at the expensive part of its business: the handling of physical discs to distribute rental movies. They could not have been in this position without the success of their postal rentals, but it is clear that they have the numbers to make the transition to electronic delivery. It will be very hard for anyone to scale up to a competitive position that could threaten the Netflix dominance any time soon.

Back in April, I wrote about a lawsuit between Best Buy and Ultimate. Ultimate was advertising that it comparison shops at Best Buy and Walmart every day, and that its prices were lower. Best Buy complained that this was not true, and that the Best Buy prices were sometimes lower than those advertised by Ultimate. Arbitration failed to resolve the disagreement, and so Best Buy sued.

Now here’s the rest of the story. Best Buy has dropped the suit because Ultimate is no longer using the price comparison claims in its marketing, For its part, Ultimate does not admit that it did anything wrong. And each side will pay its own lawyers.

As I said back in April, don’t expect this to be the last tiff between electronics retailers over their advertising practices. This going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

LG has announced its LED-sidelit LCD 3DTVs. The LX9500 series and LX6500 series both offer local dimming for increased contrast and better energy efficiency, optional WiFi connectivity, and come in 47″ and 55″ models. The LX9500 series also features ultra-thin design and 480 Hz refresh rates, compared with the 240 Hz for the LX6500 models. Both series include NetCast support, which access the Internet through your home network to provide content from Netflix, YouTube, Vudu, and Picassa.

To promote the new lines, LG is offering a special “1-2-3D” bundle promotion. Buy one of the four HDTVs along with the BX580 Network Blu-ray Disc player, and LG will include two free pairs of the 3D active shutter glasses, a $100 instant rebate, and a bonus redemption certificate to receive Warner Home Video’s Blu-ray 3D title IMAX Under the Sea 3D. The glasses are valued at $180 apiece.

The discounts are probably not enough to convince bargain hunters to spring for these premium products, but it could be enough to give a push to those on the fence about making a purchase. I suspect that this is not the last promotion we’ll see for 3DTVs before this year is over.

Is streaming video over the Internet a viable option over standard cable or satellite services? Hulu is betting that it is. Their free, ad-supported service has given access to new and archived episodes of current and past hit TV shows, as well as a smattering of feature length movies. After months of rumors, news broke yesterday of Hulu Plus, a $9.95 per month subscription service that provides complete episodes for full seasons of major shows from NBC, ABC, and Fox, among others. According to the announcement on the company blog, the service will still be “ad supported”, and will offer more content than the existing free Hulu service (which will also continue). The service will also offer content in 720p high definition.

The other part of the news is that Hulu Plus will also be available on more platforms. The blog entry mentions support for the iPad and iPhone, and Samsung has announced that it will add a downloadable app for Hulu Plus immediately for “select 2010 Blu-ray players, Blu-ray home theater systems, and the majority of 2010 Samsung TVs 40” and above.” Samsung cites that it is the “exclusive HDTV partner” for the Hulu Plus preview period. At the same time, Vizio has announced that it will also be supporting Hulu Plus on its Vizio Internet Apps (VIA) platform for its Blu-ray players and HDTVs.

Hulu Plus is starting with an invitation-only preview period, after which it will be opened up to all subscribers. You can request an invitation at the Hulu Plus site at http://www.hulu.com/plus.

This is huge news. True, you don’t get any CBS content, and the coverage of the other networks is not comprehensive. But all the same, it allows you to watch your favorite shows in HD on your HDTV, Blu-ray player, phone, pad, notebook computer, or desktop computer for a single monthly fee. This rate is way below the average cable company subscription, and puts the camel’s nose even further under the tent for a la carte pricing of cable programming. If the cable and satellite companies won’t or can’t respond, this will just hasten the demise of standard subscription-based television services.

One of the great features of the new breed of Internet-connected NeTVs is that they can learn new tricks as if by magic. You can download new applications and widgets to your set, and presto changeo! Your HDTV can now do something new.

Samsung just announced that it has added two new applications to is Samsung Apps store: Facebook and Google Maps. So now your television can be the hub of your social network as well as a world atlas with street-level resolution. (Try fitting that on your living room shelf!) These apps join the 30 others already available for Samsung’s network-connected HDTVs and Blu-ray players, including Netflix, Vudu, Pandora, Twitter, and USA Today.

If you’re in the market for a new HDTV, I strongly urge you to consider getting one with network support. It is probably going to be an increasingly important feature in the coming years.

At a conference yesterday, Redbox president Mitch Lowe announced that the company will start renting Blu-ray titles from its kiosks for $1.50 a night, according to a report published in Home Media Magazine. The discs should start appearing in the next few months, though it the Redbox site already has Blu-ray titles listed as being available. More than one out of every six Redbox customers already owns a Blu-ray player, and the company is already renting about 40 million movies a month, so it could be in a good position to help grow the demand for Blu-ray titles and players.

A 50% premimum sounds like a lot to pay for Blu-ray, but it’s only $.50 so it may be that the absolute amount is more significant than the percentage in this case. According to the article, Lowe cited some interesting statistics. He said that 20% of Redbox customers would not have bought or rented a certain DVD if it were not available at Redbox. He also cited number for how many Redbox customers go on to buy a movie after they have rented it. As a result, he believes that his service actually helps Hollywood sell movies.

All this week I’ll be reporting from the Society for Information Display (SID) annual meeting which is being held this year in sunny (not) Seattle, Washington. This annual gathering of the worldwide display industry is the best place to take a peek over the horizon at what’s headed our way in terms of displays.

The symposium doesn’t start until today, but the week kicked off yesterday with the Business Conference which was jointly organized by SID and the market tracking firm DisplaySearch. The day was started by an interesting keynote address by Stan Glasgow, President and COO of Sony Electronics, whose presentation extolled the value of 3D in cinemas and at home. He also warned that “Sony feels that poor quality 3D threatens its success.” A cynical observer might have heard this message as an attempt to preserve the higher profit margins that 3D set current deliver. He also mentioned that Playstation 3 units will get a firmware upgrade to support 3D gaming, and another upgrade later that will provide support for 3D Blu-ray discs.

This last point might be of particular interest to fans of Avatar, James Cameron’s movie that broke the box office records. Later in the program, Peter Fannon, a Panasonic VP, was extolling the advantages of 3DTV. He mentioned that Panasonic has partnered with DirecTV in bringing about that service’s three 3D HDTV channels that will launch in June, and that the company will have a 3DTV camcorder on display in the SID exhibit hall this week (which I plan to check out). He then dropped a bombshell that some of the audience may have missed. It was almost an off-hand remark, as he was talking about how Panasonic is a partner on the Avatar project. He said Avatar will be available “soon” on 3D Blu-ray. He didn’t get specific about a release date, and it certainly was reasonable to speculate that this would happen eventually, but it was still a bit of a surprise given the fact that the 2D version was released so recently. A cynical observer might conclude that this is an attempt to get fans of the movie to buy the Blu-ray disc twice.

I wrote about the Warner Brothers exchange program last November. The company not only has continued the program, but has expanded it and made some changes. The DVD2Blu program still lets you exchange up to 25 existing DVDs for Blu-ray versions, but now the price for many of the exchanges has dropped from $7.95 to $4.95. In addition, the program now covers a total of 90 different titles, including some recent hits such as “Gran Torino” and “Michael Clayton”. Shipping and handling is a flat $4.95 for the continental United States, and delivery usually takes four to five weeks, according to the Web site.

Being able to update your movie collection to HD is a nice idea, but unless you’ve already invested in a Blu-ray player, it’s still going to cost you. The Blu-ray player you want is going to cost at least $100 more than a standard DVD player, and most new Blu-ray discs are going to cost you more than $20 apiece. I expect that Blu-ray prices will continue to come down for both players and discs, but I’m not ready to make a major investment in the technology. I’m waiting to see how other delivery options for HD movies develop, such as cable on-demand and Internet delivery, before I go spending more money.